It was during one of these self-assigned off-duty periods, alone in his personal jeep, that his most recent pint of Bond decided to harass him, and he discovered almost too late that he had ignored a turn of the dirt roadway. He skidded wickedly, and frightened one of the zebra-like animals drawing a vehicle much resembling a four-wheeled surrey. The animal let go with a terrified whinny, and with a sickening splintering noise, the dhennah went plunging off the road into the deep drainage ditch at its edge. There was also another sound, and Joel practically stood the jeep on its nose slewing it to a stop.
By the time he was out and running back, the frightened animal had gotten itself out of the ditch and was working frantically to bring the dhennah out after it. But the vehicle was canted at a crazy angle, and it was obvious to Joel that at least one of its starboard wheels was broken, and that it would take more than one kaelli to haul it out.
None of this, he reflected as he ran, was going to help diplomatic relations a bit. And he was no Dobermann. But it was none of these things that worried him at the moment.
She was screaming bloody murder, and still was hard at it when he jumped into the ditch.
She stopped when he clambered up on the steeply tilted narrow seat to which she clung. There was suddenly not a sound from her as his big hands circled her waist and gently lifted her to the ground.
Then he discovered that his voice was stuck. Dammit, an explorer captain for over fifteen years, and he didn't know what to say when he banged up some farm girl's dhennah!
"I—ah, am terribly sorry. It will be replaced, of course. Very stupid and clumsy of me. I—ah, you hurt?" Rather smooth, at that!
She smiled. Slender lips, golden-colored eyes, delicately contoured face—all seemed to smile together. A breeze ruffled her tawny mass of shoulder-length hair, and Nicholas Joel just stood there.
"You are forgiven, the dhennah was not a costly one. I know how difficult it must be for you to guide those machines of yours at such terrible speeds ... but of course the speeds are necessary to you in your work. Thank you for helping me."
Joel reassured himself that if only the conversation were in his mother tongue, he would of course not feel so ridiculously at a loss for words. After all, this young female was only an—an alien being.