The mess hall is crowded for the memorial service, so crowded that crew members are lined along the bulkhead, standing uncomfortably. Seven is among them, standing ramrod stiff and staring straight ahead, as if she defies us all to challenge her right to be there. It is true that her actions led to this moment, but there is no one who blames her. Except possibly herself.

As one of the speakers, I am sitting in the front row. Tom and B’Elanna made a point of arriving early to get seats directly behind me, for support. They are good friends, but today I find more comfort from the feel of the clarinet in my hands. I hope they understand this.

The Captain looks pleased by the size of the crowd, but a little surprised. I don’t think she expected so many people to come. Wilkara would have been surprised herself, and probably a little overwhelmed. She was an individual again for exactly four weeks and three days, and still not used to the feeling of being a solitary mind in the middle of a crowd.

The Captain steps to the front of the room. "Thank you all for coming. Marika Wilkara chose to be an individual once more, even at the cost of a vastly shortened life span. Although she was with us only a short time, your presence here is a testimony to the courage and dignity she demonstrated every day among us."

Thirty-three days, to be exact. Just over a month. Exactly what the Doctor predicted.

"Crewmen Gerron and Tabor have asked to begin this occasion with a Bajoran ritual of grieving." She stepped aside, and the two Bajorans stepped forward. Even after all we’ve been through, they both still seem very young. Gerron’s eyes are red and burning; he was hit harder by her death than any of us.

My mind wanders during the ritual. I don’t mean to be disrespectful, but nothing in these words evokes the Wilkara I knew. I want to find her again before my part of the service.

Not that she was ever easy to know. The first few days she was on board, she kept to herself, not doing much more than exchanging nods with us in the hall. No one pushed her for more. If anyone ever earned the right to her privacy, it was her. Besides, I don’t think many of us knew how to react to someone who was going to die in just a few weeks.

Then, one evening, I was on my way to the holodeck when I heard a voice call, "Mr. Kim." I stopped dead in my tracks because it was that rarest of all things on Voyager, a voice I did not recognize.

It was Marika, hurrying toward me so quickly that she had to hold on to the beret she always wore to conceal the unhealed scars on her head. She stopped abruptly, barely a meter in front of me. "Is that a clarinet?" she asked almost shyly.

"Yes, it is." I don’t know what surprised me more – that she was talking to me at all, or that her question was about the instrument in my hand.

"Is there going to be music, then?"

For the first time since she’d come on board, her face seemed animated. "Well," I said slowly, "that’s a matter of opinion. I’m going to noodle around with some friends. A jam session, we call it."

Her eyes lit up. "I’m familiar with the term. What kind of music? Jazz? Classic?"

That really surprised me; most of Voyager’s crew glazed over if the conversation went beyond, ‘I’m going to play some music.’ "We’re experimenting right now, trying to blend Bajoran gensal, Terran Dixieland, and Trill folk music."

"Fascinating," she breathed, her eyes widening as she thought about it. "I never considered it before, but they share common elements, don’t they? What other instruments?"

I couldn’t help grinning. She understood. She was One Of Us. "Bajoran flute, bass viol, and Andorian hunting horn. What’s your instrument, Ms. Marika?"

She flushed. "Nothing, now. I…I used to play keyboard, but that was a long time ago. I like the hunting horn. Not as biting as a trumpet, but still a strong sound."

There was an awkward pause, and I was thrown for a moment. Then I remembered how long she had been with the Borg Collective, and how hard it had been for Seven to learn to converse easily. I realized that she wanted to say something else but either didn’t know how or was too shy. Taking a wild guess, I asked, "Would you like to sit in?"

From her sigh of relief, I knew I had guessed correctly. "I would love to listen. I wouldn’t be any bother, I promise. It’s just that it’s been so long…"

And so she came with me. Gerron, Tabor, and Tesoni were surprised to see her come in with me, but none of them said anything. We were using the Sandrine’s program, with the dance floor serving as our playing area. We started with Icebow, a staple from the Bajoran repertoire and the song we had experimented with the most. Some nights, the music comes hard, and never quite gels. That night, we caught fire. It flowed from us like an extension of thought.

She stayed at the table in the shadows the entire time we played, and I couldn’t see her clearly. When we finally took a break, though, she moved into the light and I could see her face. It was transformed.

There was no longer any doubt about it. Marika Wilkara, former Borg, former Starfleet xenobotanist, was a musician.

I took her a beer during the break. "What do you think?"

"It’s wonderful." She spoke quietly, as if afraid to disturb any overtones that might be lingering in the air. "I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in years."

"Why don’t you join us?" Instantly, I was afraid I had gone too far, pushed too fast.

She took a deep breath. "I don’t know…I’d slow you down – I really haven’t played in years."

"It’s not a concert," I said. "We play for fun, that’s all."

"The others wouldn’t mind?"

I called over to the bar. "Hey, guys, Marika used to play keyboard, but she’s rusty. Anyone care?"

Tesoni grinned. "Was she listening to me? I hit more rotten notes than Gerron, and that’s saying something."

So, we added the piano back to the program. She approached it almost reverently, and sat down with a look of wonder on her face. With the greatest of care, she played a C chord, then a G, and then A minor. A slow smile spread across her face, and she ran a couple of arpeggios up and down the scale. "Anything you’d like to play?" I asked. "We can get the chart for almost anything."

She shook her head. "I don’t read music. I just…hear it. Can we try Icebow again? I think I remember that one pretty well."

We played it again, with the addition of the piano. Her fingers seemed a little stiff and uncertain at first, but by the time we hit the first chorus she was no longer self-conscious. I saw the moment it happened, the moment that she lost awareness of everything but the music, the rhythm and the notes and the harmonies we were making together.

When we finished, her hands flew to her mouth and she gasped with excitement. "That was incredible," she said with the first completely unrestrained smile I ever saw on her. "Let’s try another. Give me the beat, boys."

We stayed way too late that night, but the addition of the piano to our mix was as exciting as watching her enjoy herself. The next night should have been a night off, but we were so juiced that I traded a week’s worth of replicator rations for Tom’s reservation on the holodeck and we went at it again. After that, we managed to get together every night that circumstances allowed. A lot of the crew gave us their reservations. Once they heard it was for Marika, they were generous. Everyone knew she what she had been through, and how little time she had.

It was during the third or fourth session that Gerron asked her where she had learned to play. "In San Francisco," Wilkara – we were on a first name basis by then - replied, "While I was at the Academy. They didn’t have many pianos in the refugee camps."

Gerron and Tabor nodded in understanding. They had been raised in the camps, too. "How did you wind up in Starfleet?" Gerron asked.

She stared into her glass of beer of a moment before answering. "My mother died when I was fifteen. My father had died a long time before that. I convinced an independent trader to take me on as an apprentice. Two years later, our ship got caught in an ion storm and we had to be rescued by Starfleet. Captain Maxwell took an interest in me, and sponsored me for the Academy."

I’m pretty certain there was more to that story, a lot more. Independent traders don’t take on apprentices often, and when they do, they don’t give up their contracts easily. But if that was all she wanted to recall, we weren’t going to push her.

"I remember," she went on, "listening to the musicians when I was little. You two" (meaning Gerron and Tabor) "know how it was – there was always someone who managed to make a flute or a drum. Listening to them was the only time that I really believed in the Prophets. It was as if they spoke to me through the music. I didn’t exactly understand the words, but I knew they were there."

That was the most she ever told us about herself. Outside of the nightly jam sessions, she remained a private person. She talked to the Captain once in a while, I think, but that was about it. She came to terms with her past on her own, in her own way.

Word got out about our sessions. I think Tom is responsible for that. He wanted to know what I was doing that was more interesting than the latest program he had written, and he came in one night when B’Elanna had a late shift. The next night, the two of them came along with about six others. The crowds grew nightly after that, and we tried to play every day if circumstances permitted.

Wilkara was thriving. At the beginning of each song she’d lift her head and say, "Give me the beat, boys," and we’d be off. I couldn’t believe what a difference the keyboard made in our sound. It was the element that had been missing all along. I’ve played all kinds of music in all kinds of settings in my life, but I’ve never felt like this before. Night after night, we lost ourselves in the music. We were no longer separate beings, we were parts of a universe of sound, rhythm, melody, and harmony. We could almost read each other’s minds, we knew when to modulate, when to repeat, who should riff. We became the music.

I wondered if this was what it was like, even a little bit, to be Borg.

The last time, two nights ago, Sandrine’s was packed. Even the Captain and the Commander came, taking seats with Tom and B’Elanna near the dance floor. I saw Seven, accompanied by the Doctor, slip in late and stand near the doorway. Seven watched us intently. It was the first time she had come to a session, and maybe the first time she had come close to Wilkara in weeks.

We finished the number, and basked in the applause. Wilkara looked up and saw Seven in the back. Their eyes met, and then, slowly, Wilkara smiled. She nodded once. It wasn’t forgiveness by any means, but I think it was acceptance. Seven nodded back, looking relieved.

Then she turned to me. "How about Icebow?" she asked, and we all agreed. "Give me the beat, boys," she said with a grin, and we began to play her favorite song.

The next morning I found her in her quarters, sprawled ungracefully on the deck in a coma. Fourteen hours later, she was dead without ever regaining consciousness.

I force myself back to the present. The Bajoran ritual has ended, the Captain is finishing her eulogy. "Mr. Kim?"

It’s not as hard to stand as I thought it would be. As I look out at the faces of my friends and crewmates, I feel as if she is there, too. I find myself smiling. "Some of us spend decades trying to figure out the meaning of life, the reason we exist. Wilkara had thirty-three days, and in the end, I think she found an answer. I remember the last night we played to together. She was at the keyboard, playing with abandon, her eyebrows knit in concentration. Then, something happened. If you were watching, you saw the change in her face, the way she tossed her hair over her shoulder and smiled as if…as if she just made remarkable discovery. I think she did. I think…that was the moment when she found her own path back to her Prophets."

I look at the others, and they stand and pick up their instruments. "I hope so. Because we want to play this for her, to help her on that path. Icebow’s been around for a long time, but from now on, we’re going to think of it as Wilkara’s song." I hear her voice echoing with mine even as I speak the next words. "Give me the beat, boys."

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