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La Forge took a long breath. “Yeah, you’re right.” Then he smiled. “Being an ambassador definitely had an effect on you, Worf—you never used to be this eloquent.”

Worf straightened. “Perhaps. Or perhaps I merely did not have anything eloquent to say.”

Chuckling, La Forge said, “Right. C’mon, let’s get this stuff—”

A meow interrupted La Forge’s sentence.

Oh no.

Spot ambled in from the bedroom. The cat, who was now well over ten years old, leapt onto the table, right next to the deerstalker.

The last thing Worf wanted to deal with was Data’s pet, so he reached to move the creature out of the way. Before he could do so, however, Spot leapt into the Klingon’s arms. Instinctively, Worf caught the animal.

The cat then seemed to almost burrow into Worf’s chest, making a noise like the one a tribble made when it was near humans. Worf found it nauseating—yet also oddly soothing.

“I think she likes you,” La Forge said with a grin.

“I am not a—cat person.” Even as Worf spoke, Spot started to close her eyes and fall asleep. This is a nightmare.

La Forge was still grinning. “Looks like you are now. Hey, look, she never liked me—remember what happened when I tried to take care of her? And as I recall, when Data was having those problems with his dream program, you were the one who took her in and did just fine.”

Worf sighed. La Forge’s words were true, but he was not sure he would be able to tame the animal a second time. Absently, he started to stroke the cat’s fur as La Forge continued gathering Data’s personal items, from the volume of William Shakespeare’s works that Picard had given him to the handkerchief with the “D” monogram Riker had given him shortly after getting his emotion chip (“for the next time you start crying,” Riker had said).

Perhaps once again attempting to tame Spot will be a proper tribute to Data’s memory. It is certainly preferable to putting that painting back on my wall.

Bending over, Worf gently let the animal onto the floor. Spot woke up and ambulated toward her bowl of water, pausing for a moment to turn her head back toward Worf and meow at him.

Suppressing the urge to growl at the cat, Worf picked up the container and placed it on the desk.

Worf exchanged a nod with La Forge, and the two of them began gathering their friend’s possessions.

“You know, if you’d told me when we started this whole shebang that the Romulan government was gonna fall five minutes after I took office, I would’ve stayed on Cestus III where it’s safe.”

Esperanza Pińiero sat in the guest chair of the presidential office in Paris, saying, “Yes, ma’am,” in reply to President Nan Bacco’s diatribe. Pińiero knew that, as long as she served as Bacco’s chief of staff, she would have to listen to these diatribes. Why stop now? she thought. She had, after all, been listening to such diatribes all her life.

Pińiero looked around the office, and found it a bit too minimalist for her tastes. White carpet, a Federation flag on a pole, and a large metal desk. Pińiero suspected that Bacco would put at least some personal touches into the office—a picture of her daughter and her family, if nothing else.

Then again, there was always the spectacular view. Although not quite as exquisite as Venezia, Paris still had an unparalleled majesty to it.

Bacco was still carrying on. “I haven’t even had a chance to figure out what height to put this chair at, and one of the major superpowers in the quadrant has its government literally fall apart. See, this is why I like baseball: It’s predictable. There’s an order to it.”

Pińiero tried to hold back a smile and didn’t entirely succeed. “Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me that what makes baseball a great game is that it’s completely unpredictable?”

Bacco pointed at Pińiero and said, “Listen, you, I’m president now, and that means there are six security guards outside those doors who will kill you on my say-so, so kindly watch your mouth.” She picked up the mug of coffee on her desk, started to sip, then stopped. “Dammit, they make these mugs too small.”

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