'This, too, has been one of the dark places of the universe.'

Lomar looked pensively out the viewport of Vega Station, his deeply-lined face reflected in the MLI glass, seeming lost in his own memories. But we knew better, we cadets: he knew he had us with that remark, and that we would wait patiently for his tale to unfold. That is why we gathered every night in the bar of the Observation Deck, after all, to glean a bit of knowledge from Starfleet's oldest hand. They said he was 150, though he himself would only admit to 99, some modesty or vanity holding him back from claiming the century mark and his letter from the Council. Maybe he just didn't want to draw attention to himself. But when he spoke – to a few interested last-year cadets – we listened.

We wanted to know what was Out There. What he'd seen. What we might find.

It was Hardaway that spoke, always the one with the quick answer in class. Bit of an apple-;polisher, really. 'We know. The Battle of Vega Station. We saw it in the history vids.'

Lomar raised one bushy eyebrow ironically. 'Oh, you know all about it, do you? Thought I did, too, when I was your age. I was wrong.'

I was curious. 'The Treaty of Vega Station was signed more than 200 years ago, wasn't it?' Lomar nodded. 'But you know something the vids don't show us?' He nodded again, his heavy-lidded eyes hooding, like a hawk's.

'Get me a drink – rum toddy – and I'll tell you what the old man told me. Sitting right here. When I was your age. A veteran he was…'

'A veteran he was,' he repeated, his hot drink in front of him, and partially in him, and we wet-behind-the-ears leaning forward to catch the story. 'I ran into him when I was in Academy. He looked…shot. Finished, washed up. He had that haunted look. The thousand parsec stare, they used to call it. So I manoeuvred him into the bar, got him a drink, and pestered him to tell me.' He chuckled drily. 'What an original idea.' We laughed, a bit shamefacedly, but we knew he'd tell the story now, so we were easy about the jibe.

'You know what I wanted to know. What you'd like to know, what none of us – old hands or newbies – will ever know, barring , well... What it was like. Not just what it was like to be at Vega Station – here – when the two biggest space fleets in history ran each other off the star charts. Not just what it was like to see that cyborg army cross the Plains of Mamre, 150,000 thousand strong, and every one with the same grim face. Not just what it was like to go into captivity, be marched in chains under the Enemy's triumphal arch. No.

'What you and I want to know is…what does it feel like. What is combat like? What is it like to fight for your very existence? I've lived…quite a long time, and I'll never know. And nor will you. Because those days are gone. Because there hasn't been a war since then, not one. And sometimes…sometimes we're sorry. And then we're ashamed because we're sorry. And that's what Curtis knew, he knew that when he saw my eager face – oh, I looked eager enough back then – and he looked at me for a moment in disgust, before he turned his head to that viewport there, and spoke to me without looking back until he'd told the whole tale.

'Until I knew what it was we had to be ashamed of.

'This is what Curtis told me.' And, as if reenacting that encounter, Lomar turned his face back to the viewport, and told us the story in Curtis' own words, without looking at us. His voice took on a new timbre: harsher, deeper. And his accent changed, as he remembered the old soldier's words.

'You think it were abaht the killin'. Mebbe. But it were more abaht the dyin'.

'It were more abaht…what died. Especially…the Gaels.'

'Gaels usta be different, you know. They didn't run away from folk. They'd go raht up to a human, give ye a kiss, like we'd shake hands. Ain't seen that…since. They usta sing for us, too, and dance…nah they just do it in the warren, when we ain't looking.

'It ain't just acause of the War. It's acause…

'We let 'em dahn, ye see. It was allus the bargain 'twixt usn. The Gaels'd run the ships, an' we'd take keer of the Gaels. Just like now, we fed 'em, clothed 'em, kept the predators away, didn't let nobody hurt 'em…

'We didn't do that acause we loved 'em, of course. We did it because the cheapest and fastest source of energy in the universe is a Gael tom. You make him happy – you're Starfleet trained, you know how it's done – he generates air, gravity, water. They's the smartest things on two legs, too. Ain't nothin' they can't do, 'cept take keer of theirselves. But they allus had their big, brave Starfleet men to take keer of 'em. We done it, too, and told ourselves we loved 'em.

'It were the first year of the War. Things was really tough. The Enemy held most of the planets, back then – we controlled space, but once we made planetfall, it were a different story. I was at Antilles Prime – ye've heered of it, everybody knows that one. It were a disaster. Five thousand of us they took away, marched in chains through the capital. Fifty Gaels. They never caught so many at one time before, and they never did again.

'At the end of the War, when they signed the Treaty, one thousand of us came home. But not one Gael.

They're supposed to be immortal, ye know. I've met some that claimed over a thousand year. But they can die…

'It's hard to do. But they can die.

'They put us by fifty in the caves of Perpetuan. They're still digging out the bones. We ne'er saw daylight until the war was over, five year long. At first, they kept the Gaels sep'rate. They wanted to wean 'em over to theirselves, you see.

But it didn't work. They threatened 'em. They hit 'em. They starved 'em. But they couldn't take what they wanted by force, d'ye see…the Gaels'd of give it to 'em. But they didn't know how to let 'em take it.

'All that energy they wanted, and all it cost was a little kindness, a little joy for somebody else. And they couldn't figger out how to give it. So they put 'em back in with us, one to a cave. Thinkin', mebbe they'd go back to us, mebbe they'd get the energy that way, power their ships that way. When they was together, they could comfort each other. But now, they only had us.

'That's when Commodore Bacon made the decision. Nobody was to touch 'em. If we couldn't win, we wasn't about to lose 'em to the Enemy. And every man jack of us obeyed the Commodore…for the greater good, I suppose.

'I remember the tom we had. He was from my ship, the Dreadnought, I'd spent many a Fourth Watch with him, pleasant little chap, all of four foot three, abaht. His name was Taigh, or Turlough…I never can remember.

He was like all of 'em, slight, looked sort of like a human child with his clothes on, only with the perportions of a grown man, no big head nor nothin'. He had the loveliest smile on him, and a thick head of curly black hair. They'd took all their uniforms, and he was in rags. The only Starfleet thing they had left was that gold collar they wear, the one that never comes off.

'Taigh, or Turlough, he was a sweet little thing, but like all of 'em, he was gettin' desp'rate. They get sad, you see, and sick, if they don't get the energy, and what with bein' deprived of his companions, and the Enemy beatin' on 'em, and us ignorin' 'em, they was getting' pretty low. He'd go from one to the other of us, tryin' to get in the cot with us, or beggin' for affection, just so's you'd hold him. But we knew our duty, we Starfleet men, and we spurned him like you'd spurn a cur dog. Finally, he'd give up, and go lie down in a corner and cry hisself to sleep. Sometimes he'd sing – pretty songs, they made us feel better, mebbe they did him, too.

'It got so we'd hardly notice him, just mebbe when we went out to the mines to labour , and when we come back, he'd have made us a fire with stuff from somewheres, and cooked us somethin'. He'd find food somehow, or he'd make somethin' outta them rations that tasted better than it had a right to taste. That's Gaels for you, you give 'em an old shoe, they'll make steak tartare someways. We'd eat it and be grateful – it saved some lives, that food – but we wouldn't go back on our oath, and never a caress or a hug would he get from us.

'The awful thing abaht it was, that one tom could've changed everything. If we'd given him what he needed – and it ain't rocket science, like they says, simple enough to learn how they're made – he'd of near exploded with joy. That cave could've been warm, and bright, and smelled like heaven. We could've rigged a replicator, and had better food. Nah, wasn't we brave not to do it?

'One evenin', when we were sitting around eatin' a stew our tom had made – I remember that stew, it was probly rat, but it tasted like filet mignon to me – when Taigh, or Turlough, suddenly sat up and pricked his ears. I mean literally, they can do that, and we knew he was hearin' the others. At first, we couldn't hear nothin', but then we could. Echoin' down the caves, a hollow, keenin' sound, the loneliest sound I've ever heered. It sent shivers up you, that sound. It went on for a long time, up and down the scale, and Taigh or Turlough just sittin' there, listenin', like it was tellin' him somethin'.

'And then it stopped. And that was worse.

'Taigh or Turlough, he didn't let on like it bothered him none, though. He just got up and picked up the dishes, went to wash 'em out. But from that day, never a word or a song came out of his mouth.

'Until the end.

'They'd decided to die, you see. That was the message. If none of the humans wanted 'em, I guess they just figgered they go away to wherever Gaels go, and leave us this place. We none of us knew it – we didn't even know they could die. And we sure didn't know how hard it was. Not till they started doin' it, one by one by one, and the whisperin' started, how…awful…it was.

'I'd hurt my foot in a rockslide, and stayed behind that day. That was how come me to be there when he did it. And how come me to do what I did. There wasn't nobody to see me, you ken.

'I was sittin' on my cot, tryin' to mend a pair of socks that was more hole than sock, when I heered him from the corner where he'd made his nest. A low groanin' sound, and little sobs. I looked around, but it weren't nobody there, so I went over to see what ailed him.

'I were shocked. I guess, like the rest of us, I hadn't really looked at him in awhile. He looked terrible. His face was white as a sheet, and you could see the bones in it. His little arms looked like sticks. I picked him up – he was light as a feather, didn't weigh no more'n a cat – and laid him on my cot, first bed the poor tyke had seen in months. He smiled up at me.

''I'm glad it's you, Mr Curtis,' said he. 'I've got to say my goodbyes now, and I'd like them to be to somebody I have good memories of.'

'I shushed him, told him I'd get him some broth, or some water, or whatever we had in that hellhole to make him better, just don't talk like that, but he shook his head. 'I've eaten my last morsel in this place, Mr Curtis, and I'm moving on to a better, but I've got a last request.'

'Well, what could I say? I'd of promised him the twin moons of Sulfan, then, poor little Taigh or Turlough. I nodded, whatever he wanted, and he smiled again, the way he used to, back in the day, when he'd be just about to tell you the best joke that ever was.

''You see, when we go, we usually ask a friend to remember us,' he said, 'but they kept us apart, and we can't get our…memories…back in the pool without somebody to remember us. So, would you remember me, sir, and tell the others when you get home that T…

'And here he said, 'Taigh' or 'Turlough', but to save my soul I can't remember which. That Taigh or Turlough…'danced the Dance of the Great Circle in the Horsehead Nebula once. They'll know what it means.'

'I nodded, too choked up to speak. And then his eyes got all bright and he started to sing. He sang the most beautiful song I had ever heered, or am ever likely to hear again. That song had all the sadness in the world wrapped up in it, I reckon, and when he sang it, he looked right at me, like he was begging me to take his last song and share it with somebody.

'I can't remember a note of it. I'm tone-deaf.

'When he finished, it were like the last breath went out of him. His eyes sort of sparkled for a second, and then the light went out. What happened next were so sudden I didn't have no time to prepare for it, though I'd heered abaht it in the mines.

His whole body, all at once, just turned to dust and collapsed out of my arms. I didn't have no time to jump back. It weren't disgustin' – they never was, smelled like some sort of flower, anyways – the dust smelled like that, like flowers…honeysuckle, it were.

'And lying on my cot, amid that sweet dust, was this.'

Lomar turned his gaze back to his listeners, and blinked once. 'You all have learned to work with Gaels. I think you know what it was Curtis held up to me then. To learn the rest of the story, you'll have to take a short walk with me, to where Curtis took me next, to show me the reason why he'd come to this place after so many years.'

Of course, we did have an idea what Curtis had been holding – but couldn't imagine what could have come next. When we came aboard the station, we hadn't been given the whole tour, you see.

We eager cadets, wide-eyed, followed Lomar out of the bar and into the wide atrium of Vega Station. There, as every schoolchild knows, stands the huge monument to the Peace Treaty, the famous twenty-five-foot statue of Eirene, her arms outstretched, embracing a cloud of stars. The antigravity effect alone won the sculptor, the famous Bergson, interplanetary acclaim. Around the pedestal was carved the famous dedication, 'To the Heroes.'

We thought perhaps that Lomar would stop there, and finish his story. But he walked past it as if he didn't see it, and we followed him, to a poorly-lit corner under the presentation staircase that rises from behind the statue.

Lomar stopped and pointed. 'This is where he carried it. What he'd come here to do.'

In the corner was a small fountain, one of those kitschy artificial waterfalls that everybody's maiden aunt used to have at home. The one with the pink stones. The one that made you want to go to the bathroom. The kind that sometimes disgraced the poorer sort of shopping mall, where silly people threw in coins.

There was a glint in the fountain. But not from coins: in the basin glittered fifty circles – we counted them later – overlapping, shining in the cheap coloured lights.

Fifty gold Gael collars.

I think we caught our breath, then, all together. But Lomar wasn't finished. He knelt beside the fountain, taking his Starfleet-issue penlight and turning it on the shiny pink stones.

'Read.'

So we read. All around the base of the fountain, etched into the pink stone, were names.

'Caoimhin. Ruarigh. Mairead. Eamonn, Padraig…'

And, in a corner, 'Taigh/Turlough'.

We thanked Lomar, and went to our quarters to sleep on the matter.