Day Five

Malcolm woke up with a start to a thunk! He had been in the middle of a strange dream, wherein the crew of Enterprise was entering a battle. Oddly, he was at the communications station, Hoshi was at the science station, T'Pol was manning the weapons, Travis was in command, and, most inexplicably, Porthos sat at the helm.

Brushing the images aside, he popped out of bed and found T'Pol in the forward compartment with a padd. "What was that?"

"It has begun to hail," she replied.

"That must've been a large chunk."

"Indeed. I would recommend against leaving the shuttlepod." Another thunk! made her idea sound wise, but Malcolm didn't relish the thought of being cooped up for another day. He checked the chronometer and discovered he'd been asleep for close to seven hours, so it was time to get up for the day.

He couldn't see more than a meter beyond the window of the shuttlepod, since the sun had barely begun to lighten the bottom of the horizon and the clouds were obviously thick. Hail was coming down, bouncing off the hull as it went. The outside section of the maneuvering thrusters would have to wait. Malcolm didn't particularly see a need to get bruised repairing thrusters that were still useless without engines. His skin had just recovered.

"Should we finish these berries and nuts for breakfast?"

T'Pol put her padd aside. "I see no reason not to."

"What was that?"

"The beginning of my mission report."

That was about all there was to do while hail was bouncing off the hull. "I think that this may be the most excruciatingly detailed report I've ever written."

"I doubt that Captain Archer will appreciate that."

He chuckled and started peeling a nut. "Maybe he'll take my suggestions more seriously."

"What suggestions are those?"

"More spare parts in shuttlepods, for starters. A weapons upgrade and stronger hull plating as well."

"I am not certain that those upgrades could have prevented this situation. However, the likelihood would have been increased."

"I also considered recommending that we keep novels in here for when there's nothing else to do, but I doubt that Starfleet would find that amusing."

"Probably not," she agreed.

They finished breakfast and went back to mission reports. Malcolm sighed and made himself comfortable.

The hail eventually petered out. Malcolm, eager to leave the shuttlepod, opened the hatch and looked at their bowls. One was filled to toe brim with water and a few pieces of hail. The other had been knocked on its side by a larger piece. He picked it up.

"I think I'll go get some shellfish for lunch." It wasn't quite time for lunch yet, but he figured by the time he dug and boiled his food, he'd be hungry.

T'Pol picked up the empty toolkits. "Perhaps the storm washed debris to shore that would be of interest." Malcolm smiled to himself. Most beachcombers just picked up what struck their fancy, but not T'Pol. She tried to find things to put under the microscope.

They walked over to the other side of the island, where the shellfish were more plentiful. Malcolm started digging, and T'Pol picked up various pieces of driftwood, shells, and sponges. Malcolm pocketed a sponge for himself as well, hoping that he could take a literal sponge bath later.

He found two shellfish that were clearly a different variety than the others, but they were safe to eat so he dropped them in the bowl with the others. T'Pol was still picking up things, so he wandered over to the stream, rinsed off the shellfish, and filled the bowl with fresh water to boil them in. Then he proceeded to wash out the sponge and wash his face.

Just as he was about to start in on his arms, T'Pol called out, "Lieutenant?"

"Yes?" Malcolm looked over. She was intently examining both her tricorder and a particular spot in the water.

"I have found something of interest." He walked up and saw what she'd found. It appeared to be a large bone, though he couldn't be sure.

"Is that a bone?"

"I believe so. Will you help me move it?"

He gulped. The water was at least up to his knees, and he knew that riptides could form that close to land. T'Pol obviously saw no danger, but his pulse raced at the idea.

Not wanting to expose his weakness, Malcolm nodded and took his boots off.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

Off came his socks. "Rolling up the legs of my pants so they don't get wet."

"A logical preparation," T'Pol agreed. She copied his actions on her own suit.

"Humans have been doing it for hundreds of years. It's called wading." Maybe if he sounded confident, she wouldn't notice his unease.

Following T'Pol into the water, Malcolm reminded himself to breathe. We're just going to pull out the bloody bone and then go back to land. Nothing is going to happen. They strained to pull out the bone, and it moved a few centimeters.

"This is heavier than I anticipated."

"I think there's more of it under the sand," he answered, reminding himself again that he was not going to drown while T'Pol was right beside him.

They heaved again, and the massive bone moved. He'd been right, there was more buried in the sand. Twin streams of sweat raced down Malcolm's forehead. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. His mantra didn't provide much help against the knot in his stomach.

Finally the end of the bone came out of the sand, nearly knocking Malcolm on hisback in the process.

"Are you ill?" She looked quite concerned.

"No. I'm fine, thanks." The rest of the trip to shore was easy, and in short order Malcolm found himself on the beach. He hurried to the dry sand and sat down, trying to hide the way his hands were shaking.

"If you are not ill, why have you become so pale?"

His heart raced in his chest, and then he saw T'Pol pull out her tricorder. Putting his hand up to block the instrument, he relented. "I'll be fine in a few minutes."

"You clearly know more than you are explaining."

Malcolm decided to confess before she pulled rank. "You can't tell anyone."

"Medical information is confidential."

"It's not medical, exactly."

She raised an eyebrow, and he sighed. "It's just that…"

"You fear the water," T'Pol completed.

He corrected her. "Not water. Drowning. How did you know?"

"Your elevated heart rate, shallow breathing, trembling…"

"I get it. You can read me like a book." The day was not going well for Malcolm. "It's stupid and embarrassing, so I would appreciate it if we could just leave it at that."

"Is anyone else on Enterprise aware of this?"

"Captain Archer knows."

She nodded. "I will not speak of it again."

"Thank you."

T'Pol went over to scan the long, curved bone. Malcolm sat on the beach until he stopped shaking and his pulse returned to normal, then he picked berries until she was done.

On the way back, T'Pol filled him in on her discoveries. "I believe that what we located is a bone from a large aquatic mammal."

"A whale bone." He'd seen those only in museums, which suited him much better than dragging them out of the ocean.

"Indeed. I have a sample of the bone for further analysis."

The topic of his phobia didn't come up again, thankfully. T'Pol was probably curious about that irrational fear, but she respected his privacy. That made them even, because he still had questions about the Vulcan marriage things she'd mentioned.

She looked at the bone sample under the microscope while he boiled his shellfish and sponged the saltwater off his legs. "There are no comparable species on Vulcan," she declared, "although I believe in Earth's past there were."

Well, at least one of them was having a good day. Malcolm cracked open the two different shellfish first. They were chewier. T'Pol settled herself upwind of the seafood to eat her bagel.

He found a surprise in the larger of the two chewy shellfish. "There's a pearl in here." He washed it off with the sponge before handing it to T'Pol for examination. It was a perfectly smooth white oval.

"I once heard several female members of the crew discussing pearls, but I have never seen one."

"No pearls on Vulcan either?"

"No. It is an interesting object, but I fail to see why it is used for adornment."

He shrugged. "You'd have to ask someone else about that."

"It appears that you now have a souvenir," she remarked as he put the pearl in a pocket.

Zipping the pocket shut, Malcolm said, "Hoshi might like it. She could probably explain jewelry to you, too."

"I will ask her when we return to Enterprise."

He reached for a berry. "Do you have jewelry on Vulcan?"

"It is occasionally used for ceremonial-" T'Pol began, but then they heard their communicators crackle. "Enterprise to Reed or T'Pol."

She was faster at flipping her communicator out. "T'Pol here."

"Are you and Lieutenant Reed safe for the time being?" asked Archer.

"Yes."

"Is there food you can eat?" Malcolm didn't like where this conversation was headed. Why didn't the captain say a shuttlepod would be down in twenty minutes?

"Apparently you are on a moon claimed by the Gref- Hoshi?"

Hoshi's voice came on. "The Gresfeshkiurwouzh, sir."

"That's the race that attacked us, Captain," Malcolm piped up.

"They want to talk with us before we rescue you."

Malcolm groaned. "They fired on us for trying to look at the same comet!"

"They've agreed to leave all weapons on their ship. I'd like to try talking first. Especially since they have four ships."

"That's why they didn't pursue us. They were using us as bait." Berating himself for not thinking of that, Malcolm stabbed the ground angrily with a shell.

"Malcolm, try to relax. They seem more concerned about protecting their territory than killing anyone. We'll have you back soon."

"I know you will, sir."

T'Pol spoke up. "We will be fine, Captain, although haste in the negotiations would be appreciated."

"Trip told me to hurry up and get you back. We'll contact you again as soon as we have news. They don't take kindly to a lot of communication between you and the ship.Take care of yourselves." With that said, there was nothing but silence.

Malcolm thought of many adjectives to describe the paranoid aliens, none of which were favorable. He cracked his next shellfish with much more force than was required.