Flirting is practically a dialect, from Jim's perspective, yet another language to speak. It helps grease the wheels of progress, and there's no obligations attached, though he hasn't learned yet that Earth humans from the early twenty-first century might not take such things quite so lightly.

"That's the goal," he agrees easily. "Mostly it's been scientific surveys and easy supply runs. We're not a cargo ship, but the Enterprise can hold a hell of a lot more than conventional freighters, so we've been tapped a time or two."