Harbinger/12

Mindscape
Sarlena looked away from him, and went back to her work, directing the operations of the fledgling colony in the absence of Daniel's leadership.

A few minutes later, after Daniel's hyperventilation had stopped and he had for the most part recovered from his hope-shattering defeat, Tealdarin returned, carrying Daniel's amulet in his outstretched ventral (middle) arm. Daniel stared at him for a moment, still a bit languished, before grumpily snatching the amulet out of the Protoss's open palm like a child grabbing a toy. Daniel hastily put it back on his neck, and its soothing psionic signals alleviated much of his suffering.

How could I have failed?? Daniel kept on questioning himself. For all he knew, he had been an outstanding psychic as far back as on Tarsonis, where he had convinced a crew member to free him from the on-board prison. But such things were probably not going to happen again with as much usefulness, he realized; the Protoss psionic capabilities were just too strong. Well, at least the ghosts have a chance... Then he realized with a start that these ghosts had come from another dropship, and were not with him when he and company met up with the first Protoss.

All was silent, even Tealdarin, who really did not have all that much work to do at the moment. Then Sarlena spoke up, "What do you want to be the name of the human colony here on Korhal IV?"

Daniel was about to shout out some profanity, before he stopped himself and considered the consequences of such an action: a broken friendhip, perhaps, unless Sarlena were to forgive him yet again, which was not likely within one day. He considered his options, and the possibilities, before finally deciding on the name of Travincal--his last name.

"Is is pronounced Tra-vin-kal or Tra-vin-sal?" asked a wily Michael, who had by now greatly recovered from the strain of having accidentally shot and killed a girl back on Mar Sara.

Daniel smiled at last. "Travinkal is Travinsal. Pronounce it any way you like." And Sarlena and Daniel both smiled at that.

Tealdarin turned from investigating the others back to looking at Daniel, their leader. [[We would like to learn your written language.]]

Daniel was actually a bit surprised. [[Why do you want to learn our language? Aren't you able to decipher our meanings through what we think?]]

[[That is indeed the case. However, it has come to our attention that much of your communication is based on writing, and we can sense no psionic energies within your writing.]]

Daniel thought about it for a moment, then replied with a smile, [[Sure. We can get started on it right now.]] He whirled around in his swiveling chair and began to bark orders to several of the not-so-busy professionals in the the office. It just gets better and better, our relationship with the Protoss, Daniel remarked to himself, while any onlookers only saw his content expression, not knowing what he was thinking of.

[[And Commencement can wait until later,]] Daniel thought, as he looked at various analyses, trying to figure out how best to utilize the resources that the first mines would be able to obtain from below ground.