Just One of Those Things

Twenty years.  It was only twenty years.

What could change in twenty years?  Much.  But what actually would change in twenty years?  Stephen April privately asked that question, of no one, before the Arcadia's temporal relocation to 2407.  And the answer, on the scope and scale of the vast Federation, he imagined: Not much.  He did not expect that much would really, truly change.  For the most part, it turned out, that was true.  The Federation had not fallen.  Starships still flew the spacelanes; people still did all of the things that people of the 24th century did, and would do.

Yet little things inevitably changed, here and there.  For those whose lives depended on the constancy of those little things, it could be a shock.  Quite upsetting.

And unfair.

April sat in the office of Starbase 514's commander, who had graciously loaned it to the two admirals – one of them April – then left.  The other admiral – appointed to brief him, as Rampart promised – sat in the opposite chair, facing him.

April had never seen her before today.  She had straight, blond hair; green, almond-shaped eyes with just the slightest hint of a slant; full lips that perked into the threat of a grin when she talked.  She was rather lovely.

And he thought of how unfair life could be.

"I know you didn't expect this," she told him.  "I broke a promise I made to you."  She looked down with a sigh, shaking her head.  "For that, I'm sorry.  I had no idea what would happen... or what it would do to me."

"I'm sorry too."  April looked away, towards nothing in particular.  "Sorry that you had to go through it.  Sorry I wasn't there for you.  I should have been.  I... I guess I broke a promise too."

"You couldn't help it."

"Brenda—"

Mention of her name drew her gaze; she looked right at him, as he looked at her.  Brenda Shoemaker April.  The woman he married.  Same woman, different face.

No.  Same brain... different body.  Forty-four when he left, now sixty-four, older than he was – genetically not looking a day over forty, at the oldest.  Was she the same woman?  Did that definition fit any longer?

April felt an urge to get up and leave – to get away from her.  He needed to be away from her – from anyone and everyone he had known, and left behind.  Yet he didn't.  "If I was there... things might have been completely different."

"But you weren't.  And they weren't."  Those lovely green eyes flashed once, then softened, as she relaxed.  "I don't blame you.  No one's to blame.  It's just one of those things."

Just one of those things.  The vision of his wife's body, horribly mangled, beyond repair, fourteen years ago... the mere thought threatened to place April in shock.  It reminded him of the same awful fate his daughter suffered, on Khalindar, with her mother.  Just one of those things.  Unlike Neria, they had been able to save Brenda – transplanting her brain into a preservation tank, a device based on technology from Triskelion, where disembodied brains ruled society.  Enabled to survive, she was consulted via Vulcan mind-meld, and rather than accept a cloned body, chose a new genetic configuration.  Body switching, feasible for centuries, had always been looked upon as a fad, yet by the late 2380s was becoming fashion.  People could change bodies like changing clothes.

"It happened," continued Admiral Brenda Shoemaker – she had rechosen her maiden name – sitting before April.  "I have a different body now.  I've changed... and we... are divorced.  Okay?  I'm sorry you had to find out like this.  I'm sorry to break it to you like this – but there was no easy way."

"So I have to accept it," April said.  "Live with it.  Is that what you're saying?"

Brenda detected his tone.  Twenty years later, different ears and a different body, and she still knew it.  "Steve—"

April knew it wasn't right, or fair, of him to get angry.  Nevertheless it flared: Anger, raw and sharp.  Resentment, of the circumstances.  Yet was it wrong?  Beyond understanding?  For all that he was, he was still human.  He had feelings.  An educated man, he knew the onslaught of emotions suddenly swelling and threatening to engulf him were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the post-traumatic stress Brenda must have endured.  Although it had been fourteen years, he had no right to compound it for her, now, by adding the weight of his anger to the load she carried, then or now.  He had wondered what he would miss, in the twenty-year trip from 2387 to 2407.  He recalled a fleeting, frightening thought beforehand, as soon as he knew he would be crossing the years to this day: A worry that Brenda might die, in those twenty years.  He had pushed that morbid thought out of mind, refusing to dwell on it – and in so doing, made himself negligent to the possibility of it becoming tantamount to prediction.  She could have died.  The cost it exacted – this – which he neither imagined nor expected, sat before him, seated in the chair across from him.  The line between fair and unfair had disappeared, for the time being.

"It's not fair," he protested.

Brenda's eyes flashed again, indignant.  "Not fair?  You're telling me?  Isn't that like preaching to the choir?"

"I didn't mean it like that.  It's not fair to either of us.  Brenda, I am so very sorry for what happened.  I am sorry for not being there, that...."  He paused, fumbling for words.  So often it was difficult to know the right thing to say, on the spot.  "I'm sorry that things happened the way they did, and that they had to unfold this way.  I love you.  You divorced me years ago, but from my perspective.... Brenda, I saw you only a few hours ago!  I look at you, and... with this new body..."  He let out a sigh.  "I want the woman I married.  The woman I love.  My wife.  I know you didn't choose what happened to you... but is it right to deprive me of a choice as well?  I didn't want this."

"I didn't either," Brenda said.  "But like you said, that was years ago.  I've learned to live with it.  As you have to, yes.  I've remarried."  As kindly as possible, she said, "We're through, Stephen."  For a second, April heard the Brenda he knew and remembered, in that gentle effort.

April sat in a momentary silence.  "Is he a good man?"

"He's the—"

"I don't want to know about him.  I just want to know if he's good to you."

"Yes.  He is."

April nodded.  "Let's get to the briefing."