Ra-Havreii sighed. “Oh, very well. At least the work should keep me occupied. Assuming you manage to open communication.”

She patted his shoulder. “Don’t worry. I have some ideas about that.”

Riker gave her permission to take a quick swim off the shore while he checked in with the base team. She has tened to the shoreline, and as she stripped off her hydration suit, she noticed that Counselor Huilan had arrived beside her. “Do you mind if I join you?” the diminutive blue S’ti’ach asked.

“Not at all, Counselor.” She dove into the water, reinvigorated by the flow of fresh water across her gill crests. Moments later, she saw Huilan’s small furred form floating above her, dog-paddling with all six stubby limbs.

Realizing something, she surfaced in front of him. He was grinning widely, his big ears perked up in pleasure. “Hold on. How are you floating? I thought you were supposed to be hyperdense or something.”

The ears sagged, his big eyes looking away. “Oh. That. Umm…” Aili wouldn’t have been able to recognize S’ti’ach embarrassment before, but she was fairly certain she had a referent for it now. “Well, yes, I do have a relatively dense bone structure—necessary for a high-gravity planet. But by the same token, you don’t want a high body mass on a high-gee world—harder to move around. Plus a low-density body provides more cushioning in falls.”

She didn’t let the lecture distract her. “But you tell people you’re heavier than a full-size humanoid!”

“Yes, well…” He slumped in surrender. “Look at me, Ensign. I’m small, cute, and furry. Other species have a pervasive tendency to want to pick S’ti’ach up and… cuddleus. It’s embarrassing.”

Aili laughed until she saw Huilan’s stern glare—which made her laugh even harder. “You know I am a predator, right?” Huilan reminded her, showing his impressive array of teeth in what was not a smile.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still chuckling.

“Oh, that’s all right. It’s not really that great a secret anyway; simple observation and reasoning should be enough to reveal it. But people tend to take what they’re told at face value. It’s an interesting psychological experiment to see how different people respond to the fiction.” He narrowed his eyes. “Or their discovery of the truth.”

“Well, far be it from me to tamper with an ongoing experiment,” Aili told him. “I promise I won’t tell anyone else.”

“Good.”

“In exchange for one quick cuddle.”

Huilan growled, but acceded to her terms.

The base’s equipment included a couple of small scouter gigs, courtesy of Titan’s industrial replicators. Aili proposed heading out in one of them, rather than the larger, more intimidating aquashuttle, to try to make contact with the squales. She advised beginning with a small party, and since Ra-Havreii was dealing with a bout of seasickness (probably psychosomatic but genuine in its effects), Captain Riker accompanied her as musical consultant for this first trip. They were joined by Huilan, who was small enough not to be intimidating.

“There’s something else,” she told the others as the gig carried them out toward the nearest concentration of squale biosigns. “Counselor Troi said they’ve never encountered unliving technology before. That must be why they were so startled by my tricorder, so wary of getting close. If I’m going to put them at ease, sir, I should go in without any technology at all.”

Riker pondered. “Leaving your tricorder behind is reasonable. But you should at least keep your combadge on. You can hide it under your clothes if you think it will disturb them.”

Aili met his gaze matter-of-factly. “Captain…clothes are technology too.”

His eyes widened for a bit before he reined himself in. Aili quashed a chuckle; human modesty was so cute. “Well…if you think it would make a difference…but I don’t like the idea of you being out of communication.”

“The gig’s equipment includes sensitive underwater microphones, sir. At least I should be able to get a message to you, assuming I stay in range. And two-way communication should be possible through the deep sound channel, if you position an acoustic relay there. There’d be a delay, but only a few seconds’ worth.”

“I don’t like it, Aili. You’ve already been attacked twice by native life forms. If you’re too far for us to reach—”

“Then the squales will protect me. They’ve already demonstrated that. And I’ll be swimming fast until I reach them—I won’t be easy to catch, I promise.” She leaned forward. “Please, sir. I’m willing to take the risk to earn their trust.”

After a moment, he nodded. “All right, Aili. But you be careful.”

She hid her annoyance behind the action of unfastening her hydration suit. She wasn’t the irresponsible, juvenile creature he’d known two decades ago; she didn’t need to be lectured. But she reminded herself that he didn’t mean anything by it. He was the captain and it was his prerogative to worry about his crew.

Like a mother should worry about her children,she thought. At least he has the courage to face that worry.

Once the rubbery suit was off, she hopped into the water before slipping out of her undergarment, in order to preserve Riker’s sense of propriety. Of course, in this post-reproductive phase of her life, her four breasts were about a third their former size, their nipples grown nearly vestigial and blending into the mottling of her skin. But her lower half, while a bit more padded, was still much as it had been, if she did say so herself. Best not to remind him. She had only a vague memory of their tryst—it was one of embarrassingly many—but from the way she had caught him glancing at her sometimes in their first months on Titan, before he’d grown accustomed to her presence, Aili was fairly confident that she’d left a vivid impression on him.

After setting up a check-in schedule with the captain—who kept his eyes firmly on her face the whole time—Aili swam off at high speed in the direction of the squale biosigns. Without a timepiece, she’d have to rely on her innate time sense, which could be tricky here. Normally she could rely on the angle of the sun to keep track of time. Though the lack of a solid surface meant the rotation rate was slightly faster at the equator than the poles, the day length was still reasonably close to nineteen hours everywhere on the planet. But subsurface currents could conceivably take her east faster or slower than the average, affecting the angle of sunlight. The check-in schedule would necessarily require a lot of leeway.