Chapter Seven

Bargains

Jonathan Archer entered the bridge, having much to think bout; but it quickly became clear he would have no time at all. "Captain, the Extikone is hailing us." Hoshi announced even before he had reached his seat. He looked at the sleek silver ship that faced them across the void, where they circled in synchronous orbit about the contested planet Caldis 3, or Jalandin as the Bravinan had designated it. Of course, the Bravina themselves were native of Cygnet XIV as the Vulcan star charts had it. The final designations of many of these places would be determined by the negotiations to be so soon resumed.

"On screen," he directed, and the huge silver ship was replaced by an image of the sweeping bridge of that huge vessel. In the center seat of a bridge eerily similar to their's sat Deline Jessena. "Good morning, Deline."

"Good morning, Captain. I trust you are ready to resume negotiations?"

"We are."

"Excellent. May we bring you and your Science Officer aboard?" Each of them stood up in their places. They had already discussed this; this trip was not going to be by shuttle.

"You may."

Archer and T'Pol each felt a mild 'pop' in their ears as the air pressure changed slightly, and they stood on the bridge of the Extikone.

--

Captain Archer looked around, taking in the remarkable, sweeping bridge, and the image of the Enterprise displayed on the tremendous floor to ceiling and wall to wall viewscreen before them. "An impressive transporter, Deline."

"Thank you. It operates on a quantum transfer principle, rather than matter/energy conversion. Thus we can bring you aboard whole."

"That system is not scientifically plausible." T'Pol said, surprising Archer. He could hardly believe she would deny the truth of something they had just experienced first hand.

"It is if you are dealing with pseudospace." Jessena maintained calmly.

"Pseudospace?"

"It's … well, how do I explain it? It's a region, or a dimension of space that exists … side-by-side with our own, but the natural laws are slightly different. You were … partially extruded into pseudospace, while remaining partially in our own. It allows for some interesting effects not possible when limited to our own."

"Such as a shuttle suddenly coming over the horizon seconds after your ship arrives." Archer concluded with sudden insight.

"I told you he would get it." Tertiary officer Alir spoke up from her station. Jessena nodded in agreement.

"It was pretty convincing." Archer granted, with a nod of appreciation to his Science Officer. He turned to face Jessena. "There never was a colony, was there?"

"In fact, there is. Just not yet." She admitted, offering a seat to each of the Enterprise officers as she resumed her own. "We were in pseudospace when your ship arrived, and we were somewhat reluctant to reveal ourselves. There are times when, dealing with otherworldly races, things have not gone well; at least not initially. But your apparent equality of status between your sexes is not common and spoke of great potential. It was decided that we should take the chance."

She looked about her bridge for a moment. "Captain, if I may speak frankly, I am not a diplomat and I suspect you prefer plain talk as well."

"I do."

"Bravina intends to settle Jalandin, and my government has neither the desire nor intent to share. I am not interested in getting into a long debate over which of our respective governments has the older claim to this world. I am ordered to settle our expeditionary teams and resume my duties in another sector. You indicated you have the same level of authority from your government that I do from mine to negotiate, so I will ask one simple question: What do you want for the planet?"

---

"So that was that." Archer concluded to his Chief Engineer in his Ready Room about two hours later.

"So, you sold them the planet." Trip said, mildly impressed. "You know, I've never met anyone who sold a planet before. What did we get for it?" He asked with pseudo-calmness. He had had dreams and visions all night of self-sealing hulls, artificial intelligence, gravity nullifiers, perfect UT's, power absorbing hulls, quantum transporters…

"The designs and specifications for their computer system." Trip felt like he was three quarters off the edge of a cliff, and no one threw him a rope.

"That's it?!"

"That and a perpetual treaty."

"And…?" Archer shook his head. "Well, it's not that I don't appreciate treaties and all that, but …" His diplomacy wore out. "Well, hell, couldn't you have held out for a …?"

"A…?"

"Oh, hell, I don't know! Somethin'?"

Archer smiled. "Trip, there's an old saying; 'Give a man a fish and he'll eat today; teach a man to fish and he'll eat for all his life'."

"Well, I love Florida marlins, but …" Archer held up his hand.

"Are you going to tell me there's anything you've seen in the past two days you couldn't come up with if you had the resources?

"Well, no, but…" He began, not willing to abandon his pride, but…

"Well, I got you the resources; a fully interactive AI computer system that took eighty five gigaquads of data just to list the specifications of. It'll keep Starfleet computer science branch busy for years while you're working on our self sealing hull and gravity nullifier, and it'll revolutionize starship design for years to come. Think of it, in a few years we'll have computers you can actually talk to, hold a conversation with and work in partnership with. Imagine how well you can do your job when accessing data is not a matter of using a panel but asking a question."

"Well, when you put it like that…"

"Plus, we're not going to be strangers to them now. There's time enough for the diplomats to get the things we missed."

"If they don't mind sharing with technological savages." Archer grinned wryly.

"Well, there's always that risk. But that's not our worry, is it?"

"No, sir. Thank you, sir."

"Dismissed." Trip was almost to the door when Archer remembered: "Oh, one last thing."

Trip barely turned around in time to catch a data disk tossed into his hands. "What's this?"

"Sensor readings on the Silurian ship the Aurans stole. It'll allow us to recognize it if we get into range."

Trip visibly hesitated, then came to a decision. "Sir, about that; in fact, about Aurans, I –." He set the square disk on the table beside the door. "There's something I have to tell you."

Epilogue

Trip Tucker was about to push the button to open the door to his quarters that evening when he was surprised to hear his name called from down the corridor. He looked to see Ensigns Cutler and Sato approaching. "Sir," Liz began, "may we speak to you?"

"Sure." She glanced up and down the corridor, and then at his door.

"Privately?"

Trip was surprised, but pressed the button, admitting the women before him. When the door closed, he regarded the two junior officers. He was hard pressed to decide which of them seemed more uncomfortable. Hoshi did not even meet his eyes. "What's wrong?" He directed the question to his bridge colleague.

"Sir, this is … well, you see, we're … concerned. You see, there's this … I mean we really …" Liz Cutler regarded her stammering friend in rapidly fading patience; then turned to Trip.

"Commander, how often do you sleep with Tia Anlor?"

Trip's mouth fell open as Hoshi whirled on her friend. "I'd have gotten to it a bit better!"

"I can't believe you asked that, Ensign!" Trip exclaimed, astonishment turning to anger when his voice came back.

"I'm sorry, Commander, but its important." Liz insisted, holding her ground.

"It had better be damned important for your sake, Ensign, because it's none of your business!" Tucker was outraged, and feeling his anger building by the second.

"Is it every night, because she says it is and we're worried about her because there's something you don't know and it's dangerous to her and we think she's hurting herself and you don't know about it and you might be able to help her before she gets seriously hurt or perhaps even killed!"

Trip felt his anger obliterated somewhere in that breathless rush, and he regarded the women thoughtfully. "What do you know?"

"Does she spend time with you every night?"

"Most." He admitted, hardly believing he did so. If anything was private, it was this. Then again, they had said Tia was being hurt… "Once in a while she might come to me at night, but when I wake up in the morning she's gone. She doesn't always come for … anything physical, just to …well …"

"And after the concert?" Liz pressed.

"After the concert she wasn't here at all but for last night. Sometimes I'll go to bed alone and wake up with her. I never really know. She has the code to this door, but I never push."

"How often do you two have sex?"

"Now that's none of your business!"

"Every day?"

"Every couple of days, as if that –!"

"She says every night."

"So? Look, I'm trying to be a gentleman here, but I'm runnin' out of patience with –!"

"Commander, we were with her last night." Hoshi broke in.

"She was with me last night."

"All night?" Her tone made it clear she knew better, and silenced him. "Commander, we found out yesterday she's been, well, she's been walking in her sleep and doesn't remember it."

"Walking in her sleep?!" He asked, astonished.

"A lot, we're told; by crewmen who've seen her late into gamma shift." Hoshi maintained.

"But lately, when she goes to sleep, she's been hurting herself."

"How?!" He demanded.

"In the gym, a few meters from her quarters…" Hoshi began.

"I know where it is!"

"Have you noticed she's been losing weight?" Liz asked suddenly, distractingly.

"I've noticed, but …"

"Nearly five kilos."

"… that's a lot." He admitted. "But she seems fit."

"Anyone who runs between ten to twenty kilometers a night will be 'fit', but she's killing herself doing it!"

Trip suddenly felt the need to sit down in his chair, the full weight of these revelations adding to what he already knew about her inner demons.

"Why?" He asked the women.

"She doesn't know she's doing it. I told you, she's asleep when she does it." Liz went on to describe in detail what they had witnessed that morning, and the reason why she had 'staked out' the gym.

"We're concerned." Hoshi insisted. "She's running away from something; we could both see that. But she's hurting herself doing it. Next time she pushes herself to collapse, she might get hurt, or the cumulative effects will catch up with her."

"What does that mean?"

"She hasn't eaten her own food in months." Liz reminded him. "Phlox gives her supplements of vitamins and minerals she can't get here, to say nothing of gold, but he isn't aware of the root cause of her steady decline. A regular workout routine is one thing, so it's not showing up as a problem that she's 'fit', especially when she doesn't know she's doing it. But she has to eat like a horse in order to keep to a one kilo a month average weight loss, and pretty soon supplements aren't going to do it for her. And if she collapses on the tread while running away at nearly thirty kilometers an hour …"

She let it hang, letting him fill in the mental picture of just what would happen.

"Commander, I saw the look on her face while she was running, and it was scary as hell." Hoshi said quietly. "She's running from something, but she doesn't know she's doing it. Has she shared it with you? I know she had a horrible time before she escaped; all her friends died, but is there anything more? Something really traumatic she would keep trying to run from?"

"Something really traumatic." Trip repeated, looking inwardly for a moment before his eyes took them in again. "Sit down, ladies, there's something you should know, but its private and I want your word you'll keep it so until I tell you otherwise."

--fin--