TWENTY-THREE: Assurance

Spirits knew how he did it, but Thelen had this magical ability to always know where to find her. It didn't matter if she was hiding in her office or roaming the various levels of Laibok –the lieutenant was like a bloodhound.

Half the time, she wondered if he's slipped some sort of tracking device into her clothes when she wasn't paying attention...

On this particular occasion, she was meandering down one of the more isolated tunnels, close to the surface, but not very. She hadn't seen a soul for hours, and when she grew tired she settled down into a small cul-de-sac offshoot of the main tunnel. She'd had the foresight to bring food –dried meat and the like- and water, and had even taken the precaution of nabbing a personalized distress beacon; a commonplace object, on a planet of treacherous ice and sometimes violent climate changes.

She'd also brought this new age's version of an iPod with her, too –a small, streamlined thing that fit easily into the palm of her hand. Music has always been a source of comfort for her, and she admired how much the technology had improved since her time. Andorian-made devices such as this one had impressive audio systems –catering, no doubt, to their precise sense of pitch.

Dagmar set the device to play a few classical works –imported from her console back on Earth- and nibbled on some dried, blue-grey meat. It tasted suspiciously like beef, but, to her knowledge, Andoria had no such beasts. The rations were tough, and a little chewy, but the flavour was decent enough.

"If you were half this difficult to keep track of as a child, I pity your parents!"

Dagmar jumped, surprised by the voice that echoed loudly about the tunnel. Thelen was standing in the roughly carved archway to her little alcove, arms akimbo and antennae flicking in mild irritation.

"Hey, Thelen!" She greeted warmly –forgetting, as she often did, to adhere to Andorian custom in favour of showing more Human affection.

The Imperial Guardsman snorted, not bothering to correct her, and approached –more surefooted on the ice than she would probably ever be. When he was close enough, he held out his hand, and Dagmar raised her arm to return the familiar gesture from her seated position. Palms pressed together briefly, before the Andorian shifted to grab hold of her hand and pull her to her feet. Dagmar went along with the insistent pull without much protest.

"It's dangerous to wander alone –especially for you." The lieutenant rebuked seriously. "You're not as strong as we are, and there are parts of this tunnel that not even I would venture into without a good friend..."

Ducking her head at the rebuke but feeling cheeky nonetheless, Dagmar looped her arm around one of his and quipped, "Oh, well –I have nothing to worry, then, do I?"

The calf-eyed smile and the brief touch of calloused fingertips to her knuckles that followed made her grin behind the strange mask she wore. Thelen had learned to read smiles by the faint creases of the corners of her eyes when she wore the thing, largely out of necessity.

She was close to the surface, and it was too cold to go without it. The lower part was opaque and designed to absorb the heat and humidity that resulted from her exhalations and retain it to keep the skin and extremities of her face safe from the subzero temperatures. The upper half was a bit more complicated. It, too, used the heat produced from her skin to maintain a reasonable temperature, but it was designed with a clear visor that stretched from temple to temple to allow her to see clearly without hampering her peripheral vision.

"The music you're listening to –a Terran waltz?" Thelen enquired, open in his curiosity. His antennae bobbed in time with the music. Dagmar nodded and shrugged awkwardly, the movements stifled by her thick and heavy outer-jacket. "Is it not traditional to dance to such things?"

Dagmar offered a second shrug and mumbled indifferently, "Well, you kind of need a partner for that."

"Ah, yes," Thelen remembered her comments from so many weeks ago. "Part of your social bonding mechanisms, if I recall correctly."

Had it really only been weeks? It felt like she's been on Andoria forever...

Without really knowing why, Dagmar impulsively offered, "I could teach you, if you wanted."

And then, awkwardness, stammering, "I mean- that is- if you don't- I just thought-"

Thelen smiled, a genuine calf-eyed smile, and seemed almost charmed by her embarrassed backpedalling. Taking pity on her –thank the Spirits for her mask; he couldn't see how red her face was!- the Andorian settled a hand on her shoulder and said that he would like that very much...

Just not in a rickety ice cave.

To say that she nearly went boneless from relief was an understatement. It was stressful, always having to be absolutely paranoid about offending people, and when something even hinted at going wrong... Dagmar swore her blood pressure went through the roof every time.

The walk back towards some semblance of civilization was a slow one, but not in a bad way. It was a comfortable pace –somewhere between a saunter and a mosey- and it gave her a chance to catch up with the security officer. The closer they got to the heart of Laibok, the warmer the air got –though, by human standards, that wasn't saying much. Increasingly, the rough-hewn tunnels smoothed out and grew more and more elaborate. Carvings sometimes cropped up –on this pillar or that corner- and while Dagmar didn't fully understand some of the things depicted, the appreciated them all the same.

At length, Thelen broached a subject that had probably been bothering him for quite some time. "Shral mentioned something the other day..."

Dagmar grimaced behind her mask. Shral had been avoiding her –which took quite a bit of skill, given that they both worked extensively with the Ambassador. Even when he was in the same room with her, he alternated between staring at her with a look she couldn't even begin to interpret, or following her closely and asking strange questions about her family.

"About what?" She asked, despite having a good guess as to what the answer was.

But Thelen didn't confirm or deny her silent guess. Instead, he raised his eyes, but not his antennae, to the smooth, rounded ceiling of the cavernous ice cave –smoother now that they were not in rough-hewn tunnels- and clasped his hands behind his back in a manner that Dagmar knew very well. Even as he was, eyes fixed above, he moved with a sure-footedness that she envied.

"Among Andorians, there is a phenomenon which you may not know of." The lieutenant began, and Dagmar had a funny feeling that this speech had been rehearsed. "We marry in quads –this you know- but we bond first in pairs. The bonds are not merely emotional bonds, however; Andorians, not unlike Vulcans, possess a form of limited telepathy, and bondmates share a telepathic link as well as an emotional one."

Dagmar nodded distractedly, wondering where this was going. A misstep on a slippery patch of ice nearly introduced her face to the frozen floor, but she caught herself even as the officer's hands closed around her upper arms and stabilized her. Once she was settled, he continued.

"What you did could be taken as a sign of the beginnings of a bond forming between yourself and Vilashral." Thelen explained carefully, almost delicately. "He was... alarmed."

"I don't understand." Dagmar frowned, confused. "I'm Human. I can't bond like that. It's just not possible."

Thelen shook his head, amber-yellow eyes dropping from the ceiling to meet hers. "I have investigated this, also: all Humans possess a minor form of empathy. It is very limited, but it may be enough to trigger such a bond, provided that the individuals are in frequent, close contact and share mutual feelings of affection."

The twenty-first-century woman took a long moment to process thing, sifting through what she knew of Andorian bonds –a thing she was only vaguely aware of- and reviewing Shral's behaviour. Something rebelled, internally, at the thought of some magical, psychic alien bond cropping up out of the blue. Shouldn't she have been aware of something, if any of that were true? Wouldn't she feel different somehow?

Her brow furrowed, confused and thoughtful and sceptical all at once. A hundred thousand thoughts ran through her head –of small moments of affection, of faint, honest praise and a low baritone murmur against her ear. Of shev'tak and vithi flowers, and honey and blood.

As they finally reached the edge of the city, she repeated, at a loss, "But I don't understand."

Thelen clasped a hand to her shoulder wordlessly, and strong fingers squeezed gently, the officer ever mindful of his vastly superior strength. It spoke volumes of his regard for Vilashral that he was willing to intervene on his behalf here; if he had been any other Andorian, Thelen would never have so much as considered it. As he walked the redheaded female to her domicile, bidding her a friendly good evening at the door, the security officer questioned the wisdom of his involvement in even this capacity.

"Neither does he." The amber-eyed Andorian offered after a long moment, meeting the girl's pale blue eyes with his own. "You must to speak to one another and attempt to resolve the situation." Lightly, he added, "There may not be a situation to begin with, merely the handiwork of confusion and coincidence."

Guiding the woman past the threshold of her quarters, Thelen suggested softly, in his characteristically sibilant voice, "Talk to Vilashral, Dagmar. It may be nothing."