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face with sparkling blue eyes. A long-haired male with dark brown skin and thick arms named Vaxel was listed as "handyman." Flack's name was there too, noted to be "on vacation." Such short names, all of them ku-tah . A couple of androids completed the list, one marked as semi - functional . The word seemed to sum up the Outcast pretty well.
    In the day it had taken to reach the coordinates sent by the Belaari contact, Lan had helped to fix a broken toilet, lent his linguistic expertise to the translation of some Belaari documentation Prez wasn't sure about, and listened to the sad story of Glitch and her unrequited love for Vaxel, who was "too blue-brained to see a sprinkling of sugar on his breakfast beans." Lan had little to say on the topic of love so he remained silent while Glitch talked, talked... and talked. He had never heard so many words all at once. However when the conversation was over, he was secretly pleased when Glitch hugged him and thanked him and said he was a "great listener."
    Now he was sitting at his console, eating an Akilian breakfast pack with an odd, four-pronged instrument that proved inadequate for the task of spearing the beans. Perhaps all telepaths suffered as he did in the art of making conversation , and he wished he had paid more attention to the verbal articulation class in school. Perhaps Prez would provide some conversational stimulus instead, so that Lan could listen greatly and impress the captain as he had done his crew.
    His gaze fell on the tree again and he reached out to touch it, feeling the spikes of the gray branches sharp under his thumbs.
    Then a conversational topic leapt into his mind, and he spoke with relief. "What is the significance of this tree?"
    "Ohay!" Prez exclaimed, checking the date on his Tablet. "It's Kiz-Mah . I forgot all about it."
    "What is..." Lan allowed the alien word to rest on his tongue for a second. " Kiz-mah? "
    Prez grinned. "Party time, that's what. It's a tradition, a special time of year we had back on the compounds. Like, celebrating family and friends, only we didn't know who our families were so... Anyway, you were supposed to give gifts, but we didn't have anything to exchange so we just made played it by ear, so to speak. Here, let me give you a present."
    Lan was puzzled. "What gifts can you give if you have nothing?"
    Prez rummaged in the storage compartment under his console for a second and pulled out a small leather pouch. He gestured to Lan's hair. "Can I?"
    "Of course."
    The pouch contained small polished stones with holes right through the middle, decorated with tiny scratch drawings in black ink, zigzag patterns and stick figures. Prez took a lock of Lan's hair from the top of his scalp and divided it into three, and began to make a thin braid. Lan could feel Prez's breath on his shoulder, and his skin began to tingle at the proximity. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Prez's odd little fingers deftly tie the bottom of the braid underneath one of the tiny stones, and then start again on another strand.
    "I used to have mine long like yours," Prez flicked the piercing in his lip with his tongue as he pulled one of Lan's curls straight. "Chopped the lot off when one of Vix's friends told me I looked like an Andran tax official. What a terrible thing to say to a man."
    Lan's skin prickled at the touch of Prez's fingertips against the nape of his neck as the captain wrapped up the final strand in a small bead with a carved diamond pattern around the middle. The stones were cool and reminded Lan of the beads that adult males often decorated their hair with back on Aldor. "Terrible," he echoed, feeling slightly hot. He had never sat so close to someone else before for such a sustained period of time, but it was not as unpleasant as he had imagined.
    "There!" Prez grinned and stroked a strand of hair out of Lan's eyes. "What can you give when you've got nothing? Just your friendship. Happy Kiz-Mah, Lan."
    Lan moved his head and felt