On the first evening of shore leave there were some surprises. The crew gathered in the hangar, where the Maru was located, waiting to fly with the ship down to the planet surface of Breng 3. Beka was very astonished when Dylan appeared in elegant clothes. When he usually spent an evening at one or another bar he dressed down. Sometimes he ssemed to like it not to wear something confining like his uniform. That this evening he wasn't dressed like usually had to mean, that he had special plans.
"Hey, Dylan. One doesn't know you like that. Is there any reception where you are invited?", Beka immediatly fished for information, when she saw him.
"No, there's no formal cause. Only a private date."
"May I ask you is the lucky one?", the female pilot instantly wanted to know.
"Private means, that it is nothing to you", Dylan answered.
"Come on, give me at least a little hint."
"You don't know her. She's … well, she's one of the women you answered on the advertisement."
"So you really have the heart to do it?", Beka teased him.
"Did you think I wouldn't do it? Why shouldn't I have the heart to do it?"
"Well, I simply didn't see you like that. Do you know that your daringness just costed me a pretty sum?"
"Why is that?", Dylan asked surprised.
"Because I have bet with Harper, that this message to this one Cassandra was only fake to trick him."
"Harper knows about the message? Why does he know about it?"
Dylan had been sure, that nobody would learn to know about his plans, and he could believe that Rommie, the only one whom he had told, had divulged something.
"He told me and because I didn't believe him, he proposed this bet. Unfortunately I seem to have lost it."
"What did you loose?", Tyr wanted to know who entered the hangar this very moment.
"Anasazi, there you are!", Beka called without answering him.
"She has lost a bet", Dylan explained to Tyr, when he stepped to them.
Tyr nodded quite uninterested and inconspicuously examined Beka. She wore her usual leather pants but also a unknown black shirt with a deep neck line in the front and back and slits in the long sleeves. Certainly she couldn't wear underwear or it would be visible.
"Do you like it ?", Beka asked who anyway had noticed that Tyr had inspected her outfit.
The Nietzchen didn't let on, that Beka found him examining her outfit and expressed coolly: „You don't have much to doff … if you are planning on that."
"Ah! At least you have notived that. Dylan? Do you like my shirt?"
„You look really great in it. But why do you want to doff it? In your stead I really would keep it on. It really fits you perfectly", Dylan said, who missed the meaning of Tyrs words.
"That I would advise you to", Tyr meant grinning.
"Well, at least I made some effort to appeal to my date", Beka commented. Tyr's ongoing criticism of her way of life was annoying her.
"You have got also a date today?", Dylan interfered. "Then you are the third one. What are your plans for the evening?"
"Nobody told me that I have to plan anything", Tyr said glancing at Beka. "Certainly I'll come up with something to do with the Woman at the right time. Or I'm practical and simply ask her, what she likes to do."
"Don't you think you should make a little more effort to appeal to the lady?", Dylan asked and threw a meaningful glance at Tyr's attire which wasn't anything other than he wore usually: leather pants and fitting body vest.
"So that I'm looking a sight like you or Captain Valentine? No thanks. That needn't be."
For his words Tyr got disgusted looks and a biting answer of Beka: „Neither Dylan nor I are looking disgusting. We just know, that the first impression is important if you want to learn to know someone new. Your criteria for such a case we know enough. I hope your date doesn't leave you in the first minute. But if you aren't more accommodating and a little bit more gentleman like, then that's what will be happening.
Tyr didn't worry about Bekas words and turnd in the direction of the Maru. When he went past the young pilot he bent to her and wispered: "The success or failure of my date doesn't matter for me at all. You know exactly, why I engaged in it."
Then he disappeared over the ramp in the inside of the freighter.
"What was that?", Dylan asked, who hadn't understood a word of what Tyr had said to Beka.
"Nothing at all." Beka didn't intend to tell Dylan about her deal with the nietzschean.
Luckily this moment Harper and Trance entered the hangar and distracted Dylan.
"Well, there are our laggards", Dylan said good-natured and appreciatively nodded when he saw that Harper had actually forced himself into a brown suit and a beige shirt.
"I didn't know that you possessed clothes in such muted colors", Beka teased the young engineer when she saw what he wore.
"Well, I actually don't. But you need something dignified to impress the ladies … or at least one lady. Rommie provided this for me."
Harper plucked on his suit a little bit. It was obvious that it wasn't his favourite piece of clothing.
"Tell that Tyr. He will explain to you that you are looking disgusting. To impress a woman with courtesy or a certain appearance seems to be pathetic in his eyes. But we will see tomorrow morning how successful Mister Anasazi has been with his direct method "What do you want? I want to go to bed and produce children." I bet the poor woman wont endure him longer than one hour."
"Beka, don't be so strict with Tyr. He has also his good sides. And perhaps he finds a woman who appreciates these sides", Trance interjected standing beneath Harper wearing a long copper colored dress.
"Which good sides would you mean? I want to learn to know the woman who finds some in Tyr. Perhaps she could tell me what unknown mysteries can be found in our resident nietzchean."
Trance simply shook her head. She was certain, that Beka didn't mean everything that she said about Tyr. After all Tyr had saved her more than once. If that couldn't be seen as a positive side what else?
"Can we eventually get going?", Dylan asked already getting impatient.
"Why? Did Rommie change her mind?", Beka asked astonished.
"Changed her mind?"
It was clearly visible in Dylan's face that he didn't know what Beka was talking about.
"She also wanted to come down on the planet."
"Did she?", Dylan asked.
"So she told me. It seem's she has plans."
"What I know she also has a date", Trance chirped in.
"Rommie has a date?", Dylan stammered stunned. "How … when … what does that mean?"
Trance had to smirk because of Dylan's bewildered face. "Don't worry, Dylan. Romie said, her date has the purpose to gain some information. She doesn't date another AI."
Trance knew that since Rommie had fallen in love for Gabriel Dylan feared this could happen again and Rommies avatar would leave him and the Andromeda.
"Don't have Ais the right for a little bit privacy?", Rommie asked who entered the hangar this very moment. Being the AI of the ship she had heard everything that was spoken about her.
"Of course, Romm-Doll", Harper stated who had said nothing until now. "But if you are going on dates with strange men we have to be allowed to be a little bit nosy."
"The man I'm going out with is no stranger for me", announced the AI who was wearing black trousers and a top with an excitingly plunging neckline instead of her usual uniform.
Dylan's brain went in overroad when he started to think. Which man Rommie had met once or perhaps even more times, was her date for the evening? From Trance he knew that he was no AI and that Rommie hoped to get some information from him. Because of that Dylan thought it had to be some dignitary or ambassador they had met in the past.
"Don't you want to tell us who your date is?", he asked.
"Yeah, Rommie, my angel. Why don't you let the cat out of the bag? Who is the fortunate one who is allowed to enjoy your company this evening?", now also Harper wanted to know.
"Didn't you just tell me that I've got also the right for some private life, Mr Harper? So you will certainly understand if I use this right and don't give you an answer. You should keep your nose out of …"
"Does everyone plan to postpone the depart until tomorrow morning?", Tyr interrupted who protuded his head out of the airlock of the Maru. "I've got a date and don't plan on being late."
Prompting he looked around.
"Tyr really has a date? I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't heard it out of his own mouth", Harper wispered to Trance.
"And suddenly he seems to be quite eager for it", Beka added, who had heard Harpers hushed words. "I really hope I by accident run into him and his companion this evening. Does anyone of you accidently know, where he will meet with the woman and where he plans to go with her?"
"Beka, you shouldn't spy after Tyr", Rommie admonished the female pilot. "And like you yourself just heard he has not exactly plans for this evening."
"That he doesn't want to tell me about them doesn't mean that he doesn't have any", Beka chipped in who couldn't imagine, that the nietzchean who always had plan B and C in his mind, hadn't planed anything for such an evening. "Besides I didn't say that I would spy after him. I just wanted to increase the possibility of meeting him."
"I must remember that. If I try to put something like that in words it doesn#t sound so positive", Harper quipped.
"Could we perhaps spare out the rumour mill until tomorrow? Or do I have to go down with the Maru all by myself?" Tyr called now a bit angry because his schedule got out of shape.
"We are just coming", Dylan appeased him.
"He is really in a hurry", Harper said when Tyr went back into the Maru. "Has to be quite a hot chick who is waiting for him."
"Let's hope it's not rather a hot bride", Dylan meant considerate, "or tomorrow morning there will be one more crewmember on the Andromeda … or one less. "
"Do you really think, Tyr would take a wife just over the night and leave Andromeda?", Beka asked a little bit anxious when she went to teh Maru followed by the others.
"It's the purpose of life for nietzcheans to be husband and father", Dylan explained. "If there is this possibility for him, why should Tyr take it? And the Andromeda isn't the most secure place to start a family. So I think it's not unlikely, that Tyr will leave us sooner or later."
Thinking and silent Beka boarded the Maru. She hadn't thought about this possibility when she had tried to convince the nietzchean to have a date with a woman.