Blue

The sky was clear and blue, not even a wisp of cirrus to be seen as the golden sun shone down on fields of crisp, white snow. Towering mountains reared all around, patches of trees on the lower slopes, snow and rock further up, a majestic scene of beauty almost entirely untouched by human hand.

Almost, but not quite. A group of five people stood on a broad ledge on a mountainside, the only sentient life for over a thousand miles around. Behind them stood the shuttlecraft James Cook, nestled calmly amidst the snowbanks. Around them, all was still, not even an alien bird wheeling in the sky.

Max Dorner, Lieutenant, j.g. in the Starfleet Sciences Division, breathed out into the chill air, his breath forming a cloud of white mist that rapidly dissipated. The air was fresh, and clean, as much so, if not more, than the skies of 24th century Earth, now that technology had conquered pollution. There was a slight alien tang to it, probably from the local plant life, such as it was at this time of year, a reminder that they were not on Earth at all, but a colony world many light years away. A colony world, moreover, where all the settlements were at the far end of the continent, close to the equator.

He was, like all the others, wearing Starfleet cold weather clothing, the sort that got issued when the planet wasn't frozen enough to require proper survival suits. Instead of those, internally heated, all-over suits and face masks, these consisted of a heavy parka trimmed with synthetic fur, thick trousers, gloves, and snow boots. The parka was in bright division colours with white trim, making people easier to spot against the snow - a useful feature if anyone became lost.

Like most of the others with him, Max's parka was, of course, a deep shade of azure blue. He had to admit, though, that the others did not seem quite so comfortable wearing these bulky uniforms as he did, and three of them obviously weren't too keen on the fresh, icy cold of the air on their faces.

The only other human in the little group was Matsu Genji, the medical officer, who stood to one side, formal and stiff, apparently having seen all he wanted of the scenery when he had stepped off the shuttlecraft. On many ships in Starfleet, an away team where the humans were outnumbered would have been unusual, although hardly unheard of. But, on the USS Endeavour, any other possibility would have been remarkable.

The Endeavour was one of the premier science research vessels in Starfleet, and it was crewed with some of the brightest scientific minds that that organisation had to offer. They came from many worlds across the Federation, since Earth and its colonies hardly had a monopoly on scientific acumen. As a result, on the Endeavour, humans were in a minority.

As the leader of this little expedition amply demonstrated. Max, Matsu, and Edrilli were all facing her as she stood in front of the shuttlecraft, briefing them on the task ahead. It wasn't as if they didn't already know all that she had to say, and Matsu seemed to be the only one really listening to the speech. Edrilli, for instance, the younger of the two xenobiologists, seemed chiefly to be worrying about the cold.

The young Bolian ensign was standing slightly hunched, her gloved hands tucked up under her armpits, the hood on her parka pushed forward so far that little more than her eyes were visible behind the ring of fur. She was, from what Max could see, trying not to fidget, eager to get the briefing over with.

Sh'ree, of course, was the exact opposite. Her parka was part undone, the blue of her uniform visible beneath it, the hood pushed back to let her pure white hair fall free. As so often, Max found his eyes drawn to her antennae, gently twitching, a code he had yet to interpret. He forced his attention back to what she was saying, trying to ignore the way that the colour of her clothing so complemented that of her skin.

"The Endeavour is scheduled to return in ten days," she said, "until then, we have the planet, or at least this half of it, to ourselves. The planet is beginning to enter a warm period, part of a long-term climate change which I am sure Lieutenant Dorner can explain in greater detail," she looked towards him, and he fancied he saw a brief smile flash across her blue lips, but it was gone in a second. "Our task is to evaluate the effects on the local wildlife, especially the avian forms, which automated instruments indicate have become unusually scarce of late."

"Ten days of bird-watching, in other words? On an ice-world. Great."

Sh'ree looked round in irritation at the final member of the away team. Lugmilla was leaning casually against the side of the shuttlecraft, her arms crossed over her short but stocky frame. The shuttlecraft's pilot, she was the only one not dressed in blue, the burgundy parka a marked contrast with everyone else's. She was also, technically, the most senior person here, even if Sh'ree was in charge of the scientific operation that was their only reason for visiting the planet.

"It's not an ice-world," pointed out Sh'ree, "there are jungles at the equator. Inhabited planets generally don't have just the one terrain type, you know. In fact, overall, this planet is about the same temperature as Tellar."

"And you still manage to send us to the edge of the tundra. Or the Captain does," she added, forestalling the obvious objection. "Same thing."

"There is a research base just over the ridge there," replied the Andorian, "we all saw it on the way down. It's automated, but it does have full facilities for visiting scientists. Replicators, heating, all of that."

"It has heating?" asked the Tellarite. "Then what are we standing out here for?"

-***-

The base did, indeed, have heating. It was a single-story prefab building that, nonetheless, managed to look almost like the sort of chalet you might find at a ski resort. Somebody, probably in the Starfleet engineering division, had evidently had some sense of aesthetics. Kitted out with modern, 24th century technology, it was remarkably comfortable, and all the generators and other support equipment were concealed somewhere in its structure, tidily hidden away.

Three bedrooms, a communal bathroom, and a maintenance and equipment store surrounded a central dining and meeting area. Most of one wall was taken up by a huge window of transparent aluminium, looking out from the top of the shallow cliff on which the base perched. Now out of his cold weather clothing, Max stood at that window admiring the view. It was, he had to admit, stunning, and, for all its alien nature, it reminded him in some ways of his home in Austria.

"There's a lot out there. We're going to be busy." He turned to see Edrilli, standing next to the long couch set up immediately in front of the window.

"Yes... I imagine it will take a while. Still, we have long enough."

"Easy for you. The atmosphere isn't going anywhere," she indicated the weather station, just off to one side, the only structure outside the base's main building. There wasn't a lot Max could say to that. "Speaking of which," said the Bolian, leaning closer, and lowering her voice, "is it just me, or is the temperature just a little too warm in here?"

Max didn't think it was uncomfortable, but now that he thought about it, it was a few degrees above the standard shipboard temperature on the Endeavour. He glanced over at the maintenance room, where the thermostat was probably located. He had seen Lugmilla coming out of there a short while before... given her griping about the weather, it was easy to see what had happened.

"Probably," he said, "but are you going to argue about it? We'd never get done."

Edrilli grinned in response; she knew the Tellarite well, and had likely come to the same conclusion.

"Food's up!"

That was Matsu, carrying a tray across from the replicator area at the back of the room to the main table. The three of them gathered round, Lugmilla at one end of the table, facing the window, and Edrilli facing Max. Matsu fetched across a second tray of food, and sat down next to the Bolian woman.

"Come on, Sh'ree," he called out, "you don't want to let it get cold."

Max glanced up towards the door to the room that Sh'ree shared with the Bolian ensign, and froze for a second, slightly flustered. As the Andorian stepped out of the room, he could tell that she had noticed the extra warmth as well.

She had discarded her uniform top, wearing instead a tight sleeveless vest that hugged her curves. They were, as Max had noticed many times before, very shapely curves indeed, her body firm and athletic for a scientist, her breasts prominent without being over-sized. But it wasn't really much more than he'd seen before, he told himself as he tried to look disinterested, unless you counted the bare blue skin of her arms.

Yet, somehow, Sh'ree in that vest was a sight that brought more warmth to him than it should have done.

She sat down at the one free place - which, of course, happened to be the one next to him - and pulled the meal towards herself.

"Are you sure this is good for us?" asked Edrilli after a while, "I didn't expect something quite so fattening from you, Dr. Genji. Not that it isn't delicious!"

"I dialled up the fat content on the replicator," replied the medical officer, "and, please, call me Matsu."

"Very well... Matsu," she said with a grin and a shy sideways look that made Max wonder if he wasn't the only one at the table feeling an inappropriate attraction to a member of a different species, "but is that good for us?"

"Absolutely," he said, taking another mouthful of the replicated stew, "in a cold climate, especially when we are going to be involved in some strenuous hiking, it is important to eat food with a high calorie content."

"Works for me," said Lugmilla, who was, perhaps, the one out of all them that was least likely to do any hiking. Although, thought Max, wondering how much of it was really just down to her race, she didn't look like somebody who normally kept to low calorie diets anyway. "Although what about those of us who don't think it's cold outside?" She nodded towards Sh'ree.

"Andorians..." began Matsu, before the away team's leader interrupted him.

"Andorians have a higher metabolic rate than most other humanoid races," she said, "so we burn calories quickly. Especially..." she paused, apparently changing her mind about what she had been going to say. Max wondered if it had been a dig at Lugmilla's ample frame. "Well, especially in extremes of temperature. Both hot and cold, in fact."

Matsu nodded, "Andorians have a remarkable tolerance for a wide range of temperatures. I really wouldn't recommend an Andorian sauna to humans; it might well kill you."

"So you do consider it cold outside?" asked Max, curious. "I'd have thought it was warmer than much of Andoria."

"It doesn't feel cold," she said, "cool, perhaps, but not cold."

"Funnily enough," added Matsu, "it's even further below Andorian body temperature than it is below ours. That high metabolic rate, again. The extra body heat staves off the cold."

Sh'ree reached across and put one of Max's hands on the bare skin of her arm. Her flesh was hot, burning like a fever, its warmth spreading through his fingertips despite that of the room, or of the food that was settling in his belly.

"See?" she said.

Max looked away, trying not to show how the touch of her soft, warm skin against his own had affected him. He didn't think they'd really touched before, and the sensation reminded him more than ever of how, for all her blue skin and white hair, she was a remarkably beautiful woman. Probably, though, she found his own pink skin unappealing, and he doubted that somebody with such a warrior heritage would find a slightly geeky alien meteorologist to her taste.

Nonetheless, she flashed him a quick grin as he took his hand away, her antennae flicking in his direction as she did so.

"Your fingers are cold, " she told him, "better eat up."

-***-

The next day, Sh'ree, Matsu, and Edrilli headed off into the wilderness to begin their survey of the local wildlife. Max instead busied himself at the little weather station, collecting data as he waited for their return.

The station was automated, and seemed to have been running without a hitch since it had last been visited. It was a small structure, two and half metres high by one and a half across, filled almost entirely with sensing equipment and the computers necessary to run it and store the resulting data. It was all standard scientific equipment, the kind he had used dozens of times before, so operating it was simple enough, but the sheer volume of information took some time to sift through.

So engrossed was he in his work that he didn't hear Lugmilla trudging up from the shuttlecraft's landing site until she was almost up to him.

"Going well?" she asked, in a manner that was rather friendlier than she had shown so far on the trip. Perhaps she just wanted someone to talk to.

"Yes. Nothing too odd about the weather patterns themselves, although it's interesting how they have been changing as the local star enters its more active phase. There's something anomalous in the composition, though. Some chemical in the air... I think it's probably organic. I could smell something odd when we landed, so it might be that. But, whatever it is, it's been rising in quantity over the last few months."

She nodded, "I think I know what you mean. Smelled like some kind of alien tree resin to me."

He shrugged, "I guess we'll know later, once we can all compare notes. For all we know, the trees always smell like this. Alien conifers."

Lugmilla looked out over the vista below them, shielding her eyes against the glare of the sun in the crystal clear sky. Apparently seeing nothing worthwhile, she turned away again, wrapping her arms around her ample chest, breath misting around her pig-like snout.

"Not too bad to look at, I guess," she conceded, "but I wish it was warmer."

Max wondered what part of Tellar she came from. Her skin was slightly darker than that of most of her race that he had seen, and her hair was jet black. If Tellarites were like humans, she probably came from warmer climes, although likely not from the tropics themselves.

"Maybe we'll go to a desert world next," he said, "there's plenty of them out there. A lot of worlds seem to be rocks and sand, in my experience."

"Let's hope so," she agreed, "I could do with somewhere I didn't need to wear all this clobber."

Max tried to scrub his mind of the image of Lugmilla in the same sleeveless, tight fitting vest that Sh'ree had been wearing in the base. It wasn't likely to be a pretty sight.

"Is it my imagination," he said, changing the subject, "or do you think that Edrilli quite likes our medical officer?"

Lugmilla looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You sound surprised. Is he ugly, or something? I can never tell with humans."

"No, no, I guess he's quite good-looking, really. To a human. But she's Bolian, that's my point."

"Oh, so that's what this is about!"

"What?"

"You and Sh'ree."

"There is no 'me and Sh'ree'."

"No, but you'd like there to be. There's no point denying it; it's more obvious with you than it is with our Bolian friend."

"Well... but..." Max stammered. Had he been that obvious? Damn... Lugmilla was the last person he had wanted to work that out. Apart from the object of his misplaced affections herself, of course.

"Oh, good grief man, grow up!" She stomped her foot on the snow to emphasise her point. Whatever it was.

"Huh?" was all he could think of to say in response.

"You're a human, she's an Andorian. Hence you bringing up Edrilli and Matsu. Look, for your information, it's pretty obvious that humans and Andorians are similar enough to find each other attractive, at least some of the time. If you can get over the fact that she's blue, do you really think she can't get over the fact that you're pink?"

"Personally, I don't think either of you are going to win any beauty contests back on Tellar," she went on, "but who cares? You humans have got it lucky on the Endeavour."

"I'm not sure many would agree with you." It was a constant problem; the Endeavour had less humans per head than almost any other starship of comparable size, which really cut down on the romantic possibilities.

"They're idiots, then," said Lugmilla firmly. Max could tell that she was building up to an argument. "Do you know how many Tellarites there are on the Endeavour?"

"Uh, let's see..." he began to mentally count.

"Besides myself, nine," she butted in, before he could finish. "Four of whom are women. Of the five men, two are elderly, two are in solid relationships, and the other one's an arsehole."

Max's mouth flapped open uselessly.

"For the last five years," she continued, remorselessly, "and, frankly, for most of the last twelve, my entire love life has consisted of the occasional night alone in my cabin with a warm mug of gerut-ja, an erotic novel, and my trusty vibrator."

"Have you ever heard the human expression 'too much information'?"

"The point, my skinny human friend," she said, jabbing a gloved finger towards him, "is that you don't have such limitations. There are more humans than that, not to mention Betazoids, Trill, and all the rest it's so hard to tell apart from you. And Andorians, apparently. Sh'ree rather likes you, take it from me. Don't miss out on the opportunity when it presents itself."

"Because," she finished, "at least you have an opportunity!"

-***-

"Checking with the previous records," said Max that night as they all gathered round the table for supper, "this organic, whatever it is, has been increasing in the atmosphere as the planet enters its warming phase."

"Biological response, then," said Edrilli, "something in the plants, probably. They're starting to become more fertile now that they can take advantage of the higher temperatures."

"Is it likely to be connected to what you've been studying."

"Probably. It's ecology; it's all interconnected. Not that that makes it obvious what the connection is, of course."

"How did your bird watching go?" asked Lugmilla.

"So far," replied Sh'ree, "all we've done is confirm the existing observations. There are far less bird-analogues around than there have been before. The trees may be getting more fertile, but the birds are disappearing."

"Migrating?"

"No... that's what the colonists down near the equator thought at first, but there's no sign of it on the satellite data. We should be able to spot the life signs, but we can't. Besides, they'd have to be heading north, and there isn't much north of here... the poles are just barren ice fields."

"So what, then?" asked Max.

"We think," said Edrilli, "that they might be hibernating."

"But it's getting warmer... isn't that the wrong away around?"

"Aestivating, then," said Sh'ree, "same idea. Some animals avoid the heat of the summer."

"Okay... but where? I mean, wouldn't the life signs still show up?"

"Not so well, perhaps, but yes, they should. That's the problem."

"We saw some nests," said Edrilli, "quite a few, in fact, but almost all of them were abandoned. And the ones that weren't were clearly being used by the few birds that are still about, so there's nothing hibernating in them."

"Which leaves only one direction they could have gone," agreed Sh'ree, "down."

"Down?"

"We saw some cave entrances," said Matsu, speaking for the first time, "maybe they're like bats."

Edrilli nodded. "Hibernacula. Um... aestivacula... whatever the word is."

Lugmilla broke in, "if the life signs are weaker when they're hibernating, it probably wouldn't take much to hide them completely. It's hard enough to detect life signs underground at the best of times."