This story takes place very early in Season 1, before the events of SOMETIMES A 
CIGAR. The characters are still getting to know each other, so most of the sex 
takes place only in people's minds. The thoughts are pretty graphic though, so 
maybe it should still be NC-17. The given scenario for the story is "adult party 
games" and the game is SHOW AND TELL (or is that a educational tool?).

The characters do not belong to me, they belong to Tribune Entertainment. THOR 
belongs to Zetacreations and can be viewed (and purchased by the very rich and 
very demented) at http://www.zoofur.com/thor.html.

I have been told by my beta Julia that this story should include the "no food or 
beverage warning" for the protection of keyboards everywhere.

PARTS OF THE PAST
By Janet Jaeger

"But I thought it would be right up your slip stream portal, Captain Valentine." 
Dylan Hunt said with a sober face, stifling any evidence of a smile.

"Pardon me?"

"Salvage work. Inventory. They're not that far apart. I need to know if anything 
of value remains in the quarters of my former crewmembers. Taking inventory 
seems to me to be something your crew would be adept at doing."

"Doesn't your ship have monitors that can tell what is there."

"To a certain degree, yes. I can assure you that there are no chemical 
contaminants, no green slime growing in the corners, no souvenir tarn-caimans 
now 5-meters long and existing on for 300 years on hoarded snack-food, if that 
is what you are worried about."

"Thanks."

"But a lot has changed in 300 years, we need someone who knows about current 
value to go through the things left behind and determine what needs to be 
pitched and what can be of value to us, if anything."

"And you won't do it because?"

"I knew these people. They served under me. I do not want to, now that they are 
dead, know their private secrets."

"So why not just dump it all?"

"Some of it might be valuable. You never know if what they have left behind, 
even if it was of a personal nature, could be of use to us."

"So you are interested in WHAT your former crewmembers might have stashed away, 
but not WHO had had it stashed. Am I correct?"

"Just about it, Captain Valentine. Isn't that what salvage is all about?"

He smiled. She hated it when he smiled. She knew he knew something that he was 
not telling, but at least it didn't involve giant tarn-caimans.

* * * * *

"You mean we get to go through the rooms of those ante-bouleversement High Guard 
officers and count their underwear. Give me the chick's rooms. I want to see 
what those HG babes wore under their leathers." Harper was vibrating. Beka 
wasn't sure that he was vibrating any more than usual, but he did seem very 
excited about the project, too excited.

"I thought it was better that we made the room assignments by gender, Harper. We 
need to have some respect for the dead that once lived on this ship. They left 
behind not just pieces of their lives, but pieces of their souls." Rev Bem said.

"I don't care about souls, I just want to see underwear."

"I think Rev. Bem is right." Beka said in a captain like tone.

"And you would assign him to which gender's rooms, Bek?" Harper sniped.

"Get to work. Tyr is already down there. Take your clipboard. We want full 
inventories. But if you find anything really interesting --- bring it up and we 
will have a little "show and tell" this evening. If Rev. Bem doesn't mind."

"I only hope that you show respect for the items you chose to show. I won't be 
joining you, so I trust. . . . " Rev. Bem continued to mutter as he walked away 
to his assigned tasks.

Beka turned and walked the hall in the opposite direction. She hoped they would 
find some good stuff. . . booze. . . music. . .vintage clothing. . . you could 
never tell.

* * * * *

Tyr had expected, as he had found, that the Nietzschean crewmembers would not 
have taken much with them when they left. Survival was of foremost concern for 
his race. Get you body off this sinking ship and worry later about items of 
personal comfort. The escape pods were equipped with food and water. Just go. He 
found a number of well preserved books that he would add to the ship's, or his 
personal, library. Several crewmembers shared his preference for chain-mail 
shirts, but unfortunately none of them had achieved his degree of bodily 
development. They might fit Harper, and would bring a definite improvement to 
the boy's wardrobe now consisting primarily of gaudy print shirts.

Other items brought sadness, wedding helixes, DNA testing devices, and other 
family items. He wondered if the families had ever been reunited after they had 
evacuated. He thought about his shattered pride. Playing a game with these items 
was not something he wanted to do. 

Then in one room, which appeared not to be that of a Nietzschean he found a 
small gray stuffed animal, maybe a child's toy, with white ears, black eyes, and 
a large black nose. Someone would think it was cute, so he tucked it into his 
back pocket.

Rev Bem was amazed at the diversity of religious items he found in the rooms. 
Bibles were printed text in numerous languages and on flexies. He found prayer 
scrolls and prayer rugs, beads and incense burners, icons and totems. What he 
thought most unusual was that all these items had been left behind on the 
Andromeda. When it was time to make the choice, the crew had selected items 
relating to their persons or their families over those relating to their gods. 
The Divine survives anyway, without the accoutrements of a religion, he thought 
to himself. He finished his inventory and returned to his room. He was not about 
to party with the crew after this day.

Trance stood and looked at the item in the corner, then stepped back, as if 
expecting it to talk to her. It didn't. It just sat there, sort of quivering 
because of her motion in the room. It was about 24-inches (she never could 
convert that to meters) tall, vaguely cylindrical, and a translucent, xanthic 
color. She wasn't sure what it was, but it sure was interesting. Because of the 
way it reacted to movement, she speculated that it might have some sort of 
motion- detection function. She had another thought, too, but quickly dismissed 
it. 

Harper was surprised to find that the male crewmembers of ancient high guard 
ships possessed underwear that was almost as interesting as some women's 
underwear he had seen in pictures. Though his personal preference was for floppy 
boxers with even louder prints than he liked on his shirts, he found the skimpy 
synthetic items very fascinating. He pictured how Tyr or Dylan would look, 
especially from the rear, wearing these items and how his female crewmembers and 
Rommie, in particular, would look in those similarly designed for women. He had 
lined his pockets and was ready to call it a day, when he moved a mattress and 
discovered a hidden cache. Under the bed was an assortment of wine and liquor 
comparable to many bars on backwater drifts. It was going to be one hell of a 
party thanks to Seamus Z. Harper.

Beka was having a hard time going through the closets quickly. As much as she 
feigned hating to wear dresses, there was something to be said about the quality 
of these ancient garments or, for that matter, ancient undergarments. Despite 
the chiding she had given Harper, she found herself trying on outfit after 
outfit from the closets of the former crewmembers. She thought about the fun she 
could have had various places in the universe if she had just had these clothes 
to wear. Her next vacation, or for that matter, the party tonight was going to 
be a lot more fun knowing that under her clothes. . . . or maybe she could come 
up with a completely new outfit.

* * * * *

Dylan and Rommie rearranged the dining area into something that generally 
approximated a party setting. There was lots of Sparky Cola and flavored waters, 
a few small crustaceans he had found in the cryo-freezer (he remembered friends 
from Earth who had called them jumbo-shrimp) and several forms of perpetually 
crispy vegetable chips. He wondered if he should raid his stock of Vedran 
supplies for more exotic foodstuffs and decided to wait for another event, 
perhaps when he actually got someone to join the new commonwealth to serve those 
to his crew. What he had would be fine for tonight.

"Look what I've got." Harper slid to a halt, almost dropping all of the eight 
bottles of wine he was carrying.

"Careful," Dylan cautioned. "Especially if that is what I think it is."

"It is, and there's more where this came from. Lots more. We're freaking going 
to get drunk tonight."

"That's drinking wine Harper, not getting drunk wine. It should be consumed with 
fine gourmet food, especially now that it has a little 'age' on it."

"Yea, like three hundred freaking years. Probably will be vinegar."

"Not really, but it probably has a bit of sediment. All the reason to be gentle 
with it."

"Seamus Z. Harper is not gentle with anything that can get him to a state of 
happy, happy."

"Here, give it to me. I'll open it and test it."

Harper handed a bottle to Dylan who held it to the light and made an annoyed 
face. Dylan removed a knife from his pocket and cut the covering around the 
bottle, pulling it off. Another flick of the knife produced a screw with which 
he levered the cork out of the bottle. Harper picked up the tool and studied it 
while Dylan proceeded to pour wine into a glass, hold it to the light, swirl it 
around the glass and taste it.

"Please be more careful not to shake these bottles in the future, Harper. It's a 
little dry, but very smooth. " 

"Dry, looks wet to me."

"That's not what I mean."

Harper poured a glass, swallowed a large gulp, and made a face. "Think I'll 
stick to Sparky and Vodka. You do have vodka, right?"

"Third door down, behind the bottles of oil." It was his private stock, but 
Dylan was more than willing to let Harper drink his vodka in exchange for this 
wine; it was magnificent.

* * *

"Rev. Bem wishes for me to convey that he has declined your invitation to attend 
the festivities. He has chosen instead to pray in the hydroponics garden. He 
hopes that you will understand."

"Surely, Thank you, Tyr. Would you care for some wine? It has some age on it, 
probably past its prime, but is better than anything I have had in a while. It 
seems that one of my former crewmembers was an oenophile."

"Thank you so much." Tyr replied. Holding his glass up and spinning the liquid 
around. "This is wonderful wine, my captain, but it is unfortunate that it 
doesn't make a culinary match with either these crustaceans or the dehydrated 
vegetable shards."

"As Mr. Harper informs me that there is more where this came from, perhaps at a 
future date."

* * *

Harper wanted to kick himself in the leg. It sure appeared that these two big 
hunky alpha men were flirting with each other as they tasted this wine -- HIS 
WINE. Why hadn't he liked it? Why had his juvenile taste buds let him down 
again? He hugged his Sparky highball in his hand and swore under his breath.

"Holy Freaking. . . . Look at Beka!"

Beka had just walked into the room wearing what might be described a glittery 
silver dress or maybe a piece of silver cloth that was slit to her waist on both 
sides, to her navel in the front, and to who knows where in the back. She looked 
like a movie star. If she had found any underwear, she had chosen not to wear 
it, because it would have shown in this dress.

"Wow, Beka. That is nice." Dylan tried to speak as he exhaled. 

"Rather stunning." Tyr commented.

"This is my show and tell. But perhaps because it did belong to one of his 
former crewmembers Dylan has already been shown."

"THAT, belonged to one of my former crewmembers. I don't think so." Dylan said 
as he nervously chugged another glass of wine.

"Let's see." She glanced down at the clipboard and rifled through the pages she 
had filled out during her inventory. "Here it is Spain McCombe."

"I assure you that that dress did not belong to Spain McCombe. She was one of my 
technicians. She would have no use for a dress like that."

"Maybe Ms. McCombe had a secret life." Beka laughed.

"Very secret, if Dylan had never seen her in that dress. I think one would 
remember." 

"I think not, Tyr. She wasn't . . . ." He turned and looked at Beka again. "Did 
you have to do any adjustments to that dress?"

"Not really, it was just one big piece, you wrapped it around, tied it at the 
shoulders, and belted it. Pretty simple."

"Wrapped it around, how?" Dylan continued to press.

Beka was untied a shoulder and held out a long pointed strip. "There were four 
of these, two wider but similar pieces at the bottom. Not much to it."

"Are you sure it is a dress?"

"Yea, Beka, are you sure it. . . ." Harper chided. The Sparky and the vodka had 
both begun to kick in.

"But what?" Beka asked.

"Spain McCombe used to make kites. I think that might have been one she didn't 
get finished."

"Yes, but it is a damn nice dress." Tyr said. "Especially on you Beka, let me 
help you retie that shoulder."

"If it's a kite," Beka said with a somewhat confused look, "How do you explain 
the matching thong." She flipped up the back of her dress and flashed the sliver 
underwear at her crewmembers. She would reveal her backside to avoid being 
accused of making a bad fashion decision. The looks on the faces of the shocked 
crewmembers led her to believe that she had scored a few points on this one.

* * * * *

"Do you think Trance went back to her room? I thought she would be her by now, 
she always likes parties." Beka had been sitting for the last half-hour, feet up 
on a chair, matching Dylan and Tyr drink for drink. Despite the captains 
admonitions about the wine not being a "getting drunk" wine, it seemed to be 
doing the job very nicely.

"Haven't seen her. But haven't really. . . ." Dylan answered.

"Maybe we should send the boy out looking for her. She might not have enough 
sense to not count all the small items separately. I could see her bringing back 
exact counts of pills and safety pins."

Harper shuddered. He always shuddered when Tyr called him "boy."

Just then they heard an exhausted moan and saw Trance carrying some large yellow 
item into the room.

"This damn thing is slippery. Slippery and jiggly and . . . ."

"Downright ugly. What is this thing Captain Hunt? I don't want to say what I 
think it looks like."

"I thought that too, Tyr. But it's too big." Trance giggled.

"It's . . . it's what you think. . . ." Dylan was grabbing for words in his now 
wine-muddled vocabulary.

"It's THOR! Beka yelled. 

"THOR?" Tyr and Harper questioned at the same time.

"I've read about them in books, heard women talk about them in bars, but never 
thought I'd see one in real life." Beka continued.

"I believe THIS was just a curiosity item. I remember when Crewman Forsythe 
brought it back from one of her trips. She told me she was going to have it 
wired and made into a lamp." Dylan said.

"I can do that," Harper piped in. "A few strands of optical fiber up the middle 
-- e-w-w-w that would hurt."

"But what would you select for a lampshade?" Tyr asked leaning against his fist 
and studying it carefully.

* * * *

Everyone wanted a closer look. As the night wore on and more wine and vodka were 
consumed people got more and more interested in the item Beka had insisted was 
named Thor. 

"Besides looking at it, what good is it?" Trance had studied it longer than the 
others and still had her doubts. "You couldn't really. . . . why would you want. 
. .what part of your body. . . ."

"I don't know. I used to be able to get my fist in my mouth when I was a kid. 
Loved to taunt the Dragons like that. It doesn't seem that much bigger." Harper 
held his fist up to the phallus and tried to make a size comparison. 

"Can you still do it? Boy."

"Do you want to see me try with my fist, or with Thor here."

"Your fist of course, why would I want to see you fellate this . . .thing."

It was an amazing act of physical contortion. All eyes were glued on the 
engineer as he moved his hand and stretched his lips. Beka made the mistake of 
glancing down at the captain's crotch as he watched, eyes almost bugging out of 
his head. He sure found this fascinating. 

"It doesn't taste very good," Trance piped in. "I thought it might be made out 
of that candy they make those gummy worms out of, so I tried to take a bite."

"God, 300-year-old gummy worms. I guess the captain was wrong when he said that 
there were no dangerous biological entities in the rooms. ." Beka commented, 
knowing Dylan was still watching Harper. 

"They're candy, Beka, used to eat them on earth." Dylan commented.

"OH."

"How can you do that Harper?" Dylan asked, eyes still glued on the engineer who 
was now licking his wrist,

"He's not going to answer you, obviously. And I believe a more apt questions is 
WHY?" Tyr added.

Dylan filled his glass and slammed down another hit of 300-year-old wine. He 
looked down cautiously and adjusted the front of his trousers ever so slightly.

* * * * * *

He closed his eyes for a second, just a second, because he was the Captain and 
it was his duty to maintain control of the ship. The wine was so good, as 
evidenced by the six empty bottles now on the floor. 

None of his crewmembers had recognized Thor has being, except for the color, an 
exact replica of an erect Vedran penis. Of course, none of his crewmembers had 
ever known a Vedran, let alone seen one with an erect penis. It was an event few 
humans had ever experienced, and one about which Dylan had never told anyone.

It was his third year in the High Guard Academy. He had been assigned a Vedran 
female as a partner on a research project. Her name was Xenandra and she seemed 
to be a bit more open with humans than most of the others of her species, male 
or female. He had enjoyed the time they spent working together well, completing 
the project ahead of schedule and with only minor problems. Xenandra suggested 
that he come and celebrate with her and some of her friends.

It was a lovely stretch of beach, soft almost pink sand, waves breaking loudly 
and a gentle wind with the scent of the sea. Vedrans had large silver canisters 
of gases that they inhaled to produce feelings of peacefulness and eventually 
euphoria. They shared them with him, as well as their scintillating 
conversations and deep personal caring for him as an individual. Vedrans always 
brought out the best in him.

Then, as the night was about to come, he found himself feeling just about the 
way he was feeling now, quietly confused and just a little horny. Xenandra was 
nuzzling up to one of the five male Vedrans and he noticed that . . . he still 
gasped when he pictured the small sheath of flesh which guarded the Vedran 
genetalia opening and the gigantic blue penis growing to full size. The clever 
female, who had worked at his side for the last few weeks, was suddenly reduced 
to a wanton quadruped being fondled and bit on the shoulders. He shuddered as 
one of the males mounted her and split her with his giant phallus. 

He wanted to run away, give them some privacy, but he had not idea how to get 
back. It got worse, a second Vedran male had already assumed the state of 
tumescence and was ready to mount his friend. His eyes were glued to the action 
and he found his hand reaching for his crotch.

"Please, do not let us install in you a feeling of inadequacy."

Dylan turned his head to see a purplish-blue Vedran male, whose name seemed 
unimportant when they were introduced earlier, dropped to the sand beside him.

"We are not doing this for pleasure. Xenandra's time has come, one of us will 
father her next child. It is her duty to take us, as it is our duty to share our 
seed with her. I know you humans have a much more complicated procedure."

"Yea." It didn't seem very complicated to Dylan. The procedure was going to be 
all over the front of his pants in a few seconds.

"I can help with that if you like."

"What?"

Before he had a chance to say anything more the Vedran male had leaned over, 
unzipped his trousers, and taken his penis into his mouth. He had never felt 
anything like it -- moist velvet. 
No human, or Nietzschean, male or female who had ever performed this act with 
him had ever been this skilled, yet at the same time he seemed to possess the 
ability to restrain his orgasm so that this event could go on and on. . . . 

He could not reveal, to one of her species, that one night he and Xenandra had 
had sex. It seemed natural after they had been working together so intensely for 
so long. Despite their physical differences, they had figured out a position of 
comfort and she had certainly reacted as if she had enjoyed it. He couldn't help 
now, even in a moment of divine pleasure, feeling that he had been inadequate 
and that she had merely been faking passion to make him feel more male.

"Dylan, please, perhaps all of us would be more comfortable if you go to your 
room," a female voice came out of nowhere, breaking the spell. He looked down to 
see his hand in-front of him, holding the Andromeda's modified atmosphere as 
gingerly as he would hold his own penis, had it not been confined within his 
High Guard leathers. 

"I'm sorry, I must have dozed off and started to dream."

"I hope you're not dreaming about that freaking phallus." Harper had obviously 
removed his fist from his mouth.

Dylan contorted his face and shook his head. No one believed him.

"I'll walk him to his room, you guys can stay and finish the wine if you want. 
I'm sorry I embarrassed him so with my find." Trance was more serious than 
anyone remembered her; maybe that was what wine did to her kind.

Tyr helped Dylan to his feet and pointed him in the direction of his quarters. 
"Are you sure you can manage, Trance?" He asked.

"I'll yell if I have a problem, but I think I'm OK."

* * * *

Beka and Tyr returned to their wine. It brought back memories in both of them 
and not related to THOR. They seemed content to revile in their personal 
thoughts, without interaction with Harper or each other. Eventually Harper 
crawled into a corner, cradled THOR in his arms, and fell asleep.

"He's holding it like a baby, or a doll," Beka commented.

"At least he's not holding it like a pacifier." Tyr muttered..

"It sure set off Dylan, or do you think it was the wine?"

"Little of both probably, anyone who has lived through what our dear captain 
has, probably has stories he cannot or at least should not share with his 
crewmembers."

"Must be tough to be High Guard."

"I'm sure it is, Captain Valentine."

"Tyr," she leaned against him and slowly ran her hand against his muscled arm. 
"I never 
saw what you brought back for our game of show and tell."

He looked at her, so open and vulnerable. It was hard to believe that she was 
the same woman who had brazenly "mooned" the entire party just a few hours 
before. Human women were certainly changeable, especially after drinking too 
much alcohol. Nietzschean males were warned early in life about kludge women, 
who despite their beauty and charms carried inferior genes. For the sake of a 
strong Nietzschean pride, they were to be resisted.

He reached in his back pocket and pulled out the small floppy animal and put it 
on the table.

"Oh, a koala. I love koalas. They are just so cute." She picked it up and ran it 
against her face and the large area of exposed skin on her body. "If a guy wants 
to score with me, all he has to do is give me a stuffed animal, especially a 
koala."

"Come on, Captain Valentine, I would hope you are more expensive than that."

She smiled up at him with a broad grin, as he pulled her to her feet.

"I'll help you to your quarters."

"And will you help me with . . . ?"

Tyr didn't have an answer. He gave her a peck on the cheek and ran his bone 
blade across her ass. For a human woman she wasn't bad. 

"Maybe later, Captain Valentine. You'll have to wait." He picked up the koala 
from the table and handed it to her. Again she cuddled it to her. "We'll see."

McJude
September 2002