~ By Laura Cynthia Chambers 

Grace Berlin sat in a metal chair next to the unconscious man’s bedside. He had been cleaned up and dressed in a blue sleeveless hospital robe.  A medical display screen hung over the bed, readings fluctuating slightly.

For the first time she got a good look at the man. He was taller than she’d thought, and looked as though he hadn’t had a good meal in months. A circular ridge of bone surrounded his pale bronze face, and a scruff of matted curly reddish beard hung from his chin. His hair, still damp from washing and lying against the pillow, was similarly colored. 

She brushed her hair back from her face as she leaned forward, her lashes lowering in sympathy. A sudden movement and her eyes flickered open again to see the man’s hand lifting to his face. He groaned, squinting even in the dimly lit room. “Bread…run…” he rasped. Then, noticing her face for the first time, he turned his head more towards her slowly. 

“You are…” His face crumpled and he covered it with his hand. “…oh, it’s all a mess.” A single tear ran down his cheek and pooled in his chin ridge.

She placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him. “So you do remember? Don’t worry; it’s all right. You’re not in any trouble. I settled things with the merchant. You owe him nothing.”

He looked at her, surprised. “I was starving, or else I never…never…in all the years since I left…” The man swallowed hard, eyes reddening. “I’m not a thief.”

“Then what are you?” she asked, lifting her hand and folding them together in her lap. “Besides an Agapean, I mean? How did you wind up in such dire straits?” She softened her voice. “I’m a good listener, you know.”

He smiled sadly. “And I’m a fool.” For the first time he seemed aware of his surroundings, beyond her. “What is this room?”

The door swished open at just that moment. “This is what’s known as the deluxe full-service suite at the Chez Enterprise. Comfortable accommodations, all you can eat or drink, beautiful women at your beck and call, and a very annoying man who comes in every so often to look at your throat.” Kirk walked through the doorway, his gait jaunty. He was obviously trying to put the man at ease.

 Behind him, Spock entered, his gaze scrutinizing the room as though he too had never seen it before, then finally regarding the Agapean with an interested look.

 “Very funny. What are you trying to do, Jim, scare him off?” McCoy hollered through the door. As he entered, his physician’s eyes scrutinized his patient for a few seconds while Berlin offered him a drink of water. “I apologize for my captain here. In all my years of medical practice, I have yet to discover a cure for idiocy.” Spock raised his eyebrows at Kirk as McCoy walked over to the bedside and checked the monitor, making notations on his clipboard. 

The man took a few sips of water, his back supported by Berlin’s arm, then lay back down in a semi-reclining position. “In that case, I recommend my life…up until now, that is. The consequences of my actions would be enough to cure any man. For good.” 

“Can you explain what you mean by that?” Kirk moved to the other side of his bed and stood there. 

He frowned. “Oh, where do I start?”

“Wherever facts become pertinent to the point you are making.” Spock offered. “Your identity first?”

He wiped his mouth with his right hand. “Albix. An Agapean. My father is Descin; he is a rich man, and I am one of his two sons. The younger. I never knew our mother…maybe if I had I might have had something to stay for.” 

He paused, thinking. “We have an orchard…at least we did, vast and wide as the eye could see. Ripe, plump breesa hanging from every tree. Someday, it would have been ours; mine and Todar’s.” He licked his lips. “I couldn’t wait for ‘someday’.” The bitterness in his voice caused McCoy to put the clipboard down and instead listen to the tale with rapt attention, along with Berlin, Kirk and Spock.

“We as a people don’t generally stray too far from home, but there were others, always coming and going…and such stories they’d tell! Other worlds…life so foreign from what I’d ever known.” Albix sighed. “I wanted to see it…for myself.”

“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming of more.” Kirk offered. “Everybody else in this room is living proof of that.”

“But there was. I was so restless; I built walls in my mind around our land that kept becoming smaller and smaller…until they nearly strangled me. Finally, I told my father I couldn’t stay any longer, I was leaving and for that I needed money.  He asked me to think it over, but I saw him only as my jailer. I demanded my share of the orchard in parins. Oh, the look on his face when he relented!  I wish I could forget it.” 

Kirk frowned, but not at him, then nodded.

“He sold my half that very day…and that same night, I paid for passage on an Ulpidian transport, believing I was finally free; of the life I’d always known, of my father, of everything.” 

He shook his head sadly. “What a fool I was. My ruination…I had never managed my own affairs before… The first night, I bought everyone drinks, played any game going round, and enjoyed the company of several-“ He looked at Grace, whose expression hadn’t changed. “I’m sorry.”

“Go ahead,” she urged. “It doesn’t shock me.”

“I was everybody’s friend…I-I wanted to be. That’s how it was wherever I went. Always up for a good time…until I started losing money. And then the drinks…they all tasted the same. Flat, dull, sickening…and the women….” He looked up into Berlin’s face again. “I’m convinced that ‘broke’ becomes a part of a man’s essence, after a while. And that’s what I was; broke, and broken, in every sense of the word. The party was over.

I spent my last parin on Yursi. Bought myself a bottle of drink.” He laughed. “Figured as long as I knew I was destitute, I might as well toast my old life goodbye.  Didn’t think about a place to stay. Just found any old corner or shelter I could. Picked through garbage looking for stuff I could sell, eat…anything to live a little longer, even in my filth. I survived…somehow.  Imagine me, a son of wealth, hungering after coarse bread! When all was in my grasp…now all I had was a grasp.” He looked down, tears coming once more.  “What I wouldn’t give for a chance to start over again. To tell him I’m sorry.”

Berlin was crying, too, by this point, comforting him by holding his hand.  Then, her eyes flashed hope as she turned to look at the captain and first officer. Squeezing Albix’s hand, she leaned closer. “Maybe-“

Spock looked at Kirk, who nodded, then addressed Albix. “If you are indeed eager to return home, we may be able to help you.”

Albix looked between the men. “On your ship, you mean? You could take me?” His face flickered between fear, longing, and resolve. “I have no right to make such a request.”

“If you say so. Mr. Spock, have you ever been to Agapea?”

Spock pursed his lips. “No, sir. But I am suddenly filled with a curiosity about it that hadn’t struck me previously.”

“Doctor?”

McCoy realized where they were going with this. “What does breesa taste like, anyway?” he asked, cocking his head to the side.

Kirk smiled. “I may be no doctor, but I know of only one remedy for this sudden outbreak of interest.” He pulled his communicator out and flipped it open. “Mr. Sulu?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“Set course for Agapea.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Berlin leaned over the bed, smiling. “Hear that? You’re going home, Albix. Home.”

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