Disclaimer: I don't own Enterprise or any of the regular characters, and
I'm not making any money from this story.
Warning: This is another not-so-nice story. I tried to write a happy story but I didn't like the way it was coming out, so I wrote this one. Be prepared for some pain (hopefully not on the reader's part, however!).
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 5: Contact
Day 5: 0000 hours
When qoRa~ arrived in the observation room, First lab Assistant RaB# was leaning forward with his nose practically touching the window.
"What's going on?" She asked as she closed the door.
"The alien's face is wet. We think it might be some sort of defense mechanism. Xu'~ and I took a sample." RaB# adjusted the videocamera to zoom in on the alien's face and stepped back so qoRa~ could see the screen.
"He looks frightened," qoRa~ said quietly.
RaB# scoffed. "It's more dangerous than it looks. When we went in there it tried to attack us." He pulled on his coat and headed out the door.
QoRa~ sat down in the chair and stared at the vidscreen. The alien had his face buried in his arm, trembling. He didn't look dangerous to her, he looked terrified and extremely vulnerable.
She picked up the observation log and leafed back through the pages. She stopped and read a few entries.
2100 hours: injection of lysergic acid diethylamide.
2130 hours: subject appears to be talking to people who aren't there.
2200 hours: sitting in corner. liquid coming from eyes. Defense mechanism?
2250 hours: took sample of liquid. subject tried to bite lab assistant. Was subdued by zapstick.
QoRa~ dropped the log back onto the desk and turned her attention to the vidscreen again. "Good for you," she said with a small smile. "I'd have bit him too."
On the screen the alien lifted his head and looked directly at the camera, startling her. He stared unblinking at the camera for several seconds, then buried his face again, shivering uncontrollably.
QoRa~ contemplated the image on the screen. Why are we doing this, she wondered. This was obviously an intelligent creature. It hadn't harmed anyone, and yet the best response that her people could come up with was to torture and kill it. But what could she do about it? She was only a lowly lab assistant.
QoRa~ took a deep breath, pushed back her chair and stood up. Maybe she couldn't solve the problems of the universe, but she could do one small kindness for one creature. She reached out and shut off the videocamera.
Before she could change her mind, qoRa~ pulled on an envirosuit, took a blanket off the top shelf of the closet and headed toward the alien's cell. With shaking fingers she entered the code to open the door.
When she entered the door, the alien was standing with his back pressed against the wall, injured arm clutched to his chest. He watched her warily.
QoRa~ took three steps into the room, letting door clang shut behind her. The alien shrank back further into the corner.
Carefully, qoRa~ opened the blanket and held it out to him. He eyed her suspiciously but didn't move. She set the blanket down on the floor and stepped back, holding out her hands to show they were empty.
For several seconds the alien's eyes flicked back and forth between her and the blanket. Finally he darted forward, snatched the blanket, and retreated to his corner.
The alien hesitated, feeling the soft fabric with his thumb and forefinger, and then he wrapped the blanket around himself, still shivering. His eyes closed for a moment.
QoRa~ stood completely still, just watching him. He licked his lower lip, which was dry and cracked. When his eyes finally opened again, some of the fear was gone.
The alien spoke a few words in his language, and then slowly, shakily, his cupped hand moved up to his mouth.
"Water?" qoRa~ asked excitedly. "You want water?"
Her sudden movement seemed to startle him, because he shrank back into the corner again.
QoRa~ slowly imitated his gesture, cupped hand up to her mouth, like drinking. His head bobbed up and down in what she took to be a gesture of agreement.
"Wait right here," she said. "I'll be right back!" Hurriedly qoRa~ entered the code to open the door.
A few moments later qoRa~ returned with a plastic cup full of water, which she carefully put down on the floor in the middle of the room. As soon as she had stepped back, the alien limped out and picked up the cup. He took a small sip and held it in his mouth for a second, then, apparently satisfied that it wouldn't hurt him, quickly gulped down the rest of the water.
The alien set the cup back down in the middle of the floor and wiped his mouth with his right arm. He made the drinking motion again.
"More?" she asked, copying his motion. "You want more."
His head bobbed up and down.
"All right, I'll get you more." When she took a step forward to pick up the cup, he retreated to his corner, not quite as quickly or fearfully as he had the previous times.
QoRa~ quickly refilled the cup and brought it back. This time, instead of setting it down, she held the cup out to him.
He watched her cautiously for a moment, and then took a hesitant step forward, then another. Slowly he reached out his hand and took the cup from her outstretched fingers.
The alien gulped down the contents without pausing. When he lowered the cup, his mouth curved upward into the most beautiful smile qoRa~ had ever seen. She was stunned. Without thinking she reached out her hand to touch his face.
The smile vanished in an instant. The alien dropped the cup and dashed back to his corner, flinging his right arm up to protect his head.
"I won't hurt you," qoRa~ said softly. She released the seal on her glove. Her envirosuit decompressed with a soft hiss.
"See? No zapstick, no needles." She pulled off her gloves, and then reached up and removed her helmet. The alien's arm had come down and he was staring at her wide-eyed.
Setting her helmet and gloves aside, qoRa~ took a slow step toward him. "It's all right," she said soothingly. "I won't hurt you."
She stopped in front of him and crouched down to his level. She pointed to her chest. "qoRa~," she said, sweeping her hand from left to right. He stared at her silently. "qoRa~," she repeated, slowly and clearly.
The alien continued to stare at her mouth in obvious concentration. "C- cora," he whispered.
"Yes, that's right!" she cried excitedly. Close enough, even without the hand motion. She bobbed her head up and down as he had, hoping it really meant yes.
"Cora," he said again, with the ghost of a smile on his lips. Then he pointed to himself and said a short string of sounds qoRa~ had never heard before. When she didn't respond, he repeated the sounds.
QoRa~ concentrated on his mouth, as he did not move his hands in any discernible pattern. "Xi'," she attempted. She knew the sounds weren't quite right, but it was as close as she thought she could get.
He repeated the sounds again. QoRa~ watched his lips come together at the end of the word. Although the sound was not one that appeared in her language, she thought she might possibly be able to say it.
"Xip#," she tried again, automatically adding the gesture for 'male person'.
The corners of the alien's mouth curved upward again into that beautiful smile. QoRa~ returned the smile with a thrill of excitement. She reached out her hand again to touch his cheek. The smile faded and he froze, but did not pull away.
Very gently qoRa~ stroked his cheek, marveling at the softness of his skin. She traced the curve of his rounded ear, then down along his jawbone, which was unexpectedly rough.
The alien sat very still while she touched him, but QoRa~ could see his pulse pounding in his neck. She ran her fingers along the fragile-looking bone that stood out horizontally across the front of his shoulder, felt the hollow at the base of his throat.
He didn't resist when she gently pulled back the blanket and stroked down his right arm, feeling the fine, soft hair covering the skin. She turned his hand over and examined the wound on the palm. Using her thumb and fingernail, she carefully removed a shard of glass embedded in the cut. He winced and she felt a slight tug as he resisted the urge to pull away.
QoRa~ lightly traced each delicate finger. The skin on his fingertips was raised in elegant whorls and ridges. She rubbed the ridges in wonder.
Reluctantly qoRa~ released his hand and it disappeared back under the blanket.
"Where are you from?" she asked. He met her eye and said some words in his language. "Of course, you don't know what I'm saying. How can I help you understand?"
QoRa~ thought for a moment, then she jumped up. "Wait right there," she said as she punched in the code to open the door.
When she returned a moment later with a pad of paper and a writing instrument, he was sitting exactly where she had left him. He watched her curiously.
She set the pad on the floor and held up the pen for him to see. She quickly drew a large circle for her sun and five smaller circles for the planets in her solar system. She pointed to the second planet from the sun, then at the floor. His head bobbed in comprehension.
"Now where are you from, Xip#?" QoRa~ held the pen out to him and he took it in his right hand. She ripped off the top sheet of paper to expose a blank page underneath.
The alien leaned forward and began to draw. He quickly sketched a circle surrounded by squiggly lines, obviously indicating a sun, and then nine smaller circles with lines showing they orbited the sun. With a glance up to make sure she was watching, he touched the third planet from the sun, and then his chest.
QoRa~ bobbed her head to show she understood. "How far away is that?" She pointed around the room with a questioning look on her face.
The corner of the alien's mouth twitched upward. Very deliberately he laid her drawing in one corner of the room, then limped to the opposite corner and laid his picture down as far away as possible.
QoRa~ was surprised. She had expected perhaps that his planet was in a neighboring solar system, but where he had put his drawing indicated hundreds of lightyears. That distance was mind-boggling.
"How-how did you get here?" she asked in amazement. She pointed to him, and made a motion of traveling from his solar system to hers.
He moved to her drawing and sketched a figure orbiting her planet, with a circle in the front, and two parallel lines coming out the back. QoRa~'s eyes widened.
"A ship!" she exclaimed. "An alien spaceship! Where is it now? Maybe you can go home!" She pointed to the ship, then to the ceiling, and back to the ship again.
His head swung back and forth quickly. He drew a dark line through the ship that extended off the edge of the paper. Then he dropped the pen, pushed the paper away, and backed into his corner with the blanket wrapped tightly around himself.
"They left you?" qoRa~ asked gently. The alien's lip began to quiver and there was water in his eyes again. He sniffled and wiped the water away as it spilled down his face. He clutched his injured left arm against his chest and moaned in pain.
QoRa~ stood up and said, "I'll be right back." She gathered up the paper and pen and hurried out, leaving the alien huddled in the corner.
Day 5: 0200 hours
"How do I look, Hoshi?" Malcolm asked with a grin. He spread out his arms to show the coat of blue fur the doctor had given him.
Hoshi gave him a dubious look. "Probably about as ridiculous as I do," she replied. "Doctor, the ears were bigger."
"Ah, Grandmother, what big ears you have," the doctor said with a chuckle. Hoshi frowned at him. "I have read up on Earth culture, Ensign," he said as he stretched her artificial ear upwards. "Better?"
Hoshi regarded herself in the mirror. "I guess so. Captain, do you really think this is going to work?"
Archer looked up from the sickbay workstation where he and T'Pol were choosing a beam-down site. "We can do it, Hoshi," he said seriously.
Hoshi bit her lip and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Even with prosthetic ears, nose, eyelids, and fur, she still looked wrong somehow. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but somehow she knew that she would not be accepted as a native.
Once she had figured out the linguistic system, she had identified most of the manual signs with relative ease, but she was still far short of being fluent in the language. Without the help of the translator, she doubted that she would be able to make herself understood beyond simple phrases. She was fairly sure she could ask where the bathroom was, but "Do you have any information about a captured alien," was probably somewhat beyond her current abilities.
"Can we beam in right there?" the captain asked T'Pol, pointing at the screen.
The Sub-Commander entered some data into her PADD. "I believe that area is uninhabited. You will have to walk three kilometers to the nearest population center."
"I think we can do that. Doc, how soon will we be ready?"
"It will take at least another three hours to finish the prosthetics, to say nothing of solving the height problem, which we haven't even started on yet."
The captain nodded to T'Pol. "Have the coordinates entered into the transporter. I want to be ready to go by 0600."
T'Pol inclined her head and strode out of sickbay. Hoshi watched the captain and was surprised to see a momentary expression of grief flit across his face. The expression disappeared when he realized she was watching him.
"Captain . . ."
"It'll be all right, Hoshi. We'll find him."
"Yes, sir."
~*~*~*~*~
Warning: This is another not-so-nice story. I tried to write a happy story but I didn't like the way it was coming out, so I wrote this one. Be prepared for some pain (hopefully not on the reader's part, however!).
~*~*~*~*~
Chapter 5: Contact
Day 5: 0000 hours
When qoRa~ arrived in the observation room, First lab Assistant RaB# was leaning forward with his nose practically touching the window.
"What's going on?" She asked as she closed the door.
"The alien's face is wet. We think it might be some sort of defense mechanism. Xu'~ and I took a sample." RaB# adjusted the videocamera to zoom in on the alien's face and stepped back so qoRa~ could see the screen.
"He looks frightened," qoRa~ said quietly.
RaB# scoffed. "It's more dangerous than it looks. When we went in there it tried to attack us." He pulled on his coat and headed out the door.
QoRa~ sat down in the chair and stared at the vidscreen. The alien had his face buried in his arm, trembling. He didn't look dangerous to her, he looked terrified and extremely vulnerable.
She picked up the observation log and leafed back through the pages. She stopped and read a few entries.
2100 hours: injection of lysergic acid diethylamide.
2130 hours: subject appears to be talking to people who aren't there.
2200 hours: sitting in corner. liquid coming from eyes. Defense mechanism?
2250 hours: took sample of liquid. subject tried to bite lab assistant. Was subdued by zapstick.
QoRa~ dropped the log back onto the desk and turned her attention to the vidscreen again. "Good for you," she said with a small smile. "I'd have bit him too."
On the screen the alien lifted his head and looked directly at the camera, startling her. He stared unblinking at the camera for several seconds, then buried his face again, shivering uncontrollably.
QoRa~ contemplated the image on the screen. Why are we doing this, she wondered. This was obviously an intelligent creature. It hadn't harmed anyone, and yet the best response that her people could come up with was to torture and kill it. But what could she do about it? She was only a lowly lab assistant.
QoRa~ took a deep breath, pushed back her chair and stood up. Maybe she couldn't solve the problems of the universe, but she could do one small kindness for one creature. She reached out and shut off the videocamera.
Before she could change her mind, qoRa~ pulled on an envirosuit, took a blanket off the top shelf of the closet and headed toward the alien's cell. With shaking fingers she entered the code to open the door.
When she entered the door, the alien was standing with his back pressed against the wall, injured arm clutched to his chest. He watched her warily.
QoRa~ took three steps into the room, letting door clang shut behind her. The alien shrank back further into the corner.
Carefully, qoRa~ opened the blanket and held it out to him. He eyed her suspiciously but didn't move. She set the blanket down on the floor and stepped back, holding out her hands to show they were empty.
For several seconds the alien's eyes flicked back and forth between her and the blanket. Finally he darted forward, snatched the blanket, and retreated to his corner.
The alien hesitated, feeling the soft fabric with his thumb and forefinger, and then he wrapped the blanket around himself, still shivering. His eyes closed for a moment.
QoRa~ stood completely still, just watching him. He licked his lower lip, which was dry and cracked. When his eyes finally opened again, some of the fear was gone.
The alien spoke a few words in his language, and then slowly, shakily, his cupped hand moved up to his mouth.
"Water?" qoRa~ asked excitedly. "You want water?"
Her sudden movement seemed to startle him, because he shrank back into the corner again.
QoRa~ slowly imitated his gesture, cupped hand up to her mouth, like drinking. His head bobbed up and down in what she took to be a gesture of agreement.
"Wait right here," she said. "I'll be right back!" Hurriedly qoRa~ entered the code to open the door.
A few moments later qoRa~ returned with a plastic cup full of water, which she carefully put down on the floor in the middle of the room. As soon as she had stepped back, the alien limped out and picked up the cup. He took a small sip and held it in his mouth for a second, then, apparently satisfied that it wouldn't hurt him, quickly gulped down the rest of the water.
The alien set the cup back down in the middle of the floor and wiped his mouth with his right arm. He made the drinking motion again.
"More?" she asked, copying his motion. "You want more."
His head bobbed up and down.
"All right, I'll get you more." When she took a step forward to pick up the cup, he retreated to his corner, not quite as quickly or fearfully as he had the previous times.
QoRa~ quickly refilled the cup and brought it back. This time, instead of setting it down, she held the cup out to him.
He watched her cautiously for a moment, and then took a hesitant step forward, then another. Slowly he reached out his hand and took the cup from her outstretched fingers.
The alien gulped down the contents without pausing. When he lowered the cup, his mouth curved upward into the most beautiful smile qoRa~ had ever seen. She was stunned. Without thinking she reached out her hand to touch his face.
The smile vanished in an instant. The alien dropped the cup and dashed back to his corner, flinging his right arm up to protect his head.
"I won't hurt you," qoRa~ said softly. She released the seal on her glove. Her envirosuit decompressed with a soft hiss.
"See? No zapstick, no needles." She pulled off her gloves, and then reached up and removed her helmet. The alien's arm had come down and he was staring at her wide-eyed.
Setting her helmet and gloves aside, qoRa~ took a slow step toward him. "It's all right," she said soothingly. "I won't hurt you."
She stopped in front of him and crouched down to his level. She pointed to her chest. "qoRa~," she said, sweeping her hand from left to right. He stared at her silently. "qoRa~," she repeated, slowly and clearly.
The alien continued to stare at her mouth in obvious concentration. "C- cora," he whispered.
"Yes, that's right!" she cried excitedly. Close enough, even without the hand motion. She bobbed her head up and down as he had, hoping it really meant yes.
"Cora," he said again, with the ghost of a smile on his lips. Then he pointed to himself and said a short string of sounds qoRa~ had never heard before. When she didn't respond, he repeated the sounds.
QoRa~ concentrated on his mouth, as he did not move his hands in any discernible pattern. "Xi'," she attempted. She knew the sounds weren't quite right, but it was as close as she thought she could get.
He repeated the sounds again. QoRa~ watched his lips come together at the end of the word. Although the sound was not one that appeared in her language, she thought she might possibly be able to say it.
"Xip#," she tried again, automatically adding the gesture for 'male person'.
The corners of the alien's mouth curved upward again into that beautiful smile. QoRa~ returned the smile with a thrill of excitement. She reached out her hand again to touch his cheek. The smile faded and he froze, but did not pull away.
Very gently qoRa~ stroked his cheek, marveling at the softness of his skin. She traced the curve of his rounded ear, then down along his jawbone, which was unexpectedly rough.
The alien sat very still while she touched him, but QoRa~ could see his pulse pounding in his neck. She ran her fingers along the fragile-looking bone that stood out horizontally across the front of his shoulder, felt the hollow at the base of his throat.
He didn't resist when she gently pulled back the blanket and stroked down his right arm, feeling the fine, soft hair covering the skin. She turned his hand over and examined the wound on the palm. Using her thumb and fingernail, she carefully removed a shard of glass embedded in the cut. He winced and she felt a slight tug as he resisted the urge to pull away.
QoRa~ lightly traced each delicate finger. The skin on his fingertips was raised in elegant whorls and ridges. She rubbed the ridges in wonder.
Reluctantly qoRa~ released his hand and it disappeared back under the blanket.
"Where are you from?" she asked. He met her eye and said some words in his language. "Of course, you don't know what I'm saying. How can I help you understand?"
QoRa~ thought for a moment, then she jumped up. "Wait right there," she said as she punched in the code to open the door.
When she returned a moment later with a pad of paper and a writing instrument, he was sitting exactly where she had left him. He watched her curiously.
She set the pad on the floor and held up the pen for him to see. She quickly drew a large circle for her sun and five smaller circles for the planets in her solar system. She pointed to the second planet from the sun, then at the floor. His head bobbed in comprehension.
"Now where are you from, Xip#?" QoRa~ held the pen out to him and he took it in his right hand. She ripped off the top sheet of paper to expose a blank page underneath.
The alien leaned forward and began to draw. He quickly sketched a circle surrounded by squiggly lines, obviously indicating a sun, and then nine smaller circles with lines showing they orbited the sun. With a glance up to make sure she was watching, he touched the third planet from the sun, and then his chest.
QoRa~ bobbed her head to show she understood. "How far away is that?" She pointed around the room with a questioning look on her face.
The corner of the alien's mouth twitched upward. Very deliberately he laid her drawing in one corner of the room, then limped to the opposite corner and laid his picture down as far away as possible.
QoRa~ was surprised. She had expected perhaps that his planet was in a neighboring solar system, but where he had put his drawing indicated hundreds of lightyears. That distance was mind-boggling.
"How-how did you get here?" she asked in amazement. She pointed to him, and made a motion of traveling from his solar system to hers.
He moved to her drawing and sketched a figure orbiting her planet, with a circle in the front, and two parallel lines coming out the back. QoRa~'s eyes widened.
"A ship!" she exclaimed. "An alien spaceship! Where is it now? Maybe you can go home!" She pointed to the ship, then to the ceiling, and back to the ship again.
His head swung back and forth quickly. He drew a dark line through the ship that extended off the edge of the paper. Then he dropped the pen, pushed the paper away, and backed into his corner with the blanket wrapped tightly around himself.
"They left you?" qoRa~ asked gently. The alien's lip began to quiver and there was water in his eyes again. He sniffled and wiped the water away as it spilled down his face. He clutched his injured left arm against his chest and moaned in pain.
QoRa~ stood up and said, "I'll be right back." She gathered up the paper and pen and hurried out, leaving the alien huddled in the corner.
Day 5: 0200 hours
"How do I look, Hoshi?" Malcolm asked with a grin. He spread out his arms to show the coat of blue fur the doctor had given him.
Hoshi gave him a dubious look. "Probably about as ridiculous as I do," she replied. "Doctor, the ears were bigger."
"Ah, Grandmother, what big ears you have," the doctor said with a chuckle. Hoshi frowned at him. "I have read up on Earth culture, Ensign," he said as he stretched her artificial ear upwards. "Better?"
Hoshi regarded herself in the mirror. "I guess so. Captain, do you really think this is going to work?"
Archer looked up from the sickbay workstation where he and T'Pol were choosing a beam-down site. "We can do it, Hoshi," he said seriously.
Hoshi bit her lip and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Even with prosthetic ears, nose, eyelids, and fur, she still looked wrong somehow. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but somehow she knew that she would not be accepted as a native.
Once she had figured out the linguistic system, she had identified most of the manual signs with relative ease, but she was still far short of being fluent in the language. Without the help of the translator, she doubted that she would be able to make herself understood beyond simple phrases. She was fairly sure she could ask where the bathroom was, but "Do you have any information about a captured alien," was probably somewhat beyond her current abilities.
"Can we beam in right there?" the captain asked T'Pol, pointing at the screen.
The Sub-Commander entered some data into her PADD. "I believe that area is uninhabited. You will have to walk three kilometers to the nearest population center."
"I think we can do that. Doc, how soon will we be ready?"
"It will take at least another three hours to finish the prosthetics, to say nothing of solving the height problem, which we haven't even started on yet."
The captain nodded to T'Pol. "Have the coordinates entered into the transporter. I want to be ready to go by 0600."
T'Pol inclined her head and strode out of sickbay. Hoshi watched the captain and was surprised to see a momentary expression of grief flit across his face. The expression disappeared when he realized she was watching him.
"Captain . . ."
"It'll be all right, Hoshi. We'll find him."
"Yes, sir."
~*~*~*~*~