DISCLAIMER: Paramount/Viacom owns these characters. I play in their holodecks. A VIEW Two figures clung to the face of the rock. Their voices echoed through the mountains. "Come on Torres, you've just got to see this." "Right," the thought. "That usually means that whatever it is, it is going to be something so extremely ludicrous..." "Hey Torres, did you hear me? I said hurry up." "...that I have no interest in seeing it whatsoever." "B'Elanna, are you okay down there?" Tom asked, his voice filled with concern. "I'm sorry Tom, did you say something?" "Yes, I did. Look B'Elanna, I know that you haven't done a lot of rock climbing, but you can't space out on me like that. You could fall and hurt yourself." "Tom, we're on the holodeck. The safeties are on." "That doesn't mean anything B'Elanna, you could still give me quite a scare." Glancing down, she decided to table the discussion for later. "Tom is right," she thought. "It is a very long way down." Becoming almost dizzy at the sight below her, she quickly shifted her gaze upward. "So Tom, what is this that I'm suppose to see?" "You'll see. Come on. It's only a few more meters." Paris pulled a piton out of his pack, and imbedded it into the rock. He slipped the rope through it, and continued his climb. "She's got to love this." he thought. "If she doesn't, then...I almost hate to think about the possibilities. It's a very long way down." "Well Tom, I've got to hand it to you." "What, me, what did I do?" he protested. "You managed to find something worse than Klingon martial arts." "Yep. It's going to be a long way down." he muttered. "You know, you never should have started that rubber band fight on the bridge." she called. "Oh, come on B'Elanna, I didn't start that." "Sure, Tuvok did." He reached up to feel for a crevice in the rock above him. "Hey, B'Elanna, I think we're at the top." "Paris, has anyone ever told you that you're a master of changing subjects?" Tom pulled himself onto the top of the cliff. Reaching down, he offered his hand to the Klingon engineer below. "Subject, what subject?" He asked as he pulled her up beside him. She sat facing away from the edge of the cliff. He sat just in front of her, facing the opposite direction. If he turned his head to the left, he could see her whole face. They sat not looking at each other but at the scenery around them. "See, you're doing it again." "Doing what?" "Tom, stop it." "Stop what." "Paris, it's a long way down." Tom glanced at her briefly, and then looked back toward the valley below. "Watch it Tom," he warned himself. "All right, I'll stop." "So, why did you start it?" "Well, sometimes the bridge gets awfully tense. I thought it might lighten up the mood a bit. I took a chance on Captain Janeway not minding too much." "Did she?" "Not really. My "punishment" was to remove all rubber bands from the bridge. Reasonable." B'Elanna studied him from the corner of her eye. He was sitting on the edge of the cliff with the safety line still attached to his belt. "Does he even know how good he looks right now?" she wondered. "I suppose. So, Tom, what is it that I just "have" to see?" "Mmm, turn around." She turned around to face the edge of the cliff. They sat side by side on the edge of the cliff. "Tom, it's amazing." She gasped. "Where are we?" "Nowhere." "Come on Tom, this can't be just nowhere. Where is it?" "Well, nowhere that I know of. I just sort of made it up." "You made this?" "Well, not all of it. It started out as a recreation of the Great Tiperon Mountain Range on Martellan 4. I took my first vacation without my parents there the summer before I entered the academy. Some friends and I went mountain climbing. What I remembered most was the scenery." "So, are you going to tell me what's real, and what's not?" "Sure. Over there," he pointed to the far left, "is where the range ends and the ocean begins." "I don't think that I've ever seen anything quite like it. It's almost as if the ocean stops at the side of a mountain." "It does. Right now, we are only 100 meters above sea level. The floor of the valley is 900 meters below sea level. That's what causes all the lakes between the mountains. They are extensions of the ocean. The mountain range continues into the ocean for several hundred kilometers. Do you see the cluster of islands off on the horizon?" "Yes, just barely." "Those are the tops of the mountains in this chain. The water is crystal clear in the lakes and ocean. So much so that the ski resorts double as skin diving resorts. Now, look a little more to the right. The lake in the next valley over." "The one with the waterfall?" "Yes. I added the waterfall. That lake has been cut off from the ocean for the last 2 million years. Or so they say. I thought that it would look better with a water source. The river flows from the top of the mountain in the distance," he pointed to a snow capped mountain near the horizon. "and it flows down and through the valleys. At one point, it tunnels into the side of a mountain, and up to it's top. That was the only way that I could hide water flowing up in the program. It flows out, and around that mountain, then spills over the side. About half way down, it hits a ledge in the side of the mountain and pools into a small pond. At it's deepest point it is about a meter deep. From there it flows down off the ledge into the lake, causing the double waterfall effect. There is a path that leads up the pond, with several campsites along the way. The hike takes about a day up, and a day back. Or at least it should. I've no way to test it. Not enough holodeck time." "It's so green." "It is isn't it. The water is so abundant that plants flourish on the mountain sides. They are covered with oak, maple, and pine trees. Also from my changes. The native Martellan fauna didn't have quite the appeal that trees from Earth did." "Tom, don't you think that's cheating just a little?" "Well, maybe. But they were the last thing I changed. And besides, the unedited version of the mountains is saved under a different holodeck program. After I changed everything else, the trees didn't seem to matter much. "Farther to the right over there, where the lakes stop, is where the snow begins." "I don't see any snow." "Another of my changes. Something wasn't quite right about it. Farther off in the distance, do you see it now?" "I think so, yes." "I've been told that the skiing is excellent. The resorts provide shuttles to both the slopes, and the ocean." "Tom, between the lake and the ski slopes, is that sheep?" "Very perceptive. It is. After I took out some of the snow, I found that something was missing. The grazing sheep give the appearance of pockets of snow on the mountain, without the snow." "And the sun, is it always so bright here?" "No." "Let me guess, more tampering." "Tampering, B'Elanna, I'm insulted. I programmed in six suns." "Six suns? Why?" "Well, you know how fond I am of the twentieth century." "So?" "Isaac Asimov wrote a short story in the mid twentieth century called "Nightfall." It was set on an alien planet with six suns. The primary star, two binary stars, and one red dwarf." "Tom, that's..." "I know. That's not possible. But, I liked the idea. So, I programmed in the six stars to this program. Now, it never gets dark." "Okay hotshot, what about eclipses?" "I didn't program in a satellite. No moon, no solar eclipses. So, what do you think?" "Doesn't sound like you changed too much." "Well, I'll show you the original someday. There's not much that's the same." "Tom, if I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to..." "Make a date?" he finished. "Yes." "Well?" "Tom, I'd love to." ***** Any comments welcome.