"Hi, Dani." Daniella smiled. Maury Lansing had had the same idea. He was lying full-length on the roof, visible in the starlight. She sat down cross-legged beside him. Maury was, like her, a third-generation descendent of the original colonists of Farnon's World. The slightly lower gravity of the planet had made its children tall, lithe and willowy; the brilliant F8 sun had given them skin of a dark coffee-colour; she and Maury were much of a type, physically, though he lacked her trained dancer's grace. Daniella had always been fond of Maury, so much so that she had felt a pang - though only a brief one - of jealousy when he had begun dating her twin brother instead of her.
Now, there was a sound from the skylight, and Daniella's brother Thom put his head through. "Thought you guys would be up her," he said. He clambered awkwardly through the skylight, awkward because of the burden in his left hand. "Brought a bottle of the good stuff." And a stack of beakers, too; Thom was the practical one, Daniella thought.
She accepted a glass of the firewine, and the three of them sat, sipping, in companionable silence. Below them, the lights of Einsteingrad, the planetary capital, a planned community in the best Federation tradition; above them, the stars. At this time of year, the night sky was dominated by the huge nearby star cluster that the first colonists, for reasons of their own, had called the Dandelion. Daniella knew that this was some old Earth plant, but the star cluster never looked like a plant to her; it was more like a fireworks display, a starshell burst frozen in time at the moment of its explosion. It was beautiful.
"So, guys," said Thom, after a while, "you got any thoughts yet?"
Careers. Farnon's World was a Federation colony, a fully developed planet; there was no need for the hard labour that had tamed and terraformed the world in its early years. Everyone's basic needs could be met, by replicated food and materials... but who wanted to be a drone, living off a basic dole, when you could accomplish something with your life? For Daniella, at least, her choice was clear. "Cygni Dance Academy took my application already," she said. "If they like my holo-tapes for the audition, I'm in. Then, maybe, I get a shot at a scholarship on Andoria. OK, it'll be cold, but it'd be worth it. Maury? Still interspecies law?"
"Yeah," said Maury. "Got my applications out to the big ones, Harvard, ShiKahr, Xellan-Kaur. I'm gonna get in, I just know it. So that leaves you, big guy. What are your plans?" He reached up to ruffle Thom's hair.
Thom was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "I was thinking, maybe, of trying for Starfleet Academy."
"Starfleet?" Maury raised himself up on one elbow, and Daniella could see his eyes widen in the starlight. "Seriously? Facing down the Klingons with a phaser in your fist? Seriously?"
"I know what you're thinking," said Thom, "but hear me out, will you? The war with the Klingons is over, guys, it was a stupid mistake, it should never have started in the first place, now it's stopped."
"And it's been replaced by a worse one," said Daniella soberly.
"I don't know about that," said Thom. "Yeah, the Undine are scary, and there's something worse behind them... but, c'mon, guys, we've got the Federation, the Klingon Empire, and the Romulan Republic, now, all on the same team. You can't tell me the Undine, or the Borg, or anybody will stand up to that for long. They'll find a way, you just watch. The war will end, and Starfleet will go back to being what it was always meant to be. Scientists, explorers... going into the galaxy for the sake of peace." His eyes were on the stars now, utterly entranced. "That's what I'd like to be part of."
"It's a beautiful dream, brother," said Daniella. Thom was the practical one... if anyone could make it happen, she thought, he could.
"I'll drink to that," said Maury.
And the three of them laughed, and drank, together, in the warm night, beneath the peaceful stars.
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