Somebody’s behind me.Shar sensed the presence via his antennae, back and to his left. He whirled, and in that moment before he saw the person, he realized that the electromagnetic signature he had detected belonged not just to anybody, but to an Andorian—and not to just any Andorian. Standing in the shadows in the front corner of the room stood a tall figure, with a rugged appearance, his hair in long, tight locks like Shar’s, but pulled back tightly against his head and tied together.

At first, Shar did not recognize his bondmate, encountering him in this context. And then he did. Stunned, he said, “Anichent.”

“Hello, Shar,” Anichent said, smiling. He walked out of the corner and embraced Shar. For a moment, Shar stood there, his arms at his sides, not knowing what to think, what to feel. And then his hands came up around Anichent’s back, and he hugged his bondmate close. He had not seen him in person in—

How long?Shar asked himself. He did not know. He had also not known until that instant how much he had missed Anichent. The surge of emotion surprised Shar, and he held on tightly to his bondmate for long moments. Finally, they pulled back and regarded each other. Shar put his hands on Anichent’s upper arms, looking at his handsome features. “What are you doing here?” he wanted to know. Anichent said nothing, instead shifting his gaze past Shar.

That was when Shar sensed the other presence behind him. As he had just done, he spun around, knowing the identity of the person even before he saw her. Dizhei—shorter, a bit stout, but in a pleasing way—stood in the other corner at the front of the room.

And suddenly, Shar understood. As Dizhei moved toward him, he stepped back and turned again, this time toward Zhavey.The many thoughts intertwining in his mind drained away, leaving behind a dangerous emptiness. His muscles tensed, rage coursing through his body as though his blood were afire. The padd he still held shattered as his hands clenched into fists. He dropped the pieces where he stood, and before he could stop himself, he charged across the room. A sofa sat between the front of the room and Zhavey,and Shar took it in an easy bound. As he landed, his knees bent and his elbows pulled back, his body ready to leap and strike at—

Zhavey.

In the last moment before his family would have been torn irrevocably apart, Shar regained enough control to stop. He pushed the anger back down, unfulfilled. He stood up fully from his crouch, trying to marry his body to his mind once more. He looked at Zhaveyand saw an expression on her face, not of fear or resentment, but of sadness. Even with Charivretha in front of him, and two of his bondmates behind him, he felt utterly alone.

“What are you going to do, my young chei?”she asked quietly, and he knew that the question encompassed more than whatever actions he would take in the next few minutes. But Shar realized that he could not even have told her what those next few minutes would bring from him, let alone the coming days and months and years.

“How could you do this?” he hissed at her. The quality of his voice scared him, directed as it was at his zhavey,and when he spoke again, he did his best to moderate his tone. “Whywould you do this? Do you think—”

Thriss walked through the doorway from the bedroom and stopped next to Zhavey.“We all did this, Shar,” Thriss said gently. “We miss you.”

“Thriss,” he said, her name barely audible as it passed his lips. He loved all of his bondmates, but Thriss…

He raced to her and swept her up in his arms, spinning her around. He squeezed her tightly, thinking nothing but her name, feeling nothing but her warm body clutched against his. “Thriss,” he said. “Thriss.”

“We love you,” Dizhei said behind him.

With difficulty, Shar released Thriss. Keeping a hand on her shoulder, he looked over at Dizhei and Anichent, who had both walked across the room to them. “I know,” he said. He gazed again at Thriss and said, “I love you,” and then looked at his other two bondmates, including them in his declaration.

“Then come back with us,” Anichent said. “Come home.”

Shar sighed and looked away, dropping his hand from Thriss’s shoulder, his energy sapped. “We’ve talked about this,” he said.

“No,” Thriss implored him, “wehaven’t; youhave. You’ve made the decision for all of us.”

“I’m not responsible for your lives,” he snapped, and he saw tears forming in Thriss’s eyes. “What am I supposed to do?” he asked her, and then he walked through the little group, looking at each of them, asking the question of them all, even Zhavey.“Am I supposed to let you—or let our biology or our culture—decide for me what my life will be?” He walked past the window, away from all of them.

An uncomfortable silence filled the room. He heard somebody sniffle, and he knew that Thriss was crying. He fought the urge to go to her, knowing such an action would only aggravate the problem. He tried to think what he could say to them that he had not said before, tried to think how he could make them see why he had to continue on the course that he had chosen, and why that course mattered not just for him, but for them as well, and maybe for all of Andor.

“Nobody wishes to decide your life for you, Thirishar,” Zhaveysaid into the silence. He could tell by the way she delivered her words that she had measured them carefully before speaking. He turned to her. “Your life is your own,” she continued. “Once you have completed the shelthreth,you may return to Starfleet, or do anything else you wish. You would never have to set foot on Andor again.” Thriss sobbed, and Dizhei went to her, putting her arm around her shoulder and gently wiping away her tears.

“I—” he started, and he wanted to say will,and he wanted to say can’t,and he did not know what to say. “Maybe,” he said at last, and somebody gasped, though he could not tell which of his bondmates it had been. “After I return from the mission—”

“No,” Zhaveystopped him. “What would happen if you did not return?”

“I have a commitment,” he said, knowing the moment that the words had left his mouth that they had been the wrong ones to say.

“Commitment,” echoed Zhavey,and he could see that anger had also risen in her, anger that seemed barely contained. “And what of your commitment to your bondmates? That has existed longer than your Starfleet career. And it is a personalcommitment. More, it is an obligation to your kind.”

“I did not make that commitment,” Shar said, regretting the difficult truth, but having no choice but to counter Zhavey’s argument. “It was made forme.” He and his bondmates had been pledged to each other as children, the result of circumstance and DNA matching. Still, he had not left Andor prior to their shelthrethbecause he did not love them; he had grown to love each of them, and he had no desire to see them hurt. But he also could not— would not—take part in the self-destructive patterns that Andorian culture imposed on its members in the name of saving the whole. As much as Zhaveyand his bondmates—and almost all other Andorians—considered their social practices the salvation of their species, Shar viewed those same practices as their demise. And he had committed himself to finding a different solution to their biological dilemma.

Zhaveywalked across the back of the room to him, until they stood face-to-face. “You have an obligation to your family, to these people—” She pointed behind her toward the others. “—and to your society.” She paused, and when she spoke again, she softened her tone. “You have romanticresponsibilities,” she said. “Go look into Thriss’s eyes and see if you can still tell her that you won’t come home.”