The Author Speaks Again: Hello, all, and welcome back to this long-neglected story. I won't belabor the excuses for the delay in updating, having already given my disclaimer about romantic comedy not being my strong suit. Here, though, we see a look at what an alien culture's first reaction to everyday life on c-Island, and the beginnings of all the subsequent misudnerstandings, which will only become an even more tangled web in chapter five. Oh, and for those who read "Southern Cross Dream," I left the names of the Argonian children as they were in that story, but this should not be misinterpreted as an attempt to draw a connection between the two stories. It's simply that I didn't feel like trying to juggle two sets of names for the same characters. That said, enough from me. Enjoy.

Chapter Four: The Culture Gap

It had now been nearly a week since the rescue of the Argonians and their subsequent settling on C-Island. Mica had been taken in by the island shamaness, the same mysterious mystic who had first sent Mike on his way at the beginning of the summer. Naberra Gared, the next oldest girl among the seven survivors, had been adopted by the family of a village hunter named Uripo, whose hut was only a few dozen yards away. Already, though, Uripo's sixteen year old daughter, Urahette (recently crowned "Miss Coralcola 1990") and Naberra had begun to experience the squabbles that inevitably result from two teenage girls living under one roof (and a small one at that), so Naberra spent much of her time visiting Mica at the Shamaness's house, just as she was doing now.

"So when are you going to confess, princess?" Naberra asked, lying on her stomach across Mica's bead with her feet pedalling carelessly above her.

"Confess what?" Mica asked, sitting on the bed next to her.

"Welllll," Naberra asked, grinning mischievously, "everyone saw you and Mike sneak away from the party last week, and no one saw either of you again until the next morning, so…" she shrugged "care to fill in the gaps?"

Mica let out a sound that could have been a groan or gagging, along with a word that sounded suspiciously like 'ugh.' "The only gaps I could find seem to be between our new Hero's ears."

Naberra looked at Mica disbelievingly. "Aww, come on. It couldn't have been that bad."

"You weren't there," Mica reminded her.

"Well, duh! No one was. Except you," Naberra winked at Mica, "and Mike. And you've got to admit, that's kind of suspicious." The phrase 'kind of suspicious' ended in a teasing, almost sing-song quality.

"Nothing happened," Mica insisted. "And rest assured, nothing is going to between me and Mike." She looked away, seemingly embarrassed. "Especially not now."

"Uh-oh," Naberra asked, suddenly alert. "What happened?"

Mica paused before answering. "Which do you want to hear first: what a stupid thing he said, or what a stupid thing I said?"

"Let's start with him," Naberra answered immediately.

Mica sighed. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask that first."

"Okay then, what did you say?"

Mica hesitated again. "To be honest, I'm almost ashamed to admit to it."

"Well Sacred Stars, princess! You're not leaving me with very many answers here."

"Okay, okay," Mica acquiesced. "But you've got to promise me that this never, ever leaves this room."

Naberra made a zipping motion across her lips with two fingers and mimed throwing away a key, a gesture which, Mica noticed with mild humor, she had picked up from 'Miss Coral.'

"Okay," Mica sighed. "I'll give you the whole infuriating, nauseating scoop."

"Oooh, this already sounds good," Naberra chirped, inching closer as if expecting Mica to whisper the story under her breath.

"You were right about one thing," Mica began. "Mike and I did make an early exit from the party."

"Go on," Naberra prodded. "What did he say to you?"

"Never mind all that," Mica dismissed the subject. "Let's just say he talked me into a conversation I should have seen right through, lured me out to somewhere I should have known better than to go with a guy I just met, and then…"

"And then?"

"Well, he propositioned me. Without any subtlety at all, I might add."

Naberra was silent. "I'm going to take it from the way you're talking that you didn't let him get very far."

"Well of course not! I slapped him sensible and left."

"Why?"

"Naberra!"

"Oh, come on! Think about it," Naberra rolled over onto her back, clutching a pillow to her chest and letting her feet dangle off of the bed. "The princess and her gallant hero, alone on a beach under the summer's stars-"

"Looking straight up at the one that our dead planet orbits around?" Mica let this comment sink in for a moment before adding, "after having been out of the cubes for barely more than an hour. Call me insane, but it wasn't exactly my idea of a 'romantic getaway.' "

The smile faded from Naberra's face as the memory of their lost home, a memory none of the seven had truly had time to confront yet, resurfaced in both girls' minds. After a few minutes, though, Naberra decided the silence had gotten awkward. "You know, Mica, I've been talking a lot with Urahette lately, and-"

"Oh, have you?" Mica joked.

Naberra rolled her eyes. "Okay, so it's more like Urahette has yammered on while I pretended to listen and looked for a polite excuse to leave before she drove me to the point of running out into the sea. But anyway," she paused while Mica giggled. "The point is, since she's-"

"Miss Coralcola 1990," Mica finished the phrase in a ditzy sounding voice that was a remarkable impersonation of Urahette, complete with the signature lip smacking of a perpetual gum-chewer.

Naberra groaned, covering her face with her hands and kicking her feet against the sides of the beds in a mock temper tantrum. "Don't say that! If I hear that title one more time I'm likely to strangle her!"

"Oh, now wouldn't that be tragic?" Mica joked. "How could any of the boys on the island ever forgive you?"

"Seriously," Naberra said, picking up the pillow she'd dropped during her fit. "But actually, that kind of brings me back to my point."

"Oh?"

Naberra rolled back over onto her stomach, knees bent so that her feet waved in the air. "Well, to hear Urahette talk, she's actually been with most of them already at one point or another."

"Trollop," Mica snorted.

"Right," Naberra agreed. "At least, that's what we would have said about her on Argonia. But then again, we're not on Argonia anymore, are we?"

The pointed tips of Mica's ears twitched in confusion. "What are you getting at?"

Naberra hesitated, as if a little embarrassed to go on. Finally, with a glance around the room as if to ensure that the two were still alone, she inched closer to Mica and whispered, "think about it."

"Okay, thinking," Mica answered, pausing for a moment. "Thought. I still have no idea what you're talking about."

"Let's look at it another way. You've noticed the way a lot of the islanders dress, right?"

Mica shrugged. "It's hot, and the people on this planet don't seem to have developed textile manufacturing yet."

"Really?" Naberra asked. "Mike and Dr. J. seem to."

Mica frowned. "Yes, that's true. But they seem to be some kind of ruling class."

"What makes you say that? I thought the chieftain in the big hut was the ruler here."

"Right, the chief is the ruler of the village itself, but Dr. J. has his palace at the island center, a complex that's at least a century ahead of anything else on the island. And none of the islanders except his apprentice ever go there. And you notice the way the villagers all seem to defer to him and his nephew."

Naberra nodded. "And now that you mention it, don't they claim to be from somewhere else? Some place called… Americola, I think?"

Mica nodded. "Right. And all the villagers seem to listen in awe whenever Mike talks about life back in this Americola."

Naberra clucked her tongue in understanding. "Then this 'Americola' is some kind of ruling empire, and Doctor Jones is its provincial governor for the island. Or, at the very least, that empire's governmental representative."

Mica nodded. "I think that's how it is."

"Well, even if that's so, it doesn't change the fact that this planet's morals seem a bit… exotic, to say the least."

"Exotic? How?"

"Look. All I'm saying is this." Naberra began to count off on her fingers. "Urahette's casual liaisons, less modesty in dress, and now you say Mike tried to seduce you after having only met you an hour before. It may be that Earth's culture is just more open about… this kind of thing then Argonia was."

Mica took a deep breath. "If that's true, Mike may have just been…" As the implications of Naberra's comment began to sink in, It was her turn to fall back onto the bed with a great flop, face covered in both hands as Naberra had done. "Messio Argo," she groaned.

Naberra bit her lip. "I hate to be the one to point this out, Mica, but when you turned him down, you might have been insulting the prince of our exiled home."

Mica held up one hand with two fingers extended. "Twice."

Naberra cocked an eyebrow. "What?"

"It's a long story," Mica said quickly.

There was silence while Naberra glimpsed into Mica's mind, letting Second Sight give her the details of the conversation Mica was thinking of, complete with the final blow of 'you're no better than Zoda.' Finally, she gasped in horror. "Mica, you didn't!"

"Remember the part about 'the stupid thing I said?' That was it."

Naberra put her hand concernedly on Mica's shoulder. "Princess, you've got to try and make it up to him somehow."

"I think it's a little late for that."

"Well you've got to try. I mean, he saved our race, and then these people took us in, no questions asked. We can't afford any tensions between you and someone as high-ranking as a ruler's nephew. They… well, they might see it as an offense and change their mind about us."

Mica sat up, looking Naberra in the eye. "Okay then. And just how do you suggest I go about 'making it up to Mike?' "

Naberra gave Mica a long and meaningful stare. "By taking back the insult."

Mica was silent for a long time. "You're joking."

"'Fraid not, Mica."

"So, you're saying that in order to keep the islanders from hating us, I have to... I mean, with Mike?"

Naberra's only answer was to continue staring at Mica. "When on Terra," she finally said, "do as the Terrans do."