Teeth and Hair

'I think it will not be easy for you who will read these words to truly comprehend the immense hurdles we faced at the time, of simply seeing past the very otherness of each species to the individual within, and learning to value and respect that individual. It is a hurdle our forebears had faced many, many times before, with members of different groups of our own people – how much more daunting the task with an entirely new species! When every single tiny bit of anatomy and psychology and history and culture and everything else that makes a people is incomprehensibly... alien.

But when the need is desperate enough, the will to do the impossible shall always be found.'

^..^

When SesTok arrived at his cabin door some time later, having detoured to the command pod to locate the next targets (as the first was by now most likely guarded too well for an easy second strike), he found the reddish female sitting huddled on the deck, back against the grease-smeared corridor wall with her appendages seemingly wrapped around each other. She was being guarded by one of the crew, a young striker who looked sullen and bored with the duty. SesTok grunted leave and the striker gave a hasty salute and almost ran towards crew country and dinner, leaving his commander staring down at the female.

She'd been gazing at the metal deck, but turned her head to watch the striker leave, then stared back up at SesTok with those surprising blue eyes. Now that he saw them clearly, they were actually blue, not grey like Sensaru'i eyes. Paired with that long reddish head fur, they made an arresting combination.

He reached a hand out to touch that fur – and found it slapped away by the female. He hissed through his gill slits in surprise, then grinned down at her. "Feisty, are you? Good." He passed his hand over the sensor on the wall, sliding his cabin door open, and stepped back a pace, waving the female inside. She'd flinched away from the doorway beside her, peering briefly into the dim space beyond before looking back at him. He gestured again, and she finally rose up on both feet and carefully walked inside, immediately stepping to one side to put her back to a wall and watch him come inside behind her.

Donna had swung from terror during the raid to wild, shocked grief at seeing her father shot down in front of her, melting quickly into rage – which settled during the wait in the cargo bay into a fierce determination to survive. She'd been raised on her parent's stories of adventures beyond the stars (even though her older brother claimed privately not to believe them), had seen alien artifacts aplenty at her mother's Institute, and remembered vividly the day her unearthly younger brother had disappeared, catching glimpses of the wooden blue box in the front hall, her father's 'twin', and her 'cousin', Jenny; after all that, the idea of being captured by aliens wasn't nearly as paralyzingly shocking to her as it apparently was to her fellow captives. She could have told the guys that their pitiful show of resistance would be futile – but they wouldn't have listened to her, anyway; her reputation as a brainy freak ensured that. They probably think I'm a traitor now, too, since these space sharks pulled me out alone. The kids had begun calling their captors that due to their slick grey skin and multiple rows of sharp teeth during the ride – apparently up to a mother ship of some kind – and it had stuck in her brain, too.

She hadn't gotten a very good look at this one, who seemed to be in charge of her now, out in the hall, but as the lights came up in the small, cluttered compartment and he came in behind her, she stiffened and hissed. "You!" She might not be able to pick an individual grunt out of a police lineup, but she was absolutely certain this was the shark that had shot her father shortly before – the shock of witnessing it had emblazoned his image on her brain cells indelibly.

SesTok, in the act of shrugging off his jacket, heard the female hiss and glanced sharply at her. She had pushed off the wall and stalked the three steps to him – stopping just out of reach – and was continuing to spit and growl in her primitive language. If the facial expressions of these animals were anything analogous to SenSaru, she was one angry little female. Glancing at her dull teeth and nails, though, he decided his skin wasn't in any immediate danger of piercing, and he grinned at her discomfort.

Suddenly she reached behind her and pulled something out of a rear pouch in her clothing. He tensed for a moment, then realized it wasn't a weapon, but a small folded skin pouch. She opened it up with visibly trembling hands, pulled out a flat square of some material and shoved it at his face. Curious now, he took it from her and peered closely; it proved to be a two-dimensional image of an animal like herself. He shrugged and tried to give it back to her, but she wouldn't take it, continuing to mewl while looking increasingly upset.

"You killed my father, you son of a bitch! You killed him!" Donna knew he didn't understand her, but she couldn't seem to get past the brute fact that this... animal... was standing in front of her as though nothing had happened, when he'd just casually cut down the most important person in her life.

He took another close look at the picture, and suddenly recognized it as possibly the animal he'd regretfully stunned during the operation below - something about the shape of the face and the unruly head fur seemed familiar. "This one is known to you?" Of course, she didn't understand him. "You're acting like it's dead, little she-thing." He gill-snorted in amusement, then an idea struck him. He turned to the computer terminal on the wall and called up the broadcasts from the planet below that he'd been entertaining himself watching on the ride up, scrolling quickly until he found what he wanted.

He turned and motioned Donna towards the screen, saying something that sounded like "So-day!" She stalked over and looked, seeing a news report from the scene. She watched just long enough to see Dad drop and whirled on the shark. "I don't need to see it again! I saw it already – I know what you did!" He motioned her back to the screen again, repeating "So-day!", a bit louder. She looked back unwillingly – just in time to catch another shot of Dad, sitting up at the back of an ambulance, being checked out by medics.

She gasped, her hands flying to her mouth as relief flooded through her. "He's alive. He's alive," she whispered. She looked back at her captor, eyes wide, and he grinned at her – and suddenly she saw it as a grin, rather than simply a baring of the those horrific teeth.

Donna was almost physically staggered. Suddenly she wasn't facing a heartless, indiscriminate killer, but she couldn't process what had taken the brute's place. They stared at each other for several long minutes, but his eyes kept sliding sideways to her hair. Glancing up, she realized he had none, and couldn't remember seeing any on any of the others, either. He reached a tentative hand out, stopping it a few inches away from her head and looking straight into her eyes. Was he actually asking for permission this time? She forced her hands down from her mouth to her sides again and nodded.

So, did that peculiar head movement mean yes? Well, she hasn't knocked my hand away again, so take it as that. He reached the rest of the way and lightly touched her head fur, picking up a strand and drawing it through his fingers.

Her mouth twitched. "Hair."

He froze, the lock of fur still in his light grip, and looked at her eyes again.

"Hair," she repeated, drawing it out and enunciating clearly.

"Hhhh-air," he did his best to mimic her, including the funny breathy sound at the beginning.

They stared at each other for a minute, not sure whether to grin or not. He dropped her hair and stepped back a pace. "Hhhair," he repeated, for no good reason.

One word down, ten thousand to go, thought Donna. Speaking of which... She pointed to herself and said, "Donna."

SesTok felt his gill slits go wide with surprise. Well, I suppose it's natural they have names. "Don-Nah!" Then, feeling foolish for some reason he couldn't define, he pointed to his own chest. "SesTok."

She took a deep breath. It had a name. "SesTok," she repeated, pointing at him to show she understood it was his name. Then, "Donna, SesTok," pointing at each in turn to drive it home. Donna Marie Gallifrey, what are you doing? she asked herself. I'm surviving, came the grim reply. 'In a long-term hostage situation, your chances of survival increase if you can make a genuine personal connection with your captor' she mentally quoted the university's Safety Manual. Thank you, Dad, for making me actually read it.

He stared at her a moment longer, surprise at her understanding and repeating his name flaring his gill slits again. I wonder how much they can be taught. A thought struck him, and he turned back to the wall next to the screen, opening one of the many small doors and pulling out some ration bars. He pulled the wrapper off one of them and held it out to her. "Food."

She took it from him, hesitantly. "Surima?" she tried the word. He tossed his head up and back to his right, catching her attention from the bar. She lowered her hand and looked at him, speculatively, then grinned and tried something new, testing. She pointed to herself and said, "SesTok?"

And here I thought she was smart. "Baht!" he spat out, testy, jerking his shoulders back. He reached for the bar, but she snatched it back, then held her other hand out, stopping him. This time she pointed at him. "SesTok." A statement, not a question.

He tossed his head again, pointing to himself. "Sah! Chano SesTok."

She grinned hugely now, catching his attention fully. "You think I'm thick, I know. But we just made progress. Watch." Pointing at him, tossing her head the way he had: "Sah." At herself, nodding, "Yes." She repeated it a couple more times, till he caught on.

"Ah, so that's it. Your 'yesss' means my 'sah'." He copied her nod, too, jerkily, and was rewarded by her grin. Then she went through "Baht" and "No", with shoulder jerks and head shakes; this time he got it immediately.

They stood grinning at each other for several seconds before he pointed again at the ration bar in her hand. "Surima." He tore open another one and took a bite to demonstrate.

Donna raised the bar in her hand and took a cautious sniff. Looking like a miniature hay bale, of tiny compressed green plants, with small red and yellow chunks, it smelled like... Cheesy seaweed? Oi. OK, in the name of intergalactic peace. I just hope I never find out what's actually in it. She took a cautious nibble, finding it tasted pretty much like it smelled, with a bit of fruitiness – coming from the chunks, she supposed.

He was waiting for a reaction. "Surima? Food?" she tried.

He opened his mouth to try her word, when suddenly they were interrupted by JanDel's voice, coming from the screen. "Commander!"

SesTok scowled, stamping over to punch the button a bit harder than necessary. "What is it?"

"The animals below are trying to contact us! They are calling on our frequency, even have visual. And, Commander..." He could hear JanDel swallow nervously as he hesitated.

"What? Speak!"

"They're speaking in SenSaru'i!"