Nearly an hour later, things were continuing to proceed well. Dinner concluded, and apparently the Vixlettes had taken a particular liking to the cumin in one of the dishes Chef had prepared, and that had awakened Commander Tucker's talent for bartering.

Dealing with traders and merchants wasn't in Tucker's job description exactly, but he had a knack for getting good deals on just about anything in the galaxy, given half a chance. He could trade equipment, information, or food stuffs with equal aplomb. In this case, the trade was more a matter of politeness and the hope of building relations in order to facilitate more positive interactions in the future. Or something to that effect. Reed was never quite sure about things like that, as the chances of them encountering a specific person more than once were fairly slim, and the chances of an unrelated third party hearing about them was… well, not impossible for sure, but hardly likely.

Anyway, Commander Tucker ended up trading one spice for another. The Vixlettes had brought that spice they'd been so keen on, among some other things that apparently didn't catch the Commander's fancy. This was possibly because Commander Tucker was, in fact, quite excited about the spice.

"You gotta try that stuff, Malcolm," he insisted as they lagged behind the main party escorting the Vixlettes back to their ship, "I gave it to Chef and he said he'd see what he could do with it. Me, I think it oughta be like salt and pepper, just put it on the table and sprinkle it on just about anythin'."

Reed had never been all that high on salt. Or pepper. Or… well actually most food. It wasn't that he was picky, he'd eat pretty much whatever was put in front of him. But it was more out of obligation than genuine feeling for it. One ate what they were given. That's just how it was. Of course, it had become apparent that he was allergic to a lot of foods, which tended to dull his appreciation of them rather significantly until he found the right mix of allergy medications sometime in his early thirties, though his family continued to believe it was all in his head, despite medical evidence to the contrary. In any case… he was now more venturesome and interested in eating than he'd been in his youth. So he wasn't completely unwilling to give the new spice a try.

"I'll bear that in mind, Commander," Reed said.

"You go off shift in another couple hours. If you're plannin' on a bedtime snack, I'm sure Chef would let you have some, if you asked nice. He's pretty excited about it."

"You seem to be as well," Reed replied, "But I think I'll wait and see what Chef does with it."

"You don't know what you're missin'," Tucker persisted, "You'll never get far with that attitude of yours. Waitin' for other people to do everythin' first and see how it goes is what the Vulcans wanted us to do with our space program. We wouldn't be out here if Captain Archer hadn't pushed to for it. Makin' history with every light year, as he likes to say. You could go down in history as the first guy to try this spice on toast."

"I think I'll leave that to you, Commander," Reed replied, "What's this spice called anyway?"

"Don't know. Translator couldn't hack it, and I wouldn't even begin tryin' to say what the Vixlettes called it. Guess we'll come up with some kinda nickname for it. Maybe somethin' like… space spice."

"Sounds awful," Reed determined.

"Yeah… well..." Tucker faltered, looking like he was trying not to feel hurt by Reed's blunt assessment, "It's not. And, believe me, I don't care what they name it, just so long as we get more of it."

Almost more than the spice, Jonathan was elated by how much the Vixlettes had talked about this sector over the course of dinner. Not considering information to be a tradeable good for reasons understood only by themselves, the Vixlettes had been happy enough to freely give coordinates to several planets, and such details as they had taken note of.

The Vixlettes had quickly continued on their way after returning to their ship, but Jonathan had hopes of meeting them again, and perhaps getting to ask a few more questions about their society than had been managed this time. In fact, most of the dinner conversation had been taken up with fairly idle talk, which seemed to be the Vixlettes' favorite kind. And with three Vixlettes with two heads apiece all carrying on lively banter with themselves and one another, it had been something of a challenge to get a word in edgewise. They were a boisterous bunch to be sure.

Actually a little too rambunctious for Jonathan's taste, and indeed everyone else except for Trip, who seemed to feel perfectly at home with them. Trip didn't flinch for a second when it came to calmly removing a wayward tentacle from his arm or shoulder or wherever it had happened to land, whereas everyone else felt a little skittish that doing so might offend the Vixlettes. Jonathan couldn't tell from their non-reaction to Trip's behavior whether it was acceptable to them or if they were just barely tolerating it out of politeness. In any case, Jonathan didn't think he'd be going around grabbing tentacles casually any time in the near (or far) future if he could help it.

Still, the Vixlettes did make for a refreshing change of pace, having no violent intentions of their own and making no attempt to get Enterprise involved in any kind of war or rebellion or anything of that nature. Phlox had tested the spice and declared it quite safe for human consumption. Malcolm, paranoid as ever, had done a complete sweep of the ship after the Vixlettes left to make sure no unexpected guests had snuck on board and found lodging in the cargo bay. Actually, Jonathan reminded himself, it wasn't paranoia, because that sort of thing had happened before. But it still felt paranoid to search a ship from top to bottom just because you'd had a few guests over for dinner.

In any case, one of the tidbits the Vixlettes had left them with was the coordinates for a Minshara class planet just a few days away from where they were now. Apparently it didn't have much in the way of sentient species, but T'Pol said that some of the biological scans the Vixlettes had taken indicated a wealth of scientific discovery just waiting to be made within the acidic pools on the planet surface.

Jonathan wasn't sold on how exciting acid pools were going to be, but he really didn't have any excuse for not visiting a Minshara class planet at least briefly. Besides, T'Pol assured him that there really was some kind of interesting bacteria or something going on in those acid pools.

There were some other planets in the area that the Vixlettes had left information on, but none of them were any closer than the one with the acid pools, and they didn't immediately have anything more exciting on them, so he tried to remind himself that they were out here to do more than just make the acquaintance of sentient species or look at weird alien animals. Besides, maybe the acid pool planet had something really neat, like exceptionally beautiful sunsets or cool rock formations or something of that nature. It was easy to get too focused on pursuing only one type of exploration out here, even though the perimeters of their mission were quite broad.

Maybe it would be good to take a few days to remind themselves that the really little things you couldn't even see without a microscope were interesting and relevant too. Certainly there were some microbiologists who would probably be pretty keen to go down there and have a look around.

Still, it wasn't the kind of thing that was going to keep Jonathan up all night, and he didn't order the course change immediately. He wanted to give T'Pol time to go over the data in more detail… and was also hoping that maybe something more exciting than acid pits was going to come up in the meantime. One never knew what might happen at any moment out in this big galaxy.

Reed didn't take Commander Tucker's advice and be the first man to try space spice on toast before bed. In fact, he skipped eating altogether when he went off shift. He spent a couple of hours puttering about in the Armory, working on some side projects that he hoped would eventually turn into weapons, shielding or more efficient battle protocols, that kind of thing, and then turned in for the night.

He didn't sleep very well and woke up with a headache, but that was nothing new.

As was his wont, he started the day with coffee, or at least the closest synthesized approximation Chef could come up with. It didn't do much for his headache, but it did start chasing away the thoughts about just going back to bed. It always seemed to shock people when they became aware of his coffee habit, as they had it in their heads that he was a stereotypical Brit who couldn't live without tea. But, quite frankly, tea had never sat well with him, and it typically didn't have as much caffeine as black coffee anyway, making it less suited to his purposes.

Like his eating habits, Reed's drinking habits were centered around efficiency, getting what he needed into his body to make it do what he wanted, so he could perform tasks to the best of his ability. His considerations for taste were a distant second.

"Have you tried the spice yet?"

Reed blinked, looking up from his mug of coffee and watching Hoshi slide into place across the table from him. She was an early riser, and had probably been awake for hours already. Travis would be along in a few minutes, having just obtained a conscious state but being energetic to the point of alarming. The both of them were social, and had included him in their circle almost ruthlessly over the sound of any awkwardness or objection. Reed had grown used to and finally learned to enjoy their company. Aside from ordering them to leave him alone, which seemed needlessly harsh and extreme, there wasn't really another option besides putting up with them.

Anyway, they tended to catch him when he was still bleary in the morning, and unprepared to reject their friendly overtures. Somehow, he got the impression that it was some kind of coordinated assault. They had seen him usually eating alone and conspired to remedy what they considered a sad situation. Rather to his surprise, he found he missed them whenever one or both of them were absent, to such a degree that he would occasionally seek out the company of Commander Tucker if the engineer happened to be around. That kind of casual socializing with those significantly above or below him in rank was something Reed would never have considered before joining Enterprise.

"What?" Reed mumbled, laying aside the data pad he'd been planning to look over, "Oh. No. Not yet."

Not all that long ago, he would have continued looking at the pad through the conversation, and trying to steer the conversation towards security matters. But Captain Archer seemed to frown on that sort of thing, and Reed was trying his best to adjust. It seemed like that had become his entire life, adjusting to what his Captain expected of him, which was more often than not totally the reverse of any of the commanding officers he'd served under previously. It was getting easier.

"You should," Hoshi said, "I had some last night on the pudding leftover from lunch and it was really good. And I mean really good."

"So I've been told," Reed offered lamely.

He still wasn't very good at keeping up his end of small talk. Most of his mental space was filled with specs, rules and regulations, duty rosters, ideas of ways to increase efficiency of one thing or another, invention concepts he hoped to run by the Captain or Commander Tucker once the notions were clear enough in his mind… he didn't have room for much else.

Which was why, as Hoshi complained, he and Commander Tucker were usually talking about girls if not work. It was one of the only subjects that Reed had any ability at, and Tucker was understanding enough of Reed's social limitations to work within the boundaries of what his friend was comfortable with and capable of saying more than two words about.

Not that Commander Tucker didn't sometimes try to branch out into other subjects, but he didn't push as much as Reed would have expected. And Reed was getting better at making conversation… in small increments. He could at least usually tell if he wasn't contributing well to his end of the conversation these days, which was more than he'd been aware of before. He was trying.

But Hoshi never seemed to notice or care if Reed didn't keep up his end. Anyway, here came Travis, sitting between her and Reed with a tray of food that smelled practically nauseating to Reed, who wasn't at all ready for breakfast yet.

"Have you tried the spice?" Hoshi asked immediately.

"Not yet," Travis said brightly, "But I've heard good things."

It seemed Commander Tucker had been right about it being used like salt and pepper, because Travis had a small container of the spice on his tray. He proceeded to pour some on his scrambled eggs, and Reed got his first look at this center of all conversation.

Purple. It was purple.

Reed found he was skeptical about a purple spice he didn't know the name of. The way it caught the light in the room and sparkled a bit made it look even less edible, and Reed could've sworn that just looking at it worsened his headache. But Travis had no reservations. He'd probably eaten stranger things for breakfast. He took a bite.

"Oh wow," he nodded in appreciation, "That's…"

"Isn't it?" Hoshi nodded too, and Reed couldn't help but think of those birds he'd learned about in school that took turns bobbing their heads, "Kind of sweet, with this little tanginess."

"That feeling you get on your tongue..." Travis continued, "That's amazing."

Reed sighed inwardly. He was going to have to try this stuff eventually or never hear the end of it.

"Lieutenant, you should try some in your coffee," Hoshi suggested suddenly.

"Oh yeah, it'd be great in coffee," Travis agreed enthusiastically.

"I don't think I feel quite that adventurous this morning…" Reed protested, some small part of him half-afraid the two ensigns might just get up and pour the spice into his coffee and then try to make him drink it even though he liked to think he knew them better than that.

But he never felt that confident about how well he knew people, and there was always a piece of him that was sure they would turn on him, especially if they had a particular enthusiasm for something he didn't share. He didn't really remember the first time he'd been on a boat, but he was pretty sure he'd been terrified of being on top of the water like that, and had tried to get back onto the dock immediately. But his father, having spent his life on the water, was determined to make his son learn to enjoy it… no matter how much he didn't want to. In fact, he was pretty sure his father had told him that he'd grow out of it… and then proceeded to tell him about how Reed's great uncle had the same fear but hadn't let it stop him, essentially shaming Reed into trying to calm down and learn how to sail. That moment, and many which followed, had served to give Reed a possibly skewed view of how people normally behaved. To him, the idea that someone would try to force something they liked onto him even under protest wasn't an unrealistic concern.

To Reed's relief, Travis merely shrugged and said, "You don't know what you're missing."

"Eight days?" Jonathan said, repeating what T'Pol had just told him.

"At our present speed," T'Pol replied impassively.

Eight days to reach a planet that hadn't really sounded that interesting in the first place. Jonathan sighed, thinking it over. Maybe if Enterprise had been on a course to look at… anything else… but really they were just feeling around virtually blind here. Maybe there were other things of interest nearby, but if there were, the sensors hadn't picked them up yet.

But eight days, just to look at acid pools?

"And you're sure it'll be worth it?" Jonathan asked.

"No," T'Pol corrected, "But, if the Vixlettes' data is to be believed, there is reason to think that studying the microorganisms of this planet may be beneficial to several avenues of scientific research and development."

"Yes, I remember you explaining them last night," Jonathan said quickly, in the hopes of forestalling another lecture on the topic of microorganisms and their significance to various biological, medical and technology research projects.

The possibility of finding the basis for the eventual cure of even one disease somewhere in those acid pools was reason enough to go there, as unexciting as it sounded. Besides, he could console himself with the same knowledge as the night before. It was a big galaxy. Anything could happen in it. And eight days was plenty of time for something to come up. Even if not, maybe they'd find something on that planet that the Vixlettes had missed. Maybe something really exciting.

It did cross his mind that exciting frequently meant dangerous, but risk was all in a day's work out here, and in fact the possibility of adventure was the main reason for going in the first place, despite what the Vulcan High Command had to say about it. What didn't cross his mind was that the danger had already arrived, and that both simply and innocently had departed out the airlock with the Vixlettes.