2.
Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.


After all these years, Malcolm finally understands what Trip had to go through on a daily basis down in engineering, the captain and the bridge crew pushing the ship to her limit and the engineers left holding the smoldering pieces together.

The Hil'aka run their ships the same way the run their justice system: with impunity. A day makes all the difference in the world. It's the difference between those Sil'ala fruits in storage rotting and a successful delivery, between a prominent businessman in Ren'al choosing the Mish'ara over any of the other thousand competitors, between fortune and bankruptcy, and bankruptcy on Hil'al is something you never want to experience. It's a three strike system – the first is a painful red tattoo in the constantly shifting opaque blob that is a Hil'akan body, the second is the amputation of one of the stump-like protrusions that seem to function as the Hil'akan arms, and the last is the same punishment as for sedition and incitement of war, the same McKenzine and Chang faced.

It's sink or swim, and Malcolm really hates swimming.

Luckily, he's relegated to the role of mast-rat. The Hil'aka are ground-dwellers that never completely left the sea, it seems. In fact, he's not sure they made it past the whole ‘primordial ooze' phase. To them, Malcolm is a valuable asset, despite his unfamiliarity with the stars or the trade winds or the basic operations of the ship. He's a quick learner, even with Captain Mish'a keeping him from the books as he does.

He seems to think that when he learns all of the trade, Malcolm will leave to acquire his own ship, despite the fact that he already pays Malcolm for the five Hil'aka he was able to fire and replace with a single strangely-shaped tak'ai (foreigner). Of course, Malcolm needs more pay just to get the same services as a Hil'aka - for the lab equipment to manufacture necessities like soap or sunscreen, for the expensive cloth that the Hil'aka use only for decoration or for its unique feel on the great big gelatinous sensory organ that is their slick almost-transparent skin, for the luxury food he can actually eat, instead of the thick, almost dirt-like sludge the other sailors consume. The Mil'akan food only succeeds in making Malcolm throw up for about three days straight, almost getting him fired.

But even with all those expenses, Malcolm is fast on his way to building himself a fortune, introducing the idea of the use of new materials for sails and slight adjustments to their shape that allow the Mish'ara to be the fastest ship on the whole trans-Way'al route.

For his part, Mish'a is tolerant. Malcolm is just another cog in his great entrepreneurial design. As long as Malcolm does his duties, Mish'a will make the necessary inquiries and supply stops to keep him on board, for a small handler's fee, of course. In fact, after the initial awe of seeing Malcolm climbing up through the rigging, the other sailors haven't given him a second thought. They let him to himself most of the time as they play word games and write poetry he doesn't understand, or take long swims in the ship's wake, just shadows darting in and out of the waves, flashing green or purple or yellow, depending upon their mood.

It's only Tar'a (the first-mate, as far as Malcolm can gather, considering that direct discussion of ranks is deemed inappropriate) that asks him why he does not swim and why he stays up nights when the Hil'aka are hibernating beneath deck and stares up at the stars. It was Tar'a that stayed up, despite the utter lethargy the Hil'aka seem prone to after a full day, to take care of Malcolm when he caught a strange bug from a batch of contaminated Sil'ala fruit. Malcolm has begun to think of him as the father he never had, as he explains patiently to Malcolm the new night sky with the disturbingly dark moon, allowing him time for wonder instead of charging straight ahead to the next constellation. It is Tar'a that listens to tales of spaceships and great men past with patience and wonder. It is Tar'a that helps Malcolm sign his own name, unable to leave marks on the thin parchment of all Mil'aka documents with just his hands. And in the rare times they are in port, Tar'a takes Malcolm touring through great sprawling cities filled with crystalline pools with colorful forms in transit and through bazaars loud with shouted bartering and a thousand subtle colors that Malcolm cannot understand. And it is Tar'a the flashes the dark mauve of his displeasure whenever someone approaches him about his most interesting pet, or stares out of the seemingly abyssal-dark protrusions the Hil'aka consider eyes.

Malcolm often dreams of Enterprise, of great adventures, of Trip grinning at him playfully as they stalk their way through some alien forest or Captain Archer's strong profile against the starry backdrop of the viewscreen or Porthos scratching at his leg on an away mission until he consents to throw a ratty old Frisbee for him. Other times he dreams of T'Pol's marvelous bum or Hoshi Sato in that skin-tight silk dress she was forced to wear while greeting the Kjorkarinian ambassador. Those times, he wakes to sticky sheets, like he's a teenager again. Only Tar'a asks questions when he must wash them in the ocean, and Malcolm is too embarrassed to tell even this kindly old alien.

Other times, on hot sleepless nights, he wonders about Major Hayes, and how he's faring with these strangely militant pacifists and their flashing colors and accommodating but distant manner. He sometimes wonders if he'd be happier with human contact, if he and Hayes had stayed together like he knows they should've. But this strange detachment is good, he thinks. Hayes would have only been a reminder of all the mistakes they've made. And all they ever did was fight anyhow. The Hil'aka don't fight. Malcolm doesn't even realize how much he misses it. The numb sense of dislocation suits him, and he finally understands why generations of Reeds took to the alluringly dangerous but solitary sea.

---

"Mal'colm, I know you were very sad when you first came to us, yes? But now you are so . . . brown. What does it mean?" Tar'a joins Malcolm sitting up against the main mast as he munches on a Sil'ala fruit for lunch.

Malcolm smiles. Before he managed to manufacture sunscreen, he was burnt beet-red, which signifies pain to the Hil'aka. "It means that I've seen a lot of sun."

"Sun?" Tar'a flashes a slight yellow: surprise.

"The sun makes my skin change color, not my moods."

"And here, I had thought that you were becoming much happier." Tar'a turns a confused grey to match the clouds floating forebodingly on the horizon.

He sighs. "I am happier, Tar'a." He still misses his job, his friends, not having to struggle so hard just make his basic needs understood. Strangely, he misses the moonlight. But he's getting a routine now. He has the sea and enough money to survive and at least one friend. He's beginning to think that he might survive this, after all.

"I am pleased to hear so, Mal'colm. You happiness means much to me."

"And yours means much to me." He finds, strangely, that the words are true. That's all friendship is, he supposes, to care about the happiness of another. He'd just never looked at it that way before, having been taught that that friendship was an obstacle to duty, nothing more.

"If the happiness of others means much to you, how could you have . . ." Tar'a does the Hil'aka equivalent of a blush, turning slightly orange. "How could you be a . . . a killer." The Hil'aka believe that the drive to war is a disease

"I was a soldier, Tar'a. We didn't kill because we liked it."

Tar'a blinks. "Then why would you do such a thing?"

"It was my job. I did it because our world is not like yours. There are people who will kill you or your kind if you don't kill them first. It was something I did well, just as you sail well. Was it not my market-destiny to do so?"

"War is a waste of resources." Tar'a seems angry, or perhaps disappointed, the flash of color is too quick for him to tell.

"War is sometimes necessary." But even as he says it, he knows that Tar'a won't understand. His world is too small and the only aliens he's ever met have been, on a large part, friendly. You can only put down your arms if everyone agrees, not just one tiny group, or country, or planet, or galaxy, even.

"Do you miss it?"

He thinks about firefights, phase pistols unleashing concentrated lightning, his heart hammering in his chest, the rush headier than cocaine and so much better, the knowledge he could kill a man with his bare hands if he pleased. He thinks about tinkering with the phase cannons, or looking at battle plans, new and old, feeling his mind stretch to imagine the possibilities, of going down hard on the mat, the solid crunch of bone and flesh beneath his flying fist, the satisfying ache of his muscles afterwards. He thinks of explosions, a thousand colors, fire billowing outwards like Guy Fawkes Day.

But then he thinks about bodies, eyes glazed and lifeless, burned, or bloody, or misshapen. He thinks about screams, of the sound of bombs exploding too close, of watching innocents, eyes wide, caught in the crossfire. He thinks about exploding ships, of T'Pol with a gun to her head, of Trip and the captain stumbling in bloodied and bruised, of the sickening crunch that marked Hawkin's death, of the way Rostov screamed when he went down, of Hayes, lying motionless on an operating table with so many tubes coming in and out and a bandage on his chest, holding his insides in.

"No. I don't miss it."

---

One day there's a storm. The wind's screaming and the rain pouring so hard that he thinks that they might as well be underwater, for how wet he is. The waves tower above them and for the first time in his life, Malcolm begins to understand why people believe in God and why sailors pray.

Below him, Mish'a is shouting orders to the crew, all flashing a bright blue in fear and not bothering to conceal it. He thinks that Tar'a might be yelling for him to come down, but he's paralyzed, legs twined around the mast, hands twisted around the ropes so tight he must be bleeding. But he can't let go. The ocean is angry below him and God, he can't let go. He's more afraid than he's ever been, no matter how many scary aliens were threatening to shoot him or beat him or kill his entire race. He can't fall into the water. He can't.

Then he hears the crack and the mast is going down. Despite the rush of the wind in his hair and the feeling of falling, he can't bring himself to let go of his hold on the rigging, paralyzed in fear. He's screaming into the fury, hitting the water with a slap and sinking with the heavy mast into the darkness.

His lungs are bursting, his limbs flailing, but he can't find up. He can't think. He can't be anything other than fear. The water stings his eyes – more salty than Earth's and he's bleeding, but the cold of the deep dark sea is so pervasive that he can't tell from where.

This is how he's going to die. Ironically, this would make his aquaphobia not-at-all misplaced and if he'd joined the Royal Navy like his father wanted him to, then he wouldn't be stuck here in the first place.

He can't say that he's going to die without regrets, because he has a lot of them. He regrets that their military gung-ho stupidity got Chang and McKenzine killed. He regrets Matthew Hayes, because he knows that it doesn't matter if you're a human or a Mil'akan, because you'll abuse your property all the same, and penance or not, Hayes has signed his soul away. He regrets never apologizing to the man. He regrets missing the waterpolo game he promised to watch with Trip and the captain after he got back from the mission. He regrets never meeting his newborn nephew. He regrets that his father will never know how good a sailor he's become. He regrets that he's going to die and nobody will care, except maybe Tar'a, in his own Hil'akan way, which might not even count.

And then he sees a golden glow in the darkness, a light shining so bright that he knows it has to be what they call the ‘light at the end of the tunnel.' There's nothing more he can do. It's stupid to die like this, but he has lived a life full of adventure. He's resigned to his fate, so he swims towards the light.

Instead of judgment, or angels, or all those who crossed over before him standing there, accusing, he finds a soft body, a slick caress, water pooling and bubbling as they break the surface.

Tar'a has surprisingly warm skin, and it's not as slimy as he thinks it should be. They're rising through the airlock and into the hull of the ship and he's gasping in great gulping breaths and letting Tar'a hold him up.

"I see why it is you don't like the water." Tar'a says, and Malcolm wishes that the Mil'aka could smile, because he knows that Tar'a's would be radiant.