The BLTS Archive - In the Wind Seventh in the 1000 Raps series --- Spoilers: Two Days and Two Nights Comments: This takes place a few days after the "TRUTH" stories. the title is taken with great respect from the Malagasy proverb about resiliance: _"People are like plants in the wind: they bow down and rise up again."_ --- I walk down a corridor that is at once familiar...and yet, completely new to me. It's strange, really. I mean, I have one set of memories that just drape over my main set of memories...I suppose its one of the safeguards the universe has to keep people sane, particularly if they've bounced from one line of existance to another--like myself and Malcolm have. One set of my memories includes a trip to Risa, while the other set lacks that memory--or of anything else on the Enterprise. I nod to the guard on duty, "Hey Hal," I say, "I'd like to chat with some of the Hssk'khr," and he lets me inside. He's a friend of Malcolm's, though I doubt even Hal knew about my marriage to Malcolm. But Hal trusts Malcolm...and me. Inside this room are all the Hssk'khr. I suppose the Captain couldn't bring himself to have them all killed--even after their attempted riot...including against T'Pol and the Captain himself in Sickbay, just after me and Malcolm'd left. "You returned," one of the Hssk'khr says glumly. "No wishes remain," predicts another, the smallest, whose skin is bruised the most--from the Captain, I think. "Our people have been informed," a third tells me. "They await us." Wasn't this one with the Commander?...what did he do that there's a brilliant orange welt on its skin? The largest one just rolls around in a circle, lolling despondantly. "Cheer up," I say. "It's not the end of the world." "Correct," says the smallest. "Our world has been empty of us for five million years. It will survive our passing." "Your passing?" I ask. Okay, so there are times I can repeat things like an idiot. I have a feeling they aren't talking about going to DisneyWorld...even the one in Calcutta. "We have worked for," the Hssk'khr paused, calculating, "eight million years. There is nothing else we can do now." "Save for exiting the plural planes of existance," said a second one. "Do you have any suggestions?" moans the largest. The day I suggest sepuku is the day that T'Pol dances in public, wearing a tutu. What would Malcolm say? Think, Hoshi, think!! "I bet you there is something you can do," I say, grasping at straws. Conceptual straws, though that might not be the best term, given my state. I think Dr. Phlox is baffled over how I 'lost' the Denobulan DNA. "Bet?" inquires the smallest Hssk'khr present. "More amusement for your ends?" "No," I say. "A bet can also be a wager between two people or groups." "What wages?" asks the largest, no longer rolling about. "If I win, all of you stick with what you find." "Or should you fail winning?" I meet their eyes, their not-human eyes, and don't say anything. --- A WEEK LATER: --- According to the SubCommander, this world we've just arrived at, it's fairly old and dry. Mostly solid rock on the surface, with the occasional patch of soil. Not a lot of free oxygen in the air, and it's hot too. Not as hot as the salt mines I visited...where I met Malcolm. A dry wind carried some dust along as we stepped out from the shuttle. We hadn't gone twenty feet from that shuttle when the SubCommander told the Commander, "Do not put your foot down." So, Commander Tucker just froze there, balancing one-legged while the rest of us tried to see what T'Pol's scanners had picked up. It was something part shark, part housecat...and it was purring. There was also a row of spines running down its back. "Likely poisonous," T'Pol remarked. "Like a fish," Trip muttered. "One of them stonefish on Earth." There was a sound exactly like a "mew". And it was coming from the stone-mimic. "Did you just hear a cat?" Trip laughed. The native made a 'mew'ing sound again, then pointed to itself. "Hoooissh," it said. "Who ish?" Trip asked, trying to repeat the sounds. He set his foot down, away from the stone-mimic catshark. "Hoooissh," it repeated, not pausing between the sylables. Is that their name, or a general statement? It rears up on--I can't tell offhand if those are all legs, all pseudopods, or some legs and the rest are something else. The Hoooissh's body was covering something up: a bowl-shaped depression in the rock, and that depression has something in it. The Hoooissh uses one leg to pick something out of the bowl--one arm, not leg, I suppose, since it's now holding something. A net? Or just a collection of knots on a set of ropes. "Very primitive," SubCommander T'Pol comments. "We've all got to start somewhere," I snap back at her, though I keep it in English. "Give them a few thousand years," Archer says, agreeing with me, "and they'll be flying starships too." "More than a few thousand," T'Pol says, "if human history is a basis." "Then let's give them a few good teachers," I say, an idea forming in my head. "Ensign?" T'Pol asks me. Curiosity?...or just me imagining it? "Maybe we can give them someone to learn from. An entire race to learn from." "Vulcans?" the Commander asks, at the same time as the SubCommander asking: "Humans?" I shake my head to both. "The Hssk'khr." "Hoshi--" Archer says, a warning in his tone. "If we don't, then the Hssk'khr race, every one of them, down to the last individual, will kill themselves." "That would not be a logical action," the SubCommander says. Now I raise an eyebrow. "They were working for eight million years, only for us to steal their reward. Don't they deserve something for all their effort?" Jonathan Archer looks at me, and goes walking off. I'm not sure how much time's passed...since I haven't checked my watch. If I look at it once, I'll probably end up looking at it every thirty seconds. Captain Archer's still out there: pacing back and forth, sitting down, standing up, kicking loose dust. I start to walk towards him, to try to help out, but-- "Attempting to push him to a decision,"T'Pol says, "may very well result in him choosing an outcome contrary to what you were requesting." Dang she's right. Right enough that I just sit down and watch Commander Tucker playing peek-a-boo with a very baffled Hoooissh. I wait, and we wait, and we all wait some more. _Next time,_ I tell myself, _I'm bringing a parasol!_ The heat is enough for us, and we're standing in the shadow of the shuttle...How much worse I imagine it is for the Captain. After all, I doubt he's had more than the Starfleet modicum of desert survival classes--nothing next to the consecutive months which myself and Malcolm have lived in deserts. And finally, after a great long while, Captain Archer returns. Heavily sunburned, he looks at us, his gaze settling on me, and its neither a kind look, nor an evil look. Just the look of a man who wishes there was another option. Captain Archer activates his comm. "Lieutentant Reed," he says into it. "Would you and some other armory officers please bring the Hssk'khr down to our coordinates? And Lieutenant, keep your weapons on--" and he hesitates..."stun." I put my hand on his shoulder. "Thank you," I tell him. He doesn't look at me. I half expect him to say 'Don't thank me.' Instead, he looks at the Hoooissh, and tells it "I'm sorry." The Hssk'khr came down to the planet without any incidents, and they listened to my proposal on how they could continue their existance. "Teaching," said the largest of the Hssk'khr Enterprise had had. I nod. "Yes. Many cultures I've met, they consider it the highest honor one can attain." They confer among themselves for several long minutes. Minutes made more bearable by Malcolm now standing alongside me; we aren't touching, but the presence is enough. "We will do this honor," all four Hssk'khr say as one, their voices not echoing one another--it's more like its a single voice. "As a race, this shall be done," and they turn around, leading the Hoooissh away from us. The Hoooissh looks back at us, a confused look on its face, but it stays with the four. "Captain," I say as the five cross the horizon. "Yes?" he asks me. "I have a feeling they might prefer Starfleet not to hang around." "Or at least," Malcolm adds, "not too closely." Captain Archer nods, rubbing where a Hssk'khr had nearly bitten a chunk out of his arm. "I'll make the suggestion to Admiral Forrest." He pauses. "Though there may be a few things I don't mention...to simplify the report." --- The End