Chapter 6
Tim wasn’t used to having expectations. According to his other ship mates, it took training to learn to have expectations, and then more training on how to tailor them to reality.
That seemed like an almost circular problem that could better be avoided by not having expectations, trained or otherwise. He thought he had the whole concept handled.
It was a shock to find out he was wrong.
He’d hoped—half expected—the transit to Arroxan Prime to include opportunities to get back onto a better footing with Riina. That she’d have time to get comfortable with his human form. And that he’d get more comfortable with it.
So far, it wasn’t working.
He couldn’t blame it on too many people around. The ship was barely manned, though technically it didn’t need any humans since the ship’s AI Veirn could handle most anything that came along.
In practice, what this meant was that the humans—and Trac—had too much time on their hands. This resulted in multiple awkward encounters, interrupted opportunities, and too much time to think.
His human brain thought way too much. And most of the thinking wasn’t productive in any way that he could identify.
They’d gone over the possible mission parameters so many times, even Lt. Dish could recite them from memory.
It wasn’t, he realized, kind to conclude that Lt. Dish wasn’t as smart as the rest of them. He knew this logically. He had no idea why he’d made the assumption that she was less smart. Perhaps it was because she brought popcorn to their strategy meetings?
He was aware that by human standards, or rather by Expedition standards, she was remarkably attractive. He’d noted that male heads swiveled in her direction when they’d make their way toward the ship.
Before they’d left, he’d downloaded some data on Earth attraction metrics and applied them to Lt. Dish. She’d scored very high.
Next, he’d assessed his own physical response to being in her presence. He had noted some elevated readings, but none that were as high as when he was around Riina. From that he concluded that he found her attractive, but in a detached way.
Had that detachment led him to conclude she was less intelligent than he was?
It was possible. He wasn’t sure why she’d been included in the mission at all.
She was a lieutenant. This put her fairly low on the rank structure within the Expedition.
Rank didn’t matter that much on the ship, since none of them were in that rank structure, so perhaps the general had considered any rank sufficient. But to what end? She couldn’t order any of them around.
Conclusion: she must have some other purpose.
Before becoming human, he would have asked Riina for her assessment of Lt. Dish.
Now his issues felt compounded by the distance, and by what he’d observed as her reaction to the lieutenant. He could be wrong, but he sensed a faint, deeply buried hostility from Riina.
What was that about?
Other than providing popcorn, Lt. Dish didn’t talk much, didn’t appear to observe much, and contributed zero to their discussions.
She looked good. And she looked.
That seemed to be the sum of Lt. Dish.
And yes, as she moved around, even Tim, who prided himself on not noticing human emotions, sensed waves of something swirling around her.
She was, he decided, a disruptor of some kind. Was that her function?
They were getting closer to Arroxan Prime. If he didn’t do something, they’d arrive and things and people would still be confusing.
He needed to talk to someone. He wanted that someone to be Riina.
He went back to the Earth data he’d downloaded. Surely there was something in there about how to talk to a woman who used to be your friend and was now giving off strange vibes?
This wasn’t the first time the team had viewed the data that Dr. Walker had sent from Arroxan Prime. Rinna wondered if everyone else was as confused as she was. It didn’t help reminding herself she wasn’t a geologist. She was an astrophysicist. And a scientist. That should help with comprehension.
Only it didn’t.
“If we can solve the problem planet-wide, it might be possible for us to get in and get out without widening our first contact exposure,” she said, into the silence that had followed the viewing.
“Are we sure we’ve received all the data available?” Veirn asked the question, its voice coming from the speaker system.
Shouldn’t Veirn know the answer to that question? Rinna frowned.
“Are you showing gaps in the data, Veirn?” she asked.
“It is possible that gaps occurred while Dr. Walker’s suit was recording events,” the AI said, rather than giving a direct answer.
“I’m having a little trouble with the geology,” Riina confessed.
“There’s a lot of anomalous data,” Lt. Dish said.
They all turned to look at her. This was the first time she’d done more than supply snacks to eat during the viewings.
“Anomalous?” Tim asked the question, which was a relief.
Riina was tired of being the only one who wasn’t sure what was going on.
“Well, Dr. Walker himself makes several comments about the geology on Arroxan Prime being different from Earth geology. He doesn’t seem to be sure what he’s seeing and experiencing.”
“You are familiar with Earth geology?” Riina asked.
Lt. Dish blinked a couple of times and then nodded. Riina had the sense that the lieutenant was surprised Riina didn’t know this.
“It wasn’t in the file I received from the general,” Riina said, trying not to sound defensive.
She already had, she’d had to face, issues with the young woman.
She was so…lovely. It shouldn’t be annoying that even the robot, Trac, tended to watch her when she was in the room.
Certainly, the captain and Tim also appeared to have trouble keeping their eyes off her.
She knew from something she’d overheard that “dish” was an Earth term for very nice looking, and that the Lieutenant was appropriately named. Lovely Dish.
“It’s like her parents knew, even when she was a baby,” one Earth woman had said. “If she wasn’t so nice, I’d hate her, but you can’t.”
“No,” her companion had said, followed by a sigh that seemed to Riina to indicate regret.
They wanted to hate her but couldn’t. There seemed to be more there to understand about Earth culture, but over the few days of their journey, Riina did get the part of wanting to hate Lt. Dish. And not quite managing it. She found it much harder to like her.
“Interesting,” Lt. Dish said, her head tipped to one side so that strands of her blonde hair dangled against the perfect curve of her cheek.
It took a moment for Riina to connect the lieutenant’s statement with hers. Right. It was interesting that General Halliwell hadn’t fully disclosed Lt. Dish’s credentials.
“Can you think of a reason why the general didn’t want us to know you had geologic knowledge?
“No.” Lt. Dish shook her head, making random strands of her hair appear to dance.
It was really annoying. And kind of endearing, but mostly annoying.
No, what was really annoying was the look in Tim and the captain’s eyes as they watched Lt. Dish.
She wanted to blame Lt. Dish for the reason they weren’t making much progress in figuring out just what had happened during Dr. Walker’s time beneath the surface of Arroxan Prime, but the captain had no reason to know any of this stuff.
And Tim? As a robot, he might have been able to efficiently process Dr. Walker’s data, but she knew that his return to human form had significantly slowed his processing capacity. She just hoped Lt. Dish wasn’t scrambling what circuits he had left.
That thought put some heat into her cheeks and she turned from them to study the screen. She had no right to be upset by anything Tim did or thought or felt. They were friends. Or at least, she hoped they were still friends. Right now, it felt like they were polite strangers.
Every morning, after another night of tossing and turning with dreams where Tim played a prominent role, she’d have to spend time to get her expression and her feelings back into rigorous control.
She liked to think that she’d seen some signs that Tim wanted to close that gap, to be friends again, but it seemed like something—or someone—always interrupted them when they might have been able to talk.
She wanted to lean against something and close her eyes. Instead, she stiffened her spine and stared at the last frozen image on the screen.
“Are we quite sure the Skaridrex are the good aliens?” The Vorthari were quite beautiful. It had been easy to be with Dr. Walker as he was trying to save them. Until it all went wrong and the Vorthari tried to kill him and his illegal, first contact friend.
Everyone wanted to be annoyed with Dr. Walker for that first contact, but everyone who could be mad at him hadn’t a leg to stand on. Some had also made illegal or inadvertent first contact. Some had made inevitable first contact.
A bunch of them had fallen in love.
But none of those romances had threatened the survival of an entire planet. Was that a fair assessment? Probably not. Dr. Walker had uncovered an entire planet at risk. The question was, had he somehow given the Vorthari information to help them break free from their underground existence?
Even he didn’t seem to know.
“There are, or there were,” Veirn said, “nanites present. When we are there, I should be able to connect with them and collect better data. Assuming they weren’t damaged in the process.”
“I wish we could access it now,” Riina said. “I feel like we’re flying into the unknown.”
“Most flying,” Tim said, “is into the unknown. Even when we knew, we didn’t know enough. So still unknown.”
Somehow their gazes met and held. It was the first time since his transition.
“At least,” Tim qualified, “that has been my experience.”
Her lips quirked up at the edges. “It has become my experience since…” She didn’t finish the sentence. Everyone here knew she’d been wakened from a long sleep to a new, puzzling, and sometimes dangerous reality.
What surprised her now was that this moment, with Tim’s gaze holding hers, felt more dangerous than anything she’d done since waking.