Текст книги "Over a Torrent Sea "

Автор книги: Christopher Bennett

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Now that the drama had subsided, he was content to try to put those thoughts aside. He and the others sat atop the Holiday’s roof—which had been adapted to function as a deck of sorts—having a leisurely picnic lunch while watching the distant fireworks of a lightning storm on the periphery of the superhurricane. It was nice to be able to relax on such an agreeable planet. Not only was Droplet nice and wet, and warmer than most of Arken II, but it had a good strong magnetic field as well. Normally he had to wear his anlec’ven, an inverted-U headdress made of black magnetic material, to prevent the disorientation Arkenites experienced when removed from the powerful field they’d evolved in. Down here, he could go without the headdress, something he could normally do only in his quarters with their built-in field generator. He felt a certain affinity for the animal forms of this world, which also had evolved with an innate magnetic perception, according to the scans and examinations of numerous sampled species. It was a valuable aid to navigation on a world without landmarks.

It was also agreeable to share a recreational moment with his crewmates again. He’d spent too much time in those quarters in the past few months, alone with his private grief. He took some comfort in the distraction of an enjoyably banal conversation with Commanders Vale and Pazlar about last week’s parrises squares finals, a recording of which had come in the last data burst from Starfleet.

But Vale trailed off in the middle of excoriating his opinion on the Izarian team’s defensive strategy, staring off toward a nearby thunderhead, one of the storms on the outer edge of Spot. “What is it?” he asked, turning to follow her gaze. But he saw nothing; human eyesight was considerably better than his.

“I’m not sure.” She deliberately moved her eyes back and forth, up and down. “Not just a floater in my eye. Anybody have a pair of binoculars?” she called down the hatch in a casual yet authoritative tone. She reached down, and seconds later binoculars magically appeared in her hand. She stood and searched the sky with them. “There it is. Hey, it is a floater, just not in my eye. An inflated, translucent sack, like a jellyfish, but with some more substantial components hanging from the bottom. Reminds me of an old-style weather balloon.”

“May I see, Commander?” Eviku requested.

Vale handed him the binoculars. “Better look fast before it drifts inside that thundercloud. There.” She tried to point it out to him; with his limited vision, it took a few moments to focus on it even with help from the binoculars’ readouts.

“I see, it’s—aah!” He winced as a bolt of lightning went off right in his line of sight.

“What?”

Eviku blinked, temporarily blinded. “That…scope needs better filters. I may need to see the doctor.” The thunder arrived in the middle of his sentence. “It appears the creature’s at the mercy of the wind. Getting sucked right into a low-pressure region.” He was starting to see the shapes of the two women, which was encouraging.

“It doesn’t seem like a very sensible design,” Pazlar said. “Well, as long as a species reproduces fast enough, evolution doesn’t care how self-defeating a design is.”

“I wonder what it’s filled with,” Vale mused. “Hot air, hydrogen, helium?”

“No helium to speak of on this planet. Hot air’s possible, but the mechanism for heating’s hard to guess. My bet’s hydrogen—that can be produced biologically.”

Eviku could see Vale well enough now to recognize that she was furrowing her brow. Humans conveyed a lot of expression with their unusually flexible foreheads. “Maybe we should take the shuttle up, try to grab it before it floats into the storm. Could be doing it a fav—”

Suddenly, lightning flashed again, luckily behind Eviku this time. He turned and looked through the binoculars, only to catch the final moments of the gas bag going up in a puff of flame and vapor, while the more substantial components of the creature plummeted toward the sea.

Pazlar turned to the first officer. “About that bet—”

“No takers. Hydrogen.”

The science officer grimaced. “Well, it could be methane.”

TITAN

Lieutenant Eviku and Ensign Y’lira Modan stood as Deanna entered the exobiology lab. “Commander!” Y’lira said. “What can we do for you?”

“At ease, both of you,” Deanna said with a smile, unsure whether they were deferring more to her rank or to her very pregnant condition. “I’m here for curiosity, not business. I’m actually getting a little bored stuck on the ship, and I just wanted to peer over your shoulders for a bit, if you don’t mind. Maybe contribute in some way.”

“Of course, Commander,” Eviku said. “You’re always welcome. Would you like to sit down?”

At first, she was inclined to brush off the invitation, but her ankles had other ideas. “Thank you,” she said, gratefully easing herself into an empty seat. Near the seat was an aquarium of sorts, a bit larger and more clinical than the one in which Captain Picard had kept Livingston, his lionfish. Some kind of invertebrate creature rested on the bottom. “I think your pet is dead,” she said.

“No, ma’am, just…inert,” Eviku replied.

“What is it?”

“It’s the ‘weather balloon’ organism Commander Vale and I observed three days ago.”

She stared. “I thought that blew up.”

“The gas bladder blew up,” Eviku said. “The rest of the creature’s surprisingly durable. Apparently it’s evolved the ability to survive lightning strikes when it gets sucked into storms.”

“Makes sense…I suppose. It seems it would be easier to avoid the storms in the first place.”

“That’s not the only anomaly. The surviving portion consists largely of sensory organs: sight, hearing, odor, pressure, EM fields, even infrared. And there seems to be very little to the brain that isn’t devoted to the sense organs. Although it’s hard to be certain with no significant neural activity, and I’d rather not dissect it.”

“Well, it’s at the mercy of the winds. I wouldn’t expect it to have much of its brain devoted to motor functions.”

“Yes, ma’am, but what does it need all those highly refined senses for if it can barely react to what it senses? Then there’s the question of how they get by without any evident control over their movements. How do they reproduce if the only way they ever encounter each other is by chance?”

“Spores? Buds?”

“Maybe. In any case, Commander Vale’s name for it—a weather balloon—was apt. A sac of buoyant gas with sensory equipment attached. Now if only we could figure out why a weather balloon would evolve naturally.”

Deanna recalled something he’d just said. “Why don’t you want to dissect it?”

“I’ve been keeping it alive to see if its gas bladder would regenerate after being hit by lightning. As far as I can tell from my studies, it does have that capability. But for some reason it isn’t making use of it.”

“Could the lightning have crippled it?”

“That was my thought, but there’s no sign of damage. It’s like it’s deliberately not healing itself. It’s essentially in a coma, absorbing minimal nutrients—just enough to maintain its physical status quo. And I can’t figure out why.”

Y’lira turned her large, unblinking turquoise eyes toward Deanna, who sensed uncertainty from the golden-skinned Selenean. “With respect, Commander, I’m uncertain how much you could contribute here. We’re basically dealing with animals here.”

“Well…animals have psychology too, Modan,” Deanna said with a shrug. “I’m not in Chamish’s league when it comes to that, but I’m happy to offer my perspective.”

“We could use some,” Eviku said. She sensed his usual low-level melancholy beneath the surface, but for now the Arkenite was caught up in his work. He was one of Huilan’s patients; it wasn’t her place to pry. “The ‘weather balloon’ isn’t the only mysterious creature on the planet. There are other species with disproportionate sensory capability, like the bugeye piscoids. There are creatures that occupy peculiarly broad ranges, such as a genus of zooplankton that’s been scanned by probes several kilometers down but has also been sampled just meters below the surface. Sea life is usually more stratified than that. We’ve also noted a number of species showing unusual behavior.”

“Such as?”

“We’ve observed movements that don’t have any clear motivation such as the pursuit of food or flight from predators. Indeed, there’s a species of piscoid that the squales feed upon, one that actually swims towardthem when it hears their calls.”

Deanna blinked. “Seriously?”

“Yes, it’s bizarre. They’re bright orange, so Bralik nicknamed them ‘flaming idiot fish.’” They shared a laugh. It was nice to feel humor from Eviku, though it was all too brief.

“One small molluscoid with prehensile claws has been observed in contact with numerous small creatures,” he went on, “and it’s hard to say what they’re doing with them, since they’re not just eating them. Sometimes they just seem to movethings from one place to another. A few times we’ve seen a flying piscoid circling around, holding a smaller organism in its tentacles. In fact, we’ve seen them doing this not far from our own shuttles. It’s like they’re watching us—but if so, why bring other animals along for the flight?”

Deanna furrowed her brow. “Would you say these species are tool users? Like the way some animals use rocks to open shellfish and the like?”

“We’ve seen no evidence of that, or of nestbuilding behavior—none of the usual types of animal tool use. And these species don’t have nearly large enough brains for ab stract thought, not given the type of neurological structure found on Droplet.”

“Certainly they show no sign of language,” Y’lira added. “The sounds they make among themselves are basic—here I am, where are you, I’m large and dangerous, I’m small and submissive, food is here, danger is coming, I wish to mate, the usual.” Deanna chuckled at the cryptolinguist’s deadpan recital. “But some of them have been noted making odd vocal exchanges with the squales. Although the squales do most of the vocalizing.”

“Does it seem like a conversation, or like some sort of dispute—the squales warning the other forms off when their boundaries are violated?”

“Hard to say, since we can’t get close enough to see. But these species make sounds to the squales—and occasionally to the other animals they interact with—that they don’t make among themselves. So we have no referent for what they mean.”

“And does the same apply to the sounds the squales make to them?”

“The squales’ vocalizations are so complex that we really can’t say.” Y’lira gestured at the receiver in her ear as she mentioned the squale song.

Deanna perked up. “Are you analyzing them now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’d love to listen to some.” She put her hands on her belly. “Plus it’s good to expose a developing infant to music. It’s been fascinating to sense how her emotional state responds to different musical styles. I’d love to know how she responds to squale song. If it wouldn’t be a distraction, Eviku,” she added.

“No, Commander. I think I’d enjoy that.”

With a nod, Y’lira activated the speakers on her console. Flowing, echoing cries filled the lab, hypnotic in their complexity, uplifting in their beauty. Deanna drank them in, slowing her breathing to minimize the interference for little What’s-her-name, and striving to render herself passive so as not to impose her own impressions on the little one. She was just a receiver, open to the sounds from without and the emotions from within.

But before she could get a clear read from the baby, she was startled out of her meditative state by a new sound from behind her, a sharp, staccato twittering that clearly wasn’t from the speakers. Deanna opened her eyes to see Eviku and Y’lira staring at her with shock.

No, not at her—at the tank behind her. She turned. The “weather balloon” creature was not visibly more active, but there was no question that it was the source of the sounds.

“It hasn’t done that before,” Eviku said. He activated the tank’s scanners. “But its metabolism is rising. It’s coming out of its dormancy. Odd.”

“You think that’s odd?” Y’lira asked. “It’s speaking squale!”

“A sort of pidgin squale, actually,” Y’lira told the assembled department heads two hours later. “Like a very simplified version of the same catalogue of sounds.”

“Are you suggesting that it was actually answeringthe squales?” Ra-Havreii asked with skepticism. Aili Lavena, who had been down on the planet but had been summoned back to the ship for this urgent briefing, was annoyed by his tone at first. But she reminded herself of the perils of jumping to conclusions.

“We’re not just suggesting it,” Y’lira went on. “After it stopped, we played back the squale calls again. And at the exact same moment in the playback, it began making the exact same pattern of sounds. The sequence it emitted lasted nearly ten minutes, with no overall repetition.”

“And that’s not all,” Eviku put in. “The creature has suddenly begun to regenerate its flotation sac. And at the rate it’s regrowing, it should be airborne within two weeks at most. That’s after days of total inactivity, and from my analysis I’m convinced the creature could remain dormant for weeks and still do the same.”

“There’s only one explanation that fits what we’ve seen,” said Pazlar, who had shuttled up with Lavena. “When we nicknamed this creature a weather balloon, we were more right than we knew. Because that seems to be what it literally is. It drifts around the sky, taking measurements with its various senses, storing what it learns. Remembering it precisely, mechanically. Eviku’s scans of its neural activity—now that it has some—show its brain is tailor-made for that, almost like a digital computer.”

“It gathers data until struck by lightning,” Eviku said, “or maybe until some other factor causes it to descend. It floats atop the water until the squales find it. At their signal, it plays back its data encoded as sound patterns. Only then, when its data has been downloaded, does it begin to regrow its flotation sac.”

“What you’re saying,” Riker replied slowly, “is that the squales manufactured this creature.”

“That they bred it, yes.”

“And probably the other anomalous species we’ve observed,” Pazlar said. “It explains the strange behaviors that have no survival benefit. They’re performing tasks for the squales. Harvesting foodstuffs, carrying things around. Even swimming into the squales’ beaks when they’re called. Maybe even doing more complex work. The molluscoids with prehensile digits could give the squales the fine manipulative capability they lack, explaining how they were able to achieve a lot of this engineering.”

“So how did they domesticate the molluscoids in the first place?” Ra-Havreii asked. “Without the capacity to confine or handle the animals…”

“It wouldn’t require any technology,” Pazlar countered. “As long as one species could control another’s movements well enough to regulate who they did or didn’t mate with, then selective breeding would be possible.”

“Well, how do you do that without fences or walls?”

“We did it all the time back home. Plenty of Gemworld sports depend on it.”

“So the bottom line,” Troi said, interrupting the building heat between them, “is that the squales are definitely intelligent.”

“I have no doubt of that,” Eviku said. “Not only intelligent, but technological, in a manner of speaking: capable of selectively breeding other life forms to serve as their tools.”

Pazlar sighed and turned to the captain. “And they’re aware of us, sir. Since the bugeye piscoids have been observed calling to the squales, I think it’s a safe bet that they’re like the weather balloons, and probably like those small shelled creatures we’ve seen being carried by pis coids flying overhead. They’re probes, sir. Sensors. And they’ve been hovering around our away teams since day one. The squales may have been keeping their distance, but they’ve been watching our every move down there.”

The room fell silent, except for a hushed “Oh, my God” from Christine Vale.

Finally, Eviku asked, “How does the Prime Directive apply in a case like this? Should we just…leave and hope no real damage is done?”

“They’ve been watching us for the past ten days,” Pazlar said. “We’re not just some sighting they can dismiss as a trick of the mind.”

“But they’re not a technological people,” Vale put in. “Without written records, the knowledge could fade into legend.”

“Don’t count on that,” Ra-Havreii said. “If they’re anything like my people or the Alonis, they may have a means of preserving detailed oral histories and passing them on exactly. Indeed, I’d say they must have such a thing, in order to preserve the complex bioengineering skills they possess.”

“We have no way of knowing how we may have inadvertently affected their society,” Troi said. “We mistakenly breached the Prime Directive, but just pulling out now would be an abrogation of our responsibility. We have to try to make contact, see if there’s a way to mitigate the damage.”

“How do we know it will damage them?” Lavena asked. “If they’ve been watching us so closely, maybe they’re fascinated by us. Maybe they’re eager to learn.”

“Then why have they been so careful to avoid us?” the captain asked gently.

“This is a world without metal, without plastic,” Troi said, both answering and reinforcing her husband’s point. “They’ve never seen anything that isn’t alive. I can hardly imagine how alien we must be to them. There’s no telling what kind of fear or crisis of belief we could provoke. We have to try to establish communication so we can assess the effects of our presence and try to mitigate it.”

“Increase our interference to reduce its effects?” Ra-Havreii asked. “That hardly seems logical.”

“There is precedent,” Troi said. “On Mintaka III, when the presence of Starfleet observers was accidentally exposed to the natives, they reacted badly with a religious fervor that almost became destructive. Since the people had only fragmentary information and no understanding of what it meant, it left them confused and frightened, provoking aggression and intolerance. Captain Picard resolved the situation by making open contact and explaining our true nature. Giving them more information helped them make better decisions about how to cope with this knowledge and incorporate it into their worldview. Once they were back on their own track, of course, we left them alone again.”

“The Prime Directive is about respecting other people’s right to make their own choices,” Riker said. “We try to avoid contact with young societies, not because they’re too fragile to handle it, but because there’s too much temptation for usto try to exploit the situation, to pressure them into believing what we want. But if they find out about us on their own, then if we try to hide or misrepresent ourselves, then that’s exactly what we’re doing: trying to manipulate their way of seeing things to suit our ends.

“Bottom line, we’re already in a first contact situation. It’s no longer a question of whether to communicate with the squales, but how. And as with any first contact, it’s incumbent on us to treat them with honesty, fairness, and respect.”

Vale frowned. “I’d say ‘how’ is the question in a more logistical sense. How do we talk to them when they’ve been avoiding us?”

“We haven’t really been trying to talk to them,” Lavena said. “Just to watch them from afar. Maybe if we let them know we’re interested in talking, they’d respond. After all,” she reminded the others, “they saved my life. They came to help us when we were in danger. I think that says a lot about their attitude toward other life forms.”

Riker pondered her words. “I’d like you to spearhead our efforts, Aili. You’re the one person among us who’s already made some connection with the squales, however tenuous. And you’re the one person who can live the way they do, who’s most familiar to them.”

“I’m glad to try, sir,” Lavena told him. “But…I’m not a trained diplomat. I…” Her eyes went to Troi.

“I’ll assign Counselor Huilan to assist you,” Troi said, looking unhappy. “He doesn’t have much experience as a contact specialist, but…I obviously can’t go down there.”

“Of course not,” Riker said, discreetly touching her hand.

“Umm, Captain?” Lavena said. “If I may…I think it would be a good idea if…if you came down with us.”

He looked surprised. “Why me, Ensign?”

“Well, you are an experienced diplomat…but also, you’re a musician. I figure if we’re going to try to communicate with a species of singers…”

“I think she’s right, sir,” Y’lira said. “The squales’ language relies heavily on pitch, rhythm, harmony, syncopation, and other musical elements.”

“Syncopation?” Riker grinned his big, infectious grin, the same one that had won Aili over twenty-two years ago. “So they’re jazz musicians?”

Y’lira’s gemlike eyes just stared. “Sir?”

“Never mind.” He turned to Troi. “It’s tempting, but…the baby could come any day now. I can’t be away…”

“Will,” the counselor said. “We’ve always agreed, you’re the captain first. Aili’s right—you could be valuable down there. And if I go into labor, you’re just twenty minutes away by shuttle. Go.” She smiled. “I know you’ve been dying to.”

Eagerness warred with reluctance on Riker’s face, but he split the difference and settled on captainly resolve. “All right. I’ll lead the away team.” He turned to Ra-Havreii. “Doctor, I’d like you along as well.”

It took a moment for the Efrosian engineer to realize he’d been addressed. “You’d…Me, sir? Wait, me…down there?”

“Yes.”

“On the planet, you mean?”

“That’s right.”

“Me.”

“Is there a problem, Doctor?”

“Well, sir…I get terribly motion-sick without a steady surface beneath me.”

“We have inertial dampers in the shuttles, and Ree can give you an antiemetic.”

“My people sunburn very easily…”

“The sun’s far away and doesn’t give off much UV,” Pazlar told him.

“I’m a poor swimmer. Sir.”

“You always did pretty well in my quarters,” Aili said with a grin.

“Your quarters, my dear, are not ninety kilometers deep.”

“You said it yourself, Xin,” Troi told him. “The squales’ language may be similar to Efrosian. Your own musical skills could prove invaluable.”

“I don’t doubt it, but I’d be happy to consult from the ship.”

“If I’m going, Doctor,” Riker said in a tone that brooked no more argument, “you’re going.”

“But—Very well, sir,” he said with a heavy sigh.

The captain rose, signaling the end of the briefing. “Prep a shuttle,” he said. “We leave at 1400.”

The crew filed out, and Aili came over to Ra-Havreii. “You’ll love it down there, Xin. It’s so warm and beautiful…a very romantic setting,” she added, winking at Melora.

Ra-Havreii didn’t look reassured. “Maybe,” he said. “But it’s just so… outdoors.”

CHAPTER S

IX

DROPLET

Once the Gillespieset down at the main floater-island base, Aili wanted to waste no time getting into the water. But Xin Ra-Havreii was less enthusiastic, hesitating even to leave the shuttle. It took a verbal prodding from the captain to get him out, and he trod gingerly across the loose soil, his eyes scanning it as if for land mines. “There, this isn’t so bad, is it?” Melora asked.

“Ohh, I can feel the ground rocking beneath me.” He looked even paler than usual.

Aili couldn’t resist teasing him. “I thought you liked to feel the earth move.”

“I prefer my metaphors less literally realized, thank you.” He looked back and forth at the Selkie and the Elaysian who flanked him. “Although I must confess, the company of two of my favorite intimates could do wonders to distract me from these environs—if you’d both be inclined to cooperate.”

Melora threw him a cold look. “We’re here to work, Xin. Try to stay focused.” She strode ahead of them.

Ra-Havreii looked after her for a bit, nonplussed. But he soon shook it off and focused on Aili. “Ah, well. All work and no play, as they say. I’m sure you and I could create sufficient distractions on our own.”

Aili was tempted. Although Xin and Melora technically had an open relationship, they had been involved enough in each other that Aili hadn’t shared a swim with him for months. But after a moment, she smiled and said, “I appreciate the offer, but Melora’s right. I’m really looking forward to working with you on the squale language, but let’s leave it at that for now, all right?” After all, Melora was her friend too, and Aili didn’t want to add complications while Melora was still unsure where her relationship with the engineer stood. Aili had been the one to suggest that Melora should let Xin go, and she didn’t want Melora to think she’d had any ulterior motive behind that suggestion.

Besides, Captain Riker was right behind her—also at her suggestion. She wanted him to be comfortable working with her, without their past liaison becoming an issue, and so she didn’t want to give the impression that she was a potential homewrecker.

Ra-Havreii sighed. “Oh, very well. At least the work should keep me occupied. Assuming you manage to open communication.”

She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I have some ideas about that.”

Riker gave her permission to take a quick swim off the shore while he checked in with the base team. She has tened to the shoreline, and as she stripped off her hydration suit, she noticed that Counselor Huilan had arrived beside her. “Do you mind if I join you?” the diminutive blue S’ti’ach asked.

“Not at all, Counselor.” She dove into the water, reinvigorated by the flow of fresh water across her gill crests. Moments later, she saw Huilan’s small furred form floating above her, dog-paddling with all six stubby limbs.

Realizing something, she surfaced in front of him. He was grinning widely, his big ears perked up in pleasure. “Hold on. How are you floating? I thought you were supposed to be hyperdense or something.”

The ears sagged, his big eyes looking away. “Oh. That. Umm…” Aili wouldn’t have been able to recognize S’ti’ach embarrassment before, but she was fairly certain she had a referent for it now. “Well, yes, I do have a relatively dense bone structure—necessary for a high-gravity planet. But by the same token, you don’t want a high body mass on a high-gee world—harder to move around. Plus a low-density body provides more cushioning in falls.”

She didn’t let the lecture distract her. “But you tell people you’re heavier than a full-size humanoid!”

“Yes, well…” He slumped in surrender. “Look at me, Ensign. I’m small, cute, and furry. Other species have a pervasive tendency to want to pick S’ti’ach up and… cuddleus. It’s embarrassing.”

Aili laughed until she saw Huilan’s stern glare—which made her laugh even harder. “You know I am a predator, right?” Huilan reminded her, showing his impressive array of teeth in what was not a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still chuckling.

“Oh, that’s all right. It’s not really that great a secret anyway; simple observation and reasoning should be enough to reveal it. But people tend to take what they’re told at face value. It’s an interesting psychological experiment to see how different people respond to the fiction.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or their discovery of the truth.”

“Well, far be it from me to tamper with an ongoing experiment,” Aili told him. “I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Good.”

“In exchange for one quick cuddle.”

Huilan growled, but acceded to her terms.

The base’s equipment included a couple of small scouter gigs, courtesy of Titan’s industrial replicators. Aili proposed heading out in one of them, rather than the larger, more intimidating aquashuttle, to try to make contact with the squales. She advised beginning with a small party, and since Ra-Havreii was dealing with a bout of seasickness (probably psychosomatic but genuine in its effects), Captain Riker accompanied her as musical consultant for this first trip. They were joined by Huilan, who was small enough not to be intimidating.

“There’s something else,” she told the others as the gig carried them out toward the nearest concentration of squale biosigns. “Counselor Troi said they’ve never encountered unliving technology before. That must be why they were so startled by my tricorder, so wary of getting close. If I’m going to put them at ease, sir, I should go in without any technology at all.”

Riker pondered. “Leaving your tricorder behind is reasonable. But you should at least keep your combadge on. You can hide it under your clothes if you think it will disturb them.”

Aili met his gaze matter-of-factly. “Captain…clothes are technology too.”

His eyes widened for a bit before he reined himself in. Aili quashed a chuckle; human modesty was so cute. “Well…if you think it would make a difference…but I don’t like the idea of you being out of communication.”

“The gig’s equipment includes sensitive underwater microphones, sir. At least I should be able to get a message to you, assuming I stay in range. And two-way communication should be possible through the deep sound channel, if you position an acoustic relay there. There’d be a delay, but only a few seconds’ worth.”

“I don’t like it, Aili. You’ve already been attacked twice by native life forms. If you’re too far for us to reach—”

“Then the squales will protect me. They’ve already demonstrated that. And I’ll be swimming fast until I reach them—I won’t be easy to catch, I promise.” She leaned forward. “Please, sir. I’m willing to take the risk to earn their trust.”

After a moment, he nodded. “All right, Aili. But you be careful.”

She hid her annoyance behind the action of unfastening her hydration suit. She wasn’t the irresponsible, juvenile creature he’d known two decades ago; she didn’t need to be lectured. But she reminded herself that he didn’t mean anything by it. He was the captain and it was his prerogative to worry about his crew.

Like a mother should worry about her children,she thought. At least he has the courage to face that worry.

Once the rubbery suit was off, she hopped into the water before slipping out of her undergarment, in order to preserve Riker’s sense of propriety. Of course, in this post-reproductive phase of her life, her four breasts were about a third their former size, their nipples grown nearly vestigial and blending into the mottling of her skin. But her lower half, while a bit more padded, was still much as it had been, if she did say so herself. Best not to remind him. She had only a vague memory of their tryst—it was one of embarrassingly many—but from the way she had caught him glancing at her sometimes in their first months on Titan, before he’d grown accustomed to her presence, Aili was fairly confident that she’d left a vivid impression on him.