He'd kept to his quarters most of the time, thus far. Qamala frowned thoughtfully as she pulled food and other comestibles from the data cards in the galley. They were only two days into this trip and she wasn't really sure what Lawrence Bourne the Third would like to eat, but certain he needed more than alcohol in his system if he was going to survive this trip.

But then, maybe he doesn't want to survive, she mused, placing some of her favorite foods on the tray -- whole grain wafers, pale cheeses, a bunch of ripe purple grapes, a bottle of light wine -- then adding some of the highly processed foods she knew some humans ate, though she couldn't really understand why. Some humans commit slow suicide rather than the quick kind, when they hate their lives and don't know it. If the senator's son is one of them, I have to keep him alive long enough to complete this part of the mission, at least.

Carrying the tray with careful grace, Qamala moved down the hall to his door and knocked softly. She could already smell the stale cigarette smoke in the room and immediately regretted that she hadn't pulled a rebreather out of storage beforehand.

There came a crashing sound from inside the door, the sound of multiple things of various composition - some glass, some metal, some plastic - falling from some height to the floor in an angry jumble.

"By Odin's raven...!" The door slid open and a highly annoyed and agitated Lawrence Bourne III, hair somewhat askew and clothes less than perfectly assembled, appeared in the doorway. Mouth opened and finger raised as if to utter some irate exclamation, he froze in that position upon seeing Qamala.

Annoyance turned to confusion and then to a conspiratorial desperation so fast it was difficult for her to keep up. He ushered her into the room so fast that she nearly lost the tray. Then he looked down the hallway for any witnesses before quickly retreating into the room and closing the door.

"Say nothing!" he instructed her with a forestalling hand while rummaging about in a carry bag. He came up with a small chip which he used on a compartmentalized box sitting on a narrow counter against the bulkhead. That done, he straightened up and seemed to calm down or at least gain more self control.

As he approached her the sound of music began emanating from the box. "Oh," he said in realization and he took the tray away from her, placing it on the bed. Then he took her in his arms, one hand resting in the small of her back while the other took her hand and placed it on his opposite shoulder. Then both hands were on her hips.

"You do tango, don't you?" he asked seriously.

Lively interest in his antics turned to equally lively delight at the question.

"No," she breathed, obviously expecting something wonderful -- quite at odds with the female who'd so skillfully interrogated Ekhart a few days before. "What's `tango'?"

"Never mind," he instructed, "just move where I lead you."

"Um, all riiiighh--" She didn't have a chance to finish her assent before he was moving them, and she was thinking as fast as she could to keep up.

The next four minutes was a graceful dance of long elegant steps and complex figures in a closed embrace where the contact flowed between chest-to-chest and hip-thigh varieties. Lawrence was a highly skilled and gracious dancer who led his smaller, inexperienced partner with care, keeping their steps simple and allowing for her occasional yet expected mistakes.

By the third minute he had led her to a place where their movements were more shared, their muscular expectations similar, and the two seemed one with the music and each other. It generated a passionate heat between them, resonating in her sexual energy centers that had been neglected for far too many months and it was over much too soon.

On the last drawn-out strings Lawrence confidently dipped her low, his face tantalizingly inches from her chest, his lips almost grazing there, before snapping her upright again on the final, dramatically punched note.

Lawrence's face was a sunburst of radiant joy. "Oh, my sweet, sweet, odd bird," he said, laughing and breathing hard. "Thank you so very much. I truly needed that."

Qamala laughed too, as much at herself and what he'd called her, as at him and his antics.

"Well, you're quite welcome -- so that's---" Her words cut off once again as he stood back and bowed to her, then kissed her on the hand. She dimpled sweetly, then caught her breath when his lips touched her skin. No one had ever done that before, but then, she could say that about everything that had happened to her since he'd swept her into his cabin.

"---tango." The word was the conclusion to a sentence that had been thoroughly hijacked. For the first time since she left Eden, Qamala became acutely aware that she wasn't controlling an encounter with a mortal and it made her laugh in genuine delight.

"You are a master of the unexpected, Master Bourne. But after a dance like that, I think I'm permitted to call you `Lawrence'? Or do you have another name you'd like me to use instead?"

He tilted his head to the side thoughtfully and answered, "I always wanted to be a Vladimir." Then he winked at her and turned towards the counter to pour two drinks from a small pitcher.

"Please, call me Lawrence," he allowed while adding a thin stalk of pale green plant to each. He turned and presented her with one as if giving a gift.

"A Screaming Viking: two parts vodka, one part dry vermouth, one part lime juice, one stalk of celery, and one spear of cucumber - slightly bruised, of course. I have no cucumber, unfortunately, but otherwise it is a faithful reproduction."

Qamala sniffed it, catching the bright lime notes that were almost drowned out by the alcohol.

"All right, Lawrence," she agreed, somewhat dubious about the drink but sipping it carefully anyway. Like the one he'd offered them all a few days' previous, the minute amount of alcohol made her insides glow. She wondered how he managed to drink one whole one, let alone the quantities he'd likely consumed since they'd gotten underway.

"I'm Qamala, of course. Why is this drink called a `Screaming Viking'? It doesn't scream, and it looks nothing like a viking."

"Ha!" Lawrence nearly choked on the drink he was enjoying, his laugh was so abrupt. "You think far too literally for someone with hair of that color," he said before deftly changing topics.

"So to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit? I had been reduced to low gravity stacking games before you showed up to save me from my boredom," he said with a gesture at the various once-stacked items scattered around the perimeter of the room.

"Stacking games?" She repeated, glancing at the trash around them. "You're playing a children's game here by yourself when there's so much just outside that door to see and learn and do?"

Qamala shook her head in bemusement, then seated herself carefully on the edge of the bed so as not to overset the tray.

"You seem intelligent enough, and you're obviously highly adept at entertaining other people, making them feel at ease. Why shut yourself away like this?"

Lawrence lounged on the bed sideways, falling so that the tray was between them. While selecting a slice of cheese, he explained, "I've seen ships and space, and the only thing for me to do out there which won't annoy somebody else on this far too serious crew is work." The last operative word he spoke as though tasting something vile. "That doesn't leave much in the way of options for a social lad such as myself."

He plucked a small wedge from the tray and said with panache, "But now you are here, and so my inner spirit is soaring once again."

He toasted her with his drink and tossed the cheese into his mouth in a clever gesture.

Those extraordinary eyes lit up. "I'm so glad you brought that up. I have been wondering about it for the longest time." Body still limber from their impromptu workout, she twisted on the bed and folded her long brown legs in front of her, neatly setting that too-potent drink on the tray. The pleated skirt of her customary pale-violet tunic settled before any prurient curiosities could be satisfied, and she leaned over to pluck a grape from the bunch.

"About work, I mean. Why do so many humans think `work' is something bad?"

He shook his head quickly. "No, you misunderstand completely," he explained genially, pointing with a cracker for emphasis. "It isn't work per se, but the nature of said work which determines a person's disposition towards it. If you are working at something you love, most wouldn't mind it at all - even the parts which are mere drudgery. Being forced to do work which you find unappealing in any way, however, well... I'm sure you understand a person's natural antipathy to such things."

"And that happens often?" She wanted to know -- genuine, sincere inquiry. "Humans forcing one another to work at something they do not love to do?"

"Unfortunately, all too often," Lawrence affirmed grimly. "It is the eternal human struggle, control over how one spends one's life. It's a complicates mess between what one wants to do, what one has to do, what one feels compelled to do, and what one is expected to do by others. In the end, it is ultimately the only real form of control humans have over their lives."

He turned sunny again on a dime. "This cheese is delightful," he noted with a smile.

"It should be," she murmured, privately horrified at what he'd disclosed and doing her best to set it aside until she could think about it freely. "It was crafted by those who love what they do."

She shook herself slightly, letting the horror of forced labor (and the ugliness it was doomed to produce) fall away from her.

"What work is your love, Lawrence?"

He sighed and considered how very bright her eyes were for a moment before answering.

"Alas, nothing I love to do can be considered work in the classical sense of the word. I'm trained and have experience in business, naturally, but the thought of spending all of my days in a corporate citadel having meetings and pushing papers like my brothers just skeeves me. And working on a ship, like a mechanic or a pilot? Hmph."

He got up off the bed and wandered over to the pitcher to refill his half-empty drink. "No, I much prefer maneuvering amongst the female population of a party over an asteroid field or the politics of the poker room over the stuffy confines of a board room. No, I much prefer to spend my time gambling, dancing, and seducing beautiful women."

He raised his glass to her with a wink. "Cheers."

With a much happier smile, she reclaimed that glass he'd handed her and held it up in return -- obviously not taking that last personally in the slightest.

"Cheers," she agreed, touching the stuff to her lips carefully one more time.

"That sounds like a very intriguing work-path, Lawrence, challenging for the mind, but I would think it's terribly demanding on the body, is it not?"

"It can be," he admitted around his glass. "But I've years before I do any serious damage that modern medicine can't fix. I just wish..."

He stopped and shook his head, deciding against finishing the sentence. Instead he said, "I find my lifestyle much more demanding on others. Because of how I choose to live my life I'm not exactly respected where I come from. It does sting the ego at times, but...then again there are advantages to being consistently underestimated."

Lawrence slugged half his drink at once, his face clouded by troubling thoughts only he knew. But it didn't last as his expression screwed up in curiosity at her and he studied her through squinted eyes.

"But what about you?" he asked. "You're not going to ingratiate yourself to your new shipmates any by spending time with me. Not that I'm ungrateful for the company, but why knock on my door?"

Qamala chuckled softly. "Magellen don't worry overmuch about ingratiating themselves to anyone, Lawrence. There are much more important concerns than catering to egos."

She shifted position a bit, loosing one leg to dangle over the side of the bed.

"Such as understanding what purpose is accomplished by someone on your work path."

If it had been anyone else, that could have been delivered with a great deal of sarcasm. But from Qamala it was so obviously sincere it almost didn't bear mentioning.

"Work without purpose is a joyless thing, don't you think?"

He shrugged. "It depends. It depends on the work, on the man, and on your definition of joy. What you call work in my case I call fun. I enjoy plenty of smiles, trust me."

His tone was mostly sincere, and he took another drink.

Carefully selecting a grape from the tray, Qamala popped it into her mouth and thought about that, gazing at her host -- and the amount of alcohol left in that glass -- speculatively.

"No, I don't think so," she finally said. "Not about the smiles, I'm sure that's true, but the other part. I don't think the premise is relative. Work without purpose is joyless, mechanistic, a simple `busy-ness' to distract one from the life joy that is one's birthright."

Her head tilted again. "I should have chosen more proteins and some complex carbohydrates. If you continue to consume alcohol at that rate, I doubt the conversation is going to remain rational for much longer."

Lawrence shrugged. "What's wrong with being irrational once and a while?"

"You sound like one of my uncles now," she smiled, reaching over to pour the wine she'd brought. "But even he knew that there were times to be rational, and times to be irrational. And when one is having a philosophical discussion on the nature of work with agreeable company, in general rationality is the preferred course, don't you think?"

She toasted him with her glass, and sipped from her glass with a great deal of enjoyment.

"A philosophical discussion?" he asked with a smile. "Is that what we're having? Oh, how my fraternity brothers back at New Yale would be ashamed."

Lawrence chuckled and sipped again. He paused and shook his head at the absurdity of the entire situation and decided that he needed to change the subject yet again.

"What did you think of Herr Ekhart's testimony?"

Her eyes lit up again, as they did whenever something surprised and delighted her, it seemed.

"How is it said? You wish to `talk shop'? That's a wonderfully pithy way to say it, humans are very good at that," Qamala replied, "I could almost pity Verlag Ekhart, if I were at all disposed to maudlin sentimentality. As to his testimony... is it `Veissman' or `Weissman'? I assume from some of your earlier remarks that you know him, or know of him."

Lawrence sipped and said, "That's the funny part. There's nobody named Weissman on the ITI board. Their Chairman of Operations is a fellow named Schweitzen. I figure that whomever hired Ekhart and the rest of his Nazi brethren wanted him to think it was ITI. That's just a guess, of course."

"That would make more sense, actually," she agreed, head tilted just a bit. "It was just a little too obvious for ITI to hire cut-throat mercenaries so openly, wasn't it?"

"Mmmm..." Lawrence agreed with a nod. "If they wanted to kill or capture either my father or me they've had much better opportunities than this."

"Good point." She was gazing at him with unusual intensity, though unaware she was doing so.

"You get a great deal of pleasure from causing these others to underestimate you, I can tell. Some of it is because you think that it will cause them to not expect anything from you and leave you alone -- but mostly, it's how you learned how to survive, in the world you came from. I'm not sure if you even know how deeply instinctive it is, or that you're in danger of it becoming a true personality trait rather than a tool you can opt to use, or not, as it seems best to you."

Her head un-tilted then, and her expression cleared back to its normal sunniness.

"It's safe to say I've never met anyone else like you."

Lawrence's return stare was more intense than he realized and he wasn't smiling in that pause after her analysis. But it only lasted a moment. His trademark charming, easy smile returned to its place and stuffed the look of concern somewhere back into the recesses where he kept such things.

"Nor I, you, my dear," he replied with a nod, followed by him finishing his drink. In the ensuing sensation he wasn't sure if it was the vodka burning or his ego at having his personality undressed.

"Don't worry. Your secrets are yours to reveal, not mine." Her voice was soft, and her eyes were sparkling over the rim of the winecup.

"Unlike your Rigellian lover, I've no interest in betraying you or them to anyone else. But now we should talk about something really important," she said, changing the subject with the same easy facility Lawrence himself had shown earlier. "I've only just learned to play trigammon recently and find it a fascinating board game. Do you play?"

"I've played it once or twice," Lawrence demurred. "But I wasn't very good." At least, not until the stakes were right, he thought to himself, recalling how he hustled the good Lady Renoboulle out of a family heirloom sardonyx cameo and into his bed the evening of his twenty-seventh birthday. He smiled inwardly at the memory of that easy conquest, but then again his Mother's friends had never been very good at trigammon. Ah, how he did value the charms of an older woman.

"Oh." Qamala was a bit disappointed at that and it, like every other thing she felt, showed on her face. Then she looked at him again -- likes to be underestimated? Oh Lawrence you're very good! -- in a classic double-take and began laughing in pure delight. Really, honestly laughing, in a way she hadn't laughed since she'd left Eden months ago.

With a wave of her slim hand a holographic game board coalesced in the center of his cabin, larger than most tabletop versions -- except there was no holographic projector on the floor of his cabin. It flickered around the edges until Qamala got the last of her giggle-fits under control.

"Black, or white?"

Lawrence leaned back against the wall, clearly amused.

"Well that's a neat trick."

He studied the board for a few moments before replying, "White, if you please. Can I control my pieces with my mind, or did you bring a dice cup with you?"

"You pick them up with your hand," she replied, demonstrating for him. "It's just light of course, so you won't feel it. Then count out your move and make your placement."

Smiling broadly, she turned back to face him, then stepped toward him, through the game board, holding out the white piece in her hand.

"We can get the ship's computer to roll the dice for us."

Lawrence grimaced at that. "Ehhhh...I don't know. When it comes to gambling I tend to prefer to roll my own dice. Computers have a tendency to be predictable, programmed in someone's favor, or simply unlucky."

He turned and started rummaging through his bag until he came up with a pair of red dice.

"These should suffice, if you're amenable."

Her large, luminous eyes were filled with questions, spilling over from the smile she couldn't quite contain.

"You said `gambling'? Truly? I thought it was just a game?"

Lawrence spread his hands and asked. "What's a game without stakes? Oh, I know, you can play for fun, I guess. But to me, having something worthwhile in the balance enhances the fun. Care to give it a try?"

"But -- if you're not very good at the game, then why wager? Unless you want to lose?" She asked, obviously delighted with the entire prospect. "Or unless you think I'm a poorer player than you are, which is likely the case."

"Sometimes it's not the bet that's important to the player," he answered. "Other times it's inspirational. Many times it's irrational, based on emotion. Deception is also a frequent reason for losing, like the executive that lets his boss beat him at golf in order to curry favor. He loses, but he wins, too."

Lawrence smiled and leaned back against the wall. "The number of books written on the subject of wagering philosophy would fill this stateroom and then some."

Qamala laughed. "How many have you read?" She asked, then abruptly held up her hands. "Never mind! I don't want to know. Just send the names and titles of the ones you liked best to my ship's computer account. I can read later about all the mistakes I'm about to make."

She stepped over to retrieve her wineglass, then turned to face him through the luminous game board.

"So what do you want to wager? If it's money I have to tell you already that it's not fair -- I still don't really understand it."

"So make it something other than money," he suggested. "Consider your own skill, your relative chances of winning, what you'd be willing to lose, and what you think I would be eager to win."

Normally, Lawrence wouldn't hesitate at suggesting a wager of a sexual nature, particularly with such an appealing female. But there was something different here that he couldn't quite put his finger on. If this was going to turn physical it wouldn't be he who took it there. Of course, he wouldn't be disappointed if it did, either.

"I don't have any alcohol either," she quipped back. "Well, other than this wine, but you don't appear to be interested in it."

Qamala thought about it for a moment, head tilted, eyes distant as she mulled what she could remember of the stories... the old stories.

"Stories! That's it!" She smiled again, genuinely excited.

"I'll wager you stories. If I win, you have to entertain me with a story at any given time I ask it of you. And the same in reverse -- if you win, I must do the same. What do you say?

Lawrence turned serious at the novel idea. It might be fun, but it needed massaging.

"Stories? Well...that's a rather valuable thing you've just offered me. I'm not sure."

He made a point of seeming to think about it and then riposted, "One story - we'll play for one story. That leaves us with something to play for some other time, too."

"One story, per game, at the winner's discretion. Done!" Qamala smiled happily. "But now I don't know whether I want to win or lose! I think that's the best kind of wager -- we both win, either way."

She gestured to the dice. "High roll gets to start first."

"Please, take the opening move," Lawrence replied politely. "I insist," he added, mainly because the rule to experienced trigammon players, particularly gamblers, was that a risky but heavy advantage lay in going second. This should be interesting, he thought.

Roughly twenty minutes later, Lawrence watched as Qamala rolled double-four, enough to remove her last four pieces from the board and give her a victory. He had left nine pieces of his own - not a drubbing, to be sure, but not exactly close, either.

"Well played," he offered amicably, extending his hand to shake hers. "Another double or two and I might have had you."

Qamala hesitated, smiling, not sure what she'd learned of the man, if anything at all. More underestimation? she mused. This man has more depths than he's willing to let anyone see. Perhaps even himself.

"I learned quite a bit about the game's strategy," she replied, putting her hand in his willingly, openly enjoying even this minimal bodily contact. "You're an... intriguing opponent, Lawrence."

He gracefully raised her hand some and bent to kiss it, hesitating just beforehand to raise his eyes and reply with a mischief-tinged smile, "You have no idea."

Those pale eyebrows arched in disbelief, recognition, and joy as his lips touched her hand. The kiss was gentle and soft and just long enough to let it be hinting as well if she chose to find it so -- but since she'd never had anyone do any such thing to her in her life until that moment, all she could do was chortle delightedly.

He then released her hand and let her know, "I look forward to our next game."

"And I, the story," she replied, letting their game board dissolve into particles of light that danced around her briefly before disappearing.

"Until next time, then." And with that, she smiled and headed to the door.

Just as she was leaving Lawrence called after her. "Qamala..."

She turned, eyes bright in inquiry. He straightened up somewhat.

"Thank you," he said to her, and his smile was the most sincere one she'd seen yet.

"A pleasure, Lawrence," she replied, then was gone.