Star Trek - Outwardly Mobile
Taking a Deep Breath
by
Jay P Hailey
I was sitting on a park bench over looking the ocean. The weather was warm and
the smell of the ocean was wonderful.
I was on a world called Eltath. The inhabitants, by the far majority were humans. Five billion of them, in a rollicking, churning almost boiling mass of nations, factions and ethnic backgrounds.
The Starship Discovery, in orbit, was sucking down data about these people as quickly as we could get it.
I was in a native costume pretty typical pants and shirt, but with decorative cumberbund, wrist cuffs and leggings.
Mine proclaimed my status as middling high level business man. Safely generic, yet with enough status not to be immediately hassled.
The city behind me was a port town, a cross roads. It had conecctions to places all over Eltath. So the people were inured to strangers walking around and gawking at everything.
What brought us here was a small population of non-humans. Humanoid but definitely not human, they lived and worked in the city.
They'd adopted Eltathian names. They dressed and spoke in the Eltathian style.
Eltathian newscasts and documentaries said they'd arrived 5 years ago in a slave ship. 125,000 people.
We poked where we could. I had all sorts of useful devices diguised as common objects from Eltath.
But I'd laid them all aside and looked out at the ocean, enjoying the feeling and and carefully not thinking.
The prime directive had been blown to smithereens. They had film footage of the ship crashing. Aliens lived among them.
Could I do anything to help? Should I?
An older alien man shuffled by on his errand. He was dressed in robes that were not usual for the culture. I looked at him, he looked at me. He stopped and smiled.
"You are a man with a problem." He said.
I smiled back. "Perceptive."
He slowly shuffled over to my bench. I cleared a space for him.
"You look like a man used to solving problems." He said.
"How unusual that our body language is close enough for you to see that about me." I said.
"I don't think this is a coincidence. Maybe the Universe is trying to tell us something." He said.
"Oh?" I cocked an eyebrow at him.
"Sometimes the problem is the solution." He said. "Things don't happen by accident."
I blinked. "Hmmm."
"And sometimes the solution is the problem." He said. "I love this language. It makes basic things sound so mysterious."
I chuckled. "I think I get it."
"A beautiful day, isn't it?" he sighed
"One of the better I have seen recently." I answered.
We sat on the bench in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the sun and the ocean.
I spotted a vendor down the way.
"Can I get you a...." I struggled with the pronuciation "Kurvalate?"
"Kurv-alot, I think they call it. I would enjoy that." He smiled.
I brought us back one of each and a sodapop in a rectangular can that you drank from one end.
I never even learned the guy's name.
Kamaline was about ready to skin me when I told her.
-end-
Disclaimer: Paramount owns all things Trek. I claim original characters and situations in this story for me.
This story posted by permission of the author. Unauthorized reproduction prohibited.
Jay P. Hailey May 20, 2005