Blue

"Exactly," said Sh'ree, "we've identified two caves we want to take a look at. Just an exploratory survey, to begin with, nothing too difficult."

"We didn't decide which one we'd look at first, though," pointed out Edrilli, "perhaps we should do that now?"

"I've been thinking about that. Why not check out both at the same time? It's just a preliminary look, after all."

"Can't do that," said Matsu, firmly, "there's only three of us. And we can't have anyone go down alone for safety reasons. Preliminary or not."

"True enough," admitted the Andorian, turning to the other human, "so, Max, you've got your basic readings, and I'm sure the meteorological equipment can run itself for a while. Do you fancy joining us tomorrow?"

-***-

The cave entrance was larger than he'd been expecting, almost ten metres in height and half that across, a great crack in the side of the cliff face, bushes growing across its base. Max shone his torch inside, but couldn't see anything of note.

Edrilli had looked delighted when Sh'ree had paired her with Matsu. Max wondered if he was right about her feelings towards the Japanese doctor... not that the latter showed any indication of noticing, let alone reciprocating. More importantly, of course, it left Max himself with Sh'ree.

He wasn't quite sure how he felt about that. This was business, and he found her rather distracting. Even if he had been willing to make himself obvious by visibly admiring her, it would hardly have been an appropriate time to do so. Still, he did like being with her, quite apart from what he knew was surely an inappropriate attraction.

"We've reached the cave," came Edrilli's voice over the comm, "heading inside now."

"Don't go too far," that was Lugmilla, back at the base, "I don't want to lose comms signal."

"It should be all right," replied Sh'ree, "so long as we don't go down any pot holes. But let us know if the signal starts to weaken significantly."

"Will do."

They stepped inside, the roof of the cave shutting out the sun, despite the blue sky visible through the entrance behind them. The ground crunched underfoot, and Max looked down to see what appeared to be dark gravelly sand.

Seeing nothing worthwhile there, he headed further in, shining his torch upwards at the cavernous space above them, then forward into the gloom. The cave apparently went a long way.

"Organic, at least partly." He turned to see that Sh'ree had taken more interest in the gravel than he had, and was waving her tricorder over some of it. "Detritus, small traces of saprophytic fungus, and... look," she stirred some of it with a gloved hand, "small bones in among it. Partly digested, too."

"So what do we think?" asked Max. "Rats, wolves? Or the local equivalent."

"More like owls, I would have thought. I wouldn't worry about it."

"I'll remind you of that if we get attacked by a giant man-eating owl."

She smiled as she stood up, her examination over, "we'd probably have seen them. Although there are large carnivores on the planet, and I suppose it's possible they might sleep in caves. So you never know."

Sh'ree followed his gaze, as Max involuntarily glanced towards the phaser at his belt.

"That is set to stun, right?" she asked, "even if there's an arctic cave hyena in here, we can't harm the local wildlife."

"Arctic cave hyena?"

"You don't have them on Earth?"

"Not really. But more to the point, do they have them here?"

"Not that I know of. And is it?"

"Set to stun? Yes."

She grinned. "Good. Now let's go on."

The cave was cool and dank, although, without the wind, probably warmer than it had been outside. Max couldn't see much of interest, and certainly no bat-birds, hibernating or otherwise. Perhaps a geologist would have been more excited, but it had been a while since Max had studied any rock strata. Being a Starfleet officer, rather than a civilian scientist, there were plenty of things to be doing other than studying, and it wasn't directly part of his field.

After a while, he came across the entrance to a side tunnel, barely high enough to walk down without stooping. He shone his torch down it, and something glistened in the light.

"Might have something here," he called out, "I'm not sure what... could just be crystals."

Sh'ree walked over in his direction, from where she had been examining one of the cave walls. "Can you get a closer look?"

"It's down a side passage. Not sure how good the reception will be on the comms."

"Could you get close if I stay out here to act as a relay? If it's too far, don't... we can always come back later with the full team."

"I should be all right," he replied. He would wonder later if that had been bravado, showing off in front of the attractive alien woman with the warrior heritage. Or if it just hadn't looked that dangerous at the time.

Max stepped into the passage, torch out ahead of him. It still wasn't clear what was causing the reflection, and the roof of the passage was dipping ahead of him. Not wanting to look worried, he ducked his head and moved deeper in.

"It's all over the wall..." he said after a while, his voice echoing back towards where Sh'ree stood at the entrance to the passage, her own torchlight presumably showing little but his back. "Not crystals, though... perhaps some sort of coating. I'll try and take a sample."

"Be careful," called out the Andorian, "you're pretty far in, and I don't want..."

He took a step forward, not registering that floor was covered in the same substance.

With a loud cracking sound it collapsed beneath him, and with a surprised yell, Max plummeted into a concealed hole, flailing about to grab something but finding only empty air.

He hit the bottom with considerable force, all the wind knocked out of him. The torch rolled away uselessly, and he lay there half stunned, seeing only blackness above him. He heard a sound, a scrabbling noise, coming closer. But he was too dazed to react.

Light poured down onto his face. He could see the beam of a torch straight above him, shining through a ragged hole in whatever was above him. He could just about make out Sh'ree's worried face through the gap. He realised then that the sound had been her rushing down the passage after him.

"Max! Are you all right?"

He pondered the question.

"Max!" There was a frightened edge to her voice that finally brought him to his senses.

"Yes... yes, I think I am..." he replied, "wait a minute..." He tried to stand, and found that he could. He hurt in a number of places, but that seemed to be about the extent of the damage. "Nothing broken, I don't think. Could have been a lot worse. What the hell just happened?"

The Andorian let out a sigh of relief, then looked cautiously around herself.

"The walls here are covered with some kind of resin-like substance. Looks like the bit of floor you stepped on was a solid sheet of the stuff, plugging this hole. Solid enough, but not sufficient to hold your weight apparently. Very difficult to see in this light." He appreciated her saying that; it made him feel less stupid. "Can you climb out?"

"I don't think so," he said. The hole looked too far above him, in a flattish roof that stretched some way to either side.

"Hang on, I'm coming down!"

"No, wait! We just need some..."

Sh'ree dropped down gracefully beside him. It obviously wasn't so hard if you were expecting the drop.

"...some rope," he finished lamely.

She looked him over, and pulled back the hood on his parka, running her hands over his scalp, looking into his face with concern. Max felt embarrassed under her gaze, but couldn't help but notice again how warm her hands were.

"Yes, you look all right," she said, stepping back. "No sign of any head injury or bleeding."

"But now we're both trapped down here."

He caught a flicker of shock on her face. She really hadn't thought of that? Her concern for him was touching, but not, perhaps, so helpful under the circumstances.

"We'll call the others," said Sh'ree, after a momentary pause, and tapped the comm badge. "Sh'ree to base." Static. "Sh'ree to base." Still static.

He didn't need to state the obvious: they were too far in.

"They'll find us," she told him, "they know where we are."

He forbore from commenting on that, either. Instead, he shone his torch around them. "Speaking of which, where are we?"

They were in a large cavern; that much was obvious. A stream ran through the middle, although he had not really noticed its gurgling before now. Max could see some bones on the floor, and couldn't help but notice that they were much larger than those near the entrance up above. Arctic cave hyenas, indeed.

Sh'ree instead shone her torch upwards, where the cavern roof stretched away from them. They were standing near the top of a slope, and the cavern became much higher further out. "Look!" she said in wonder.

Max looked. The roof of the cave was marked by occasional stalactites, but what was more noticeable were the vast clusters of gelatinous pods that obscured almost the entire ceiling. Sh'ree fumbled with her tricorder as the human kept his torch trained above them. There had to be thousands of the things here... maybe more, depending on how far the cavern went.

"Yes, that's it!" The Andorian's antennae were twitching excitedly, and there was a smile of triumph on her face. "We were right, they were hibernating. Those cocoons contain birds. Well, not literally birds, of course, so perhaps we should start calling them something else. But the local flying creatures anyway."

"That thing we fell through - it must be a plug of some kind." She pointed her tricorder down at the shards that had fallen onto the floor beside them. "Yes! It's made of a kind of solidified mucus. It must help preserve the atmosphere in here, or something like that. Perhaps they need a stable environment. They come in, cocoon themselves, and then the last ones seal of the entrance before they join them. I can tell that there are different species in here - not so different from bat colonies in that respect, really - so they won't all behave exactly the same. The few we saw outside yesterday must be more summer-resistant species, adapted to surviving a drier, warmer, climate than most of their fellows. This is fascinating!"

"All triggered by the climate cycle, as the planet's orbit changes around its star," added Max, "makes sense."

"Affecting the plants, too. Hence the change in the chemicals in the atmosphere you detected."

"Which could affect the birds, in turn. Pheromones, kind of."

"Mystery solved!" said Sh'ree with satisfaction.

"Although there's a lot of detail to be filled in."

"And," pointed out Max, "we still need to get out."

"Yes, that," conceded the Andorian woman. "Well, you know what else strikes me about this?"

"What?"

"There's another exit."

"There is? How do you know?"

"The bones on the floor. Some of them aren't that old, and they're large enough not have been left here by the birds. Or by anything that came in the way we just did. So there has to be another way in and out."

"Used by a large carnivore."

"Or scavenger."

"Maybe." He was doubtful.

"Of course, most scavengers will also eat fresh meat if they can."

"Great."

"Anyway, if there is another way out, I think we should find it. Coming?"

-***-

The obvious solution was to follow the stream. It had to go somewhere, and it seemed sensible to follow it downstream, in the hope that it exited somewhere further down the mountain slope, rather than following it up to what might turn out to be a narrow crack in the rock.

It turned out, however, that the stream eventually disappeared through an archway at the end of the cavern. There was no solid bank to walk on, and Max, at least, could not tell whether the rock ceiling above the stream dipped down below water level further on in.

"Dead end?" he asked.

"Maybe. Let me take a look."

Sh'ree stepped down into the water, which soon reached her knees, and lent forward into the tunnel that the stream vanished into, peering into the darkness. The cold-weather clothing was waterproof, but not intended for long term immersion. Max imagined that it must be freezing, and shivered himself at the thought.

Sh'ree turned back towards him, "turn your torch off," she said, flipping the switch on her own. Puzzled, he complied, and they were plunged into blackness.

"I can see light," the Andorian called out, "it's not very bright, but it's ahead somewhere. There has to be some kind of way out down here." She turned the torch back on. "Follow me in, and I'll see if we can find it."

Reluctantly, he did so. The seal between the boots and the bottom half of his parka was impressive, and nothing leaked in as he had half expected it to. Score one for Federation technology. The water was not as ice cold as he had feared, either - or else the clothing was an effective insulator even when wet.

The tunnel was, however, cramped, and he had to bow down his head, walking along almost bent double as Sh'ree led the way. His feet slipped a few times on the uneven bottom, strewn with small rounded stones worn smooth by the flow. The light from the torches danced along the walls and across the surface of the water, and he could hear nothing but gurgling and splashing.

"Here, up above!" called out Sh'ree. "There's light coming in through another of those mucus plugs. Can't be the way our creature gets in, if it's here at all at this time of year. But it might be a way for us to get out. I'll cut it open, and see what we've got beyond."

Orange light flooded the passage as the Andorian cut away at the substance with a phaser beam. With a series of splashes, their sound amplified in the narrow tunnel, chunks of the material fell into the water. Sh'ree's head disappeared into the opening she had created above her.

With a thrill, Max realised that he could see sunlight flooding around the woman in front of him. He flipped the torch off, and tucked it back in his belt. A few moments later, his eyes adjusted to the conditions, and he saw Sh'ree's legs vanishing upwards as she hauled herself into whatever space there was above.

"Yes, there's a tunnel here," she said, her voice muffled by the rock. "Wait a moment, then follow me in. I can see light at the end. It should be climbable."

"Be careful," he called out, but it sounded as if she was already moving upwards and away, and if she heard him, she made no reply.

Max moved forward until he stood below the gap. There was a tunnel of some kind above him, some water trickling down through it. Perhaps it was a sinkhole of some kind, but the details didn't matter. Reaching up to grip the sides, he hauled himself up into it, seeing Sh'ree's heavily insulated legs moving up ahead of him.

The climb was exhausting, leaving his arms and legs aching. He should have attended more of the fitness classes on the Endeavour, he reflected, as he stopped for a short breather. He could hear Sh'ree continuing to climb, her muscles apparently stronger than his. Then, with a shock, he realised that he could hear a similar sound from below... something climbing the pipe after him.

He looked down, below where his legs were braced against the irregular rocky sides, and saw it, almost filling the tunnel. It was too dark to make out much, just a row of sharp jagged teeth and the glint of four reddish eyes. It was more than enough to convince him that, whatever the creature was, it wasn't friendly.

Drawing his phaser as swiftly as he could he fired blindly down the tunnel. The thing responded with a bellowing roar, echoing in the narrow space. How had he missed it? How could he possibly miss something so close in such a confined place? He fired again.

He heard a yelp, saw the thing lose its grip on the sides, and drop - just as a great load of snow fell onto his head. Had the roar loosened it? Had he, somehow? Or Sh'ree? He couldn't tell, and it was all he could do not to be knocked down the tunnel after the creature.

The snow covered him, filling the pipe like a thick plug. It was packed against his face, against his arms, pinning him in place. Max couldn't move, couldn't do anything, couldn't even breathe. He tried desperately to calm his rising panic, as he feared for a brief moment that this might really be the end.

But it was only a moment, for shortly after, he felt motion in the snow, felt strong gloved hands grabbing his shoulders, hauling him upwards, still unable to see anything. Before he knew it, he was out in the sunlight, rolling into a fresh bank of snow, Sh'ree gripping him, rolling on top as the pair slid down a slope to skid to a halt in a drift.

"Think... think I got it..." he gasped.

There was no sound of pursuit, but he was too disoriented to see what the Andorian had just pulled him out of. And her face was above his, just inches away, antennae twitching, eyes wide, flakes of snow melting on the soft blue of her cheeks. Even under the circumstances, he could not help but think how beautiful she was.

He had no idea who made the first move, but the next thing he knew, they were kissing, her blue lips pressed against his, her breath hot on his face. She pulled back for a moment, a strand of white hair drifting free from her hood, mouth panting, breath misty in the cold air. Then they kissed again, longer this time, gloved hands around each other's heavily insulated bodies, tongues entwining.

A beep from their comm badges finally put an end to that. Sh'ree rolled off him, regaining her composure, and sat up before pressing the badge. Max looked up, to see where they had fallen from. There was a hole there, in the snow, but no sign of anything coming out of it. He looked back to the Andorian, head spinning from what had just happened.

"Sh'ree to base," she was saying, "we're all right. No need to send out a search party. We had a bit of trouble, but we're both fit and well now."

"Glad to hear it," came Lugmilla's reply, "because Edrilli isn't."

-***-

The four of them were standing outside the shuttlecraft, Edrilli already inside. Lugmilla had flown it across, closer to them, and they'd been able to take a stretcher up to the others, and then carry it all the way back down again with the Bolian on it. It had been tiring, but it could have been a lot worse.

"It's nothing too serious," Matsu was saying, "just a broken leg; a clean break of the tibia, according to the medical tricorder. If I had access to the sickbay, it would easy enough to fix."

"But not with what we have in the shuttlecraft?" asked the Tellarite.

"I'm afraid not. I've done all I can with painkillers and a splint, but to knit the bone back together, I'm going to need more than we have here."

"That settles that, then. We're off to the colony. They'll have what you need, right?"

"Absolutely. How long it will take?"

"We should be there by nightfall. They're half a planet away, but," she tapped the hull, "she's fast."

"I agree," said Sh'ree, still officially in charge of the expedition, "I guess we'd better make a start now."

Lugmilla stepped towards the door, and then turned back again, a thought apparently striking her.

"Actually," said the Tellarite, "we really only need Matsu. If you and Max have scientific data to go over, you might as well do it here. The facilities at the base are better than I have on board, and we'll be back tomorrow anyway." She turned to Matsu, "We will, right?" He nodded. "There you go. You can have the base to yourselves until tomorrow afternoon."

Max glanced at Sh'ree. The feel of her lips against his still hadn't left him, but her expression was unreadable.

"That sounds a good idea. If you're okay with it, Max?"

"Uh, yes, sure. Of course."

"There we go then," said Lugmilla, climbing back into the shuttle. She turned one last time, winking briefly at Max. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do."