Free Enterprise - Getting 2 The Ball Park - Chapter #66
Wind chimes tinkled as Tyr entered Quicksilver. The Nietzschean Rear Admiral spent the next ten minutes wandering around the store and looked at various displayed types and styles of jewelry. He was impressed that Quicksilver had an impressive array of jewelry. However, the ring counters caught his attention.
“Everything is hand made.” a male voice said. Tyr had known the man was there. He had unintrusively stood behind the counter and watched the Nietzschean as he admired Quicksilver's inventory.
Tyr looked up at the smiling face of a male Trill. He had giraffe like spots along the side of his face and down his neck, which meant he was a “joined Trill”. Tyr didn't quite understand the symbiotic relationship between the Trill and “the worm” some of them carried, but respected them.
“I am Garrett Olin.” he said, introducing himself. Both turned as a female Trill came out of the back room, wiping her hands on the apron she was wearing. “This is my wife Quara Olin. Welcome to our humble establishment. If you don't see anything you like, please feel free to ask. Perhaps we can craft it for you.” Garrett continued.
“What are these?” Tyr asked, indicating the top shelf of one counter which displayed wedding rings.
“They are Human wedding rings. These are for Two Sex couples and One Sex couples. And these over here are Promise, Dedication and Friendship Rings.” Garrett replied, as he pointed them out.
“I have an idea for a ring, but I not see the design I have in mind.” Tyr said.
“Perhaps my wife can be of assistance.” Garrett said. “Do you have a particular design in mind?” he continued. In response, Tyr reached up, removed his Double Helix from his left bicep and placed it on the counter.
“I would like four rings to be crafted to look like this.” Tyr said.
“May I?” Quara asked, as she stepped forward. Tyr nodded and she reverently picked the Double Helix up examined it and smiled. “It can be done. Do you have the ring sizes?” she continued.
“Yes I do.” Tyr replied.
“Good. Give me a moment to take a holo of this and then we will exchange the proper information.” Quara said. She then took Tyr's Double Helix into the back work area.
By the time she returned, Garrett had already made arrangements with Tyr to have all four rings ready by 1800 hours.
“So soon?” Tyr asked, incredulously. He'd honestly expected this to take a couple of days.
“Both of our Symbionts were silver smiths for seven generations. Thus we perfected the art down to a simple science where we don't need much time at all to design and craft something. Hence the name, Quicksilver.” Garrett replied, handing Tyr his Double Helix back. Tyr replaced it.
“Have you passed this craft down to your children?” Tyr asked out of curiosity.
“Oh yes, we have.” Quara replied and smiled.
“Good.” Tyr said, and smiled. Nietzscheans heartily believed in, and stressed passing important crafts and skills down to their children. They had seen what happened when certain civilizations “lost” certain arts and languages. Once that happened, it was impossible to retrieve.
“Once you approve of the workmanship we can box and wrap them without extra cost.” Garrett said. To Tyr those were code words meaning “You will have already paid through the nose, so why not toss in a freebie or two?”
For perhaps the millionth time Tyr thanked the Divine he was one of Arch Duke Barbarossa Anasazi's sons. With title came certain privileges, like his own handy-dandy private, expense account. He certainly could not pay for those rings with his Starfleet pay . . . . . . . . .
Tyr smiled as he remembered Barbarossa's gravelly voice telling him. “You want to keep your wives happy son? You must pay, and pay and pay.” He was beginning to get an inkling of those words.
On his way to the bank of lifts, he made another stop at a florist.
* * * * * * * * * *
Tamara, Xena and Amanda were sitting together and planning a baby shower. The funny thing was, the baby shower was for Xena.
In Human culture, the women got together and surprised the mother with a baby shower. But not so with the Nietzscheans. Being a practical people, they liked doing things up front without preamble, so Xena was helping to plan her own shower.
So far they'd planned the hall, music, entertainment, food and drink aspect. As for the gifts, there was going to be baby gift register. This was in order to avoid getting repeats of the same item, unless it was clothing.
“Babies can never have too much clothing.” Amanda, the veteran among them said. “They're always puking, peeing, spitting up, or pooping, and you need plenty of clothes to clean, change, wipe, change, wash, change.” she continued.
To Tamara, their plan sounded like a plan of attack, but Amanda promised once all of the details were out of the way, it would be fun.
They were about to settle on the date when the doorbell rang. Tamara started rising to get the door.
“I'll get it.” Amanda said, as she used her right hand to gently push Tamara back down. “I'll take care of this just in case it's you-know-who.” she continued.
“Don't hurt him, Amanda.” Tamara said. She hadn't told Amanda that because of her telepathic connection with Tyr, she had felt those riding crop licks just as surely as she was being whipped. Since then she'd tightly shuttered the connection between herself and Tyr in order to protect herself.
“Knowing him, he has been keenly feeling the empty darkness in his mind.” Tamara thought. Feeling a little sorry for Tyr even though she was still ticked at him.
“Sista, don't ya know, Nietzscheans can take a lickin' and keep on tickin'? Ya never know, he probably likes getting a lash or two every once in a while.” Amanda replied over her shoulder in a West Indian accent, as she sauntered to the door.
The door opened and there stood an Andorian delivery boy loaded down with a huge bouquet of red roses.
“Delivery from The Rain Forest Flower Emporium!” he called. Tamara and Xena handed money to Amanda who added some credits handed them to the boy and took the bouquet. They followed Amanda as she went into the Quad's large living room and set the bouquet down on the coffee table. The enticing aroma of real roses filled the air.
“Wow! Real roses!” Tamara said.
“What do we have here, Sisters?” Amanda asked.
“According to Nietzschean tradition, this is a peace offering. It's Tyr's way of telling us he wants back in, and will be . . . . . . ehem. . . . . . making his assault very soon.” Xena replied, as she delicately reached in between the roses ( because they had THORNS ) and removed a card. She opened it and her eyes bugged.
“What is it?” Tamara asked. Xena turned the card around so they could see. It was a holo of Tyr posed with that heart melting pout on his handsome face.
“What did Oppenheimer say when he saw the first nuclear explosion?” Tamara asked. Both Xena and Amanda said the same word simultaneously.
“We are in BIG trouble. . . . . .” Tamara thought.
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