"Positive. Let's go,"

Riker didn't say anything further, but simply guided her gently away from the mud pit site. He studied her bedraggled condition and, insanely, still couldn't help but think how good she looked despite her ordeal. She seemed to have an endless reserve of inner strength.

Once they began walking, Riker contacted Tang. Maror had indeed been correct in his guess. Riker and the various members of the security crew had split up, the better to cover the vast distances of the jungle. It had been Riker who was fortunate enough, after several days of searching, to detect the life readings of Deanna and Maror using his tricorder.

He informed Tang that Deanna had indeed been recovered (he avoided using the word rescued... it sounded melodramatic somehow) and that they would now be heading toward the rendezvous point. It would take a few days to get there, but Riker was still well stocked with provisions, and no abnormal delays were antic.i.p.ated.

Riker had been preoccupied with his mission throughout the past few days and had not paid all that much attention to the jungle, other than to avoid its pitfalls or obstructions. His judicious use of a phaser to carve himself a path now served him in good stead, making it that much easier for him to make his way back... even if the tricorder weren't capable of enabling him to retrace his steps.

With the pressure off, he was really able to take notice of the true beauty of the Jalara Jungle. He realized now that the flowers and vines that had decorated the interior of the wedding chapel must have been taken from the jungle. The flowers and growths were exotic combinations of colors. The air was warm. even steamy, without being irritatingly humid. It was filled with a scented mist that was invigorating, or perhaps simply smelled all the sweeter with Deanna's freedom now a reality.

He turned and looked to Deanna, who had been extremely silent for the past half hour.

She was shivering. Her arms were wrapped around herself, and there, in the midst of a warm jungle, she was shivering. Her teeth were chattering.

Immediately he knew what was happening. All during the time when she was in danger, she had managed to keep everything bottled up. She had detached herself from the fear and uncertainty, from the terror that must have accompanied every moment. Such feelings could be repressed or ignored for the duration of a crisis. But sooner or later they would come roaring back and would have to be dealt with.

He went to her and put his arms around her, settling her into a seated position. "Shh. It's okay. Let it out, Deanna. That's all right."

She trembled more violently, staring not at Riker but straight ahead, as if she expected someone or something to come at her from the underbrush. Her hand clamped onto his upper arm, her fingernails digging into the skin with such fierceness that Riker had to stifle the impulse to push her hand away. As it was, he kept his mouth shut, not letting on that it hurt like h.e.l.l.

He stroked her face, continuing to make soft, comforting noises. Letting her know that it was okay to be frightened. Reminding her that she wasn't alone. Telling her that everything was going to be all right, that she was out of danger and soon all of this would just be a distant, bad dream.

As he spoke, she drew herself closer to him, pressing against him and readjusting his arms so that he completely enveloped her. The quaking still convulsed her body, and her lower lip trembled. Tears rolled down her face, but she did not cry out loud. Her complete silence was almost eerie.

He didn't say anything further. He merely rocked with her, back and forth, gently, letting his mere presence be something from which she could draw rea.s.surance. And slowly, ever so slowly, the trembling diminished and eventually stopped. The tears ceased, and then she brought her hand up and wiped away the remainder of the moisture.

Then she looked up at Riker. He smiled down at her and, wondering if she was prepared to move on, said, "Ready?"

She nodded. "Yes. Yes, I am." She reached up, wrapped her hand around the back of his head, and drew his face to hers.

The kiss was very long and very sweet and filled with promise. Their lips parted and he looked at her, the jungle air making him feel giddy. There was an unreality to it all. Going native was the old phrase.

"Deanna," he said, his voice low. "This... this isn't right. This isn't the time. You aren't thinking straight, you've been through a lot, you-"

"Let me"-she held his face in her hands-let me put this to you in a way that I know you'll understand."

He waited. With her eyes wide, her lips mere inches from his, she whispered, "Shut up and kiss me. Riker."

He did.

Moments later, all the perfectly logical reasons why this was wrong, inappropriate, completely incorrect behavior for a Starfleet officer... all those blessed reasons flew completely out of Riker's mind. Instead all there was was her, was the moistness of the jungle combined with the sweat of her. The rustling of trees mixed with the rustling of clothes, and this time when their nude bodies pressed against each other, there was no intellectualizing, no deep discussions that required anything beyond soft, whispered words, punctuated by faint, occasional gasps.

In that moment they knew all there was to know of each other... body and soul, flesh and spirit, all combined and permeating every inch of both of them. Instead of moving away from each other, instead of resisting the pull, they gave in to it completely. They complemented each other, became each other, filling out each other's needs and rejoicing as pressures built in them. Throughout the Jalara Jungle it seemed that all noise had ceased. That there was nothing in the jungle, nothing in the planet, nothing in the universe except the two of them and their discovery, their admission, of their mutual need and hunger.

The pressure built beyond their ability to contain and they released, clutching each other, as if hoping they could meld their bodies into one as seamlessly as they had with their souls. And somewhere, somewhere deep within Riker's mind, merged with his spirit, a word echoed. A word that he had never heard before. A word filled with mystery and promise and a future...

And the word was Imzadi.

They lay next to each other, Deanna's head against his shoulder. She ran her fingers idly across his chest hair.

"I hear that's for traction." It was the longest sentence she had uttered in half an hour... the first sentence since their lovemaking. Their most recent lovernaking, to be precise, although how many times they had engaged in their mutual s.e.xual calisthenics was a bit of a mystery to both of them. Things had blurred one into the other; had just finished and begun again with hardly a word pa.s.sing between them. It was as if, having decided upon a course of action, they were both afraid to speak after that for fear of botching it up somehow.

They had not moved from the spot where it had all first begun untold hours ago, and Riker had a feeling that impressions had been dug into the ground that would probably mystify future geologists.

"You heard about that, did you?" he asked.

She nodded. "Chandra's father told her. She told me."

"Oh. Well... yes. Traction." Riker paused, trying to find something to say.

She said it for him. "So where do we go from here?"

"To the rendezvous point. But I have a feeling we're going to be pretty late."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know." He turned over, propping himself up on his elbow, and ran his fingers through her hair. He picked out a length of vine that had become tangled up in it and was about to toss it aside. But she took it from him.

"No. I want to keep that. As a souvenir."

"A piece of vine?" he asked incredulously.

She shrugged.

"In answer to your question... I don't know. I know how you make me feel. I think I know how I make you feel. But I... I don't have any answers. I'm still getting this all sorted out. I mean... you're the expert on feelings. What do you think?"

She sighed. She felt slightly chilled, even in the warm jungle air, and she drew her naked body tightly against his. "I don't know. That's... that's what I find appealing about you, Will. When I'm with you... I don't think."

He raised an amused eyebrow. "I'm not sure how to take that."

"When I'm with you... when I think about you... all my training, all my... my overintellectualizing, as you put it... just vanishes. I've never felt this way about anyone and I... I finally decided I wanted to give in to it. To fully experience it. How can I be any sort of complete person if I'm not willing to go where my... where my spirit wants to take me."

He brushed back a lock of her hair. "I think you have a very beautiful spirit."

"Why thank you, Lieutenant. It's nice of you to notice it. And so do you."

He paused. "This is going to sound so... so trite, but believe me when I say... I've never felt like this with anyone. More than just the physical part... which was great, don't get me wrong," he added hurriedly. "But there was..." He felt tongue-tied. "I really don't have words to express it."

"There are none. There don't have to be."

"There was... when we were..." He cleared his throat. "There was a word. You thought it at me... at least, I presume it was you. I don't think there was anyone else rattling around in there. 'Imzi' or something?"

Now she propped herself up as well and faced him fully.

"Imzadi," she said softly. When she said it, there was a musical, loving tone to her voice such as he had never heard.

"That's it. Imzadi. What does that mean?"

"Well... it has several meanings. The surface level is simply 'beloved' or 'dear one.' But when used with certain people, under certain circ.u.mstances... well, you need to know the further nuance to it to understand its full meaning."

"So what is its full meaning?"

She smiled shyly, which was a direct contrast to the casualness of her nudity. "It means... the first."

"The... the first?" He wasn't sure he had heard correctly, or perhaps didn't want to.

"Yes. No matter what happens from here on... we will always be true Imzadi. We will forever be each other's 'first.'"

She looked up at him with those large, dark eyes, and he felt like a total cretin.

"You mean... you mean I'm the first man that you... that you ever..."

She nodded.

"Had s.e.x with?" he managed to finish.

She nodded again.

"Oh, my G.o.d."

"You seem surprised," she said, looking quite amused. "Is it so difficult to believe?"

"Well, I mean..." He couldn't remember when he'd felt quite this embarra.s.sed. "I mean, you're such an open society and all... and you're so gorgeous..."

"Thank you," she said demurely.

"That I'm... I mean, it never occurred to me that no man had ever..."

"Bagged me?" she asked, her eyes twinkling slightly.

He winced. "That's one term that's occasionally used... although not by me."

"Oh, of course not. Never by you."

"And... um... look. Deanna. I... I don't know if I said or did anything to give you the impression otherwise, but... but you're not my first. I mean... I've been with other women."

"No, you haven't," she said serenely.

"Yes, I have. I mean, I was there. I think I'd know."

"Oh, I understand. You mean you've had s.e.x before."

"Well... well, yes. I thought that's what we were talking about."

"You still don't understand, Will. The physical part, as pleasurable as it was... and as exciting as it was for me, I must admit..." She hesitated and suddenly looked vulnerable. "Did I do all right?"

"Oh, yes! Yes. You did... you did great. I'd never have known if you hadn't told me that..." He gestured, trying to sum up his conflicting feelings.

"All right, then. But you see... the concept of Imzadi goes beyond the physical. You've had other women physically. I know that. And even though I haven't had other men before you, that's almost incidental. To be Imzadi is to go far deeper than that. Don't you understand, Will? Other women may have had your body"-she smiled-"but I'm the first who's ever touched your soul."

And he realized, with a dim astonishment, that she was right. s.e.x for him had always been directed toward the pleasurable aspects. Even when he had thought he was in love, it had turned out to be purely superficial... an excuse to add some additional excitement to the physical gratification.

Was he in love now? Thoughts were tumbling around far too fiercely for him to a.s.similate fully. It was the kind of sensation that he had always wanted to avoid. He liked knowing precisely what he was doing at all times. He liked being in control. But to be in love was to surrender some degree of that control, and he had never been willing or able to do that.

And now, here with Deanna Troi, he still wasn't sure if he was able. But for the first time in his life, he realized that he was genuinely willing.

"Imzadi," he said, and smiled.

She returned the smile and nodded. "I understand."

He sat up and saw that the sun was setting. It hung low, streaks of pink and orange dancing like liquid fingers across the Betazed sky.

"You know," he said slowly, "I've been looking at stars in s.p.a.ce for so long... that I completely forgot how utterly beautiful a star can be when it's setting. And you know what else? Those clouds right there-he pointed-the way they're coming together... they look like two dragons battling."

"You see conflict in the sky. That's understandable. When you launch yourself into s.p.a.ce, then to a very large degree, it's you against the vacuum."

"It's like the painting, isn't it."

"To some degree," she acknowledged. "When you look at any sort of tableaux, be it hanging on a wall or hanging in the sky... you see in it a reflection of your innermost wants and desires. That is, if you look at it in the right frame of mind."

"You want to watch the sunset and wax philosophical?"

"By all means."

She drew her body next to his and they sat there, staring up at the setting sun and seeing in it all sorts of aspects of their souls that they had never before examined.

Riker was thoroughly enraptured.

But after about thirty seconds, Deanna turned to him and said, "Right, then. That's enough of that. Come here, Imzadi." She pressed against him and bore him tenderly to the ground.

The sun set the rest of the way without them.

CHAPTER 27.

Riker stared at the paper, shaking his head. What could he possibly have been thinking?

He started to shove it back into the supplies belt when he heard Deanna's soft footfall behind him. Her unexpectedly fast return from her morning ablutions had caught him by surprise. As a result he fumbled slightly, and the sheet fluttered to the ground.

Deanna picked it up, staring at it in surprise. "Paper. Now here's something you don't see every day."

"Federation security men believe in being prepared for any eventuality-even leaving a message stuck to a tree. Give it here."