by Brighid
---

Kithys arrived at a scene that could best be described as pandemonium. Tom Paris was kneeling at the far end of the chamber, almost directly beneath the mosaic Kim had told him about, with Kes right at his shoulder. The small blonde was simultaneously running her medical tricorder over the inert form of Harry Kim, clutched in Paris' arms, and comforting the hysterical blond pilot.

"Tom, he's not dead, not quite!" mingled with "God, Harry, no!", but failed to override a string of loud curses in fluent Klingon. Kithys turned to the source of the swearing. "What the hell happened here, Torres?" the small, dark-skinned archaeologist demanded.

"If we knew that, there wouldn't be a problem," the half-Klingon snarled, frantically running her tricorder over the exposed panel in front of her. "Do me a favour, scan the mosaic and the stone outcrop beneath it. Get people down here to translate the glyphs. Harry is not in good shape, and the sooner we figure out what got him. . ."

"Got it," Kithys replied, tapping his com badge even as he loped across the chamber to begin scanning the mosaic and outcrop.

Kes, meanwhile, managed to make a complete scan of the unconscious Harry Kim. "Tom, if you care about Harry, calm down!" she said with quiet conviction. Tom was suddenly silent, as though a switch had been flipped. "Harry is not dead. To keep him from dying, I need you to go back to the runabout, and replicate the medical equipment listed on the PADD. I don't want to move him from here right now, not until we understand what has hurt him, and how it relates to the alien technology. While you're up there, signal Voyager. I suspect the Doctor will need to see him."

Tom nodded once, not trusting his voice. With infinite gentleness he eased Harry's unconscious - the word empty echoed in his heart - body onto the ground, and stood up. He signaled the runabout's computer to beam him up, and braced himself for the tingle of the transporter. Once aboard the runabout, he moved quickly, keeping a tight lid on the panic that threatened to overwhelm him. "C'mon Harry!" was a ragged mantra, barely voiced and achingly constant as he downloaded Kes' request into the replicator, ransacked the runabout for it's emergency supplies, and set up a signal to alert Voyager to Harry's predicament. He managed to bounce a signal out, despite the rough weather over head, before he beamed back to the cavern.

Torres was still combing through the alien technology, her curses still constant, but much quieter. He took it as a hopeful sign. Two of the other archaeologists had joined Kithys, and were scanning every inch of the mosaic and outcrop that had felled the unwitting ensign. He ignored them all, and handed the equipment to Kes.

It took a couple of tries to get the words out. "How is he?" He kept his gaze focused firmly on Harry, afraid to meet the ready sympathy in the Ocampan's gaze.

"All autonomic functions are working normally - he can sustain his own life. It's his higher brain functions that are the problem." She began scanning him with the complex neurological scanner she'd had Tom replicate.

Tom crouched beside her, reading the scanner over her shoulder. He felt a fist of ice clench in his gut at what he saw there. "He hasn't got any." His voice was hoarse, raw, like sandpaper against stone. "He hasn't got any."

Kes lay a consoling hand on his arm, even as she snapped a monitor onto the ensign's forehead. "This will keep track of all activity, and ensure that his body keeps itself running," she explained. "And you're right, he hasn't got any. In fact, my scans indicate that the biochemical energy that is behind his upper functions is missing entirely - it's as if the machine has removed it." She lay her other hand along Harry Kim's jaw, fingers fluttering against the temple. "I can also sense the absence, here," she said. "It's as if Harry's 'consciousness' is gone."

Tom began rocking gently on his heels, as if he could somehow dissipate the tide of his grief through pointless motion. "I knew he was gone. I saw him slip away, in my arms. There was nothing I could do, he just. . . he just. . . slipped away," he whispered brokenly. He reached across, touched the fold of Harry's closed lid, the same curve his tongue had traced the night before. "I'm so sorry, Harry."

"He's not dead Tom - and there is no reason to believe that we cannot recover what has been lost," Kes chided him. "If we can figure out what that machine is, what it does, we may yet be able to recover Harry, reverse the process." She reached out, clasped the hand that stroked Harry's face. "Energy cannot be destroyed, and nothing loved is ever lost, Tom."

It was a small hope, a flickering glow in the midst of almost overwhelming darkness. Tom straightened, stood, and strode purposefully over to where B'Elanna struggled to decode the alien machinery. "Hey, Torres, let me give you a hand."

B'Elanna didn't even spare him a glance. "It's about time, fly-boy."

It took two hours, but B'Elanna managed to get a working knowledge of the machine she had inadvertently triggered. While she hadn't yet sorted out its many complexities, she could at least "turn the damn thing on and off."

"So what the hell are you turning on and off?" Tom asked, working very hard to keep his attention on the technology in front of him.

"It is a super-computer, of sorts," B'Elanna explained. "I think."

Tom shot her a wry glance. "How reassuring. I think."

"Shut-up, fly-boy. This stuff makes Voyager look like a child's toy. It seems to be the chief operating system for the whole damn planet, only I can't begin to fathom how all the connections are made, what sort of connections they are, what their purposes are. I think it is linked to seismic activity, the weather. I also think was tied into all human operations - clocks, music, data retrieval , libraries. I think it may have run the planet." She looked about the stone chamber with a mixture of disbelief and distaste. "What the hell it was doing in here, I can't even begin to understand."

"I think," said Kithys, 'that this is where we come in. You're right, it is the nerve center for the planet. And it is here because this is within the planet - one of many stations within the body of the planet. Only it's not a command center - not as we know it, anyway. It's a church."

" A church? They have the mother of all super-computers set up in a church?" B'Elanna snorted.

Kithys shrugged. "Listen, we've tried to accomplish in hours what we usually do in years. Fortunately, the glyphs fit in within a known family of symbology in this quadrant - these people seem to have had colonies elsewhere. Otherwise we'd still be trying to figure this stuff out. Even now it is a rough translation at best. Combined with the data at the main beam in site, this is what we've got." He handed the PADD to Paris, who skimmed through their findings.

"So this is one of six churches or temples or whatever stationed around the planet - and it literally is of the planet- embedded in the earth, connected to every aspect of the world. To the point of. . . " Tom hesitated, looking for a term.

"Gaia-consciousness," one of the other archaeologists, a young woman with very red hair, supplied. "The world and the people were inextricably linked - all of creation was alive, sentient, aware. Their theology seemed to incorporate divinity in nature - two beings who embodied the Earth and Sky. They were wed, a pair who together formed a whole. This seems to have been an initiation site of some sort - maybe a place to anoint clergy."

Tom nodded to the red-head, made a mental note to try and remember her name later. "And this means what?" he prompted.

Kithys cleared his throat. "The panel Kim touched is a conduit. The applicants arrived in pairs - two sets of hand prints - and had their consciousness downloaded into the computer. They became, literally, the earth and sky, each according to their nature. This process was supposed to awaken their connection with the world, we think. After it, they could serve the world. . . we think." Kithys shrugged again, a fine sheen of sweat gleaming on the mahogany of his skin.

Paris quelled the irrational part of him that wanted to shake the man, demand that he know, not merely think. The part of him that could still reason knew that they had done an exceptional job thus far. "Listen, you guys keep trying to crack this as wide open as you can. B'Elanna, you keep working on the machine. We've done good so far, but Harry needs more. Let's go!"

He let them go back to their tasks, then strode over to where Kes continued to work with Harry. "Any word from Voyager?"

Kes shook her head. "No, none as of yet. The computer is continuing to transmit your distress call, but between the atmospheric conditions and the distance. . . " she trailed off. "Tom, I have to tell you something."

Tom sat down on the floor beside Harry, clasped the warm hand between his own cold fingers. "His neural pathways are beginning to degrade?" the lieutenant asked gently, avoiding meeting her eyes. "It isn't unexpected, is it? This is what happens, right?"

The terrible calm moved her more than his earlier weeping. "No, it is not unexpected. But neither is it yet irreversible. In another few hours, however, I don't know how recoverable the situation will be. If you are going to do something, it had best be soon."

Tom continued to sit quietly for another few minutes, his right thumb caressing the younger man's wrist, his gaze turned inward. At last he looked up, his gaze transformed to electric blue. "Then we do something." He laid Harry's hand on his chest, pausing a moment to feel its steady rise and fall. He stood up. "Kithys, I want you to figure out exactly how that damn thing works. And B'Elanna, I want you to get ready to turn it on. I'm going in after him."

There was a moment of startled silence, then a rising swell of protests. He stood resolutely over Harry Kim's body, and waited for silence. At last they quieted, and waited. "First thing. I'm in charge, and while I will listen to your advisement, I make the final calls here. Second, since people came to this in pairs, the only thing keeping us from getting Harry back may well be that the computer has him in a holding pattern, waiting for the second applicant. Third, I will go in there knowing what I'm doing - which means I have a good chance of remembering to get us out. Last, Harry Kim stood over my dying body and fought off a prison full of murderers until help could come. I'll be damned if I just wait for Voyager to show up, without doing my best to keep him alive. If we don't get him back, soon, his neural pathways will degrade to the point that he can never come back!" He was breathing heavily, as if he had run a marathon.

"What if you can't get back out?" B'Elanna asked at last, and was more than a little relieved to see that familiar, shit-eating grin transform his face.

"There is no what-if, Bella. Ain't nothing that can hold a Paris." He clapped his hands together suddenly. "Let's get moving, people!"

---

At first, there was only darkness. At first, he mistook the darkness for emptiness. As he came more fully to himself, he felt depth, texture, and solidity. An almost endless expanse of sensation greeted him. And yet there was no light, nothing to allow him to fully comprehend that depth, understand the texture, or merge with the solidity.

Other questions clamored, begged for light. He had dim memories of a time before, a time when the sensation had been smaller, more delicate; confined to a smaller body, a smaller cognizance. The life he had been born to, so much less than this he had been reborn to, yet how much a part of him longed for it. Despite the vastness, despite the totality of what he was now, there was even yet something missing, something he had known before in his lesser state.

He stretched out, felt the bones of his new form grind together, felt faint trembling stir his body. Even in the darkness he began to understand what he had become, and what he was perhaps missing. He stretched again, slowly, let the subtle tremble shake his form again, but this time localized, exact. Perhaps now, there would be light?

---

"What the hell was that?" the redhead grimaced as she helped to position Harry's inert form near to the console once again. A second, smaller trembling rumbled through the chamber, and she pulled out her tricorder to answer her own question. "Sir, that was an earthquake, but there was no sign of tectonic stress preceding it."

Lin-Michaels. Ensign Lin-Michaels, Paris remembered. He glanced at her from where he stood at the other position on the console. "I'm gonna take that to mean Harry's telling us to hurry up. I'm ready, B'Elanna," he called out to the waiting engineer. "Let's do it."

The light that enveloped Tom was not dusky - it was an iridescent halo of blue and white and gold. A single, soft cry was torn from him before the light vanished, and he tumbled into Kithys' waiting arms. His last word sounded strikingly like "love".

---

At first, he thought he might go blind, the brilliance was so overwhelming. He came to a gradual understanding that he was the brilliance; he was the light, and the light was him. He reached out, stretched as the other had stretched, and felt winds eddy about him, through him, deep within him. He realized that he was flying - that he was the flight, and a joy as intense as pain infused him, leaving him breathless and giddy.

Then a voice, dark and deep, cried out to him. There were no words, but the meaning was clear. Beloved. He looked down, saw the expanse of brown and red and gold that lay beneath him. With a riotous noise he swooped down, embraced the ground beneath him, caressed it. As his awareness of what he was increased, so did his control over what he was. He coiled loving currents around the world he enshrouded, tendrils of winds teasing up tiny dust storms, delicate as finger tips on vulnerable skin. He was enchanted.

The light suffused him, warmed him immeasurably. At last, illumination! At last, understanding. Now he could see all that he was, all that the other was. He felt the beloved touch him, tease along his lonely skin, and he stretched out, trembled, sought to capture the force that moved over him. In peaks and valleys that time had carved into his body, he managed to hold the other, contain him for dizzying moments, embrace him with the same fervor that drove the other over him. He shook with the joy of it. He laughed.

---

Lin-Michaels watched the readings on her tri-corder, trying to keep her balance despite the lightly rolling floor beneath her. At last she gave up, and sat down in a tidy tailor's squat. "The winds are approaching 160 km on the surface. And the seismic activity is global. What are they doing out there?"

She looked at each of the others in turn, and received nothing but shrugs and blank stares. Except for Kes, who kept her eyes averted to the floor, as if trying to hide the small smile that played upon her mouth. The ensign sighed, and turned back to her tricorder. "Make that 180."

---

Beloved. It sang out between them, drew them closer and closer.

The dark one said: I am earth.

The bright one said: I am sky.

Earth said: You are my light.

Sky said: You are my foundation.

Earth said: You shape me.

Sky said: You give me form.

Earth said: Without you, I am in darkness.

Sky said: Without you, there is nothing to hold me.

Earth and Sky embraced: We are one.

---

Kithys pitched head-long into the red-haired ensign's lap when the single, violent quake shook the chamber. "What the hell was that?" Lin-Michaels pushed him up as soon as the tremors subsided and stood herself. "The winds have dropped to previous levels," she announced, checking her tricorder.

Kes immediately ran the neural sensor over the two men lying by the console. She closed her eyes, and swallowed. A soft sigh escaped her. "Neural energy is at normal levels for both Tom and Harry." She looked up at B'Elanna, and the two women exchanged a smile.

"Then I'd better turn this damned thing off before somebody else does something stupid, hadn't I?" the half-Klingon replied, her voice suspiciously gruff.

Harry and Tom began to stir. Even before total consciousness had returned, fumbling hands reached out, met, and clasped. Kes watched quietly, waiting for them to come to themselves.

"Beloved."

This time it was a word, slurred, two voices merging.

"Tom, Harry, do you remember what happened? Do you remember where you are?" she asked gently, pulling the monitoring devices off each of their foreheads.

Two vaguely fuddled gazes met hers, one the colour of earth, the other the colour of sky. "The machine worked?" Tom asked at last, his voice thick and clumsy, as if it had been years since he has last spoken, instead of minutes.

The Ocampan touched a delicate hand to each man's temple. "It would appear so, Tom. Scans indicate that everything is back where it belongs."

Harry coughed slightly, spoke, his voice as rough as Tom's. "I waited for you. It was dark." The grip between the two men tightened.

"I came," Tom replied, turning his head so that their gazes met.

Harry leaned in, until his forehead rested against Tom's. "I knew you would."

Tom closed his eyes for a moment, felt a tremor shake his body. He felt Harry's other hand come over, touch the tears that fell in scalding trails down his cheeks. A soft puff of breath against his face made him open his eyes again, and he saw his friend laughing silently.

"Rain," Harry said lightly, touching his finger to his tongue, tasting the salt.

Kes withdrew slightly, feeling intrusive. She glanced up to see Kithys and the other two archaeologists hastily turning their attention to the mosaic. When she glanced back to her two patients, she found them in the middle of a rather prolonged kiss.

Harry pulled away first. "This is not keeping it quiet, Tom!" he exclaimed, his voice shaking with a mixture of fatigue and laughter.

Tom smiled, and pulled Kim's mouth back to his. "I don't give a fuck. We'll put it on 'Breakfast with Neelix' when we get home."

"Voyager to away team. What is the situation down there?" Janeway's voice crackled around them.

They jumped at the sudden, unexpected hail, and for a moment no one responded.

"Repeat: Voyager to away team. Lt. Paris, report!"

It was Torres who answered. "Lt. Paris is rather busy right now, Captain. We've rectified the situation, but we're going to need to beam three directly to sickbay for follow-up care." She glanced around her, shrugged apologetically, and gestured to the two on the floor, whom Kes tapped to move apart. No need to cause the Doctor to short his program "Please lock on to Paris, Kes, and Harry's signals."

There was a slight pause, "Affirmative. Voyager out."

They watched as the transporter beam shimmered in, then out again.

Torres fixed each of the archaeologists with a withering stare. "I suggest we get back to work, people. The Captain is going to want a complete briefing on what happened here."

Kithys coughed slightly, and had his skin been any lighter, he might have been blushing. "How complete?" he asked diffidently.

"We'll deal with that later," she growled. How complete, indeed?

---

The de-briefing meeting was fairly quiet, all things considered. Tom was closely questioned on his actions, but Janeway agreed that considering the possibility of neural degradation, and the uncertainty of response from Voyager, it had been an acceptable risk.

"Still, this whole event is fascinating," she commented, leaning back into her chair, and sipping the mug of warm coffee Chakotay had brought her. "I think we really ought to spend another few days here. A culture that could create that sort of a system is remarkable. The implications of what it would mean to a society are staggering. Could there be racism, sexism, elitism, in such culture? When everyone is a part of the cycle? Gentlemen, if you don't mind, I would appreciate a very detailed report of your experiences. According to the mission logs of the others, you actually seemed to affect planetary seismic and weather conditions while you were within the system!"

Harry and Tom exchanged glances briefly; nothing more than raised eyebrows and the hint of a smile passed between them, yet Janeway wondered at it. She glanced at Kes and Torres, and saw another exchange of glances, and began to wonder in earnest.

A soft cough caught her attention, and she turned to regard Lt. Kithys, who was glancing at a data screen in front of him. "Yes. Mr. Kithys. Do you have anything to add?"

The dark-skinned man darted a nervous tongue over his lips. "Yes, Captain. I just received a data download from Ensign Lin-Michaels on the planet. The team has further clarified the translations at the site of the mosaic."

Janeway waited a moment, then prompted the hesitant man. "Yes, Mr. Kithys?"

He shifted nervously, carefully avoiding looking at either Paris or Kim. "Well, we originally thought it might be a site to initiate clergy - joint pairs who between them represented both halves of the divine - Earth and Sky. But our translation was a little off. It wasn't just clergy, it was anyone who anyone who-"

Janeway leaned forward, intrigued and a more than a little impatient. "Anyone who what?"

"Uh, wanted to get married, Captain. It was how this culture married. It formed a joining, an awareness that lasted the rest of the participants' lives. By the standards of Tau Sauri III, the lieutenant and the ensign are married - for life." Kithy sighed then, and dared to look at Paris and Kim.

Janeway looked at the two men as well. "Gentlemen? Are you aware of any connection?"

Tom and Harry exchanged another glance. Tom shrugged slightly, and Harry answered for both of them. "I'm not sure what you could call it, Captain. I'm aware of Tom, and he's aware of me. Always. It is not a psychic connection, precisely. We can't read each other. We just always know the other is there, that there is a connection."

"Has the Doctor scanned you?" Janeway asked. "If it was done, there must be a way to undo it, surely?"

Kes spoke up at this. "The Doctor has checked over every aspect of Tom and Harry, Captain. Nothing unusual shows on any of their scans, although I admit that further, more in depth testing of the areas relating to telepathy and empathy might reveal more. That is provided, of course, that they wish to undo it."

There was a pause as both Chakotay and Janeway visibly assimilated this thought. Tuvok's expression remained bland, and as for the rest of the people around the table, it was obvious that this was not a new concept to any of them.

It was Chakotay who at last spoke. "Do you wish to undo it?" he asked bluntly, but not unkindly, of the two junior officers.

" 'Breakfast with Neelix' next," Tom muttered to Harry, before turning to meet Chakotay. "Harry and I talked about it, Commander. We had already sort of figured out what the experience meant. We feel that so long as you have no objections - we'd like to let this connection remain. It. . ." he hesitated, fumbled for the right words.

"It would be lonely if we lost it, Captain," Harry completed.

"Oh my," said the Captain at long last. "Gentlemen, you are full of surprises. Allow me some time to consult with the Doctor, as well as Lt. Tuvok and Commander Chakotay. While I understand that it involves your. . . personal lives, it is the result of an alien process that we do not fully comprehend. I need to make sure that it is safe before I allow this to continue. Dismissed." She leaned back in her chair, and took a long swallow of coffee.

"Janeway to the Doctor."

---

Harry and Tom were officially off duty until the Captain reached a decision. Without really discussing it, they made their way to the holodeck. "Paris program Alpha Omega three," the blonde pilot instructed. A moment later the door whooshed open to a broad valley, and an open expanse of sky. Together, still not talking, they walked in, and let the illusion close in around them.

For awhile they walked, through thickets and stands of trees, until they came to a broad swathe of green. Tom pulled off his boots and socks, and let his feet feel the grass. Harry unzipped the top of his uniform, pulled off the mauve turtleneck, and let the wind brush against his bare skin.

Finally they sat down together, leaning into one another. Tom kissed each of Harry's velvet brown eyes. "You are my Earth," he said at last.

Harry placed a kiss on Tom's smooth white temple. "You are my Sky," he replied.

"We are one." Two voices.

Beloved. No voices. None were needed.

---

End