Meeting At The Mess Hall

Posted on 23 Mar 2012 @ 8:17am by Crewman Nazhzhalh & Lieutenant Lilou Zaren

6,214 words; about a 31 minute read

Mission: Episode 00 - Pre-Deployment
Location: Mess Hall
Timeline: MD05 1800

Tomorrow was launch day, and so far Ziyal had not done anything except crawl out of bed and meticulously groom himself and clean his quarters (because everything must be clean - and there were a lot of things as he had a habit of collecting them up) as well as contact the operations officer in regards to some requisitions he had been hopeful to receive. The day had been mostly calm. Ziyal was recalibrating the translator h'maik crystals embedded in his outer extensor arm. When he finished that he tapped off the holographic projection matrix and got dressed. The uniforms they supplied at Starfleet were always too constricting and uncomfortable, but at least it wasn't suffocating him.

When all of this was accomplished, he exited his quarters and made his way to the mess hall. Most people weren't aboard the ship on a permanent basis yet, but Ziyal had found it fascinating and much more comforting than the busy intersections at Starfleet HQ. Fortunately he wasn't the only one in the mess this evening as he entered. A few people turned to stare at him, as he was remarkably different than most of the people gathered. He just waved and they went back to their own business, professionals after all.

The replicator had yet to store a fully integrated W'qa'arr meal, but Ziyal had been working on those patterns. He tapped in a code with a few of his claws and a glowing purple sparkling-shiny globule type thing appeared in the dispenser. He grabbed the tray and headed toward a table, sitting down and beginning to carefully open the pink-purple translucent ball in front of him with a few of the claws attached to his primary interior arm. He seemed so enthralled by this that he didn't notice the approach of someone else.

She'd never seen anything like it. Lilou wasn't so much distracted by the crewman - she'd seen all kinds growing up on a research station, though, she had to admit, nothing like him? Her? So maybe she was distracted, but the multi-pronged green giant with the tentacles wasn't what had initially caught her eye. She stepped a little closer, peering down at the glowing thing in his...hands. "What is that?" The question was out of her mouth before she could stop herself. She'd been planning on a nice, quiet - albeit lonely - meal on her own to sort through her thoughts before she stuffed them in a mental drawer to focus on her duties before deployment. She'd had no intention of striking up a conversation with anyone, let alone a... she didn't even know what he was. And that made her uncomfortable. She hated lacking information. Worse, she hated admitting it, but she'd already done so by asking the question aloud. In for a penny, in for a pound. The phrase buckled her for a minute, something her mother often said, though Lilou wasn't entirely clear on the origins. She set down her tray with it's simple, yellow-leafed salad and peered at the glowing blob. Context told her it had to be some kind of food, but it wasn't one she'd seen before and she couldn't for the life of her begin to figure out what was appealing about it as something you'd want to ingest. She lifted her gaze to the alien's protruding eyes, waiting for the answer, when she realized she was just looking for trouble. She could be treading on the crewman's religious practice for all she knew and there she was, just shoving her nose in where it didn't belong. "I didn't mean to interrupt, I just... haven't seen that before."

Contrary to appearing offended, the alien seemed positively excited to have someone approach him. This was expressed amidst some whistles and clicking noises, which were eventually translated into a more understandable Standard. "It is pe'llr'en," he explained, holding up a piece of the shiny glowing ball he had been carefully extracting. "My species consumes it for nourishment... eh... like that!" A few tentacles rose up and pointed at her tray, accompanied by a blink of his large protruding eyes.

Lilou's brows lifted slightly as the stranger seemed to explode with energy, gesturing and emitting whistles and clicks that were quickly overlapped by a voice in Federation Standard. Her lips peeled into a wide smile despite herself. "Pel-rin," she attempted to pronounce the alien term as she considered the glowing orb once more. "What's its elemental identity, I wonder...do you know? Gelatinous and refulgent... Brilliant." She was talking to herself and she knew it; new things had that effect on her. If she were being polite, she'd have apologized, excused herself, and gotten out of his way so he could eat.... absorb... did he even have teeth... his pel-rin in peace. She glanced over her shoulder and saw the tables beginning to fill with a mix of humans and humanoids. With a little hitch, she turned back to the stranger she'd already accosted with questions. She gestured with her tray, "Do you mind if I join you?"

"Elemental identity?" Ziyal questioned, seemingly oblivious to any apparent social slight on her part. "I have never taken the time to examine it!" Ziyal realized abruptly, and for an instant a somewhat recognizable expression of dismay, mostly communicated by a sad little blink. "I shall have to do so," he resolved simply as two of his unoccupied hands gestured to the seat across from him. "Join away!" he confirmed vocally, in the background of a wide variety of whistles and chirps. "I do not think it is palatable by human standards...ehhh... but you appear not to be human!" he added, noting the spots, "But...likely not very palatable. But you can try if you like," he offered happily as she sat down. "What is that?" he then asked, gazing at her own meal curiously.

She dropped into a chair and nudged her plate towards him. "It's grakizh salad; you're welcome to some." She smirked, eyeing the offered glowing purple goop. "Cultural exchange, rockbed of the Federation experience, right?" she said wryly and accepted a dribble onto her fork, twirling the utensil to keep it from escaping and dabbing her tongue at it. The flavor of the pell-rin was sour, with an underlying spiciness - a blend of cinnamon and cardamom and white pepper. It glowed slightly where her tongue had touched it. With a considering hum, she tucked the remainder of the alien substance in her mouth and swirled it around her tongue. For a moment, the same flavor persisted. Then, with a burst akin to an electric shock, the flavor tripled, then tripled again, and again, until that mildly pleasant spiciness had exploded inside her mouth. She opened her mouth and hissed as the air hit her lips and tongue, already ablaze with sensation. There was a slight glow that she could see peripherally and she had a mental image of herself, mouth agape and glowing bright purple like the pell-rin had been. Sweat built on her brow and she shut her mouth, exhaling hot air into her mouth and trying to fill it, to dampen the overwhelming heat of the substance. Her hands were shaking as the flavor changed again, adding a fizzing sensation to her mouth in addition to a sharp vinegar taste that puckered her lips and squinted her eyes.

She pressed her hands to her blazing cheeks and swallowed hard, draining her water glass and then, blinking the water from her eyes, studiously carried the empty container to refill it. Two glasses of prune juice and seven glasses of water later, she returned to the table, rubbing her oddly sore tongue against her teeth. She opened her mouth, croaked, drank half her refilled water glass and scrubbed her tongue against her teeth. "Your assessment was correct. You can't taste that? Or do you have some kind of chemical you excrete to change the composition?" She took a bite of her salad to try to clear the taste, but the usually pleasantly tangy flavor and slightly rough texture of the grakizh were like nails on the chalkboard of her mouth. She'd give it a minute. Or never eat again. "I'm half-human," she said, by way of explanation. "Although Trill do share many of the same characteristics as humans." She leaned back in her chair, at ease. There was something inordinately comforting about not being able to read his. Her. Its expression. Enough of that. "Thank you for the experience, though. It was...illuminating. And the company. I'm Lilou, by the way," she crossed her legs at the ankles.

As she tried a bit of the pe'llr'en, Ziyal carefully manipulated his utensil and snatched up a leaf from her plate, watching as she downed glass after glass of water and trying not to appear amused. He seemed humanoid enough when eating, pushing it somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth, chewing and swallowing. He blinked a few times at the taste. "Most humanoid dishes taste exceptionally strong to me" he said, which didn't at all explain the exceptionally strong taste of his own meal. "I'm Nazhzhalh, but most call me Ziyal," he told her chirpily. He searched for the correct terms to describe the qualia of experience, but only lamely came up with, "It tastes good to W'qa'arr! We have advanced sensation in taste. I think what must seem unappealing to you, is the surface texture." He gestured a little with his hands as he spoke, his posture mostly relaxed if excitable. Even though his facial expression was largely enigmatic, he appeared to be enjoying himself.

She choked out a laugh when he called the mild and tangy grakizh leaves "exceptionally strong". Their experiences of the sensation of taste must have been polar opposites. She wasn't sure if that was an advancement or simply a different genetic construct made up of different chemical compounds. Either way... "Weh-gah-arr... That's the name of your people? Where are you from? I grew up on a research base with many species coming through, but I've never met anyone like you before."

Bouncing happily as he took yet another several bites of his meal, Ziyal clicked away. "The W'qa'arr are from the Andromeda galaxy," he explained, which certainly elucidated upon why his race was not known to most in this quadrant. "It is very far away. It took me a year to travel with use of a bioship capable of traveling great distance!" Ziyal gestured widely. "I had never seen species in this quadrant before... it has been a learning experience. What is it like on a research station?" Ziyal asked in wonder. "I grew up in a laboratory. We did not see many species, however. The W'qa'arr are more isolated than most species I have encountered here."

Lilou blinked once at the statement that Ziyal had traveled from Andromeda to here in a year; maybe through a wormhole, but... in a ship? Just a ship - traveling that fast? She'd have given her left foot to stick her head into the Engineering Department of such a thing. Either way, she had the next best thing. Maybe he knew something about how the systems worked, enough to extrapolate from in any case... "Hmm? Oh, well... mostly sedentary. Ships like this one bring organisms and minerals and foreign compounds back to stations like the one I grew up on and the Great Minds there unfold the information endlessly until they've discovered everything about it or give up and move on to something else. My father is a physicist, dealing mostly with photonics and particle activity. Lots of really interesting equipment to be taken apart. And there was a pretty steady flow of research vessels docking and bringing materials and data from the far reaches of space, so we had an opportunity to meet a variety of species and cultures. And ships." She sighed a little, smiling. "Some gorgeous ships came through those docks." She wondered briefly if growing up in a laboratory meant being a product of one, but dismissed the question as temporarily irrelevant. "What was your lab like? Where did your ship go?"

"I destroyed most of it!" Ziyal said, probably not the expected answer. "My species operates by a similar edict to Starfleet's Prime Directive. The technology within our ships could have altered the balance of power in this quadrant," he said, seriously. "While I can provide some highly advanced technology to the Federation in moderation, it would not have been in good faith to provide the schematics of the bioship. Your time at the research station sounds fascinating!" he told her unceremoniously, genuinely intrigued. It sounded somewhat similar to how he grew up, only for the most part, he was the scientific data. "It was... colorful," the translator described somewhat inaccurately. "Sterile," he tried again. "Many scientists come and go, but few connected. It was a good way to learn," he conceded in his usual chirpy fashion. "Many things to discover," he said with a gesture.

"Indeed," she said, gently letting go of her sadness over the destruction of a ship capable of such feats. The Prime Directive always sounded like such a good idea when you were the ones with the greater technology, but it always stung when you weren't. Probably a good thing to be reminded of from time to time, she supposed. "Do you mean the lab was colorful in a physical sense, or an experiential one?" She ducked her head slightly. "Sorry, it's just, yeah. Wide variety of people, never quite connecting, lots of fascinating information being stuck in trays and tubes and boxes and 'protected'. Sounds like we came from similar places, you and I. In a non-spatial sense." Her smile slipped sideways, "I don't suppose you ever get into trouble disabling a particle accelerator and some phasers in order to build a subspace traveling beacon with the parts? Maybe I'm not the only one."

"I tended to get into trouble for wandering about," Ziyal said with a few gestures sideways as he ate. "Colorful..." the translator repeated, obviously missing the mark. "White," he tried again more specifically. "It appears to be a laboratory universal constant," he observed with an excited click. "Most of the information in the laboratory I grew up in pertained to me. It was an interesting experience in egotism," he said with an amused clap. "You got into trouble for that?" he asked suddenly, indicating he had heard every word. "That is bizarre to me. On my home planet, it would have been celebrated."

Lilou laughed. "I think my father appreciated the intention, but was rather annoyed at having to rebuild the accelerator. In hindsight, I can blame him." She gingerly bit off a small bit of yellow leaf and. Hewed with her back teeth. It wasn't comfortable-not at all-but she needed the nourishment. "It is odd how so many labs are white; one might hypothesize that as one of a very few universal constants." She laughed again at her own little joke and took another nibble from her salad. "So were you... created in the lab? Or simply raised and tested there? What was that like?"

"W'qa'arr are almost entirely genetically engineered. In our natural state we would die in days on the harshness of our world. As we evolved, our technological process evolved out of necessity," Ziyal explained chipperly as he shoveled more of the pink globule in front of him into his mouth. "We reproduce naturally, and the fetus is then taken out of the egg and genetically enhanced for resistance. I was kept in the laboratory due to unforeseen consequences of the genetic manipulation. W'qa'arr have a high rate of genetic disorder," Ziyal said as if it were a purely natural everyday occurrence. "I spent my time either with my parents or in the laboratory," he told her, seemingly unaware of the social impolitic of talking too much about one's self.

Lilou listened, fascinated. Her unease dissipated the less she had to talk about herself and, anyway, Ziyal was endlessly interesting. His species laid eggs and then replaced their natural eggs with technological ones? And what kind of world was it that they could build the technology to do that, but not the technology to protect the fetus inside it's original container? Where they could build a ship that could fly father than anything she'd ever heard of in the matter of a single year, but couldn't cure the genetic disorders inherent in their species? She leaned forward, one elbow resting on the table, her salad ignored. "Tell me about them - your parents. And about your world. Is the atmosphere there toxic? What sort of genetic disorder?" She knew quite a bit about genetic disorders herself - breeding between species brought up a number of genetic variables and she'd been tested for most of them intermittently throughout her life.

Ziyal clicked a bit to himself, things that weren't translated in any legitimate way, seemingly just thinking to himself as he ate quietly before launching into a rather rambly, and lengthy explanation. "Our atmosphere is toxic, to some degree. Unfortunately the only species on our planet to gain sentience was the W'qa'arr, but the W'qa'arr are naturally very weak invertebrates. We can live on land or in water. Over the years we developed a loosely based society which migrated to land. We discovered how to manipulate the genome sequence in order to produce stronger, more viable children to pass on our line," he explained.

"It was the most pressing point of our existence, as most of our ancestors died out within a matter of a few years. Each genetically enhanced fetus matures within three years to adulthood and by the age of twenty they are fully developed! We became smarter, faster," Ziyal said as he ate, gesturing with his different appendages as he spoke excitedly.

"We can reproduce on our own or with another parent," the W'qa'arr told her animatedly. "Most choose to reproduce with another as it forms stronger family ties. I have two parents and eleven siblings. They were born normally but I was defective. We have a high incidence of genetic disorder. Unfortunately it is more complicated to fix a problem than it is to create one. They did manage to implement a cure, of sorts," Ziyal told her, as he seemed perfectly fine (well insofar as an alien could seem). "But our society does not enjoy dwelling on its mistakes," he simply ended albeit enigmatically.

"We do not possess what humanoids might call gender. Many people refer to me as male, which is acceptable. I do not know the difference beyond the physiological, but to many, I am seen as particularly "male" in personality." Ziyal shrugged a few arms. "You are female, right?" he asked, gazing at her curiously. Sometimes he got it right, sometimes he didn't. "Trills and Humans both possess male and female as I recall, and produce live young," he recited in his arbitrary way. "Trills..." he paused for a moment. "You are a symbiotic race, are you not?" he asked again, curiously. "It is a little like being a symbiotic race. We depend on the genetic tampering as a sort of symbiote. Without it, we die far faster and grow at a much slower rate. Our atmosphere and natural predators would kill us before we reached adulthood!"

Lilou cocked her head to the side, considering the implications of what he said. Apparently, even with root mutations forced upon their genetic code, their offspring still developed according to the un-corrected DNA. That was odd; reversible genetic transformations? What did that preclude? Single generation anomalies? She shuddered to think what some people might do with the ability to affect a change like that. An entire generation of warriors who could then be eliminated simply by effect of not re-instating the false genetic code. Or a generation of humanoid lab-rats... No harm, no foul, no ongoing struggle to integrate them into society once their use was over... It was terrifying. And what he'd said about his own society... not dwelling on their mistakes... did they already do such a thing among themselves? Was that why he was here? She hadn't asked, after all, why he'd spent a year on a ludicrously fast ship traveling to a quadrant that - as far as she knew - none of his people had visited previously. What had brought him here? Had he come alone? Before she could ask, she stopped herself. He'd been very agreeable about answering her questions, sharing his culture, but she had to believe that asking whether he'd been exiled from his people because of his genetic anomalies would qualify as rude regardless of where he'd come from. She'd only just met him after all. Her. It. "What do you prefer to be referred to as?" she asked, curiously. "It seems to me it'd be a little annoying to be called something inaccurate for no reason."

Ziyal shook his head. "There serves a reason. The W'qa'arr use a complicated system of pronouns that is simply too obscure for most to adapt off-hand. Male and Female appear to be very common in the Alpha Quadrant," he explained. "It is not that our naming system is too advanced to learn, but in order to be accurate 100% of the time, you would have to understand our language, our hierarchal structure, our family units, our social climate, et al within the first few moments of meeting me. Whereas, male and female are much more universally understood and binary. It is... convenient!" he yammered on, honestly not bothered by the comparison.

"That doesn't answer the question, though," Lilou argued, perfectly happy to debate semantics until the cows came home - another quaint colloquialism she'd acquired from her mother. Never having seen a cow, Lilou wasn't entirely sure why their arrival would signify anything like the ending of a conversation, but she supposed there was a logic to it somewhere. "Do you prefer to be called male, or female, or something else?"

"It is written on my Starfleet file that male is an acceptable reference, which it is." He paused a minute, the appendages lining his face twitching as he thought. "I suppose I cannot adequately answer that question," he finally settled upon. "I would prefer to be referred to by the d'ghor~hn, but that would require a lifetime of linguistic comprehension of W'qa'arr origin to be possible. Obviously, I am not physically a male, but asexual pronouns in the Alpha quadrant are inaccurate as well. They do not define the nuances of reference inherent in W'qa'arr language. Whatever you call me, using your vernacular, chances are it will not be accurate." He spread out two of his arms, hoping that explanation made some limited amount of sense.

While Ziyal couldn't necessarily be read, his obvious excitement at finding someone to talk to was plain as he chirped and clicked away in response. Clearly he was not bothered at being questioned, or having someone debate his semantics. Though, debating semantics with him might've been an exercise in futility as it seemed like he only grasped the barest of Standard linguistic concepts.

"Male fits as good as anything. For a W'qa'arr it has no meaning. It would be like if you entered an alien world and they deemed it necessary to call you a word that was required in their vernacular, but had no basis of meaning in your own. For instance, right now I am d! rhl'y~nh-halh-khreo," he said, a long string of syllables that wasn't translated in the slightest. It was a difficult thing for him to verbalize, as evidenced by the abrupt pauses and starts the translator took.

"It is a diminutive, structured from my telepathic presence as it relates to your telepathic presence. If I were to construct a sentence regarding both of us, it might say di! rhl'm~lilou'zkhe-reo se'k nh-halh-d!," he said, the words abruptly bizarre and foreign. "Telepathic-presence Lilou is with Telepathic-presence Nazhzhalh," he translated. "As you can see, the universal translator does not distinguish the linguistic nuances. There is also the fact that those pronouns change with different experiences." Ziyal gave her a large blink-smile, and listened as she spoke of her own race.

"Yes, we're a symbiotic species - my father is." She considered her plate for a while. "I thought of myself as wholly Trill for much of my life, but... I've been deemed ineligible for a symbiont. Apparently a human can be given one under the right circumstances, but a mixed breed... the genetic structure is too unstable, they say." She flexed her tongue against her teeth, forcing herself to shrug off the deep-seated frustration this consistently caused her. If she weren't a valid host, why did she feel this gnawing ache all the time to join and be Joined? If she felt that, wasn't that enough reason for her to be tested, at the very least? She rolled her shoulders, uncomfortable to be thinking about it at all, let alone in public. She'd been about to argue that Trill didn't need a symbiont to live, but she couldn't quite say that. Maybe not to survive, but to live fully - maybe they did. Maybe she never would. There was a nice depressing thought. "And Earth's atmosphere... it's agreeable to you? The habitat maintained on this starship doesn't cause you any problems?"

Ziyal looked up, concentrating on her as she spoke, blinking periodically in that alien way of his. "You want to be joined," he guessed, his antennae moving a little in her direction and drooping slightly. It seemed like she wasn't that comfortable discussing it, so he simply answered her question amidst finishing off his food. "The W'qa'arr evolved in an L-class planet, with lower oxygen levels and higher pressurization. I take several medications which help adapt my respiratory system to that of a more gestalt atmosphere, such as on board the Galileo," he told her.

She wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "Yes," she admitted quietly. "But I won't be. No use crying over spilt milk, as my mother likes to say." She sniffed, suddenly uncomfortable with how open she was being with this stranger. Perhaps it was the lack of intonation and facial expression. She couldn't begin to guess what he was thinking unless he said it, so she didn't feel the need to hypothesize about it. But just because she couldn't tell what his opinions were, or come up with any reasonable assumption on the subject, didn't mean he didn't have them. "Did your starship - the one you destroyed - maintain the atmospheric elements that benefitted your anatomical and genetic structure?" she asked, wondering if maybe there was some way to create at least a small space that replicated the environment his body was suited to. It seemed unfair to her that anyone should be reliant on medication that could potentially run out for their comfort.

"It did!" Ziyal confirmed with a bob of his head. "My quarters maintain a similar standard. It is a small price to pay," he said, sincerely.

Lilou smiled. "That's something, at least." She looked down at her plate. There was no way she was going to finish this when her mouth still felt like it had been sanded with asteroid rock. Pity. She'd been hungry. "Speaking of which, what is it you're doing aboard the Galileo..." she glanced at his uniform color and insignia, "Crewman? Carefully doling out selected bits of your culture's technology for the labs on board? You're not in Engineering; I'd have seen your name on the roster."

Ziyal noted her lack of interest in her food as a result of trying his, and clucked a little to himself. Better not offer anymore... He looked up, realizing she was addressing him again. "Oooh! Yes, I am a biotechnologist. I was given a commission in Starfleet in exchange for adapting some of my species' technology to Federation compatible systems. I was assigned on board the Galileo because it is experimenting in novel technology," Ziyal explained. "I was regarded with suspicion for a while, but my only purpose here is to assist where I can and to find a more suitable home," he assured her plainly. "Are you an engineer?" he asked, and then gestured a bit. That might have been a stupid question. "Ehh, I mean, do you specialize in anything particular?" he amended, with a chirpy air.

Biotechnology. Not surprising, given all he'd revealed in the short time they'd been talking. Her brows lifted as she leaned forward slightly. "Are you using the Galileo as a base to do your own research integrating the two systems, or are you out here with us looking for new data to tamper with?" She smirked a little, looking down. "Sorry, it's the physicist's daughter in me, I can't help being interested in what's happening in the labs. Another reason I wanted this assignment."

"Both!" Ziyal unhesitatingly told her. "The Alpha quadrant is a mystery to me almost entirely. There are alien mathematics, alien systems, alien technology... at the Academy people would become offended at me if I insinuated my species' advancements in biotechnology were greater than theirs, but that is not it!" Ziyal chirped with an abrupt shake of his head. "It is all new. New applications. New designs. Replicators! My species never had a need, the bioships we produce had hydroponics bays. I grew my own food for years! We created self-sustainable habitats... We had replicator technology, but nothing compared to this." He gestured an arm at the replicator in the back of the mess hall. "All of the data is new and fascinating! You appear to have a similar fascination," he observed knowingly.

"Yes, I'm in the Engineering Dep-" she paused, smiling awkwardly at her own excitement. "But you deduced that. I deal mostly with structural systems and I've served as mining specialist and an emergency response specialist. New to the crew though, and an import for the Chief, so when I requested my transfer, I just put in to be in the department on board. That way they can use me as they like." She paused. "I'll admit, though, I'd love to hear about the tech you opened up to us, if you're allowed to share. The Galileo'll be outdated in a matter of months if the Federation gets moving on anything you've shared with them. I'd hate to see that happen to this beauty, considering she's not yet out of the womb. We might could plot out some upgrades and see what we can manage next time we hit a drydock." She beamed at the idea of being able to play with something new. Even if it went nowhere, even if there was no way the new technology could be integrated with the Galileo's current systems... she still wanted to know what it did, what it was capable of, how it worked. All knowledge was worth having. "If you've time and interest, that is."

"Well, most of the technology I have shared has been an expedition of technology the Federation is already in possession of. For example, most Federation doctors have dermal regenerative devices. So one of the first things I showed them was the Khaln~'zh'rah. It is a biological implant designed for cellular regeneration in a matter of seconds. You attach it to the organ or wound and it absorbs and synthesizes the correct cell and replicates it!" he explained. "You may be interested to explore the talhimaen with me," he offered with a gestural click of his facial tentacles. "I have attempted to produce a similar technology in the Alpha quadrant. It is designed to condense warp particles to produce more power in a smaller containment field," he told her animatedly.

Lilou blinked twice in quick succession. To condense the warp particles... She probably looked like a fish out of water, mouth agape as the idea sunk in. Of course! Why had that never occurred to her? Probably because it was impossible. Except... it wasn't. Here was a Wega-ar - she needed to remember what his people were called - who had traveled on a ship capable of such a thing. Of course he had. How else could you- She shut her gaping mouth and nodded, trying not to tear up from how overwhelmed and happy she was that he'd offered to include her in his project. "Yes! Yes, I'd..." She stopped, embarrassed by how thick her voice was. "I'd very much like to explore the possibilities of such technology. Yes." She centered herself to keep from hugging him. What a wonderful thing that he'd come to them, to share with them, and her specifically. How perfectly nice that he was here on her ship with her willing to talk about such fascinating things. Then again, why... she wrinkled her nose thoughtfully. "You're looking for a new home... you're not planning on going back to Andromeda?"

The alien gave a shake of his head. "It is one of the reasons I have shared much of the technological knowledge of my species. I cannot return," he told her puzzlingly, with a mild click. "I knew this when I left. In exchange for a new home it seems fair to share what I have. The Federation Diplomatic Corps called it free-exchange. I am happy to help wherever I can, excepting a few concepts such as weapons technology," he told her. It was a precaution he had undertaken himself.

"No, of course. It'd be a great deal better if we'd work harder to improve our defensive systems and stopped building upon our weapons. It only exacerbates those outside the Federation into-" She stopped. "No politics," she said, lifting her hands with a grimace, surrendering to her own gaff, and moving past it. Back to him. Back to what he'd said. "Why can't you go-" She stopped herself again, rolling her eyes towards the ceiling. "Not my business. Is it a painful topic - not one you wish to speak of? It's okay. Everyone has a right to their privacy. I certainly love mine."

The alien whistled in amusement. He wasn't that familiar with the political structure of the Alpha quadrant but he knew enough to realize that people often got into heated debates about it. His own views were rather simplistic, coming from a society that rarely ventured outside their own system. "It is complicated and will likely sound illogical," Ziyal told her with a shrug of a few arms.

"It is forbidden for W'qa'arr to leave the homeworld permanently. Those that do cannot return. We are ... isolated," he chose carefully. "Some are xenophobic. They do not wish to pollute our society with alien beliefs. I was offered the chance to leave because I could not fit into our society," he explained. It was a stilted sort of explanation, not born out of secrecy but more like he couldn't find the words. The translator did its pause-stop-start thing frequently.

Ziyal suddenly looked up, as the chronometer chimed the hour. "Tomorrow is launch day!" he started with a wide blink. "I did not realize it was so late. I did not intend to keep you for so long," he apologized with a shake of his head. "Would you like to meet in engineering some time?" he asked her chirpily as he finished off his meal. "I could show you the schematics I am working on. It would probably not be successful for a while but it is fascinating."

Lilou had been gearing up to ask just why Ziyal hadn't fit into his home society. She had a vested interest in understanding feelings of isolation in what should have been natural cultures. But the chronometer reminded her, too, that she still had a lot to put in order before she officially went on shift. "Yes," she answered his offer, obviously pleased. "I'd very much like that. Thank you." She stood and offered her hand. "Very nice to meet you, Crewman Ziyal. I look forward to our next meeting."

Clicking a little in untranslated garble, Ziyal took her hand carefully in his own, making sure not to scratch her with his claws. He blinked up at her contentedly and nodded deeply. "It was very nice to meet you too, Miss Peers." He clicked a little more, before he stood up and started clearing the table, made easier of course by the fact that he could clear practically the whole thing in one go, watching as she exited curiously.

--

[OFF]

Master Warrant Officer Lilou Peers
Engineering Officer
USS Galileo

CN Nazhzhalh
Biotechnologist, U.S.S Galileo NCC-80010

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