Right after Aspri closed the door behind her, Tierney's stomach twisted and growled. She hadn't eaten anything all day, although she realized she didn't have a good sense for how much of the day had actually passed. Doing a quick recount of the day's events -- kidnapped around 8AM, last group of humans conveyed at 10AM, asteroid crashed into Earth around 3PM -- she realized it was probably somewhere around four.

Tausson had said that the nutrient dispenser in her room had been disabled, since the food Relicans ate was toxic to humans, and mentioned something about a nutrient supply room. She was about to knock on the door to the Medic Lab and risk Aspri's wrath by asking him where it was, when a voice called out to her in Relican, quickly translated and repeated by the emotionless transmitter as, "I wouldn't do that."

Whirling around, she saw a Relican in a light gray mechasuit walking down the hall in her direction with a friendly smirk.

"Let me guess," said Tierney, "I'd be in violation of RMR 6-14?"

He stopped beside her, his smile widening. He couldn't have been older than twenty, with pale brown eyes and caramel-colored hair that was a little longer than Tausson's. "I see you've already had the pleasure of meeting our hospitable Senior Medic."

His relaxed, charming manner was a welcome change from Aspri's cold dismissal, and Tierney found herself instantly liking this bronze-skinned Relican.

"Did I see you earlier?" she asked. "Right after I arrived?"

Scrunching up his face with exaggerated concentration, he looked her up and down -- but with no hint of indecency -- and said, "Were you the one wearing a blanket and looking like you spent the night in a shaft pit?"

"That would be me," Tierney laughed.

He leaned his shoulder against the wall. "Then Squad," he said, using the Relican's way of saying yes, "we did cross paths, but I'm surprised you remember. You seemed a little distracted at the time."

"I'm good with faces," she said. "I'm Tierney Dawson, Relocation Liaison for the United States of America, a country that basically exists only in concept right now."

She started to extend her hand in the traditional human greeting, but then the memory of Nelle's first meeting with Tausson at the White House flashed before her. Putting out her fist, she opened her hand to expose her palm and said, "The soil is within us. We are within the soil."

The Relican gave her a look that could have meant that he was either impressed, or trying not to laugh at her because she did it wrong. But he straightened up and bowed slightly, making the same gesture and saying, "May the force be with you."

For a split second Tierney was taken aback, thinking that somehow George Lucas had tapped into a genuine interstellar greeting, but then she saw the humor in the Relican's eye.

"You're making fun of me!" she protested with a laugh.

With feigned innocence, he said, "Me? I'm just a lowly Tin Planetary Officer, charged with helping assemble the Culture Report. There's no way I could know enough about your world to tease you."

"Inlan," another voice called out from down the hall, "stop pestering our guest."

A Relican woman, with skin as dark as the floor beneath their feet, was walking toward them, wearing a brown uniform and a warm smile.

Inlan moved closer to Tierney as if to tell her a secret, but when he spoke, it was loud enough for the woman to hear. "Don't pay any attention to Lutari. She's a First Tin now and likes to act as if she owns all the mines on Relica."

Never losing her smile, Lutari took one of her gloves off and stood beside Inlan. He turned to her, also removing a glove. With their bare hands, they each touched the back of the other's neck and gently pressed their foreheads together. Tierney was confused, remembering what Commander Arrat had said about Relicans never touching skin to skin unless they were mates.

Oh, duh, she thought.

Their tender gesture devolved into a playful battle as they each pushed harder against the other's forehead, and there was no telling how far it would have gone if the door to the Medic Lab hadn't swung open suddenly. Aspri's forbidding figure stared disapprovingly out at the three of them.

"Ih kas hija?" he asked, not bothering to turn his translator on for Tierney's benefit. Inlan and Lutari, still smiling, nodded and headed into the Medic Lab.

As Inlan passed her, Tierney said, "Wait, is there a cafeteria? Some place I can get something to eat?"

"The nutrient supply is on the other side of the vessel. Lutari and I are going there after we're done. It should only take..." he cast a sly smile in Aspri's direction, "a few minutes. You can wait for us if you want."

"That would be great," she said, starting to follow them in.

Aspri raised his arm to block her way. "Only monitors are allowed," he said, once again closing the door on her.

Even though her stomach was angry at the delay, Tierney was glad to wait for Inlan and Lutari. Every hallway on this ship looked the same to her, and she doubted she'd be able to find her way without a guide. But as the minutes passed, she began to wonder if she should have just asked for directions and given it a shot on her own.

What were they doing in there? Inlan had said it would only take a few minutes, although he didn't seem particularly confident in that estimate. If they were in the Medic Lab, maybe they were undergoing some sort of treatment.

Well that's nice that they can do it together, she thought. They seem like a nice couple. Tausson had made Relican mates out to be little more than acquaintances, but Inlan and Lutari clearly enjoyed each other's company. They'd obviously been able to cultivate a relationship outside of their mandatory daily pairing...

Tierney slapped her forehead and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. So that's what they were doing in there: being forced to have sex while frigid Aspri makes sure it all goes according to plan. No wonder it was taking longer than expected -- having that doctor around was the polar opposite of an aphrodisiac.

That must be what that room is for. She shook her head at her stupidity.

Finally, when Tierney was just about to give up and start wandering the ship in search of food, the door opened. Lutari and Inlan emerged, quietly giggling like misbehaving kids in church.

"What's up guys?" asked Tierney.

They closed the door behind them and, still hardly able to control their laughter, motioned for Tierney to follow them. Only when they'd reached an acceptable distance from the Medic Lab did they finally burst out laughing.

"I thought he was going to come over and finish you off himself!" gasped Lutari.

"He was so mad!" Inlan said between guffaws. When they were finally able to catch their breath, he added, "I think that's a new record for us." He raised his bare hand up in the air, and Lutari slapped it with her own.

"Did you guys just high-five?" asked Tierney in disbelief.

"Didn't we do it right?" asked Lutari. Punching Inlan playfully in the chest, she added, "I knew that wasn't a real custom."

"Uh, no, it's real, and you did it fine..." Tierney trailed off, looking at Inlan. "You really got into Earth culture, huh?"

After ruffling Lutari's black hair -- which was shorter than his, he said, "What can I say? I've got ants in my pants."

Tierney burst out laughing. "What?"

His proud grin dimmed slightly. "That doesn't mean what I think it means, does it?" he asked.

"No," she said, still smiling, "no it does not."

Lutari laughed and reached up to ruffle his hair in return, but Inlan grabbed her arm, and suddenly the two were wrestling in the middle of the hallway. They appeared to be an equal match, about the same height, both muscular, without an inch of fat beneath their close-fitting mechasuits, but not as built as Tausson or even Commander Arrat.

With a rumbling stomach, Tierney asked, "Umm, can we go get food now?"

* * *

The nutrient supply was essentially a big refrigerator with prepackaged meals stacked from floor to ceiling. Like Tausson, Inlan warned Tierney not to eat any of the Relican food, which had a much higher concentration of metals in them.

"More than a bite would give you a metal overdose," he said, reaching instead for one of the child's rations that were kept for emergencies. Apparently Relicans started their lives with a physical makeup similar to humans, and didn't gain their metallic luster until puberty -- what they called the frenzy, so these meals were higher in proteins and carbohydrates. Inlan also found her a canteen that she could fill with fresh water at the back of the supply room. Relicans did drink water, but not nearly as much as humans, with their food providing most of the moisture their bodies needed.

They ate in a room full of tables adjacent to the storage room, and although her brown lumpy mush looked thoroughly unappetizing, it actually didn't taste too bad -- kind of like shepherd's pie. Lutari and Inlan were funny and engaging companions, but Tierney was exhausted before she was half done with her meal, even though it couldn't have been later than five in the afternoon yet. They took pity on her and brought her back to her room, and even though her mind was racing with all the things she should be doing -- talking to Commander Arrat, getting in touch with the White House Cabinet, letting her family know she was safe -- she was asleep within minutes.

When she awoke, she was shivering. She could hardly feel her fingers or toes. The blanket was coated with frost, and her breath was making thick white clouds in the air.

"He-he-hello?" she chattered, hardly able to speak. It felt like the cold air had traveled through her nose and into her mouth, turning all the moisture to ice. Her limbs were so stiff that it hurt to move, and the cold pierced through what faint warmth was still trapped beneath the blanket. She tried to shout for help, but was now finding it difficult even to breathe.

Slowly, keeping the crystalline blanket around her, she sat up. She didn't dare put her feet on the floor, its black iron now coated in white ice, so with a trembling hand, she managed to pick up her pillow and toss it on the ground beside the bed. Shoving her feet under the pillowcase, she stood on the crisp cushion and tried to slide it forward.

Her numb feet provided little stability, and she lost her balance and fell back on the bed. Her whole body was shaking now. Tierney briefly wondered if it was simply a technical malfunction, or if there was a crack in the wall or window that was letting the deathly chill of space into her room. Either way, she couldn't stay in here much longer.

Braving the sharp, needling air, she again tried to use the pillow as a barrier between her senseless feet and the icy floor, but again she lost her balance. Desperately trying to keep the blanket around her, Tierney threw herself off the bed and onto her knees, crawling towards the door.

The room wasn't large -- hardly as big as her kitchen back in D.C., but it was an eternity before she made it across. She started to reach for the handle, but one look at the iced-over metal, and Tierney knew she would never be able to open it. The door was frozen shut.

She wrapped her phantom feet in the stiff blanket and rubbed them, trying to get some feeling back so she could stand and use the communications system, but within moments she realized it wasn't going to work. It was getting harder to breathe. She needed to get out of there. Now.

Luckily she'd left the panel open, but the buttons looked icy too. Would they even work? Fighting her panic, she reached up with shivering hands and tried to call the command center. A weak light flickered on.

"--iss Daws--"

Tierney had never been so happy to hear that emotionless translator, even if it was scratchy and muffled. But when she tried to talk, all that came out was a hoarse moan.

"Miss Daw--" the voice said again.

She tried clapping her hands together, but the collision hardly made a sound -- certainly not worth the corresponding shockwave of burning pain that ran through her body. Looking around for some other way to make noise, she saw the boots that she'd left behind earlier. Silently thanking her dad for always making them leave their shoes by the door, she reached for one. But although it couldn't have weighed even a pound, she found she was almost too weak to lift it. Before she could find the energy to bang "SOS" on the frozen floor, the light flickered off and the panel went silent.

The worry she knew she should be feeling faded as her mind began to slow down. A strange, calming sensation passed through her body, and she no longer felt cold, just exhausted. From far off in the distance, she heard a pounding noise, but as darkness enveloped her, she thought, It's my heartbeat.

Then the pounding stopped.