Give 'Em a Hand, Folks

"Excuse me... I was wondering if you needed any assistance."  She extended a hand, aware that not all humans were comfortable with the typical Bartokian greeting.  "My name is Janni Ghinta.  I'm the chief of operations."

Ironically, Paul felt less than 100% comfortable with this greeting as well: touching a non-human... even something so innocuous as a handshake – as if he had to wash his hand afterward... as if they were trying to infect him with something that could seep between the pores of his skin, and enter his bloodstream.  There was a feeling afterward, inside, that he had been... tainted.

His concerns were not entirely baseless.  Diseases were known to spread by that route.  Harmful agents could, and sometimes did, intentionally contaminate others in that fashion.  The idea was, it was considered rude to refuse a handshake.  The target would feel conscientious or silly for daring to refuse, and so would accept; their willingness to 'be better than that' used against them.

The feeling wasn't restricted to non-humans.  That paranoid suspicion touched Paul, shaking hands with other humans.  Not always, but sometimes, with certain ones.  Not everyone was out to get him, but if they knew who he was, where he came from, they might.  At the same time, people spread germs without even realizing it.  He had learned from an early age to be careful of what he touched.  The most seemingly harmless thing could hide unimagined dangers.  The microscopic world harbored a myriad of threats to organic life; hence the need to stay clean, and wash hands every time after using the restroom.  (Always wise – washing hands is the number-one method of disease prevention; don't ever forget it.)

He never let it show.  If he had doubts, he just didn't shake the person's hand.  He knew it was silly.  Most of the time handshakes were attempts to be polite, a form of intimate connection between humanoids; a sign of friendship.  But there was still that niggling doubt.  That suspicion.

Being asked to shake hands was, conversely, a request to accept and show trust in return.  Was this what this... Janna Gintai?... was doing?  Or did she have an ulterior motive?  Had the Bartokians opted to get rid of him, but instead of just beaming him into space, decided to turn him into a carrier for an anti-human bioweapon against other Arcadians, and she was the 'contact'?  It might have sounded preposterous.  But anything was possible.

On the other hand, he reasoned that they could do it more creatively and effectively than this.  For all he knew, they programmed his replicator to dispense an infectious bioagent.  If he ate or drank anything, presto: he was a carrier.  They could have released an agent into the very air he breathed, designed to target only human DNA.  He had already risked his life, trusting their replicated foodstuffs.  Maybe it was not too late: Maybe they hadn't yet decided at that point to do the worst of what they could do.

He wondered if this Ghinta realized the true implications of what she was doing.  Maybe.  Maybe that was why she was doing it.  Did she need to overcome some distrust of humans?  She was the one offering.  Had he approached her first, he probably wouldn't have offered the gesture, without consciously considering it.  He would have preferred the traditional Bartokian greeting: No touching required.

Maybe she wanted him to feel silly, if he refused.  Maybe she wanted to make him think, as he was now doing.

Or maybe she was just being friendly.

He never let it show.  He didn't this time, either.  He only glanced casually at her hand as he reached out to take it, without hesitation; deciding, in that instant, whether or not he was going to trust these people.  He didn't have to trust them.  He didn't even have to show them that he was willing to trust them.  But if he was going to trust them at all...

He squeezed firmly (but not too firmly; she was still a woman).  No doubt she knew who he was: The only one on board in a Starfleet uniform.  And he had an Earth accent, markedly different from Bartokian accents, which would have pegged him as a non-Bartokian as soon as he spoke.  She must have heard him asking the crewman for directions.