Grateful thanks, as always, to my beta readers, Gabi2305 and RoaringMice.

§ 1 §

Trip stopped at the fork in the shrubby path, looked intently in the direction they were not to take, down the stretch that sloped gently on the right, then turned. "Are you thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?" he asked in a voice that said it all.

Malcolm's glance should have been just as eloquent had Trip not returned, in the meantime, to look the other way, to the gorgeous scenery at the end of that sloping stretch of path. Water, as far as the eye could see. Trip licked his lip in unconscious anticipation.

Malcolm sighed. He was going to have to spell it out. "We can't," he said. "We must-"

"Okay, okay," Trip put in quickly. And, passing the back of one hand over his sweaty brow, he added in a resolute voice, "On our way back, then."

It was hot as hell on this planet, and Malcolm could see how the small bay below could make Trip's mouth water. Set in a cosy semicircle framed by pinkish rocks, a beach of white pebbles lapped by water that was crystal clear and a stunning turquoise seemed to say come down and take a dip. Especially nice, at least in Malcolm's view, was the fact that said water was as still as that of a swimming-pool and looked quite shallow. It was such a fairy-tale place that Malcolm had to admit, for once he was tempted as well.

"I bet if we told the Capt'n about it, he'd come down in no time," Trip said with a chuckle.

That Malcolm could well believe. He smiled. "He'd probably even set aside his aversion to the transporter." He gave his friend and superior officer a gentle nudge to indicate they should resume their way, and with a sigh Trip complied.

As he followed suit, Malcolm forced his mind back to the job at hand: keeping them safe on this alien world. T'Pol had assured it was uninhabited, but a path was evidence that someone had at least been there at some time, wasn't it? The question required no answer, but Malcolm had no time to give it any thought anyway, for Trip interrupted his musings.

"Ya know what it reminds me of?" the man cast over one shoulder.

"What reminds you of what?" Malcolm grunted. He felt sweaty and sticky, and not up to wasting energy in conversation. He was surprised that Trip could find his cheerful self in this torrid heat. The man was known to do badly in hot temperatures. It must have been the sight of the water...

"That beach. It reminds me of a beach in Florida I used to go to when I was about eleven."

Great. There would be no stopping him now.

"Not that that beach had much in common with this one," Trip, indeed, went on obliviously. "Quite different, in fact: lots of sand and no rocks. But it was cosy and deserted, just like this one. And I loved it."

Yes, Malcolm secretly agreed: a deserted beach was a lot better than a crowded one.

"Oops." Trip stumbled but managed to keep his balance. "Watch out for that root."

"Thanks."

Before Trip could walk off again, Malcolm caught him by one arm. "Shouldn't I go first, Commander?"

"If ya want," quite unexpectedly Trip replied; and with a shrug he let them switch position.

Imagine the Security Officer tripping over a root, rolling down the slope and maybe breaking something. Malcolm shuddered as a disastrous chain of imaginary events crossed his pessimistic mind. He allowed the beach issue to pierce that train of thoughts. Yes, he had gone to a little solitary beach too, in his youth. But come to think of it... Trip, at eleven, liking a solitary place?

"Mind you," Trip went on cheerfully behind him, "it didn't stay cosy and deserted for long, after our gang discovered it."

Ah. Of course. More like it. Surely Trip wouldn't have been the kind of eleven-year-old who looked for an out-of-the-way place where to be alone with his thoughts.

"But some of the best times were when I went there with my best pal, just the two of us.

Best pal. Malcolm pushed aside the branches of a bush and held them so they wouldn't whip back on… well, yes, his best pal.

"Thanks," Trip drawled. Releasing the branches after him, he went on, "We'd swim and then lie on the warm sand and talk, and-"

A chirrup interrupted Trip's reminiscence. Malcolm stopped. Trip was already unzipping his left arm pocket and retrieving his communicator, which he opened with a flick of the wrist.

"Tucker."

"Trip, how's it going?" Archer's voice enquired.

"Peachy. It's as hot as the Nevada desert. Just much more humid."

"I didn't call to ask about the weather, Commander," Archer's voice came back, in mild rebuke.

Trip winked mischievously at Malcolm. "Then I take it you're not interested in the tourist info either, Sir?"

"Trip..."

The hint of warning in the Captain's voice became more pronounced, but Trip still took no notice of it. "Too bad," he replied jocularly. "If one needed some R&R there are some real nice places down here."

Malcolm shook his head in disbelief. He could never speak to the Captain like that, not in a million years – on the other hand, he wasn't Archer's friend, like Trip was. He crossed his arms over his chest, while Trip finally glided into Commander mode.

"We're en route for the spot," he said. "So far so good."

"I thought you'd landed pretty close to the place," Archer came back.

"As close as we could. Ten, fifteen minutes tops and we'll be there, Capt'n."

"All right. Keep your eyes open."

Trip's eyes, indeed, opened wide and rolled, and Malcolm saw a humorous glint in them as they ran to him. "Well, that's why you sent the Security Officer along, isn't it."

"Everything is under control, Sir," Malcolm butted in. He wondered what Archer's call was all about. The planet, after all, was uninhabited, as T'Pol had ascertained, so the Captain shouldn't be so concerned. But maybe it was the fact that the Disaster Twins, as some of the crew called him and Trip when they left the ship together, were out on a mission.

"Good," Archer came back. "Keep it that way."

Trip gave a sharp nod. "Aye, Sir. Tucker out."

Malcolm consulted his scanner. "Come on. Not too far, now."

The path descended gently and lost itself into tall grasses of various shades of yellow, through which they would have to wade. Not a happy prospect; who knew what could crawl under there. Malcolm kept his scanner well in front of him and his left hand on the butt of his phase pistol.

"My buddy and I used to play games too," Trip resumed, continuing his recollection of old times.

"Really," Malcolm mumbled. His mind was only tenuously connected to his ears. Or better: his ears were only tenuously tuned to Trip's voice.

"We'd dive under the water, and then one would say something that the other had to try and understand. Or we'd throw a stone in the water and see who could find it first, without coming up for air."

Bloody hell, tuned enough to know he – Malcolm – had never played those kinds of games. At the age Trip was talking about, his aqua-phobia had already surfaced – no pun intended – and done its ugly damage. Before Malcolm's eyes, the scanner's readings bled into a picture of himself at eleven, sitting on a beach of greyish pebbles, hugging his knees tightly. He'd spent a lot of time spying his enemy, looking at the sea from a safe distance, brooding over the curse of being the aqua-phobic only son of a Royal Navy admiral. In other words, feeling wrong and inadequate, and unable to do anything about it – something he still hadn't completely succeeded in shaking off.

"Can that be it?" Trip suddenly said.

Refocusing on the present, Malcolm raised his gaze from the scanner and stopped. "Must be."

Trip came up beside him. In the distance, the tall grasses receded and the path reappeared. It led to a roundish spot where the grass seemed not to grow. It was scattered with the something that had attracted their attention from orbit.

"Huh. Man-made, ya reckon?" Trip wondered.

"Difficult to say. But that's what we're here to find out."

Silently, they closed the remaining distance. Both Malcolm and Trip had their scanners out now, taking readings as they approached. Malcolm stopped them a few metres from the clearing, wanting to make sure nothing untoward would come to them if they got any closer.

"Metal," he heard Trip say. "Like T'Pol said."

"Inert, it would seem," Malcolm added, finally lowering his instrument to take his first good look at the place. The clearing, in a radius of a few metres, was strewn with what looked like contorted tongues of metal.

Trip moved closer. "T'Pol says she couldn't find anything like this anywhere else on the planet," he said. He lowered to his haunches and reached out.

"Perhaps you shouldn't touch it," Malcolm quickly cautioned.

"Oh, come on, Malcolm! You spoil all the fun."

Trip ran a slow hand over one of the pieces of metal. "Rough," he commented.

Malcolm circled around a few of the objects, taking more readings. He couldn't decide whether they had been created by an intelligent mind or were the work of nature.

"Well, at least we can be sure that these aren't pieces of wreckage," Trip said. "I guess we oughtta tell the Capt'n."

Malcolm turned abruptly, clapping a hand to his forehead. "Bloody hell! We promised to page him the moment we got here."

With an unperturbed smile, Trip pushed back up and retrieved his communicator. "Tucker to Enterprise." He didn't have to wait long for a reply.

"Report, Commander."

"Well, Capt'n, it's no crash site, that much is sure." Trip passed a hand through his hair, and a rivulet of sweat escaped from it, running down his temple. "They appear to be just pieces of metal, all twisted and contorted."

"There are no pock marks on them, no evidence of weapons' fire, Sir," Malcolm added. "They could be a natural occurrence; although, seen as they are set in a clearing, I'm more prone to think they have been put here by someone."

"Any writings?" Archer enquired.

"Not that we can see," Trip replied.

There was a moment of silence.

"All right," Archer finally came back. "Upload the readings, take some pictures, and get back. Enterprise out."

Trip closed the communicator and looked at Malcolm. "You heard the man," he sighed. "I'll take the pics, you do the uploading."

TBC

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