Soleta glanced up from her science station as she became aware that Greer was hovering over her. She glanced up at him, her eyebrows puckered in curiosity. "Yes?" she asked.
Glancing around the bridge in a great show of making sure that nobody was paying attention to them, Greer said to her in a lowered voice, "I just wanted to say thanks."
"You're welcome," replied Soleta reasonably, and tried to go back to her studies of mineral samples extracted from Centauri Prime.
"Don't you want to know why?" he asked after a moment.
"Not particularly, Lieutenant. Your desire to say it is enough for me."
"I know I was 'spacing out' earlier, like I do sometimes, and I know that you were defending me. I just wanted to say I appreciate it."
"I was aware that your habits posed no threat to the Universe," she said reasonably. "I informed the captain and commander of that fact. Beyond that---what is there to say?"
"Why'd you leave, Seleya? Leave Fleet, that is."
The question caught her off guard. Now it was her turn to look around the bridge to make sure that nobody was attempting to listen in. She needn't have worried; eavesdropping was hardly a pastime which Fleet personnel habitually engaged in. Still, she was shocked over how uncomfortable the question made her feel. "It doesn't matter. I came back."
"It does matter. We were friends, Seleya, back in the Academy. Classmates."
"Classmates, yes. I had no friends." She said it in such a matter-of-fact manner that there was no hint of self-pity in her tone.
"Oh, cut it out! Of course you had friends. Wrrf, Jakar, me...."
"Ronald, this isn't really necessary."
"I think it is."
"And I say it's not!"
If they had been trying to make sure that their conversation didn't draw any undue attention, the unexpected outburst by Soleta put an end to the plan. Everyone on the bridge looked at the two of them in unrestrained surprise, attention snagged by Soleta's unexpectedly passionate outburst. From the command chair, Rush asked, "Problem?"
"No, sir," said Soleta quickly, and Greer echoed it.
"Are you sure?"
"Quite sure, yes."
"Because you seem to be having a rather strident dispute," he said, his gaze shifting suspiciously from one ot the other.
"Mr. Greer merely made a scientific observation, and I was disagreeing with it."
And now Johansen spoke up, observing, "It's rare that anyone hears that kind of vehemence from anyone, let alone a Vulcan."
"Lieutenant Soleta cares passionately about her work," Greer said, not sounding particularly convincing.
"I see," said Rush, who didn't. "Mr. Greer, time to Jetitiea?"
"Twenty-seven minutes, sir," Greer said without hesitation, as he turned away from Soleta and headed back to the conn.
Rush never failed to be impressed over how Greer seemed to carry that knowledge in his skull. Only Vulcans seemed nearly as capable of such rapid-fire calculations, and Greer seemed even faster than the average Vulcan.
Which Soleta (for her part) didn't seem to be. Her outburst had hardly been prompted by some kind of scientific disagreement. But Rush didn't feel it his place to probe too deeply into the reasons for it----at least not as long as he felt that his ship's welfare wasn't at issue.
If it did become an issue, though, he wouldn't hesitate to question Soleta and find out just what exactly had caused her to raise her voice to Greer despite her Vulcan upbringing.
"Vulcans," he muttered to himself.
Soleta turned in her chair and looked questioningly at Rush. "What about Vulcans, Captain?" she asked.
He stared at her pale-green skin, and he said, "I was merely thinking how what we need on this ship is more Vulcans."
"Vulcans are always dependable, Captain," she readily agreed, and went back to her analyses.
The main lounge on the Universe was situated on F Deck in the rear of the saucer section, and was informally called the Team Room, after an old term left over from the early days of space exploration. It was to the team room that Wren 283 had retired upon hish returning to the ship. S/he had felt a certain degree of frustration since s/he had not had the chance to complete hish work on the Qeexer. If there was one thing that Wren disliked, it was leaving a project undone.664Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbj2zbDrlD5
And then s/he saw another potentially unfinished project enter the Team Room. Dr. Selar had just walked in and was looking around as if hoping to find someone. Wren looked around as well and saw that all of the tables had at least one occupant. Then s/he looked back at Selar and saw an ever-so-brief look of annoyance cross the Vulcan's face. That there was any readable emotion at all displayed by the Vulcan was surprising enough, and then Wren realized the problem. Selar wasn't looking for someone to sit with. She was trying to find an unoccupied table.
Her gaze surveyed the room and she caught sight of Wren. Wren, for hish part, endeavored to stay low-key. S/he gestured in a friendly, but not too aggressive manner, and waved at the empty seat opposite hir. Selar hesitated a moment and then, with what seemed to be a profound mental sigh, approached Wren. Wren couldn't help but admire her stride: she was tall, almost regal of bearing. When Selar sat down, she kept her entire upper body straight. Her posture was perfect, her attitude unflinching.
"I think," Selar said in her careful, measured tone, "that our first encounter was not properly handled---by either of us."
"I think the fault was mostly mine," Wren replied.
"As do I. You were, after all, the one who was rather aggressively propositioning me. Nonetheless, it would not be appropriate to place the blame squarely on you. Doubtlessly I was insufficiently clear in making clear to you my lack of interest."
"Well now," Wren shifted a bit in hish chair, "I wouldn't call it 'aggressively propositioning' exactly."
"No?" She raised a skeptical eyebrow.
Wren leaned forward and said, "I would call it......" But then hish voice trailed off. S/he reconsidered hish next words and discarded them. Instead s/he said, "Can I get you a drink?"
"I am certain that whatever you are having will be more than sufficient."
Wren nodded, rose, disappeared behind the bar, and returned a moment later with a glass containing the same dusky-colored liquid that was in hish glass. Selar lifted it, sniffed it experimentally, then downed half the glass. It was only her formidable Vulcan self-control that prevented her from coughing it back up through her nose. "This----is not synthehol," she said rather unnecessarily.
S/he shook hish head. "It's called 'Scotch.' Rather hard to come by, actually."
"How did you develop a taste for it?"
"Well," said Wren, and it was obvious from the way s/he was warming to the subject that s/he had discussed this topic a number of times in the past. "About two years ago, I was taking shore leave on Arion III---a charming world. Have you ever been there?" Selar shook her head slightly and Wren continued, "I was at this one pub, and it was quite a lively place, I can tell you. It was a place where the women were so....."
Wren was about to rhapsodize about them at length, but the look of silent impatience on Selar's face quickly dissuaded her. "In any case," continued Wren, "I felt very much in my element. We Zypoths are sometimes referred to as a rather hedonistic race. That's certainly a sweeping generalization, but not wholly without merit. In this pub, however, watching the Arions and assorted visitors from other planets engaging in assorted revelries and debaucheries, why----I felt that my humble leanings were dwarfed in comparison.
"And then my attention was drawn by one fellow seated over in a corner. A Terran, from the look of him, with hair silver as a crescent moon."
"You are no doubt attracted to him," said Selar dryly.
"No, actually. He was a bit old for my tastes. But I was interested in him, for he seemed to be watching everything without any interest in participating. Furthermore he was wearing----believe it or not----a Flee uniform that hasn't been issued in years. A costume, I figured. I asked the bartender about him, and apparently he'd simply wandered in one day some weeks previously and just----I don't know---taken up residence there. He hardly ever left. So I went over and chatted with him. Asked him what he was doing there. He told me he was 'reliving old times,' as he put it. Remembering friends long gone, times left behind. He was reticent at first, but I got him talking. I've got a knack for doing that."
"Indeed."
"Yes. And he seemed particularly intrigued when I told him I was an engineer. He claimed that he was as well. Claimed, in fact, that he wrote the book on engineering."
"A man with drinks in him will claim a great many things when he seeks the attention of a pretty face," observed Selar.
Wren was about to continue when s/he paused a moment and, with a grin, said, "Are you saying you think I have a pretty face?"
"I am saying that, with sufficient intoxication, anyone may seem attractive," replied Selar. "You were saying....?"
"Yes, well---as I said, he boasted of a great many things. Sufficiently intoxicated, as you noted. Came up with the most insane boasts. Said he was over a hundred and fifty years old, that he served with Captain Tom Sawyer----all manner of absurd notions. And he also had no patience at all for----how did he put it....?" And Wren made a passable attempt at imitating a British accent as s/he growled, " 'The wretched brew that passes for a man's drink in this godforsaken century.' He was drinking this," and Wren tapped the glass of brown liquid.
"That very drink?"
"Not this specific one, of course. It was two years ago, remember. But he seemed to have a somewhat endless supply of it. We seemed to communicate quite well with each other. At first, I believe, he took me for a standard-issue female, and he openly flirted with me. When I informed him of the Zypoth race and our dual gender, at first he seemed amazed and then he just laughed and said, "and again Wren copied the accent, " 'Blimey! I would've loved to set up Captain Sawyer with one of you chaps on a blind date. There would've been some tales to tell about that one.'" Wren pause and then added, by way of explanation, "There are some who find our dual sex disturbing."
"Is that a fact," said Selar noncommittally.
"Yes." Wren swirled hish drink around in the glass. "Tell me, Doctor----are you among them?"
"Not at all. I find you disturbing."
Wren's smiled displayed hish fangs. "I'll take that as a compliment.," s/he said.
"As you wish."
"So anyway, the Terran offered me some what he was drinking, and I tried it, and I swear to you I thought that it was going to peel the skin off the inside of my throat. I quickly realized that hew as right. The stuff they've gotten us used to in Fleet is nothing compared to genuine Earth alcohol. Hell, even Zypoth beverages pale in comparison to," and s/he rubbed the glass affectionately, "good ol' Scotch whiskey. He told me that if I had any intention of being a true engineer, that I should be able to drink him under the table. So I matched him drink for drink."
"Did you succeed? In drinking him under the table, I mean."
"Are you kidding?" Wren laughed. "The last thing I remember was his smiling face turning at about a forty-five degree angle----or at least that's what it seemed like before I hit the floor. But before that happened, I really let him have it."
"What means 'have it'?"
"Well, I told him that I thought he was being gutless. That he was sitting in this pub hiding from the rest of the galaxy, when he could be out accomplishing amazing things. That he might be telling himself that he was nostalgic, but in fact he was just being gutless," and s/he tapped one long finger on the table three times to emphasize the last three words. Then s/he winced slightly and said, "At least I think that's what I told him. It got a little fuzzy there at the end. When I came to, I was in a back room at the pub with all sorts of debauchery and perversity going on all around me. Reminded me of home, really. And I thought he'd left me something: a bottle of Scotch, and a message scribbled on the label of the bottle. And the message was exactly two words long. He'd written, " 'You're right.'"
" 'You're right.' That was the message in its entirety."
"The whole thing, yes. Never saw him again, but I can only assume that he decided to get back out to where he belonged."
"And where would that be?"
"Damned if I know." Wren looked forward. "Do you understand what I'm saying to you, Doctor?"
"Oh. Well---not really, no. I had simply assumed this was a long and fairly pointless narrative. Why? Is there something to this story beyond that?"
"What I'm saying, Cessan, is that we shouldn't be afraid to try new things. We Zypoths have our....unusual anatomical quirks. But..."
She put up a hand. "Lieutenant Commander...."
"An unwieldy title. I prefer Wren from you."
"Very well. Commander Wren....despite a valiant endeavor, this conversation is not proceeding in substantially different fashion than our previous one. I am not interested in you."
"Yes, you are. You just don't know it yet."
"May I ask how you come to this intriguing, albeit entirely erroneous conclusion?"
"All right---but only if you promise to keep it between us."
She pushed the drink of Scotch several inches away from her as she said, "I assure you, Chief Wren---nothing will give me greater personal satisfaction than knowing that this conversation will go no further than this table."
S/he leaned forward conspiratorially and gestured that Selar should get closer to hir. With a soft sigh, Selar did as Wren indicated, and the Zypoth said in such a low voice that even the acute hearing of the Vulcan could barely hear hir:
"Pheremones," whispered Wren.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Pheremones. Zypoth can detect an elevated pheromone level in most race. It's a gift. It cues us to rising sexual interest and excitement."
"I see. And you're detecting an elevated pheromone level in me."
"That's precisely right," Wren said with such confidence that even the unflappable Selar felt a bit disconcerted. "You're becoming sexually excited----more so when you're with me, I like to think, although that may just be wishful thinking on my part. I have always been something of a romantic."
"Commander----I am certain that you are quite good at your job."
"I am."
"But you are unfamiliar with Vulcan biology. It is...." And then she caught herself, surprise flooding through her mind. She had been about to discuss such delicate and personal matters as Farr'Pon with an offworlder. What was she thinking? Why was she having trouble prioritizing? "---it is impossible that I would be interested in you, in any event."
"Impossible? Why?"
"I cannot go into it."
Wren leaned forward with a look of genuine curiosity on hish face. "Why not?"
"I simply cannot," Selar said, her voice rising a bit more than she would have thought appropriate. The volume of her response didn't quite penetrate.
"Look, at the very least, I'd like to be your friend. If there's some problem that....."
And Selar was suddenly on her feet, and her response was a roar of fury. "I said I cannot go into it! What part of 'cannot' did you fail to comprehend?"
The silence was instantaneous throughout the Team Room. Selar had managed, with no effort at all, to focus all attention in the room on herself. It was hardly a position that she desired to be in. Slowly her gaze surveyed the Team Room. Fighting to recapture her normal tone of voice, she asked, "May I assume you have something of greater importance on your minds than me?"
The crewbeings needed no further urging to return to their respective conversations, though there were assorted quick glances in Selar's direction.
Automatically she put her hand to the underside of her throat. Her pulse was racing. The sounds of the room suddenly seemed magnified. Her temper had flared with Wren, and although s/he might be one of the more irritating individuals that Selar had ever met, s/he was hardly enough to warrant the Vulcan tossing aside years of training and indulging in an emotional outburst.
"I have to go," she said, exerting her magnificent control over herself.
All flirtation, all smugness, was gone from Wren. Instead s/he took Selar's hand firmly in hish own. Selar tried halfheartedly to pull clear, but Wren's grip was shockingly strong. Belatedly Selar remembered that Zypoths had physical strength approaximately two and a half times Earth normal. "Selar----if nothing else, we're fellow officers. If a fellow officer is in trouble, I'll do everything I can to alleviate that trouble. Whatever is wrong with you, I want to help."
"I do not need help. I merely need to be left alone. Thank you." And she exited as fast as she could from the Team Room. This left everyone staring in confusion at Wren. Wren, for hish part merely raised a glass. "May the Great Bird of the Galaxy roost on your planets," s/he said to the collective Team Room. S/he finished off the contents of hish glass and then, with a shrug, s/he reached over, picked up Selar's glass, and knocked that back, too.
Selar ran as fast as she could down the Universe corridors. Twice she almost knocked over passing crewbeings before she made it to life station. Upon seeing her return, Dr. Verrill promptly proceeded to give her a quick precis on the status of the four dozen passengers from the Qeexar. But before he could get out more than one sentence, she cut him off with a sharp gesture.664Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjAsqrHB2EA
"Is there something wrong, Doctor?" asked Verrill, now clearly worried about the condition of the chief medical officer. "Anything that I can help you with?"
"I am fine," she replied in a less-than-convincing manner.
"Are you sure? You seem rather flushed. Is there a...."
"Are you an expert on Vulcan physiology?" Selar demanded.
"No---no, not an expert per se, although I'm certainly well versed in...."
"Well, I am an expert, Doctor," she shot back. "I have been living inside my particular Vulcan physiology for quite some time now, and I assure you that I am in perfect health."
"With all due respect, Doctor, I don't know as I'd agree."
"With all due respect to you, Doctor, your agreement or lack thereof is of no relevance to me whatsoever." And with that she stalked quickly to her office, locking the door behind her to guarantee privacy.
She had no desire to subject herself to a medical scan in life station in full view of every one of her staff and technicians. She had no particular concern over the privacy of other crewmembers when it came to getting physicals or having problems attended to. But now that it was she herself who was in question, her right to privacy had assumed paramount importance. It was ironic, and yet an irony that she was not quite in any condition to truly appreciate.
She opened an equipment compartment in the wall and extracted a medical tricorder. Adjusting it for herself, she began to take readings.
Pulse, heartbeat, respiration----everything was elevated. Moreover, she was having trouble focusing on anything.
Selar reached deep into herself. A calm, cool center of logic was drilled into Vulcans at such an early age that it became utterly ingrained into their nature. Yet Selar was having to relive that training, finding that cool center and tapping into it. her body, her system, was entirely at the command of her mind and she would force it to obey her commands. Slowly she quieted her hurried breathing. She cleared away every noise, every distraction, and she could hear the accelerated beating of her own heart. She slowed it, bit by bit, replacing the dim haze which seemed to have taken hold of her with sedate, serene blue.
She thought back to her first days at the Academy, the first time that she had encountered the Academy pool. Such things were virtually unknown on Vulcan, an arid planet with a steady red sky and a sun so searing that Vulcans had even developed an inner eyelid to shield themselves against its effects. The pool might well have been an alien artifact; indeed, in many ways it was to her.
Clad in a bathing suit, she had stood on the edge of the pool, dipping a toe into it, unsure of what to do. Every logical bone in her body had told her that there was nothing to fear. That fear was besides the point, as so often it was. And yet she could not bring herself to ease herself into the water....until the decision had been taken out of her hands when a passing cadet named Strong had thought it the height of hilarity to shove her from behind into the pool....and proceeded to drown, since naturally people who are born on a desert planet have absolutely no idea how to swim. The selfsame Strong, chagrined, had immediately leaped into the water and pulled out the sputtering Vulcan.
But Cessan Selar had taken that first unpleasant experience as a challenge, and every day found her at the pool until she was as good a swimmer as anyone at the Academy. Many was the time where she would just float in the water, arms outstretched, bobbling with the gentle lapping of the water.
Now she was projecting herself back to that time. She imagined herself floating, floating every so gently, buoyed as if by lapping waves. Bit by bit, she fashioned her recollections of the Academy pool into a place of escape. The rest of the world, her worries, her concerns, her uncharacteristic confusion, all melted away as she bobbed in the water with no distractions. She felt her composure returning to her, her ineffable logic controlling her actions once again. Whatever was happening to her, it was nothing that she couldn't control. Nothing that.....
"Hi," said a voice. And there, swimming past her in a tight bathing suit that accentuated hish firm breasts, hish curvaceous hips, and also what seemed an impressive male endowment, was Wren.
Selar snapped forward in her chair, the pool vanishing along with the Zypoth intruder. She looked around and found herself (of course) still in her office. A quick scan with the medical tricorder told her that her bioreadings were back to normal. But the image of Wren was solidly rooted in her mind.
She leaned forward toward her computer terminal and said, "Computer."
"Working."
"Personal medical log, Stardate 61037.3----"
There was a pause, sufficiently long enough for the computer to prompt, "Waiting for entry."
Selar could only think of one thing to say, really. Five words that summarized her present situation with simple eloquence.
"I am in big trouble," she said.
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