Chapter 1

Tom Paris was thinking about mushrooms.

He knew he shouldn't; he knew he should be thinking about what was immediately in front of him, both tangible (that is, the flight controller's console) and intangible (the sector of space they were entering), but it was difficult to stay focused so late in a shift, especially when nothing was happening.

Not for the first time, Tom found himself recalling the first words his Academy flight instructor said on the first day of classes: "Piloting a starship," Professor Heyer had begun, "is really boring." Tom remembered the sound of twoscore styluses scratching on twoscore padds as every student (except for Tom) captured that immortal thought for posterity. Tom had merely watched the professor, who, interestingly, was watching the class. Heyer's gaze lit on him, and they locked eyes as she completed the thought. "Except, of course, when it's not."

Tom had smirked then, thinking, Ah, well, that's the part I'm here for.

Years had passed, but Tom had learned and relearned the lesson over and over, always more and more impressed by his teacher's wisdom: piloting a starship usually was unbelievably, breathtakingly, mind-numbingly dull. The trick was to stay alert, to always know that the fatally dull could instantly turn merely fatal.

"The pilot's job," Professor Heyer had continued in that lecture, "is to constantly sample the environment, to devise methods to determine when something is going to happen before it happens. If you rely only on your instruments, you will die at your post someday. Maybe not immediately, maybe not for a long time, but someday."

Cheerful woman, the professor. She had recommended that helmsmen (or "pilots," as she insisted on calling them) replicate thin-soled shoes so they could feel the deck plates underneath their feet. "A good pilot can tell an engineer when the engines need tuning," she claimed. Unfortunately, the professor had never indicated whether you should mention untuned engines to the chief engineer if you also happened to sleep with the chief engineer. Tom, as usual, was left to navigate that uncharted and dangerous expanse on his own.

Tom scanned the instruments, half-listened to the bridge chatter and, yes, felt for the vibration of the deck plates under his feet. With no false sense of modesty, Tom Paris knew that he was among the best starship pilots of his generation. Driving a large, powerful, maneuverable spacecraft like Voyager was more than he could have ever asked for back in that classroom so many years ago. If Professor Heyer walked through the turbolift door and asked to speak to the pilot, Tom Paris knew that he would be able to raise his hand and answer proudly, "Me. I'm the pilot."

And this was a fine thing indeed, but (and this was important), at the same time, Tom also knew that he needed to occupy a small corner of his mind with something else—a counterbalancing piece of consciousness that prevented the rest of his brain from spiraling down into a singularity of boredom.

Some days, he thought about his holoprograms, whatever project that currently might be. The kernel of the idea that had become Sandrine's had taken root during one particularly dull shift a few years earlier. Other days, Tom mentally scanned his ever-growing collection of films and serials from the twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries. If he were given to self-analysis, Tom might wonder why he was so fascinated with the old fantasy dramas, but he wasn't, so he didn't. All he knew was that they were simultaneously sweet and hilarious, especially the oldest from the twentieth century.

Two days ago, he had found buried deep in the library computer two chapters of a serial about a square-jawed heroic type named Commando Cody who came equipped with a jetpack, rocket ship, several robots, and a scantily clad female sidekick. (Or was she a villain? Tom wasn't sure.) Everything about the films, right down to the southwestern desert of North America doubling for Luna's surface, made Tom grin wildly. He knew he had to do something with the ideas, but he wasn't sure exactly what.

Unfortunately, Tom had not been able to find anyone who shared his enthusiasm. Even Harry was resistant to the serial's peculiar charms, and B'Elanna… forget about it. When Tom had shown her the second chapter, all she could do was pick it apart: "Why are there sparks coming out of the engine? Why is it smoking? Why is the smoke drifting down? They're supposed to be in space!"

Tom sighed. He loved B'Elanna very much, but every relationship had its challenges. Feeling that he had let her down in the entertainment department, Tom had cast about for some way to please his girlfriend and found his answer: mushrooms.

B'Elanna might not know fine entertainment when she saw it, but she appreciated good fungus when it was set down before her. He didn't know the entire story, but from what he could tell, Miral, B'Elanna's mother, had tried to make her daughter subsist entirely on Klingon food. Alas, B'Elanna had disappointed her, showing very little stomach for either gagh or heart of targ, much preferring less robust offerings of human cuisine, such as peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, bananas, and deep-fried breaded cheese. After John Torres had left his wife and the battle lines in the ceaseless war between mother and daughter began to be drawn, B'Elanna had made food one of the main weapons in her arsenal. Few things, she had told Tom, had delighted her as much as the reaction a dish of sautéed mushrooms and onions over risotto would provoke.

The last few months had been difficult ones for B'Elanna. News of the destruction of the Maquis had hit her hard, and though he hadn't been able to devote as much time to helping her out of her funk as he would have liked, when the opportunities arose he did what he could. On one or two occasions, food had done the trick, so, at Tom's request, Neelix had tried to find something sufficiently mushroomlike on their various resupply stops. Alas, the resourceful Talaxian had not been successful, and though replicators could do a lot of things well, mushrooms were not one of them. Then, a couple of months previously, Tom had been chatting with Tak, the Bolian who headed up hydroponics, and learned that there was a small store of mushroom spores in stores.

"Why don't we grow some?" Tom had asked.

Tak had hesitated, then had gone the dark blue Bolians do when they're embarrassed. "Compost," he said.

"Compost?" Tom asked. "You mean like…"

"Organic waste matter, yes."

"There are a lot of people on this ship," Tom replied. "Organic matter shouldn't be a problem."

Copyright © 2005 by Paramount Pictures.