Chapter Four

Discoveries

"What?" They demanded in an entirely unplanned duet.

"I think there's something you're not telling us." Hoshi exclaimed.

"I think there's a hell of a lot you're not telling us!"

Tia looked away, releasing both their hands. "Spoke I of 'enduring' the Luuru."

"Suddenly there sounds like a lot to endure." Liz exclaimed, remembering what Tia had endured when the dasreer came upon her about four months ago. "Is this like the dasreer?"

"Nyas. That almost three weeks away is."

"Great."

"Looking forward to it I am not, because after the Luuru, worse it is."

"Worse?"

"Could we keep on track please?" Hoshi asked sharply. "At the moment, I'm more focused on that 'drowning' line."

Tia nodded. "But fair example it is. My biology different from yours is. What for you takes a week for me takes four hours, but enjoy those hours I do not! Through the Luuru from girl to woman I become will. Get to in years it you do, for me all in a day happens."

Suddenly for Liz Cutler, everything was clear. "That food you've been packing away like a horse for months; then burning off in the gym late at night until suddenly there's a guard at your door to keep you from doing it. The 'vile concoction' you're drinking…"

"Concentration of every vitamin and mineral my body use can, and vast increases of the intravenous supplements of gold and other needs Phlox been giving me has …"

"How much?" Tia considered a moment.

"By the time Risa I reach; absorbed and stored will I over a thousand times the normal levels have …"

"But bodies don't retain those things." Hoshi protested. "Anything the body doesn't need is either converted into fat or excreted."

"Human bodies. An Auran retains in the first stages of Luuru everything, but as fat not. It in the cells themselves is, where needed it is."

"We really are talking about metamorphosis here." Liz concluded.

"Of a kind, though 'tail' and 'wings' I joked only. My body … I a girl will be longer no. I a woman become shall, but I the years you enjoy will have not."

"And you were worried about drowning because…?"

"When begins it, the Luuru will to my body do all in a day. My metabolism will many times over race. My body temperature is 78 quodm. On your scale, normal at 96.813 of your degrees is. It reach might; in your scale, 150 or 160, but beyond 130 a danger there is; which why is that we at a lake or river do it, to keep the temperature low."

"Enzyme activity in humans shuts down at far lower temperatures." Liz said, firmly in biologist mode.

"Tested it I have nyasi, but believe 130 my limit will be. Further, store enough one can to through the ordeal get nyasi. I intravenous supplements need will at intervals you able to judge will be. Will try I more drink of the liquid to, but grow I delirious might. You me help might have to. Also English surely will I forget. Able to translate I will be not."

"If we use lake or river water to cool you, as your body temperature changes radically, you might be subject to convulsions."

"Daai. Women who fit were nyasi have sometimes survived nyasi. Those who were prepared nyasi sometimes survived nyasi. It is love I you both do, and as sisters to stand with me have you asked; but to think I like that I wise choices also made."

"Don't worry; we'll make sure you come out of this in one piece." Hoshi promised her.

"So, now you're stocking up on everything." Liz concluded, trying to get things back on track. She wanted to know everything she could so she would be able to help.

"My body for Luuru ready is, but can have I it here not. Fit must I be, so exercised I did; strenuously. But now, conserve everything have to. Must get more now than I by eating alone can." She said, giving the container on the desk behind Hoshi a disgusted glance.

"What are you going to tell Trip?" Liz asked, bringing the question home. She hesitated, and finally confessed;

"I know not. Would nothing prefer."

Hoshi shook her head. "Bad idea."

"Very bad idea." Liz agreed.

"Know how to tell him I do nyasi. Scared say to."

"Scared?" Hoshi asked, surprised. "Why? Are you … frightened of Trip?" She asked with mounting concern at this unexpected revelation, but Tia shook her head.

"Asked him 'if could change he anything about me, what it be would?', but said he that nothing does want he change to." She looked imploringly at her friends, as if begging for their understanding of her dilemma. "But things change will. It I stop can nyasi. But know I what not. Come out of the Luuru as she went in does no one, but how I come out will I know not."

Hoshi shook her head sadly. "Tia, when you asked him what he'd change about you, you asked the classic question that for millennia every woman has asked the man who loves her. And anyone with a microgram of brains will answer 'nothing'. But in your case, you really meant a change, and I'll bet a year's salary he had no idea."

"Listen to us, Hon: In the morning you'd better hunt him down and tell him everything. If you don't, I think you'll always regret it. Your relationship lately is what I'd generously describe as 'rocky'." Tia remembered all too vividly his reaction to the last time she withheld information about herself, and had no desire to repeat that experience, ever. And, just the other day, she'd allowed the stresses of the oncoming change to overcome her control and she'd punched him – hard enough to knock him across the room. How he'd ever forgiven her, she did not know. How he'd forgive her this, she did not want to find out.

"Daai. I him shall tell."

---

"I just thought of something horrible." Liz exclaimed to Hoshi an hour later as they walked down the corridor, both feeling rather dazed.

"What?"

"Well, she's 22 by our calendar, 19 by hers, but now we find out that by her world she's not considered a 'woman' but still a 'girl'. I suppose to them that makes her technically a …" She let the thought die, not wanting to consider it. "But does Trip have any idea he's been…?"

"Don't say it!" Hoshi exclaimed in horror, cutting her dead. "Now or ever, don't ever bring it up! We don't know anything about Aurans or their customs – and I'm just starting to get the idea of just how little we do know – but I don't ever want to get into that. No way. No how! Not my business!"

"Mine either." They walked a little further. "He's going to work it out." She concluded; her tone carrying oblivion.

"I want a freaking transfer."

"Ditto."

---

It was a full day later that Hoshi and Malcolm encountered Trip in the Mess Hall. He was sitting at a table, a drink in his hand, completely ignoring everything. She had only to look at him to know what had happened. Malcolm was about to move on to another table but Hoshi tugged at his sleeve, stopping him. She felt she needed a little moral support. They sit down, uninvited, but Trip did not even notice them.

"Selis tuy pon yintis?" Hoshi asked quietly. Trip looked at her, surprised. To his point of view, his friends had just suddenly appeared at the table.

"What?"

"That's Auran for 'penny for your thoughts?' I figured it was appropriate."

"Yeah." He took a sip of his drink. "She told you, she said."
"We're sisters under the skin. She tells us a lot. It wasn't a secret, so I told Malcolm."

"It's a hell of a lot to take in." Reed agreed sympathetically.

Hoshi looked at her friend, seeing the stress in his eyes. "She told you everything?"

"She told me a lot, almost more than I can accept. I mean …" He floundered for words, finally taking a drink. "I don't know what I mean."

"Well, it at least answers what's been going on with her these past few weeks." Reed pointed out.

"That it does."

Hoshi leaned a bit closer. "How do you feel about it?" She asked quietly.

Trip looked sharply at her. "How do I feel? How can I feel? It's going to happen however I feel. It's a normal part of growing up – at least growing up Auran."

"You once said you never wanted her to be anything else but what she is."

"Yeah, I did say that."

"Then why are you sitting here slowly getting drunk?"

He pushed the glass across the table to her. "Fruit juice."

"I apologize. It just seemed …"

"Oh, I'm stunned, not drunk. Never drunk. I have to stay sober, the engines may need all sorts of servicing, and I can't fall down on the job. 'Get me to the beach on time'." He took another drink.

"Fruit juice?" She asked pointedly.

"Fermented fruit juice." He admitted. He put the glass down with a 'thunk'. "Oh, hell, I admit it. I don't know what to make of her. Each and every time I think I'm getting a handle on her something new comes up. Sometimes I feel like I'm lost on the ocean, shipwrecked, bobbing up and down clinging to a plank with no idea where I'm going. Ever since she came into my life seven months ago, every day is this wild adventure; I never know what's going to happen next. Just when I think I do, she drops some new bomb, and I'm off again. Just trying to hold a conversation with her is an adventure; I spend half the time we're together just trying to piece together what she's said. She's an imp, willful and stubborn and has spent the last seven months like a kid on Christmas morning or a ground gripper on her first trip into space, exploring the galaxy; and that's because she is. She's fiery and joyous and passionate and filled with wonder and exciting and excited about everything she sees and does. When we're separated I feel like a big chunk of my soul is just carved out and missing, and when we're together I feel like I'm seeing the universe for the very first time and in a whole new way, a way I've never imagined it to be. Ninety-nine plus percent of the time I want to hold her in my arms and part of one percent of the time I want to take her over my knee. She's a squirrel brained imp with an IQ I often suspect is higher than half the crew's; mine included. Once in a while, talking to her, if I'm not careful I find myself scrambling sentences, and sometimes I think she does it on purpose. Then she'll say something that makes her sound more profound than the Oracle of Delphi, like she's got a deep and unique perspective on the universe itself, and a little while later she'll be completely perplexed and mystified by something innately human and I wonder how I would feel trying to figure things if I were on Aura. But this new thing, where she's not even fully grown yet and even she doesn't even know what the end result will be… Sometimes I think we'll get back to Earth and I'll introduce her to my family and my dad and mom and Elizabeth will be scratching their heads trying to figure her out and I can't be of much help because every time I think I've got a handle on her she drops something even more wild into my lap, and I don't think I'll ever get a handle on her."

"I've got your handle on her." Malcolm said when he ran himself out of breath.

"Yeah?" He took a drink, setting the glass down with a 'thunk'. "So tell me."

"You love her." He thought about it for a moment, and then nodded.

"I love her."