Both of the strangers eyebrows went up and he took a step in the room, allowing the doors to close behind him.

            "Hey, no one said you could come in," Ayuiij said in a spirit of quarrelsomeness.

            "You were being rude," the stranger announced dryly and with a slight accent, "I decided that I could return the favor in some small way."

            Ayuiij's eyebrows shot up and she laughed a little.  But Yoshi only continued to look annoyed.  "And you are here why . . . ?"

            "This is Sayel's room—I had expected that she or her roommate would be here."

            "Well, she isn't," Yoshi informed him condescendingly.

            The stranger tipped his head and fairly glowered at Yoshi, and that was when Ayuiij saw a hint of the elfin ears, and noted the blond hair and blue-green eyes.  Something about him sounded familiar, and Ayuiij frowned, trying to remember what it was.  Was it something Siyana said . . . ?

            "Indeed," he snapped, his Scottish accent deepening.  "Would you happen to know where she was?  Never mind, I shall find her later!"  With that, he turned away sharply and hit the door release.

            "Oh, wait . . . you're elf-boy!"  Ayuiij exclaimed, waiving her arms in frustration as she tried to remember what Siyana had said.  "Siyana met you on Vulcan with Sayel . . . . what is your name . . .?  Arrg.  Dominic, that's it, it's Dominic.  Sayel's probably in the rec room nearest here."

            "Thanks ever so," he replied dryly, walking out of the room with some amount of gusto.

            When Ayuiij returned her attention to Yoshi, she found herself the subject of a fierce glare.  "What?" she asked defensively.

            "You told him where Sayel was," Yoshi grumbled, fiddling with one of the game controllers.

            "So . . . ?  Siyana knows him and I guess Sayel does too."

            "Still," Yoshi insisted, but try as she might, Ayuiij could not get an explanation of what this "still" meant.  Deciding she didn't care anymore, Ayuiij pointed at the thing Yoshi and Kali had referred to as a "television screen".

            "What is this?" she asked as a colorful picture appeared on the screen.

            Yoshi waited a few moments, selecting an option that said "Arcade mode" on the screen.  A moment later, the picture changed to reveal small boxes with what appeared to Ayuiij to be heads—and just the heads—of various small people . . . or she thought they were people.  As her eyes examined the screen, she saw that one individual had some sort of mask, another appeared to be made from metal, and still others seemed to be various animals, some of which Ayuiij knew the name to, some of which (like the kangaroo or the raptor) she had never seen before.

            Yoshi's eyes fairly gleamed as she grinned at the screen.  "This," she pronounced with some pride and some glee, "is Tekken©."

Kali had joined Akira, Sayel, and Siyana in the rec room, where they were in the "usual" location they inhabited in their mutual downtime.  She had begun a somewhat labored apology but, as Sayel saw that Kali was apologizing, she had interrupted her speech to say "all is forgiven—won't you join us?" and that was that.  Sayel was not one to dwell on the mistakes of the past, and she was rather impressed that Kali had both the sense, courage, and humility to apologize to her.  And one does need all three, Sayel mused as they carried on with their original conversation.  I have seen many with the sense and courage to know that they have need of forgiveness, but they would not allow themselves to be humbled.

            "Speak of the devil and you see his horns," Sayel blurted out, interrupting Siyana and surprising all three of her companions.  She gathered herself fairly quickly and gazed at the object of her surprise with raised eyebrows, wondering if he had heard her.

            "What devil?" Kali asked cheerfully.  She was in a quite better mood now.  "Are you anthropomorphizing things again, Sayel?"

            "What does that have to do with anything?" Siyana asked her.

            Akira laughed, "Kali just wanted to use that word."

            "And if I were anthropomorphizing anything, it would be you, Kali—seeing as you have the name of a Hindu god."

            "I hope you aren't talking about me," Dominic said as he strode over to their table.  (So he had heard her.)  "Though, sense it gave Kali here the chance to use anthropomorphizing, perhaps I'll forgive it.  I do say," he went on, "the way that girl—the Terran gal, not the Andorian—reacted to me, you might have thought I was the devil, or at least one of his minions."  He said most of it rather thoughtfully, and he seemed somewhat bemused by the situation.  "She was frightfully rude."

             "Well now," Kali said, not missing a beat, "before you mentioned 'not the Andorian' I didn't know which you were talking about.  Yoshi and Ayuiij are both 'frightfully rude' at times.  Not that I even know who you are."

            "Hi, Dominic," Siyana said cheerfully, smiling up at him.  "It's good to see you—I didn't know you were planning to enter the Academy."
            "Nor did I—and it is good to see you too, although I rather knew you at least were here."

            "Akira, Kali—this is Dominic Hawkins.  Dominic, this is Kali Samsara of Earth and Vulcan, and Akira Te'yas of Trill."

"It's a pleasure to meet the both of you," Dominic said.  Then, because he was Dominic, he cut to the chase and turned to Sayel.  "Sayel, may we talk for a minute?"

            Instead of responding, Sayel merely got up and walked around the table, nodding at her three friends that she would be back.  As they stepped outside the rec room, she heard Kali give a gusty sigh and Siyana say: "Is it just Scottish people that sound cool?  When I first met Dominic, I thought the Terran accent was so cool.   But no one else talks like he does."

            "Scottish is cool," Kali said mournfully, "I tried to fake a British accent for a while."

            And that was all Sayel could hear before the door shut to the rec room, leaving  them standing out in the hall alone.  Dominic looked at her and raised his eyebrows, his expression questioning.  Sayel just shrugged and said dryly, "What can I say to appease you, Dominic?—the Scottish accent appears to be universally irresistible."

            He laughed easily then, and that made Sayel relax a bit herself.  "Friends of yours, then?"

            "Yes, Akira is Siyana's roommate and Kali is mine—but they are, as you would say, 'gold'."

            "Gold, eh?"  Dominic asked, then he slapped his leg enthusiastically.  "Sayel, there's this chap that you have simply got to meet.  He's one of those Kamari folk—Aelon a'Emman—and he's nobility back on Kamara and he is just our sort.  Oh and there's a Terran chap by the name of Joshua that you'll like—but look here," he said, interrupting himself.  "More about that later.  Why on earth didn't you tell me?" he demanded.  "Come on Sayel, Starfleet?  Starfleet?  That was my dream, not yours."

            Sayel blinked, covering her surprise.  "When we were children, certainly . . . ."

            "No," Dominic cut in, "always.  I just heard that it was "illogical" so many times I stopped mentioning it.  I never stopped thinking about it.  And after our practice went to seed, I planned on the Academy.  But I wasn't expecting a call from my father saying that you had visited him at home and had left a message for me—and that you were at the Academy.  Oh wait, I know, Siyana talked you into it."

            "She suggested it, I did not need to be convinced."  Sayel held up a hand to stop his response.  "I am sorry, Dominic.  I should have told you and I should not have left Vulcan when I did—"

            "Oh that," he said scornfully.  "You could have left sooner, if you ask me.  By the time I got out of there I was already spitting fire."

            "Then, I should have told you about it," Sayel said, curbing her impatience.  "As it is, why are you attending the medical academy—you have the title of Healer."

            "I'm only in the four year program," he said.  Then his eyes widened a little with remembrance.   "Sayel—did you hear about what happened?"

            "What happened where?"  Sayel rejoined.

            "At the Vulcan Embassy!"

            "There is no need to shout, Dominic.  And if you insist upon being vague, it is unlikely that I shall ever find out."

            He skewered her with a glare.  "Hilarious," he muttered.  "But look, a Terran gal—one of ours—was murdered."

            Stunned, Sayel was completely silent for a moment.  Murder?  That has not happened on Earth in years—and certainly not at the Vulcan Embassy.  "One of ours, a Starfleet officer?"

            "Yes," Dominic said unhappily.  "I had wondered whether it was an assassination—"

            "It was not?"

            "No, no—she was only an ensign and no one can see why anyone would have wanted to kill her.  Starfleet's befuddled—they aren't acting all mysterious though, you know, when the ensign is really Starfleet Security or a plant or—"

            Sayel had barely seen how it happened.  One moment, Dominic was talking to her, the next moment, Akira was crashing into him, cutting off his words and knocking him to the floor.  Beyond mere confusion, Sayel looked first to Akira—who it had appeared fell backward into Dominic—and then Sayel looked at the wall Akira had come through.

            "What on earth?" Dominic asked as he helped Akira to her feet.  "You came from nowhere."

            "I . . . I don't know what happened."  Akira cast an uneasy glance at the wall Sayel was still staring at, in a sort of well-controlled astonishment.

            "Sayel—what are you staring at?" Dominic asked, now becoming uneasy at the expression on Sayel's normally calm features.

            Hesitantly, Sayel reached out a hand and touched the wall, half-expecting her hands to pass through it.  But no, her fingers brushed the cool, not-quite smooth surface.  She withdrew her hand immediately and straightened up.  "Akira . . . you just fell  . . . through the wall."

            "I . . . know that," Akira said, surprising Sayel by laughing—a nervous laugh, she realized. 

            Dominic couldn't resist touching the wall, and as he did so, Kali and Siyana flew out of the rec room, saw them and halted their mad dash.

            "Did you see that?" Siyana asked.

            "Now that's impossible!" Kali said, as if she were torn between amusement and anger.  "What the hell is going on?"

            Sayel was still staring at the wall with up-raised eyebrows.  "This is . . ." and she searched quickly through her vocabulary to find the proper word " . . . fascinating."

Author's Note:  Chortle—you will get an explanation next chapter.