Chapter Three
Getting to know you.

Left alone with Phlox in the Sick Bay, Trip was quite at a loss. He was all too well aware that he had made a very poor showing indeed, but he was relieved that the Doctor seemed in no way interested in mentioning that. Indeed, in the few months that they had known one another, he had heard the Physician counsel both himself and others several times on the need to get used to diversity. 'It's a big galaxy out there, and you must get used to seeing many strange things in it,' he would say. But little had prepared Trip for the nonchalance of Tia's disrobing, nor of what he had found under her garments.

He was about to open his mouth to inquire of the doctor, but it was the hiss of the sliding door that seemed to emerge instead, having the fortunate effect of properly shushing him.

Then again, the sight of the now fully clothed young woman entering the room was itself enough to reduce him to speechlessness. She was absolutely stunning. Her reconstituted clothing fit her snugly; 'spray-painted' was the term that came to mind. But regardless of what she wore, or earlier did not wear, it was the woman herself that so totally captivated Trip.

"It is that I am ready, Shar-les," she told him softly, in a voice that seemed to stroke his ears.

He had to forcefully shake himself back to attention. "Oh, yeah, well, let's go get something to eat. You must be starved after all this."

"Yes, I am very calyryys." The UT rendered the English 'hungry' an instant later, the unpredictable device sometimes adding a dimension to communication that was as much mildly amusing as it was unwelcome.

"I would like you to return here when you are done, however," Phlox directed. "I want to monitor you for a while."

"Yes, doctor."

xx

When they were alone, walking slowly down the corridor, Trip tried to rack his brain for something to say. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but they ranged from the distressing 'Why were you being shot at?' to the intrusive 'Why are you covered with bruises and welts?' It left him quite uncertain about what to say.

"Well, Tia… That's, uh, that's a nice name."

She looked up at him with a shy smile. "I think 'Shar-les' is a nice name also."

"Thanks." 'Well, enough of blithering like an idiot,' he thought. "So, tell me, what kind of planet are you from?"

She stopped and frowned in concentration, clearly trying to come up with the words. "I – I am not certain … that I can explain it to anyone who has never seen it. It is very …. That is, it is rather like …. No; that is not it either." She groped with her hands, trying to physically describe what she was trying to say, having no real luck either. "It is very …. It is very …" She looked at him intently. "Big! And it has this … envelope of … atmosphere all around it. And it is really, really round!"

Trip laughed heartily. "Well, I walked right into that one!"

She looked at him, monumentally confused. She looked at his feet, at the far wall several meters away, and utterly failed to comprehend. "Never mind. I guess the UT is having some problems with your language. It'll get it." Her expression of confusion only deepened as she tried to work out the structure of his last words. "Never mind."

"Your tongue is very strange." They started down the corridor again. "And I have never before seen a pink one."

xxx

Fortunately (for Trip) the Mess Hall was not very far from the Sick Bay, so it was a brief few minutes before they were seated in chairs near the food dispensers. "Tia, what can you tell me about your culture?"

She thought for a moment. "A very great deal about what it was, and about what it has become. Before I was born we lived in peace, in harmony with our planet. Then the demons came, and nothing has been the same.

"Your doctor has theorized that the element that makes up most of the life on our world is as common as you call 'iron', and he says we are unique in his experience. To us, it is all very natural, as natural as 'iron' is to you. But the demons have none, and prize it greatly."

"They mine the gold?" She looked at him quizzically. "Dig it up from the ground?"

"Yes, but that was long ago. What deposits there were are long gone. But it is a basic element of life; one does not have to dig it out of the ground."

Now it was Trip's turn to be confused. Granted, the iron in the bloodstream, and the carbon in the cells was not strictly the ferric or carbon that came out of the mines, but the major deposits of the elements were found in the crust of the Earth. What development of evolution …? "We never paid attention to it. We have no need to; no use for it."

"Never mind, I'll find out more from Phlox later." They took some food from the wall slots, but Trip at least was not particularly interested in it, being much more attentive on the young woman before him. The more he looked at her, listened to her, the more fascinating she became to him. He couldn't explain it – even in the moments he had first seen her, when she was unconscious, she had captivated him. Now, awake and vital, there was something truly compelling about her.

xxx

He chose several different things, bringing them back to the table and setting them before her, and she tried a small sample of each in turn. Some things she appeared to like immediately, others she tasted and cautiously refrained from a sour expression, though she did not touch them again. In the meantime, he did not take his eyes off her.

It wasn't just her appearance, stunning though that was. She was slight, barely two inches over 5 feet tall, perfectly formed (something he'd had clear evidence of earlier), her complexion was golden the way 'beach bunnies' on Earth could never hope for, her hair was almost literally spun gold, but there was a special quality about her, some indefinable thing that "Shar-les, why do you stare at me so?"

Taken aback, Trip started guiltily. She had withdrawn slightly, apprehension clear in her eyes. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to upset you! It's rude, I know, I just wasn't thinking – or rather I guess I was thinking too much. I'm sorry."

She relaxed slightly, reaching out and touching the back of his hand as it lay on the tabletop. "It is all right. I just was not sure that there was nothing wrong. I am sorry – I have grown to be untrusting."

"Well, I can certainly understand that." There was a long moment of silence, a very long one. Finally, he decided that he might as well 'bite the bullet'. It was going to come up sooner or later anyhow. "What happened to you and your friends?"

She drew her hand back and looked down, unable to meet his eyes. "My world has been conquered, my people reduced to slaves. The demons, they take what they want; and though they take much from our world they are never satisfied. They have taken all that they can, there has not been any more in palyis." 'Years', the UT said a moment later. "And then what they want they take from our bodies! If we refuse …" She could say no more, her voice trailing away as she looked down, unable to meet his eyes.

"I understand."

"They could get the same thing from animals, lower life forms," she said softly, "but the larger the –"

"Commander Ticker, Tia Anlor," Hoshi Sato's voice sounded from the speaker set in the ceiling, "report to the Bridge immediately."

"On our way." Trip acknowledged.