Day of Honor - Michael Jan Friedman [15]
Harry stared at the Mastikaan. "Ardan, YOU are not supposed to do that." He gestured to lbvol "That would be as bad as reading someone's mind."
The Mastikaan looked at him. "I wasn't cheating, Harry. Bandiers should have been more explicit when he explained the rules."
"I was explicit," Bandiers insisted. "Everybody knows you're not supposed to look at other people's cards. If you were, we would have played them all faceup I'
Trayl frowned. "Obviously, not everybody knows it."
And before anyone could respond to his statement, he got up and left the mess hall. There was a moment of silence in his wake.
"Well," said the astrophysicist, "that went well."
Tuvok looked at him. "That leaves four of us, Mr. Bandiers. I believe it was you who said poker is most enjoyable with a minimum of five participants."'
Bandiers shrugged. "Four can work, too."
"Listen," said Harry, "we can get someone else."
He looked around the all-but-empty mess hall and tried to think of someone.
Tom had wanted to sit in. Unfortunately, he was on duty at the moment. So were the half-dozen others whose names occurred to the ensip on short notice.
He shook his head. He had heard of other ships with regularly scheduled poker games. Sometimes,
several of them. Maybe it just took a while to get something like that started.
"I'm drawing a blank, too," Bandiers confessed. By then, he had begun gathering up the cards.
"How about Chell?" Neelix suggested. "He seems to be the gaming sort."
"Sure," said Harry, "when the game is norrtan, or something else Bolians play. Chell already told us he wasn't interested."
Just then, the doors to the mess hall opened and two figures walked in. One was the Doctor-also known as the ship's Emergency Medical Hologram. The other was Seven of Nine.
Seven of Nine was a Borg.
Like everyone else on the ship, Harry knew she had once been a human. She had laughed, cried-done all the things humans do. But since her assimilation into the Borg collective as a child, she hadn't done any of those things.
It was creepy having her on Voyager, watching her walk the corridors, looking into those dead, cold eyes of hers. Still, the ensign reminded himself, there was something still alive in Seven of Nine. With a little luck, it could be brought to the surface again.
The Doctor seemed surprised to see Harry and the others sitting there. "Excuse me," he said. "I didn't think this facility would be in use."
"We are merely engaged in a game of poker," Tuvok explained. "If you require the use of the mess hall for something more important-"
"Not at all," the Doctor replied. "I was just showing Seven of Nine where the crew congregates to ingest foodstuffs. Pretty soon, she'll be doing the same thing."
"Oh?" said Bandiers, shuffling the cards in his hands.
"Yes," the Doctor replied. "I'm slowly weaning her off the energies she obtains from her cubicle and restoring her digestive system to full function. Mind you, it isn't a simple procedure-but if anyonecan do it, I can."
Humility wasn't one of the Doctor's strongest qualities, Harry mused. But then, he didn't have a lot to be humble about. As an amalgam of the most gifted physicians in the Federation, he was the master of every medical technique and discipline known to man-and then some.
Suddenly, Harry had an idea. It was a little unorthodox, but he didn't want the poker game to die before it ever got started. Besides, he would be taking a step toward making an outsider an integral part of the crew.
"Say," the ensign said, "how'd you like to sit in? We could use another poker player."
The Doctor waved away the suggestion. "I'm no poker player, Mr. Kim. It's simply not part of my programming."
Harry smiled. "I could have guessed that, Doc.
Actually, I was talking to Seven of Nine."
The Borg looked at him, evincing surprise-or anyway, a glitch in her otherwise detached behavior. "You wish me to take part in this…" She glanced at the deck of cards in Bandiero's hands. "What did you call it?"
"Poker," said