Eventually, Qamala realized that if she wanted to get to know Jacob, she was going to have to ambush him.

So shy, so insecure about himself and his size, she mused, making her way down to his last known location -- a node where several electronics systems merged, the likeliest place to chase down some answers over that security system. She'd seen the way Willa and Morgan looked at the man and could intuit why he felt so poorly about himself. Humans have such strong emotional reactions to the strangest things sometimes. Leeda says he's healthy enough for his size. He just looks cuddly to me.

She spent a few moments musing about that, rather wistfully really. There had been so little skin contact aboard this ship so far that she knew she was hungry for it. Leeda had been wonderful, of course -- but she was so small! Sometimes a body wanted something bigger to snuggle with... Not that Jacob would feel comfortable with such a thing, I suppose.

Jacob focused on the security wiring. Muttering to himself, he carefully measured the voltage across the connection he had just replaced. For some reason it was showing resistance. A faint grin crossed his face as he considered the problem. This was the sort of thing he lived for. He reached for his micropliers, needing to make a small adjustment. Instead of the expected tool, his hand encountered something soft and warm. Startled he jumped and turned.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Jacob!" Qamala laughed a little, laying one hand on his arm in a calming gesture. "I was only trying to be helpful, I promise."

Jacob froze. It was Qamala, in all her beauty and perfection. His tongue immediately swelled to double its normal size and refused to respond to his brain. Which was just as well, since his previously focused thoughts had scattered to the four winds. Qamala had that effect on him. Just looking at her made his heart beat faster and his hands tremble. Not only was she beautiful, but she seemed caring and gentle.

Now she was touching him. It was almost electric. Her hand felt warm and soft on his arm. He found himself wondering how it would feel just to hug her. He used to be a very huggy person, before the disaster that ruined his life. Since then, he hadn't hugged much. No one wanted a huggy bouncer. He missed that human contact.

With a start, Jacob realized he had been staring at Qamala for a long time. He probably looked like a cow staring at an oncoming train. Blinking rapidly he tried to remember what she had said to him. "Um, er..." With great effort he pulled himself together, at least a little bit. "Um, no problem, Qamala. I was just paying attention to the wiring. Thanks for the tool." He waved the micropliers lamely as he blushed at his own clumsy words. He was usually much more articulate than this, but she made him feel like a high school student with a crush.

Her skills as a telepath were still many centuries ahead of her, but the nascent empathic skills she did have told her quite clearly what the source of Jacob's discomfort was. A human would have been thrilled or repulsed, depending upon the return attraction she might have felt; Qamala just felt compassion and a desire to help, if she could.

"What are you doing?" She asked, sincerely interested. "You work alone so much of the time, but everything you touch works so much better after you've finished with it."

"Oh, um," Jacob blinked at her for a moment. "I'm just fixing a minor short in the security system." He turned back to the display. His nervousness faded as he warmed to a familiar topic. "I don't know how much you know about electrical systems, but the wiring here was worn. That was creating resistance and interfering with the flow of electricity. Nothing that would interfere with the ship right now, but it could be a problem later if I didn't replace it." He pointed to a couple of numbers on the display. "For some reason there is still more resistance over this board than I would expect. I was just going to use these," he held up the micropliers again, "to make some adjustments and see if I could resolve it."

Realizing he was probably talking too much, he smiled at her, a little forced as butterflies filled his belly again. "So what brings you into the bowels of the ship? Not your usual haunts."

"You," she answered simply, peering over his shoulder in an attempt to follow his explanation. If this made him uncomfortable, she didn't seem to notice, though in fact she did, and nodded to the wiring he was working on to divert his attention again. "But how does wiring get worn, Jacob? Nothing rubs against it, does it?"

Jacob blinked at her response, then decided the safest course was to ignore it and answer her question. "Um, not exactly, but time and current take their toll. In this case, whoever modified the ship had way too much voltage flowing through the wires. They probably just sooped things up without bothering to replace the wiring. Thus too much power flowed through the wires. Not only is that very wearing to the wires, but it can also be dangerous." He shifted slightly to give her a better view of the screen and pulled up a previous image, showing the wire on infrared. "See here, how hot that wire is? It can start a fire, if not replaced. That's bad anytime, but really bad on a ship, I suppose." He warmed to his subject quickly, enjoying talking about his work.

Qamala nodded, obviously totally engaged in what he was showing her. "That's amazing," she said quietly. "It makes sense, but I never stopped to think that electrical current itself could wear on the wires that carry it. And that too much current will burn through its carrier -- it's an obvious corollary really, but I never considered it."

She leaned back and smiled at him. "Have you ever considered a career as a teacher, Jacob? You have a remarkable gift for making complex things simple to understand."

Jacob laughed, "Me, a teacher? Naw, I just love working with this stuff. Even in the old days I never really..." His voice trailed off as a wave of remembered pain washed over him. With a grunt he forced his mind back to the present. Dwelling on painful memories wouldn't accomplish anything. Besides, he didn't need this crew learning about his past. His voice was gruffer than usual when he spoke again."Any way, I've never spent much time teaching. Not many students, really." Hoping to turn the conversation away from himself, to bury his pain deeper, he smiled at her. It wasn't much of a smile, rather forced and stiff, but it was what he had. "What about you? What did you do before being dragged on board this flying rocket?"

Qamala had caught the shift in mood, of course -- he saw it clearly, just as he also saw her choose simply to accept it, rather than pry. "Oh, not much really, I'm still too young to be considered good for much productive. I spent a lot of time firing arrows into the distance and tracking them down. Learning to follow my instincts, to trust my intuition. To see what is before me without preconceptions. To hear, truly hear what is being said. And what is not said."

She smiled, gently this time, and touched his arm again. "Nothing so interesting as what you've done with your life so far, certainly."

Jacob laughed softly. "I'm not even sure what that meant, but it sounds a lot more interesting than anything I've done." He tilted his head and considered her for a moment. He didn't normally pry into people's background, but she seemed open enough. His natural curiosity made him throw caution to the wind. "I'm not sure how to even ask this, but I want to understand more about you. From what you said, it sounds like your people value intuition over logic. That's contrary to most humans' ideas of
how an advanced species would be. Did you develop that way over time, or is it just how you were?" He hoped that hadn't sounded as stupid to her as it did to him.

"That's not a question I ever thought to ask," she replied, eyes twinkling in conspiratorial merriment. "I wish I had! I was just always taught to develop both -- intuition and logic -- so that they would function together, as one. I don't know if the Magellen were always that way, or if they evolved into it, though."

"I've never really had much intuition," Jacob admitted with a sheepish grin. "I think that's why I've always liked electronics. Everything is logical and fits together the way it should. Not really any guesswork or anything. The circuit connects or it doesn't." He shrugged. "But enough about me, I'm not really that interesting. I've looked up Magellens, but there isn't much information on you. What's it like where you come from? What are your people like?"

"Well, it's just `Magellen' when you're talking about all of us, same as one of us," Qamala told him, smiling to encourage him not to feel foolish over the common mistake. And you could deduce a lot about us from that one fact, she admitted to herself. "But Jacob, I'm really not supposed to talk about it. And it's probably for the best or I would be dreadfully homesick," she added, chuckling softly. "I can talk about me as much as you like, though I'm not old enough to be very interesting yet. I can't fly a ship, or understand electronics, or computers, or medicine, or any of the things the rest of you do. Your easy understanding of what makes this ship's systems work causes me to understand just how ignorant I am."

Jacob really wanted to ask her how old she was, but a gentleman never did that. Some trappings from his old life hung on still. "Seems like we all know different things. You might not know ships systems, but you obviously know things no one else does." He shrugged, trying not to sound too preachy. "I'm sure together we can do a lot of things." The possible, unintentional implication of what he said hit him and he blushed a bright red. "I mean together as a crew, all of us," he waved his hand vaguely. "The ship and crew and everything, not you and..." His voice trailed off and he wanted to crawl into the conduit behind him to die from embarrassment.

"I know a little about people," she assured him softly, still smiling. "Please don't be worried about what you say, Jacob. Not to me, anyway. I can sense your heart, and it's good and kind and beautiful. You wouldn't try to hurt anyone with words. That makes it so easy to take everything you say in the best possible way."

Jacob's blush deepened at her words. Qamala was an interesting paradox for him. She made him terribly uncomfortable, both her words and her beauty, but she also was soothing and friendly. He wasn't sure how to respond to her. It had been too long since anyone had seen him as more than a strong back. He wanted to talk to her forever, to tell her all about his past. To teach her about what he loved to do. To be a friend, or maybe, a faint part of him dared hope, even more than that. But he couldn't. He didn't know how to force the words out past the barriers in his heart. Realizing he had been staring at her again, at least at her feet, he shuffled uncomfortably. "Thanks," he muttered. "That's probably the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me. Afraid of the strong emotions she awakened, feeling shy and uncomfortable, Jacob turned back to the open panel. "Gotta finish this, can't leave it open."

"Of course. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be bothering you while you're working," she replied, her voice upbeat. It didn't take an empath to sense what was going on inside Jacob and Qamala was sensible enough to allow him time to master himself and his feelings rather than pressing him. "I'm going to the crew lounge for some tea -- when you're done here, if you'd like to join me for some, I'd like that."

She touched him briefly on the shoulder, then left.

Jacob bent back over the connection, looking intently at the screen. Even as he started to work again, his mind lingered on her kind words and the gentle warmth of her hand on his shoulder. He sighed and relaxed for a moment, then yelped and jumped as his finger encountered a hot connection. Shaking his head, he focussed on his work again.