[ussbansheec] The Lost
- From: Andy Maluhia <CaptainAndy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: ussbansheec@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 19 May 2006 19:56:25 -0400
_The Lost_
*//*
*/Why do thy kinsfolk wander afar?
Near is the hour when the Lost should come forth--JRR Tolkien
/*
It was a good thing that Zhi liked people watching. Sometimes there was
nothing to do but watch and wait while you were waiting for deals and
shipments. He preferred working the business from home, overlooking the
bay in Hong Kong, but it was his turn to go in the field so to speak.
He'd been sitting on a rail watching one particular set of passengers
disembark when the first person caught his eye. Ai ya but the man's
hair was so white that it seemed to shine! Zhi had been out to space
before but he'd never seen anyone who looked like that. How very
interesting, he told himself. The thought of seeing, for him, a new
species was shoved aside when he saw the man walking next to him.
Zhi rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn't seeing things. Ai ya but
that one could have been a brother to him or a cousin! He looked about
the same height, build, and age but that had to be impossible. All his
cousins and brothers were back home. He'd been about to laugh it off as
homesickness when a slight turn of the man's body revealed the shine of
metal attached to flesh near the right eye. Zhi's own eyes then caught
sight of the metal on both hands. Borg!
"Tsai boo shr," Zhi hissed.
Ye Ye still had both the written notification from Starfleet and the vid
message that told him his son, the uncle Zhi had never known, had been
lost to the Borg along with his entire ship forty-five years before.
Biming, just twenty when he was taken from them, was the second son, the
baby of the family, and had been the apple of his mother's eye. Zhi's
own father, just three years older, also still mourned his di di's loss.
Zhi's face drew into a frown. What the/ hell/? Those things were
mechanical. They didn't reproduce like/ people/. He shook himself
mentally. It had to be impossible but then how could that stranger look
so much like him. Then he cursed himself mentally. He'd been so busy
wondering about how it could be, that he'd lost track of the odd
doppelganger stranger.
"Damn it," he muttered out loud as he hopped off the railing and began
threading his way through the crowd. "Maybe I can catch up with them..."
~~~~~~~~~~
He'd lost the two strangers in the crowd that day but Zhi hadn't given
up on sighting them again. He'd gone back to his temporary quarters
after that and, the cost be damned, placed a live call back to Hong
Kong. His father's direction was very clear: find out. Find out if
that is our son and then bring him home if it is.
Easier said than done, though. Zhi had yet to spot the stranger since
that day and none of his research could even reveal a name. He'd
decided to give up, to tell his father he'd failed at the task. But how
to do that? He dropped himself into a seat at one of the cafes, ordered
a Tsing Tao, and had begun to formulate just what he was going to say
when he saw him. Granted it was with some fantastically huge being and
a small child but there was no mistaking that oh so familiar face. Zhi
tossed the waiter a credit slip for the unopened beer then took off to
follow the odd trio.
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