SYMBOLS

CHAPTER 55

"Can you get a lock on the captain?" Chakotay asked hurriedly, acknowledging Ensign Hamilton and Seven, as he steadied himself inside the rocking shuttle.

Seven scanned the planet's surface for any trace of the captain or her combadge, but was unable to find anything tangible.

"Negative, Commander," she said, while Chakotay lowered Paris gently to the floor and took a seat inside the Delta Flyer.

***

Zeron's hair was ginger, just like every other Anawin she'd seen, but the pointed ears, upswept eyebrows and faint V-shaped forehead ridge were unmistakable.

"You're Romulan?!" Janeway still couldn't believe it. All this time, she'd been debating ethics with a Romulan. But how could that be? How could there be Romulans in the Delta Quadrant? She considered a few options. A nearby wormhole? Another Caretaker? Or maybe just a single vessel displaced in space or time? Her mind reeled with the seemingly endless possibilities.

"I am only half-Romulan," Zeron corrected her. "My father was Anawin."

"I don't understand." Overwhelmed, Janeway just stared at him.

"I don't expect you to understand what it's been like for me, Captain. Torn between two loyalties, despising your mother for her impurity, and yet revering the intelligence, mind skills and longevity you have received because of it. You can accomplish so much more when you outlive generations of your subjects."

"Then perhaps you should consider yourself fortunate to be the product of two such different cultures," Janeway tried.

"Fortunate? There is nothing fortunate in being born a mutant child. Outcast from Anawin society, being teased by your friends, treated with disdain because you haven't inherited the image of Godhood."

It all made sense now, at least to some degree. The culling of the impure, the mass genocide of the poorer Anawin population, and all this time keeping up the pretense of being a caring master to the few elect priests and guards he had chosen to protect.

"But the Anawin people don't need any help from me in their self-destruction," Zeron continued. "They've become so blinded by all the myths surrounding their existence they're literally inbreeding themselves into oblivion. That's why I won't let anyone set foot on the planet. The introduction of just one new virus could wipe out the whole Anawin population."

"But if you're part-Romulan, then why kill the Dimar?" Janeway asked.

"The Dimar were a bunch of misguided fools. Whenever an occasional explorer slipped through my security measures, the Dimar automatically adopted them and their offspring. Desperate for a liberator, they treated all the mixed race children as if they were sacrosanct and raised them to aspire to greatness."

"And then they would pose a threat to your leadership." Her mind reeled with the revelation. She could even see a degree of logic to his madness, but she also knew the argument was circular.

"That's why I resurrected the branding ceremony." Zeron's voice was almost melancholy. "Historically, I've been told the ceremony once served to mark a young person's coming of age. Now it serves a different purpose and is performed with much younger children, that way I can weed out the impure long before they have a chance to contaminate the gene pool of the next generation."

"But in the long term, if you continue to slay anyone with slight genetic variability and allow only a few select Anawins to live, while continually reducing the size of the population, there will come a time when the master will have no servants left."

Zeron backhanded her for the comment and sent her hurtling into a wall.

"But Captain, don't you see?" he thundered, while Janeway uprighted herself. "At least the master will be alive. He will live to gloat over the bodies of everyone who ever teased him or abused him for his differences!"

Zeron stared at her for a few moments longer, before he lifted the purple hood back over his face. The look of contempt he provided her told Janeway to stay quiet, while the pain of his weapon smashing down on the crown of her head suggested he was no longer interested in her opinion.