Strange New Worlds V, page 12
Two female ensigns chatting on the nearby bench apparently caught the young man’s eye and he stopped to talk with them. Boothby watched as the women sat up a little straighter and smiled. Eager to help. Together they nodded, pointing toward the garden where Boothby sat. The young man followed their direction and looked around, his eyes passing the groundskeeper twice before realization registered on his face.
Still kneeling, Boothby raised his hand, the dirt from creases in his gloves tumbling out to shower over his head. He didn’t bother to smile.
He returned his concentration to the plants at his knees, stabbing at the dirt with his handshovel. He had no intention of retiring. Weeks ago he’d petitioned the administration for an extension, assuring them he was capable of working many more years. At the very least, he ought to be given the opportunity to try.
His petition was tied up somewhere in, what was the ancient term? Red tape. Yes, yes, they placated him. You’ll hear from us soon, they claimed. But, in the meantime, we need to be prepared in the event your request is denied.
He wasn’t holding his breath. He remembered back all those years when he first came to this job. His predecessor hadn’t been happy to see him, either.
* * *
“We’re not supposed to have favorites, you understand,” the old woman had said, whirling unsteadily to look at him. She waved her finger in Boothby’s face.
He’d nodded at the crooked, arthritic digit, having stopped short to keep from running into it when she turned to make this pronouncement. She was tall, at least a head taller than he was, and her finger wagged furiously right at the level of his nose. Favorites? he wondered.
“You just remember that. Though I suppose you’re too young to even begin to understand what you’re getting into here.” Her white hair spiked out in every direction and she ran a spotted hand through it, to no avail.
He nodded again, but this time to her back. She’d resumed the brisk walk through Greenhouse 001, pointing, gesturing. Lecturing. As if he’d never been in one before. Too young? He was fifty-three years old, by Earth standards. Not quite middle-aged, but getting there. To her, though, he probably looked like a child.
“Aubrey?” he said, using her name for the first time. “Ma’am?”
She lurched, wincing as she turned, favoring her left side. He’d heard she was being forced to retire owing to physical limitations caused by her advanced age. Limitations that could be remedied with medication, but with side effects she refused to tolerate.
“Yes?”
It was obvious she hadn’t been told.
“I’m not a gardener,” he said, straightening a little. “I’m a librarian.”
In that moment Boothby understood the term “flashing eyes.” Her eyes, blue and bright, surged with a power that he would never forget. He fought the urge to step back. Instead he stood his ground, and watched, intrigued, as the anger dissipated, only to be replaced by resolve.
She blinked, nodded. “What did you say your name was?”
“Boothby,” he said, then added again, “ma’am.”
She raised one eyebrow, a small gesture that he imagined could mean anything from displeasure to surprise. Right now, he was betting on the former. “Well, Boothby, starting right now, you’re a gardener. And you have a lot to learn.”
* * *
The young man stopped in front of him. Smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “Boothby?” he asked.
The gardener nodded, “And you are . . . ?”
He stood at attention. “Lieutenant Deagan, reporting for duty, sir.”
“You’re Starfleet?”
“Yes, sir. They told me not to wear my uniform.”
“At ease, Lieutenant. And you don’t need to use ‘sir’ with me. Boothby will do.” The gardener glared at him. “How old are you, boy?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“That’s very young,” he said. “Since when do they send Starfleet for this job?”
Deagan shook his head, shrugged.
“What’s your specialty?”
“Specialty?’
“Botany, plant pathology, ecology?”
“I’m an engineer, actually. I . . . my time in this position may only be temporary unless—”
“Temporary?” Were they out of their minds? This was the job of a lifetime. For a lifetime. They couldn’t just throw someone into it for the time being and hope for the best. Boothby massaged his forehead. It made no sense to replace him. Why didn’t the administration listen to reason?
“Yes, although I have the option to request—”
“You need to know that this job is about gardening,” Boothby said, gesticulating with the shovel. “What I’m here to teach you is about gardening. About planting seeds, nurturing, fostering growth. You understand?”
The lieutenant nodded, too eagerly, Boothby thought. He didn’t understand at all.
“Well, sonny, let’s get started. I hope you like playing in the dirt.”
* * *
He gave Deagan some gloves and tools, and pointed where the impatiens were to be planted. Playing in the dirt. Weren’t those the same words Aubrey had used all those years ago? Hadn’t appealed to Boothby then. But things change. The old man worked the dirt with a small spade, and remembered.
They’d done their homework before presenting him with the job opening. They knew him, knew he’d be unable to resist. Two of Starfleet’s finest had come all the way to his small library on Gabal Prime to ask him if he’d be interested. And he had been.
Giving up his comfortable life in the company of his books, he’d traded his daily mundane tasks for the opportunity to experience the sprawling grandeur of the Starfleet Academy library. No longer would he methodically return perused-through tomes to their places on the shelves. No, instead he was to be given the chance to influence young Starfleet cadets, to put the quadrant’s classics in their hands, to teach them, help guide them, using the beauty of literature. It was too tempting to pass up.
That was before he’d met Aubrey.
After his first day, when he’d complained to the administration that Aubrey didn’t understand his role, that she’d assumed he was taking over the gardening responsibilities, they’d asked him for patience. To humor her. To wait. Then, he’d be free to choose his own realm of guidance. And if he preferred the library, then the library it would be. But they insisted he needed to give Aubrey the year that she’d requested for his training.
And in that one year, she’d taught him to understand that to expect beautiful blooms, one needed to plant seeds in the right conditions. Within the confines of the library, the cadets were polished, serious, stiff. Outside, in the fresh air, amid the profusion of color, with the soft green grass beneath them, they were seedlings reaching for the sun. With their guards down and their minds open, they were flowers ready to blossom.
Under the shade of quercus agrifolia trees, the gardener, with a shovel in his hand, found himself to be far more effective than the librarian behind the desk.
* * *
Lieutenant Deagan plucked another small plant from the tray behind him.
“Did you know Kirk when he was at the Academy?”
“Kirk?” Boothby said, his voice rising with indignation. “How old do you think I am?”
“I’m sorry. I just—”
“Watch what you’re doing. You just planted the echinops in front of the dianthus. Didn’t I tell you that echinops grow taller?”
“Yes, sir. I thought these were the dianthus. I guess I got confused.”
“Of course you did,” Boothby said, muttering. “Thinking I was here with Kirk. What do you think I am? Vulcan?”
“No, sir.”
Lieutenant Deagan switched the plants, taking care not to harm the tender buds. He eased the flower into the pre-made hole and tamped dirt around it softly. Boothby watched, and despite himself, was impressed. “My predecessor was.”
“Sir?”
“Here. With Kirk. Told me about it.”
Deagan reached for another plant, an expectant look on his face. “He did?”
“She. She told me. Don’t they tell you new people anything?” Boothby slapped the dirt off his gloves and sat back, remembering. And even though he settled back on the grass for a talk, Boothby noticed that Deagan kept working.
“She was called Aubrey. An old name, meaning Mystical Counselor. I looked it up.”
The lieutenant raised his eyes to Boothby’s as he worked the edges of a small hole away with his fingers. Good, Boothby thought, he’s listening.
“I’d been here for only one day and I knew she took an immediate dislike to me.” Boothby watched Deagan give a wry smile as he planted another flower. “I wasn’t a gardener, you see. Not then. I’d been a librarian. She was convinced that I’d never get the hang of this job.
“‘Well, Boothby,’ she said, and I remember her saying it with some degree of derision, ‘since you’re used to working with books instead of plants, I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to teach you. I can only share with you what has worked for me and maybe you can use that when you’re on your own here.’”
Boothby handed a small plant to his apprentice and continued, “My goal was to stay in her good graces. Even though I had no doubts about this assignment, I knew that she could easily make the transition difficult for me.” He gave Deagan a meaningful glance.
The lieutenant held up the last of the dianthus. “I’ll need more.”
As they walked toward the greenhouses to replenish their tray, Boothby continued, “I knew better than to ask her about all the officers she’d gotten to know. She had a reputation for being closemouthed, and so she should be. But as her replacement, I knew she’d tell me all I needed to learn in good time. So, I waited.”
They stepped into humid warmth that hung heavily above the rainbow rows of plants. Stopping here and there to touch a specimen, Boothby wound his way through the maze of petals and green. At one station, he called to the computer to open the wall-size case before them. Hydroponic heat coaxed small buds to bloom. “Annuals and perennials. Very different, both important. Perennials are your mainstays. These are the ones that give your garden its strength because they come back every year, without fail, assuming they’ve been planted well and cared for.” Boothby sorted through the profusion of color under the clear glass ceiling. He held up a tuberous begonia. “Here’s an annual, beautiful, blooms all season. But no matter how hardy, or how much care it’s given, they don’t last. They need to be replaced.”
“I don’t think I could tell an annual from a perennial.”
“Not yet. You will.”
“Did you start all these yourself?”
“Of course. Planting seeds, mostly. That’s how it always begins.”
Boothby could see Deagan struggling, wondering if they were just talking about flowers.
“Here,” he said, “we’ll take these out by the fountain, the sun is just right for them there.
“Aubrey,” he continued later, watching Deagan plant the begonias, “got to know Kirk early in his academic career, from what I understand. I remember her telling me that we shouldn’t have favorites. And she was right. But she couldn’t help herself with Kirk. She loved that boy. Thought that he was too headstrong and needed discipline. But she also knew that he wasn’t one to take an order and follow it blindly.”
Deagan looked up, said nothing.
“Seems to me she was pretty successful with that one. You don’t want to take a man’s energy away from him, but he has to have wisdom to know when to act and when to wait.”
“I understand.”
“No you don’t,” Boothby said, sighing. “And maybe you’ll never get the chance.” He took the last begonia from the tray and waved Deagan away. “Go on now. You’re done for the day. Be back here at 0700 tomorrow.”
Deagan nodded, and stood up, shaking the dirt from his pants as Boothby muttered to himself, “Temporary.”
* * *
Deagan jogged up to the greenhouse at 0659. “Well, you’re on time at least,” Boothby said, not smiling.
Deagan grinned. “What are we planting today?”
“Nothing,” Boothby said. “Today we’re taking out the weeds.”
The two men walked down the shaded path, Deagan taking short strides to keep from outpacing Boothby.
They worked together side by side for several hours, Deagan paying close attention to everything Boothby had to say. Just as the chime sounded for the late-morning classes, the old gardener sat back and gestured to the young lieutenant to do the same.
Deagan leaned up against the tree next to him and they watched the cadets as they passed by. Most wore serious expressions, carried padds, and studied as they walked. Some laughed and talked with friends, others strolled, taking in the gardens and flowers around them. “Boothby?”
“Yes?”
“Is it hard to tell which are the weeds?”
Boothby thought for a moment that this lieutenant had more depth than he’d originally given him credit for.
“Sometimes. Tricky part is when the weeds grow in so close to a valuable plant that it makes it hard to get rid of it without losing the plant, too.”
“Sounds difficult. What do you do?”
“That’s when you have to depend on the strength of the plant you value. Sometimes, in taking away the weed, you damage the plant. But, if it’s strong, if it’s hardy, it will survive.” Boothby stood up, gesturing. “Here, let me show you one.”
* * *
Surrounding the flagpole near the entrance to the Academy, Boothby indicated a raised flower bed. “Perennials,” he said, by way of explanation.
They moved in closer to the bed. Boothby pointed. “Those pink ones are called thoroughwort. Planted the originals here around 2325. A vigorous plant, it blossoms in late summer and fall—toward the end of its season. But when I first planted them here, the young seedlings had some difficulty.”
“Difficulty?”
Boothby fingered the leaves of the thoroughwort. “I remember planting these; I had help. A young cadet who needed someone to talk to. And, despite the fact that he was dealing with his own problems at the time, he agreed to help when I asked.”
“That would be about the time Picard attended the Academy, wouldn’t it?”
Boothby gave the boy a shrewd look. “Yes, as a matter of fact. It was exactly that time.”
“What happened?’
“I won’t tell you the specifics. I wouldn’t do that. But he’d gotten himself into a tight one. Just like my thoroughwort plant here.” Boothby caressed the plant, and continued, “Picard let a weed take root, and it was devouring him, little by little. Like all weeds, it was devious, wiry, and strong. It wound its way around his life, slowly strangling him.”
“What did you do?”
“All I did, all I could do, was to help him see beyond the insidious thing growing and listen to himself.”
“You must have done more than just have him work with plants.”
Boothby smiled at the memory. “Deagan, I have to give you credit. You’re more perceptive than I expected. The plants helped. We worked together, just like you and I are working now. We got to know each other and he began to trust me.” Boothby remembered. “I knew he needed more than the flowers could give, so I fell back on what I’d always known best. I put a book in his hands. Sometimes we all have to plant seeds in different ways.”
Deagan waited.
“Picard was having a difficult time. He was faced with a serious choice. We talked at length and maybe that in itself would have been enough. For to have someone who’s apart from the problem to be able to listen—and to be able to say the thing out loud—is sometimes enough to conquer it.
“In any case, I remembered my library days. And the wealth of inspiration I’d always found there.” The groundskeeper looked up, remembering, “A passage from Hamlet seemed fitting, ‘To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou can’st not then be false to any man.’”
“From what I know of Picard, it seems he follows that philosophy to this day.”
Boothby gave a rare smile.
Deagan continued, “You know, I seem to remember seeing a Shakespearean collection in Picard’s ready room on a tour we took when I was a cadet.”
“The Globe Illustrated Shakespeare.”
“That’s right. The guide told us that Picard received it as a gift when he graduated from the Academy.”
“Yes,” Boothby said, gazing across the campus, “he did.”
* * *
The following morning, 0659, Boothby watched as Deagan jogged up again. There was more to this fellow than met the eye, he judged. He listened well, understood, and commented quietly, but profoundly. Maybe there was hope. Even if Boothby’s request for a longer tour of duty was turned down, maybe he could request that Deagan become his permanent replacement. So much would be lost otherwise.
“Morning, sir.”
Old habits died hard, Boothby knew; he let the “sir” go. “We’re heading out back today. Section 77M. Quite a few old plants there. Gotta get rid of them.”
They took a small conveyance out to the back of the campus.
“What’s wrong with these plants?” Deagan asked, looking around. “They seem healthy and strong. I thought we’d clear away only dead ones.”
