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Chapter 3
The silver lances of the rain were thudding into the earth at their heels by the time they reached the boulders. Unseen around the corner of the pile, a dark entranceway showed between two of them. It was not tall, but by stooping a little they could get in. The captain and Ensign Mayweather had already entered; their footsteps were audible, and a little way further on there was a glimmer of light. The presence of such a hiding place among lumps of what they now realised was high quality hyrellanium ore went some way towards explaining how the scanners had failed to detect the alien's presence: if she had been inside, she would effectively have been shielded from their scanners in the same way that the hydro area was protected from stellar radiation. Dense objects such as metal would still be visible, but flesh and blood would not. It meant that if they went in and for some reason couldn't get out again the Enterprise would be unable to detect them either. It was not a reassuring thought. Unfortunately, it was not one to which it seemed likely that Captain Archer would be receptive.
"This feels really wrong," muttered Trip, pausing. He glanced back at the slain deer, still dimly visible in the growing gloom; the whole thing felt as if the four of them were walking blithely and blindly into a lion's larder. He took hold of T'Pol gently by one arm so that he could go in first and protect her whether she liked it or not, but suddenly the small piquant face that turned indignantly up to his took on a whole new meaning for him. The first hard splats of the rain hit both their faces, and in another world the rain was gushing from a shower head down on to them both while their naked bodies clung and twined like frenzied snakes and their starving mouths shared kisses passionate enough to bruise.
He blinked back to the present and reality, and realised to his horror that the brief, inexplicable hallucination had had a predictable effect on his body. Her gaze held nothing but frosty annoyance over his repeated treatment of her like some feeble Human female who needed protection. Wherever that incredibly erotic image had come from, she certainly hadn't shared it – a fact that was as much a relief as a disappointment. On the one hand, it hadn't come from her (which was a disappointment). On the other hand, she couldn't blame it on him if she didn't know about it (which was a relief). She was mad enough about his chivalrous impulses to protect her. Hell knew what she'd find to say if she thought he'd somehow gotten around to projecting his sexual fantasies about her into her head.
Now it was absolutely vital that he precede her into the low tunnel before her eyes dropped to the sudden and stark change in the outline of his uniform. The alternative was to follow her into it, and while he was no more averse than any other red-blooded male member of the crew to getting a close-up view of her delectable rear-end, at that moment he could hardly trust himself not to make a grab that would probably wreck his career in Starfleet, let alone cause an interplanetary diplomatic scandal of unimaginable proportions. Right now he would have been unutterably grateful if half a dozen Klingon warriors had suddenly materialised out of the gloom: at least that would have disposed of his problem fast enough. As he stumbled forward crouching into the semi-darkness his mind whirled in search of excuses he could use for not straightening up as soon as he rejoined the others. Hell, it wasn't as though he'd never noticed that T'Pol had a body to die for, but she was a Vulcan, for Chrissake. Report had it that Vulcans only had sex every seven years and then only with their Vulcan mate. Desire a Human? Hardly goddam likely, he thought with a despair that ate into him like acid. Jonathan Archer had slowly earned her chilly respect, but Charles Tucker III seemed to fall foul of her almost every time they spoke. Lately it seemed to be getting worse rather than better. Some days her attitude towards him suggested she saw him less as a Human than as some kind of troglodyte. She was about as likely to share a shower with him as Shran was. Less, probably. He concentrated desperately on the revolting thought of sharing a shower with the blunt and bellicose Andorian instead, in the hope that it might cure his misfortune. It helped, but not enough.
Luck was with him. The tunnel was not long – perhaps five meters – but it ended in a carved out stone chamber that strongly resembled the empty lair of some kind of animal. It was floored with clean soft sand, and smelled sweet enough, but it was not tall enough to stand in with any comfort. The light from a couple of wax-lights in shallow bowls balanced on a ledge showed that their hostess had lain down to one side of it. The captain was sitting down close to her, leaning back against the wall, and Travis was beside him, still working on the translator settings. Trip seized his opportunity and sat down almost immediately, drawing up his knees as T'Pol followed him in, offering silent, fervent thanks to whatever saint was the patron of sex-starved engineers that nobody appeared to have noticed the unusual bulge in his coveralls as he shuffled in. It was unfortunate, though probably wholly predictable, that T'Pol stalked right past him, giving him a close-up of her curvaceous rear that brought back the sensation of his hands clamped around it. He clamped his hands on his knees instead and stifled a groan of desire as she sat down considerably and ostentatiously closer to the lion-woman than he was himself.
"Would you mind just saying something, ma'am?" Mayweather spoke politely to Shiránnor, pointing the translator in her direction. She tilted her head again, surveying the machine. Apparently understanding what was required, she spoke good-humouredly towards it. For a couple of seconds they all heard nothing but meaningless syllables, but Hoshi had spent endless hours improving the programming. Then, "... I Shiránnor welcome you in the Name of the Goddess and permit you use of my hunting grounds according to the Law." Her head tilted to the other side as she heard the words emerging from the translator, and unmistakably she chuckled. "By the One!"
"Now we can have a real conversation." The captain turned towards her. Perhaps it was the flickering, uncertain light of the lamps that made his face now appear a little strained. "Would you mind if we asked you some questions?"
"Ask anything you wish." She began loosening the plaits into which her hair was caught, but looked at him with interest.
"Um ... is this your home?"
"Not a permanent one!" she chuckled. Her accent was still strangely guttural, but not unpleasant on the ear. "I dwell in a house, as all my people do. But at present I am travelling a little, and in such circumstances a lagyaar's lair is a home no Skair will refuse." In response to the look of polite incomprehension, she explained that a 'lagyaar' was a very large lizard whose powerful forelegs enabled it to burrow into fissile rock; in the spring the pair to whom this nest belonged would return to it to breed, but at this season they had no use for it. "When the herds have passed on I will be on my way again, but it seemed too good a chance to miss, to put on a little weight against the cold cycles. I was awaiting my chance when you arrived. It was not that I was not curious as to what you were, but that kefyu coming so close was an opportunity that I could not resist."
"You were hunting the deer when we arrived?" asked Mayweather curiously. "Alone? With just a knife?"
"My knife. My teeth. My claws." She stretched out her forelegs, and a set of long, curved talons slid silently into view. "I need nothing more. And most of my people hunt alone. We are not – friendly – when we get the first taste of fresh blood. We cannot help ourselves. It is just the way we are made." She glanced acutely at T'Pol. "I would normally wash after killing; my state offends you. It is not mannerly in me to offend a guest. Will you trust me enough to remain while I clean myself? I will go only as far as the entrance. You have nothing to fear, I give you my word on that."
"Of course." They watched her rise and pad towards the entrance. Trip pulled his feet in a little further to allow her to pass him easily. Still slightly suspicious, he turned his head to watch her leave. True to her word she did not go out of sight, but stopped immediately outside the entrance and lifted her head to the pouring rain. The flashes of lightning lit up her blonde coat as stark whiteness against the blackness of the clouds. It did not take more than a moment or two for her to be completely soaked. The dark stains drained away into the puddles around her paws. When she stepped back into the mouth of the tunnel she shook herself exactly as a dog does, and squeezed her hair to get rid of most of the water in it. Evidently, she did not use a towel. She padded back into the cave, her fur standing in points, but clean. The smell that had been so offensive to a Vulcan's acute olfactory sense was gone, rinsed away by the downpour.
"So where will you go afterwards? To the city?" Travis took up the conversation again when she had resumed her original comfortable position. Their scanners had identified a city of some size further eastward, on the coast.
"Perhaps. My mind is not yet made up. I had not intended to come this way – I was on my way to the Goddess's Temple after my mother died, but it came to me that I had seen nothing of the world at large. It would not be fitting to take up service and then leave it again. So – you see me here." She looked at Archer, who had been listening intently. "Perhaps the Good Goddess had Her own plans laid, after all." Outside the thunder cracked and rolled; the draught from the entrance made the lamp flames dip and waver.
"I'm sorry about your mother," the captain said gently.
"It was her time to go. She was old, and we had been very happy together. But it is never easy to lose those one loves." Her eyes travelled for no obvious reason to Trip, and then to T'Pol. "The chief thing is to make the most of what blessings the Goddess sends when they come to you. Happiness is too brief to be wasted."
"Your father is dead also?" asked the Vulcan, who had been unobtrusively examining the readout on the scanner which she had removed from her belt and aimed at the lion-woman.
"I had no father. My people do not have males. We are born pregnant."
All three men stared at her. Even T'Pol spared an intent glance upward from her scanner. "Correct. You are indeed pregnant," she confirmed levelly.
"My daughter will not be born for many years yet," she said with a smile. "She is alive, but sleeping."
"So you don't have a husband either?" demanded Tucker incredulously. "Don't ya – well, isn't it kinda lonely?"
"Skaira do not readily feel lonely." She was looking at the Captain again. "We too are called to 'walk among the stars'; not as you do, of course, but as creatures born to the service of the Goddess. Our lives do not permit us to enjoy the warmth and kinship that other of this world's peoples do. It is a high calling and a great honour, but often those who tread such heights must do so alone. And not all find the path free of stones."
"True." Archer's gaze dropped briefly, and then lifted again. "But perhaps they shouldn't expect it to be easy."
"Those who expect it to be easy will find it unendurable."
He nodded almost imperceptibly. "True."
"May I, in my turn, ask a question?" She had finished unbraiding her hair, and stared around at her guests with open curiosity.
"Of course."
"You are explorers, you said. You travel among the stars. We know nothing of such exploring on this world. What is it like, to do this?"
The four of them exchanged rather quizzical glances at the enormity of the question. All four of them had been born into a world that took space exploration for granted.
"I'd have to know where to start," said Archer slowly. "Do you have a science of astronomy here?"
"Perhaps not what you would call a science. We watch the stars, of course. We marvel at their beauty. We try to understand as best we may how they fit into the Creation. Our best thinkers have come to the belief that our sun is at the centre of a great sphere and its worlds travel around it inside that sphere. The only place we have ever found for stars is fixed upon that sphere. When you said at first that you were from another world, I believed that you were from one of the other worlds that belong to our sun; but then you said you travel among the stars. If they are not fixed upon the sphere, where are they fixed?"
Archer exhaled. Going into the details of astrophysics with someone whose ideas about the nature of the universe were this primitive would probably take up several years. Still, he had to tell her something. The question was, how much. Once again he thought uneasily that Starfleet definitely should have guidance on what sort of information could and should be shared.
"They aren't fixed anywhere," he said slowly. "They're floating in space – sort of the way clouds do in the atmosphere." (T'Pol raised a censorious eyebrow at this gross mutilation of the facts, but refrained from comment.) "Your sun is a star. Lots of the stars you see up in the sky at night have worlds around them with people living on them. We've come out to introduce ourselves to anybody who wants to be friendly."
"And a whole lot of people who don't," muttered Trip, sotto voce.
"You said 'your sun', not 'our sun'. You are indeed not, therefore, from one of our sister worlds?"
"No. Our sun is a long, long way from here."
"Is it one of those among the Great Dance?" She saw from their puzzled expressions that the term meant nothing to them. "When we look up into the sky at night, we see a great cloud of stars. It has always seemed to us that they look as though they are dancing together, and therefore that is what we call it."
"I believe she refers to Globular Cluster NGC 6121, Captain." T'Pol's qualification was strictly accurate, but certainly not poetic.
"'NGC 6121'?" Shiránnor looked at first incredulous, then vastly amused. "That was the best name that the dreamers among you could devise for such beauty?"
"Dreamers do not make good scientists." The Vulcan's tone was slightly chilly. The suggestion was absurd and illogical. "And beauty has no bearing upon the matter."
"We also call it Messier Object 4," said Archer diplomatically, hiding a grin. "But whatever any of us call it, it is beautiful, I agree."
"'Messy Objects and meaningless numbers!" She didn't bother to hide her grin at all. "I think you can keep both your namings. I prefer our 'Great Dance'!"
"Well, each to their own," said Trip, with a mischievous sideways glance at T'Pol's barely-concealed disapproval; this blithe disregard for science evidently didn't sit too well with Vulcan sensibilities.
"We don't come from it, though," interposed Travis, smiling. "And we haven't visited it yet – though we may one day."
"You must have a marvellous ship, to make such a voyage. I shall pray that she will return safely to her home port when the voyage is done."
"Thank you. Her name is Enterprise." Unconsciously the captain's hand moved towards the badge on the upper left arm of his uniform. "Actually we're pretty proud of her ourselves."
The chief engineer, who had naturally been sitting next to the doorway, craned his head back into the tunnel. There should still be a little daylight left according to his chronometer, but the weight of cloud cover was making it seem more like night out there in the brief intervals between the flares of lighting shattering it. He was a little surprised that the rainwater wasn't coming down the slope, but the entrance had been carefully sited to be in the lee of the prevailing winds. Outside the rain fell in torrents, and the lightning strikes had already decreased the temperature. He wondered a little apprehensively if the shuttlepod would be OK. It was strong enough to cope with most things, but the bolts were falling in an almost ceaseless stream, and being made of metal (not to mention being the tallest thing for some distance) it would attract them. Perhaps it was just as well that they hadn't taken shelter in it after all – although it was fully insulated and they would have been safe enough, it would hardly be an ideal sanctuary in a barrage of billion-volt strikes. He couldn't imagine any other threat to it. The deer were hardly likely to have the interest to spare, even if they enjoyed being frazzled by lightning strikes; and it was pretty unimaginable that anyone else would be just wandering around up there in such a storm. Still, they hadn't secured the shuttle door, and that worried him – just in case anyone was wandering around up there in defiance of all sense... and at least having that to think about was taking his mind off T'Pol. "D'you think the shuttle will be all right, Cap'n?" he asked uneasily.
"I can't imagine anyone out in that having the interest to spare."
A fresh cannonade of thunder seemed to add point to the calm reply, but Travis looked up in concern. Since he was the pilot, the shuttle was his particular responsibility. "Want me to go check, Commander?"
"You will encounter few people out here on the plains save the occasional traveller. And they would hardly be journeying at night, in such weather. But nobody would touch your vessel even were they to find it," said Shiránnor placidly. "They would not dare."
Trip turned back again and stared at her. "Because it's so strange to them?"
"Because we have a short way with thieves on our world. Emperor Vede'hanax has seen to that."
"Your civilisation rules by violence?" T'Pol's voice was at its driest. Even Archer had drawn away a little, his lips compressed.
"If your world has known dishonesty and outgrown it, you are not moral. You are simply fortunate." Her faint smile was wry. "We are not yet so fortunate. Three peoples co-exist on this world; some eschew violence in all its forms, others lack the means to protect themselves and their families. Though we have done our best to make our society as fair as we may, there will always be those who desire to better themselves at the expense of others. Therefore Vede'hanax rules with a hard hand, lest those who would obey for no other reason feel free to prey on those whom they perceive as weaker than themselves."
"This – Vedehanax – rules your whole world? By force?" The captain was rapidly revising his thoughts of the encounter being a good thing. The lion-woman herself might have won his absolute trust, but he was appalled by her apparent approval of the rule of a tyrant. He didn't want to risk extraterrestrial technology falling into the hands of what sounded like the worst form of dictatorship.
"Not by force, no – unless all other means fail; in the last resort, he must do whatever he must to preserve the peace and enforce the Law. He rules through his subject kings," she answered, still serene. "They are answerable to him, and he is answerable to the God. It has been thus for as long as long as our histories remember. It is not an ideal world, but by and large it is a peaceful one."
"And he believes that? That he's answerable to ... God?"
"He knows that."
"And what if his ...God... tells him to act in an immoral way?" asked Archer, choosing his words with some care. Earth's history had enough instances of religion bending to accommodate the moral codes of tyrants rather than having any moderating influence on them; the phrase 'Gott mit uns' had appeared on the uniform belts of Nazi soldiers in the second World War.
Shiránnor's face creased in puzzlement. "Why should the God tell him such a thing?"
"Well... I don't know. Perhaps he thinks the God wants him to get rid of his enemies by any means he can."
"The God would not want him to do that. It would violate the Law that the Gods themselves gave us. It would not make sense."
"And does everyone on your world obey this law?"
"Most people. Most of the time. There are always exceptions, but they are few. And those few know what fate they may expect if they are caught." She looked suddenly directly at the captain. "Your civilisation may have outgrown dishonesty, but perhaps you are still closer to us than you would like to think. You too have a lathaichan among those who owe you fealty." Seeing him frown over the title, she hesitated over a translation. "A lathaichan ... a man who commands and leads those whose trade is fighting. A warlord." A pause. Her brow furrowed a little. "He fears for your safety."
A 'warlord'...?...Malcolm! It occurred to the captain in that moment, as it had to Trip earlier, that Reed would have been monitoring events from the bridge, and that if this rock contained enough dense hyrellanium ore the landing party could have disappeared from the sensors as soon as they entered the cave. Quite probably the ore was strong enough to deflect the communications signals, too. He'd been told that they had been offered shelter, but the nature of it hadn't been mentioned; he'd probably think that it was some kind of tent, in which case the scanners should still have been able to pick up their bio-signs. All that Hoshi's scans would be able to pick up would be the metal of their instruments. If that was the case, the lieutenant would be frantic. The second shuttle couldn't be risked in a storm like this, but he could too easily imagine Reed racing to the transporter with a couple of armed security crewmen to brave the suicidal descent through that maelstrom of supercharged cloud outside. "Trip! Get up to the entrance and contact Malcolm. He's probably been trying to raise us!" He looked back incredulously at the lion-woman. She'd been able to detect his tactical officer in the Enterprise, kilometers up in orbit? Just how far did this telepathy of hers stretch?
"Damn, he must think somethin' swallowed us!" With a look of guilty horror Tucker jumped back to his feet and hurried up to the entrance, grabbing his communicator as he went. "Tucker to Enterprise?" His voice floated back. "Malcolm? No, we're fine..."
T'Pol had lowered the scanner and was leaning forward, watching Shiránnor intently. "How did you know about Lieutenant Reed?" she demanded. Mayweather looked on in equal amazement.
"It was not difficult," said Shiránnor simply. In the flickering lamplight the great pupils of her eyes were very dark and fathoms deep. "Your captain showed me his ship. He is proud of it; he loves those who serve on it. You should not think that because Skaira must kill like any beast of the jungle that we have no other abilities."
"Everything's fine now, Cap'n." Trip ducked back into the cave. "Just as well we got in touch, though. Malcolm was gettin' a little worried 'bout us." He sat down again, looking more cheerful now that the distractions of the past few minutes had disposed of his embarrassing problem. "And he says the storm'll be over in half an hour or so."
"They do not last." Shiránnor nodded. "The rain will refresh the grass, and the beasts will have good eating for a while as they travel. It is as the Gods have ordained." She looked around at her visitors with interest. "Do your Gods not do the same for you?"
The captain coughed. It was a rather awkward question. Religion was personal to so many different cultures, and even Earth and Vulcan differed strongly in their religious beliefs. He did not know much about the Vulcan attitude to 'the Divine'. Although they had temples that were thousands of years old he had some doubt as to what or whom (if anything) was worshipped there. A glance at T'Pol showed her wearing her most determinedly uncommunicative expression; he knew that many Vulcans harboured reservations, if not doubts, about their civilisation's ancient belief in the existence of the soul or katra as a separate entity. Whether or not she was one of these sceptics, she was unlikely to feel it appropriate to discuss her people's spiritual beliefs with any chance-met alien.
He himself held somewhat ambivalent views about the existence of a 'God' as such. His reading had shown him how much harm religious groups had inflicted on Earth and their fellow-men during the centuries; the evidence for the existence of such a Supreme Being was thin. Nevertheless, it was true that sometimes even he had had the fleeting intimation of Wordsworth's "sense sublime"...
'Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man';
but it was hardly enough with which to make a strong case for religion, and certainly not enough to make much sense to a person for whom the God-experience was evidently personal and profound. "Our race tends to require evidence before we believe in things like Gods," he replied, firmly but a little ruefully. "And so far I don't think the case for our world adds up."
"You feel that the non-existence of evidence is evidence of non-existence?" she said with a grin, evidently quite unoffended by his honesty. "Well, it may be so. But it may also be that the God – or Goddess – of your world chooses to remain hidden. And if your peoples choose to act as though He or She does not exist, He or She is even less likely to manifest. What would be the use?"
"I think the fact that big claims have been made for them in the past that haven't been borne out have tended to make people stop believing in them. Some people persist, but most..." For a moment the absolute improbability of the situation struck Archer almost like a blow to the head. In all of his preparations for encountering alien species, none of it had ever included sitting in a cave discussing philosophy with a creature who was half-lion, half-woman and who evidently thought her world's affairs were directly overseen by divine entities. "And over our history, people who supposedly believed in God often made that the excuse for persecuting people who believed in a different God, or in no God at all," he went on hardily, now as much to himself as to her. "Personally, I'd rather a situation where everyone's free to believe or not believe in whatever they like – as long as they allow everyone else the same freedom."
"You would like to believe, I think," she said gently. "But in something genuine – and so far all you have seen has been false and damaging. I cannot blame you for your disappointment in these false Gods your world has worshipped; in your place I too would be angry, as you are angry. But I know what I know, and this is not your world. You will simply have to accept it as it is."
Archer was silent. Back on Enterprise, he had already acknowledged the need to leave behind preconceptions and grudges; perhaps religion was one of the fields where this was difficult for him to do. Maybe that difficulty meant it was important that he should try, at least in the present circumstances. And whether he 'believed' or not, Shiránnor certainly did. It was no part of his diplomatic duties to insult a newly-met civilisation's beliefs. Since leaving Jupiter Station he had grown painfully accustomed to being met with suspicion, if not downright hostility, by many of the aliens they encountered. Only here had he been met with an open pleasure that was like oxygen to a man who has hardly realised up till now that he has been slowly suffocating. For that, at least, he owed her something: if he couldn't manage belief, at least he could offer her respect.
T'Pol caught his eye. Her expression was faintly disapproving. Not only did she not share Shiránnor's theological opinions, but Vulcans believed that such matters were private. Moreover, she was bound to remind him when opportunity offered that almost all primitive cultures associated kingship with divinity. There was no reason whatsoever to imagine that this one was any different. Doubtless the lion-woman had remarkable powers of telepathy – she'd proved that beyond any doubt – but the rest of the story was nothing more than a hotchpotch of mythology that had survived for centuries because it had become the basis of a stable civilisation.
"I'm interested in what you've told us," he said at last. "And you're lucky to have something to believe in. But I think I'm going to keep an open mind on it for now."
"That is your absolute right," answered Shiránnor tranquilly. "And now, I am going up to eat. You are welcome to stay here until the storm has passed completely if you wish; but now that the worst of it is done the opportunists will be on the prowl again. Unless another kefyu is to die, which I think you would dislike, I must reclaim my kill. And afterwards, I feel it in my heart that I should be on my way. It is unlikely we will meet again, at least on this side of the Endless Ocean."
"It's still pouring out there!" Trip, who was still nearest the exit, could hear the susurration of the rain still hushing across the plain. "You'll be drowned!"
"It is only water. I will not be cold – my people do not readily feel the cold. And I have already gone longer than I should without meat." Suddenly she glanced at T'Pol with that dry humour again. "My people must drink blood or die; those who can live without the guilt of other creatures' deaths on their consciences are fortunate indeed."
She stood up gracefully. She was a little shorter than the humans, so she could stand upright beneath the low ceiling. "It is for the best, I think, that we should part now; and that you do not show yourselves to others on my world. Your ways of thought are too different from ours. Maybe a time will come one day when the gulf is less wide, but for now I do not know if anyone short of the Gods could bridge it without harm. I trust, nonetheless, that you will do your best to think of us gently as you leave."
"I'm extremely grateful for your understanding. And your generosity." Archer immediately stood up, too, although he had to stoop a little even under the tallest part of the roof. "I wish you could stay a little longer. There are many questions we'd have liked to ask you if the opportunity had been there."
"And I you." Her smile was a little wry. "It may be that one day you will be able to ask your questions, but if I were to bring my meal here and eat it before you I guarantee you would wish only to be gone. And that is only one of the differences that lie between us, and not by any means the greatest. It is best, I think, to part now. For many reasons."
"Perhaps you're right." Memory of her killing the deer was still raw. It was a working certainty that her meal wouldn't come served up neatly on china with a side dish of vegetables. And he had no right to force her to stay anyway, if she didn't choose to; but he still spoke reluctantly.
"Across the gulf, may we part as friends?" she asked.
"I'd be honoured." He inclined his head slightly. A faint smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.
"Your companions, also?" She looked around at them with a stare that for all its inhumanity had in it the directness and gallantry of a confident child.
"Of course, ma'am!" Mayweather was the first of them to scramble to his feet; he'd assumed that the offer of friendship was only for the captain. His lively, attractive dark face lit up with a smile that hers echoed at once. She stepped towards him and took his hands.
"I do not know your way of saying farewell between friends. So, if you will, because we are on my world, we will do it as my people do." She leaned up, breathed gently into his face and rubbed cheekbones with him. "So. Go with my blessing."
Trip was next. He had the grace to look faintly sheepish after his earlier suspicions of her. "I am quite harmless to you and your friends after all, hmm?" she twinkled up at him. "Use your metal contrivance to scare away the deer before you begin mining for your mineral, if you will. But give me half a day to get away after I have eaten. One hearing of such a din is enough!"
"I'll be sure to." He grinned, and pushed his cheekbones playfully against hers. "Sure is a pleasure to have met you. And thanks for not eating us!"
"'Much effort, little meat', as my sisters would say!" she laughed back at him. "And the pleasure is mutual." She glanced from him to T'Pol, who had also risen politely but remained still and withdrawn. "Whether you accept it or not, daughter of T'Les, you too have my blessing," she said gently. "I will force no gesture on you that you would not wish."
"'Live long and prosper,'" replied the Vulcan quietly. She was more startled than she allowed herself to show by the soft use of her mother's name; the lion-woman's telepathic powers were truly remarkable. It was something to be very thankful for that she almost certainly had no interest in much of the knowledge that she could have accessed if she had been able to get so deep into Captain Archer's mind with so little apparent effort. A hostile entity could have learned things that could have made them very dangerous indeed to Starfleet. For all that this world's civilisation was backward in many respects, at least one of its peoples had abilities that many a more advanced culture would envy. A mind with such power had to have formidable intellectual capabilities, if only they were used in the right way. Had the Skaira been less entrenched in superstition, they might have conquered space flight centuries ago. When eventually they did outgrow their primitive dependence on what amounted to a theocracy, they would be a force to reckon with.
Finally Shiránnor turned back to Archer. "I will think of you, journeying among the stars." She placed her hands on his shoulders and looked intently at him again, and he felt the touch of a deep and unexplained concern. I am not permitted to remain linked to you after you leave here. But if your loneliness becomes too great, remember that I remain your friend. Her face tilted up to his, and touched the moist tip of her nose to his very lightly; her breath was sweet, and the ends of her whiskers tickled his skin for an instant. Then she rubbed cheekbones with him just as she had with Trip and Travis. "Go with the God, Jonathan Archer – whatever you conceive Him to be."
Then she released him, swung a last smile around them all and padded to the entrance. "The rain will pass very soon now," she said gaily, looking back just once. "Do not leave without your mineral!" And then she was gone.
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