It wasn’t fair.  She didn’t need shore leave.  Just because she was a little tired was no reason for the captain to order her to take leave.  All she needed was a few days to rest and relax.   Maybe if she rewired that backup communications panel that was always giving her problems—

She sighed.  Maybe she did need a little vacation.  A change of environment might give her a new outlook on life.  She glanced at her chronometer and picked up her bag.   After she left, the cabin efficiently registered her departure and automatically turned off the lights and music.
 
The night sky was brilliant—twin moons turned the untamed countryside into a crystal landscape.  The air was warm enough to make a jacket unnecessary as Uhura stood on the main house balcony and looked restlessly across the forested hills.  She had been a houseguest of  Lee Savage for several days.  She had met him at a starbase party and accepted his warm invitation to join others at his extravagant home.  Mr. Savage collected Star Fleet personnel like library books, inviting them to his house, listening to their stories, and returning them to the starbase when their shore leave was up.  He hosted parties every night, and the wealthy denizens of Pomeroy III flocked to see what new novelties he’d discovered.

Uhura had tried to be part of the festivities, she really had.  She told stories of the Enterprise crew’s adventures.  She danced with the famous, kissed the rich, and still felt restless.  Perhaps I’m becoming jaded, she thought.  With a sigh, she pulled her diaphanous robe tighter and studied the tall trees a short distance away.

Pomeroy III was a popular vacation world.  Its beauty and gentleness appealed to people from worlds where technology had run rampant.  The sprawling Savage estate was one of many located around Starbase 5, and similar luxurious areas encircled the planet.

Pomeroy III was a beautiful, green world.  Its climate was always mild and comfortable.  The planet boasted no indigenous life forms; however, her host had told her of mythical cat creatures that had once lived in the forests.  Their disappearance had coincided with the arrival of the first spaceships.  Personally, Uhura believed the elusive dreamcats sounded like terrestrial unicorns, and she doubted that the legendary beasts had ever padded through the emerald forests.

Uhura impulsively headed down the outside stairway to the sculptured lawns and the dark forest beyond.  She left behind the noise of the all-night party and headed for the freedom of the deep woods.  She entered the woods silently, careful of her step in the undergrowth.  Lightly she waded through the darkness, humming softly to herself and  inhaling the crisp smell of the flora.  For the first time in months, she felt happy, bereft of staggering responsibilities.  Some unfathomable aspect of the silvery forest made her want to sing and dance like a child.  She was alone—joyfully, carelessly alone.  She broke spontaneously into song, a little, happy tune about sunshine and growing things.  Why she sang that particular song, she didn’t know.  Perhaps the magical surroundings brought it out in her.

She spun around the clearing, conscious of how her song wove its way through the tall trees and came back to her.  She was reminded of her childhood in Bantu, South Africa, years before Star Fleet and the Enterprise.  She sang to the trees, she sang to the stars.  The trees murmured accompaniment and the stars twinkled their applause.

Finally, she had sung all the songs she had learned on her grandma’s knee, and let the last note face.  She stopped and sank sadly to the moss-covered ground, suppressing the urge to laugh and cry at the same time.  For the first time she began to worry about her sanity.  Maybe she had been working too hard.  Silent tears sprang from nowhere, and the more she tried to control them, the harder they fell.

She pulled herself together, and found that she was not alone.  On the other side of the clearing, haloed in moonlight, was an animal.  It was a quadruped with long legs and lengthy white fur.  The moonlight made it almost translucent, and Uhura had difficulty seeing it clearly.  It looked at her and she was struck by the beauty of the large cat eyes.  On dainty paws it moved toward her to study her as closely as she studied it.

Uhura did not move for fear of startling the beautiful creature.  It came within inches and stared at her with inquiring eyes.  Uhura chuckled at the expression that seemed to ask, “What sort of animal are you?”

It backed away when Uhura laughed but was soon back, examining her billowing robes and gold jewelry.  Without thinking, Uhura reached out a hand to touch the silver fur.  Upon contact both she and the creature froze.  Its fur was cool and soft and silky, and Uhura found herself stroking the bowed head as she would a common housecat.

She laughed aloud when the creature closed its eyes and started to purr.  “You big pussycat.  I thought you were a local legend.  Are there anymore at home like you?”

The creature cocked its head at her statement, seeming to understand its meaning.  It looked sadly at her.  Even without words, Uhura knew there were no other dreamcats left.

“Oh,” Uhura cradled it tenderly in her arms, “don’t worry.  You won’t be lonely when everyone finds out you really exist.”

Suddenly, the animal moved away from her.  Uhura understood that it did not want anyone to know about it, whether it was the last of its race or not.

“But,” explained Uhura, “I have to report new life forms, it’s my job!”

The creature approached her slowly and pushed its head against hers, touching brow to brow.  Uhura found herself swimming in the dark eyes, and unfamiliar images whirled in her head.

Uhura’s view of the moonlit forest was replaced by a vision of a younger, more vibrant forest at midday.  Groups of dreamcats frolicked among the orange flowers.  Mr. Savage had been wrong.  There had been other life forms besides the dreamcats on Pomeroy III.   Uhura watched tall, delicate men and women wander through the forest with bowls of fruit and armloads of freshly picked flowers.   They were pale green and hairless.  Each wore a white tunic of loosely woven material.  Their huge, brown eyes seemed to sparkle in the light, and they moved with a gracefulness that made Uhura’s heart ache.

Each person was accompanied by a dreamcat.  Occasionally a cat broke off from the playful group to run beside a particular person for a moment.  Instinctively uhura knew that the relationship between the two species was an important one—the aliens loved the dreamcats and the dreamcats loved them back.

The aliens did not use words to communicate, they sang.  And their songs brought tears to Uhura’s eyes.  The green people sang to each other, they sang to the cats, and they sang to the forest around them.  Uhura’s dreamcat purred at the peaceful scene, but it quickly faded to reveal a forest shrouded in the inevitability of dusk.  Something was wrong.  The songs were fewer and filled with sadness.  The forest people were dying.  Cat cries joined the people’s weakened voices, but it was not enough.  They were powerless against the disease that was destroying them.  Too soon, only one song echoed through the forest and it too faded away.  Without their companions, the cats too began to die.

Uhura inhaled deeply and wiped the tears from her cheeks as her sight returned to normal.  “I’m sorry,” she told the solitary dreamcat.  She held the soft creature to her tightly, letting her sympathy wash over it.

 “I know you want to be left alone, but it’s for the best that you reveal yourself,” she explained.  “You could tell us so much about your world.  Sometimes, the most difficult choice is the only sensible thing to do in the long run.  It’s for your own good.”

The dreamcat looked at her knowingly.  It pressed its head against hers again before she could retreat.  Images exploded in her mind.

She was seven years old.  She had returned home from school to find an empty house.  Mama was gone, Aunt Noni was gone, and Grandma’s room was empty.  Grandma’s room had never been empty.

Uhura remembered the little, white-haired lady rocking in her room, singing long songs about a revolution that had turned a continent of warring countries into a country of benevolent states—the United States of Africa.  Grandma had told Uhura fantastic stories of the revolution and her role in it.  Her mother and her aunt rolled their eyes at the big tales, but Uhura believed every word.

When Mama and Noni finally returned home, they told Uhura that her grandmother was in the hospital.  She had suffered a massive stoke and did not have long to live.  Her mother was going back to the hospital to stay with Grandma until the end.

Little Uhura grabbed her coat.

“What are you doing?” her mother asked.

“I’m going with you to the hospital,” she replied seriously.

Her mother knelt down and looked sadly at the determined little girl. “I’m sorry, honey, but I don’t think you should see our grandma like this.”  She hugged her daughter tightly to her.

“No!”  She had to go to the hospital.  She had to tell her grandma good-bye.  She had to tell her how much she loved her and how much she would miss her!  Tears glistened rebelliously in her eyes.  “But, mama—“ she tied to convince her.

“No, little one.  You can’t go.  It’s for your own good.”

With those familiar words, the spell was broken.  Uhura reached up to touch her wind-dried cheeks.  It had seemed so real!

The dreamcat made an inquisitive cry, and Uhura smiled tenderly at it.  “No, little one, I get the message.  You can spend your last days in peace.  It will be our loss, but it will be your gain.”

She held the purring animal close and looked at the lightening sky.  Soon the sun would be up and her shore leave would be over.

“You’d better go,” she told her new friend.  “Somebody might see you in the sunlight.”

The dreamcat gave her one last nuzzle and walked slowly away.  At the edge of the clearing it stopped, and Uhura realized what had attracted it to her in the first place.  She stood up, inhaled deeply, and sang a battle hymn that her grandmother had sung to her.  She let her strong voice take control, and the trees bowed to her ringing tones.  Never had she been so filled with the spirit of the song.  It seemed to leap out of her of its own accord.  The song was her way of saying good-bye to the last dreamcat and, in some strange way, to her grandmother.

The song ended too soon and the dreamcat gave her one last look before it departed into the darker, untravelled regions of the forest.  As Uhura walked back to the house, she thought she heard a single cat cry mournfully in the distance.

Shore leave was over.
 
 Uhura was surprised to see Captain Kirk himself waiting for her as she stepped off the transporter.

 “How was your shore leave, Lieutenant?”

 She smiled broadly at the concerned man.  “It was wonderful, Captain, simply wonderful.  I shall never forget it.”
 
 
 The End                                                January 1987                            Published in the Clipper Trade Ship