Chapter Two

Clarity and Chaos

Trip lay on the bunk, vastly frustrated. He longed to go after her, but something told him that chasing after her at this moment would be worse than letting her go. So he released her, wondering with all his heart what he could do to make the unknown wrong right again.

Unbidden, his mind flashed back to a conversation he had had late in the night some days ago. He'd been sitting in the nearly dark Mess Hall, where power was reduced to the unused room to conserve energy, with a coffee cup in his hand. It was about 0219, deep into Gamma shift whose 'noon' would not be until about 0400, and he had about five more hours before he had to be awake. He sat in the dimness, not drinking his coffee. Originally he had decided not to drink it because it would keep him awake. Now, he had no such excuse. The dark liquid was quite cold – he had not tasted it in hours.

He didn't look up as the door across the room opened, sending a brief spill of light into the room, then it closed again, restoring to him the comfortable dimness. "Commander?" A slightly surprised voice called to him. He looked up, seeing Hoshi Sato had paused on her way to the wall slots that contained food for use in the Chef's off-hours.

"Hi, Hoshi." He noticed she was in a short, pink off-duty dress, and looked quite fetching indeed. He tried to get a good look at her where the dress hugged her body, and at her long, bare legs without being 'caught'. It was all part of 'the game', and he tried to keep his hand in as well as he could; when he could.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I'm…" He shrugged. "Thinking."

"I figured that. I'd think you'd be asleep by now."

"Same to you."

"Couldn't." She smiled ruefully. "I was working on a translation of a signal we received earlier today, and completely lost track of time." The room sent silent. "And you?"

He sat back with a sigh. "Thinking." She selected a wedge of apple pie and came over to the circular table, taking a seat next to him. (There went the view of her legs, but there was still plenty to discretely stare at.)

"Selis tuy pon yintis?" She asked, using the Auran terms for which the natives of that planet had no corresponding meaning, but which were translated verbatim as 'penny for your thoughts'. It was the same thing she had said to him here some weeks before, during the 'luuru incident'. He looked at her ruefully.

"Funny you should say that. I've been thinking about that luuru thing. Part of me is still trying to get used to what's happened."

"I should think you'd be pleased." She said, smiling softly, knowingly. The girl had been stunning before she had matured, and now was even more so.

"Oh, I am. I guess. It just takes a bit of getting used to. That was a real change."

"Tell me about it. Neither Liz nor I could really get over it. What do you do when you watch someone 'grow up' something like five biological years in half a day?"

"Did I ever properly thank you for all you did?" She waved him off.

"Don't mention it. I was happy to help. Actually, I wouldn't have missed the experience for the world. But it's still going to have to take a lot of getting used to. She's still the same person. She didn't change, just her body."

"Just her body." He took a gulp of the coffee, forgetting how cold and old it was, and grimaced. Hoshi very carefully pretended not to notice. "But there are other things. For instance, have you noticed she's stopped studying? English, I mean. It's like she's … lost herself."

"Found herself; actually." She, Liz Cutler and Tia talked often about a wide variety of things; they'd become the Auran's 'big sisters' since she'd come aboard, indoctrinating her into human life and mores, and in general providing a sounding board for the young woman. "I'd noticed a few days ago that she no longer 'studies' English, picking it up now just from conversations and occasionally learning a new word or two. If she didn't have a photographic memory for languages I'd be concerned, but she's managing. Except of course that she doesn't pick up on context or grammar that way, so talking to her I have to sometimes plaster on a straight face." They grinned; sharing a private humor they would never express to the young woman herself, knowing it would shame her terribly.

"I'm not inclined to say anything." Hoshi continued. "She's finding a new balance, and sometimes that's hard. Have you noticed she's using a lot more Auran words in her speech, even when she knows the English? It's all a matter of finding her balance. She's afraid that the more she learns of our world, the less connected to her own she will be."

"Yeah, I got that."

"My advice; give her time. Let her find her balance, whatever it finally becomes."

"That's what I intend to do."

"Well then, my work here is done." She started to get up, picking up the last of the finished pie. "I'll see you in the morning."

"Actually, could it wait?"

"The morning?"

He sought, uncomfortably, for a way to bring up what was really on his mind. He had wanted to speak to her privately for some time now, and it was hard to get more private than oh-two-hundred in the Mess Hall. Most of Gamma Shift's breaks would not begin until oh-three-thirty. "I've been sitting here for hours, trying to figure out how to do something."

"What?"

"Actually, I was sitting here thinking about you." He admitted.

"Me?" She asked with a surprised smile, sitting back down.

"I was kind of hoping I could ask a favor of you." He leaned forward. "I wanted to ask you something. I could ask the UT, but I figure that it'll only give me the translation, not the context. You can do both."

She smiled at him. "So far this is very illuminating."

He gave her a wry smile in return. "Sorry. The fact is that I want some help in translating some Auran."

"I'll bet I know." She leaned in closer, her voice dropping seductively. "'Li vantis cuvilir'."

He grinned. "Why, Hoshi, I didn't know you cared."

"Not me, ding-bat." She exclaimed, laughing.

"No; we've already got that one covered."

"I see." She said. "I actually figured that."

"No, but there is something that she's taken to calling me, and she won't tell me what it means. It's probably some secret endearment, and I suspect she's been listening to you two too well about feminine wiles to drive men crazy, but since she won't tell me what it means it's driving me a little bit nuts. I think she knows it too, but…"

Hoshi held up her hand. She and Liz actually were guilty of having several conversations along those 'feminine wiles' lines, but she would just as soon not let Trip know that. And if this was actually causing problems, she felt obligated to try and fix them. "All right, I'll take a crack at it. What does she call you?"

"Nearest I can get it in her accent, it's 'Mrunion Alirki ne Avinyaan'." He pronounced it as carefully as he could, and watched as Hoshi's smile dissolved.

"She calls you that?" She asked a few seconds later, her voice carefully level.

"Yes." He answered; his mild apprehension building. "What's wrong? Nearest I can figure, it's not an insult."

"Oh, no. It's not an insult. It's far from an insult." She settled herself uncomfortably in the chair. "Very far."

"Well, what's it mean?"

"I …" She started, but then could not continue. She thought for several moments. "Commander, permission to speak freely?"

"Of course." He said, surprised at her deference. She shook her head.

"I really don't think it would be appropriate for me to tell you what it means. If she wanted you to know, she would tell you. It's very … complimentary, but I think it would be really out of line for me to interfere with her wishes. You're going to have to ask her." He thought for several moments.

"Complimentary?"

"Too complimentary, I feel." She smiled slightly. "But then, I'm not in love with you." He grinned, starting to stand up.

"Thank you, Hoshi, I think I'll –."

Whatever he might have done had been interrupted by a call for assistance from Engineering. He'd worked on this problem well into his own shift, and by the time that shift was over he had labored for nearly 14 hours and had been so tired he had gone immediately to bed and accomplished nothing of his plans.

Now it was days later, and Tia had walked out on him, wrapped in a misery he could not comprehend. And he finally decided he had had enough.

With a blistering oath, he threw the covers off, and in less than two minutes he was in a uniform and out the door, in search of answers he was finally angry enough to get!

xxx

Tia barely knew how she made it back to her own quarters, her mind awash in misery and frustration. She would have given anything to tell him, to break a lifetime of custom and rules of behavior. She especially wished it now.

She opened the door to her quarters, entering the room, stripping off her white robe, throwing it at a chair before collapsing dejectedly onto her bunk, facing the wall, misery overwhelming even her frustration.

A few seconds later, though she had not heard the door open, she sensed a presence in the room, but she did not open her eyes. She knew who was there. Just as she had admittance to one particular quarters; so did Shar-les 'Treep' Tucker have full entry to hers. She smiled, aware of the presence not two meters away. Maybe all was not as lost as she thought. He'd followed her. Maybe he'd …

But in the next instant, her eyes opened wide in astonishment, for the presence that she sensed in the room was of a type she had never expected to feel ever again.

The presence was Auran!

Turning over quickly in the bunk, she froze, surprise giving way to astonishment.

x

The tall woman with the golden complexion, long golden hair and a flowing gown of blue decorated in floral print, so clearly an Auran fashion that she wanted to deny the vision for that alone, was herself!

She stared, shocked, convinced she was dreaming when the apparition addressed her in fluent Auran, and in her voice. No. You me neither dreaming nor imagining are.

This impossible is. She replied in her native tongue, unable to believe what she was seeing. The woman had her voice, her face, her body … It was her! But there was something different nonetheless, something she could not identify, something in the eyes, in the manner, in the … feel of the woman.

You already on this ship have been long enough to know that little 'impossible' is. The apparition replied in a reprimanding tone Tia did not at all care for. I sorry am, but there little time is. From her sleeve she pulled a phase pistol. Tia froze in absolute astonishment, watching herself point the deadly phase pistol at her. The less know you, the happier be you will.

At that instant her door opened. Both turned at the unexpected distraction, as Charles Tucker strode through the open doorway in high frustrated fury.

x

"All right, Tia, I've had it. That's it. No more! I am completely fed…" Trip's voice cut off as he stopped, stunned by the sight of two Tia Anlors, one standing in a blue gown holding a phase pistol on the unclad other as that one lay in her bunk; but the expression on the face of the standing one was profound indeed.

"Shar-les!" She exclaimed, eyes wide, breath caught, looking like she had not seen him in months. In that instant the Tia who lay on the bunk lashed out with her foot, kicking the phase pistol aside.

She was out of the bunk almost faster than Trip could see, tackling her double, driving them both to the floor. The battle was short but violent, fists and feet employed at greater than human strength and speed as they fought for control of the pistol as Trip, unarmed, tried to keep clear of the wildly waving weapon.

A moment later the unclothed Tia twisted the other's arm viciously, hard enough to have wrenched it from its socket; the pistol flying from the woman's hand to skitter across the room almost to Trip's feet. Quickly he scooped it up, adjusting the setting all the way down from heavy to low stun.

"All right. Both of you – freeze!" He yelled. He was mildly surprised to see both women obey his order, turning to look at him, frozen in the middle of their desperate struggle. "Break. Move apart. Now!"

"Shar-les! Nyas!" The blue gowned one protested, though the other pulled aside immediately, backing away toward the bunk. "You must not!"

The other was still backing away, but Trip wanted them both close enough to cover until he could make sense of what he was seeing. Beyond the fact that one was clothed and the other was not, they were identical. He pointed the phase pistol at the unclothed one backing away to his left. "That's far enough."

"Shar-les!" She exclaimed, shocked. In that instant the blue gowned Tia's right hand delved quickly into her left sleeve. Trip shifted the pistol and fired.

The bolt of energy caught the woman in her chest and she was slammed backward into the bulkhead, where she fell to the floor in a flow of blue. Trip held his surprise enough to train the pistol on the relieved other, stopping her dead. "For your sake, I'd better have shot the right one."

"Daai! You have."

Trip was not convinced. They were completely identical and both behaved as though they knew him equally well. The only distinction that made him inclined to believe this one was that she had left his quarters so short a time ago, clad in only a white robe which now hung haphazardly over the back of her chair.

He reached for the comm panel, not moving the pistol by a hair's breadth. "Tucker to the bridge. Send a Security Team to Tia Anlor's quarters immediately." He turned off the circuit, not waiting for a response. Instead, he addressed the woman who was still standing. "You'd better put some clothes on."