I Naviganti 2: "K'lalatar Prnak'lirli K'lalatar Prkori

(Infinite Combinations in Infinite Diversity)"

by Monica MicioGatta

with Seti's collaboration.

Author's note: Please, let me know if you like this story. Translate is a hard work, and it's not worth it if nobody's reading. Thank you to everyone who's leaving feedback!

§36

«Hey, pretty boy.»

Trip turned when he heard T'Mir's voice. She was climbing the ladder that led to the engine controls.

«Hey, pretty girl.» He said. His smile faded slightly when he saw how she was dressed. She wore a pair of black boots to the knee, full of strings, over colorful tights. The black dress was so tiny that the white shirt under it was in full view. «You're dressed a bit... I mean...»

«What's wrong with this dress?» She asked.

«Well, it's a bit short. Anyone who passes under the platform can...» He cleared his throat and then said quietly: «Can see your underwear.»

T'Mir laughed slightly. «They're tights. They go up to my waist. Noone can see my underwear.» She said after a short break. «Are you jealous?» Then she whispered: «...Daddy.»

«No, but you'll make all the crewmen turn with that dress. And I do not want...»

She went closer to the controls, looking at the screen control. «It's never been a problem for you. T'Pol's tracksuits are no less sexy for this dress, not to mention your underwear...»

Trip smiled slightly. «Anyway, you're so well dressed.» He said. «Look... You had to be...» He put his hands about fifty centimeters apart. «...So small.»

«Yes, more or less.»

«And now you're the captain of a interuniversal warp 7 ship.»

T'Mir smiled. «I spent my childhood in a place like this. When I was seven, I already knew the warp engines better than fairy tales.»

«Your career must have been really quick.»

«I had the opportunity to make this flight test, and then I made a good leap forward.» She omitted many details. Unfortunately she had no choice.

«You should choose a quieter time to visit us.»

«Our interuniversal trips still have a limited window of time.» Here was another lie. She did not like telling lies to her father. To T'Pol, sometimes, she had lied, but with Trip... it was quite different.

The intercom rang. «Archer to T'Mir.»

«Everybody wants you.» Trip said.

She smiled. «Go ahead.»

«Would you join me for dinner tonight?»

T'Mir looked at his father smiling. «With the chief engineer and the science officer?»

«Of course.»

«We're coming.»

§36bis

«Thank you,» T'Mir said when the waiter brought a plate of pennette with pancetta and rosemary sauce, a dish that he also served to the captain and the engineer.

T'Pol received her plate of vegetables while watching her daughter with an eyebrow raised.

«M'aih, my blood is based on iron. If I do not eat meat I become anemic.»

«I like this dish.» Trip said.

«I know.» T'Mir smiled. «The day I was born you ate it too,» she said to T'Pol.

«Bacon too?» Trip asked, amazed.

«Yes. A few days later Phlox had to confirm that was the bacon that trigger my birth two weeks early.»

«Evidently,» she said flatly. «I should absolutely not have eaten it. Maybe I passed this bad habit on to you.»

T'Mir gave her a grin. «Easy to say when you have copper blood.»

T'Pol could not blame her and gave her a glance that the two men did not notice, a fleeting glance of understanding between mother and daughter.

«You told me you stayed in Milan for several years,» Archer said. «You ate Italian?»

«Yes, good food. Soval tried to get me to eat only Vulcan food, but could not do very much about it.»

Trip smiled slightly. T'Pol glared at him.

«Well, what were you doing now you always did when you talked about my diet.» T'Mir smiled.

Archer looked at them, smiling just to keep from laughing. Then he asked T'Mir: «Is your universe very different from this?»

«Basically, no.»

«I imagine that the intercept course with Enterprise was not randomly chosen.»

«It is a test flight. Soval allowed me to choose the coordinates in this universe given that I would not tell you who I am.»

Trip laughed.

«Naive,» T'Mir said.

«How are you going to get back, if Verne is destroyed and we have not yet the technology to fix it?» asked T'Pol.

If he had not known otherwise, Archer could have sworn that her voice betrayed a very un-vulcan thought: "You can not go back to your universe and you're stuck here, right? How wonderful!"

«Soval will take me with another ship, perhaps.» She took a short break and then added: «I hope not.»

§36 ter

After dinner, Archer and T'Pol were back on the bridge. Trip was free, and proposed to T'Mir to go to a "special place".

«You mean the "sweet spot"? I've have been there eating strawberries with Travis.»

«No, I thought of another place... nobody knows about it and it is a special place for me.»

T'Mir gave him a quizzical look. «I understand, you mean the back door of the G deck bridge?»

«How do you know?» [Yeah, how do I know?]

«I am your daughter. You took me there a thousand times.»

He laughed. «Right.»

So they went down to the lower deck of the ship, then took a small, narrow and low tunnel and eventually came out in a room with a large porthole from which they could see the stars streaming away.

«Archer, after writing a letter in response to a class of children on Earth, said on the ship two lovers have plenty of places to watch the stars.» T'Mir approached the glass.

«Yes... I remember that letter... I spoke...» Trip hesitated.

«About latrines.» She concluded. «You told me that this would be our place to watch the stars.» She turned left toward the back of the room and opened a door. «So we could also listen to music.»

Trip laughed. «I hid that stereo during the final upgrade of the Enterprise.»

«I know.» She said. «Nobody knows that's here. Even T'Pol, or Jonathan.»

A slow, sweet music started. T'Mir took his father's hand. «Shall we dance?»

He nodded. After all those days spent learning to dance with his brother had not been entirely wasted. Indeed.

When the music ended, T'Mir hugged him, leaning on his chest. «This is one of the best moments of my life...»

(To be continued...)

Thanks to Zero Credibility who's betareading this story in English, and to Seti and Franz who had betaread it in Italian.

All my stories are published in Italian on my blog.