Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [56]
Patiently, Ramiro said, “Mark, I said at the last staff meeting that we were gonna bring in a molecular biologist regardless of whether or not we got the go-ahead on Taisha’s project.”
“I forget, was that the meeting I was late for, the meeting I missed, or the meeting I slept through?”
Ramiro sighed. “It was the meeting where I told you you didn’t have to kill yourself writing the report because we were going to bring in- “
“- a molecular biologist regardless of what happened with the project, I remember now.”
“Really?”
Now it was Mark’s turn to sigh. “No, but I’m perfectly willing to take your word for it that you said it in my presence.”
“Good enough. She won’t be starting until Monday. Try to sleep some time between now and then.”
“If you really feel I must.”
“I do.” Ramiro led Carla toward his office door. “Come on, Carla, I’ll introduce you to the coherent people on the team.”
“Okay.” Carla then hit Mark with another of those dazzling smiles. “It was good to meet you, Carla.”
Mark chuckled. “Same here, Mark.”
After they left, Mark looked down at the words on the screen of his workstation, which he had theoretically written, and were just as theoretically coherent. Well, all the words are English, I’ll say that much. I’ve got to take a break from this.
Unfortunately, work had been the only thing to keep him going these past nine months. The gathering on Deep Space 9 had done little to alleviate his worries about Kath-in fact, in a lot of ways it made it worse, because now he wasn’t just worried about her, but the entire crew. So instead of being a zombie at work, he decided to throw himself into everything, including the hybridization project that Taisha had put forward.
Obviously I’ve gone too far in the other direction.
Then his comm unit beeped. Activating it, he said, “Johnson.”
Dina Voyskunsky’s face appeared on the screen. “Surprise.”
Mark blinked. “Dina? I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.” Dina was one of two people Mark met at the DS9 gathering that he stayed in touch with, the other being Davey Honigsberg. The former was because he genuinely enjoyed her company, the latter more because he worried about the engineer. As promised, Davey had ended his time with the Starfleet Corps of Engineers and now dedicated every moment to trying to find out what happened to Voyager. He had even hired a ship to take him to the Badlands so he could scan them himself. Davey read every report he could get his hands on, not just from Starfleet, but from Federation civilian reports, as well as those of Bajorans, Cardassians, and Klingons-the latter being a neat trick, since the Klingons had pulled out of the Khitomer Accords. He was determined both that Starfleet wasn’t doing enough and that he himself could learn the truth.
Dina said, “We got into it with some Klingons last week, so we had to come back for some repairs and restaffing. I figured since I was in town, as it were, we could catch up in person instead of over subspace. You free tonight?”
He smiled. “Actually, it’s a funny coincidence-I’m having lunch with Davey Honigsberg tomorrow. Want to join us?”
Dina shook her head. “Can’t-I’m getting together with my aunt in Estonia tomorrow, and then we’re shipping out on Sunday.” She chuckled. “Besides, Honigsberg gave me the creeps.”
Mark found he couldn’t argue with that. “All right, then, how about dinner tonight?”
“Okay. I know just the place-Captain Sisko recommended it when we were at DS9.”
That night, Mark sat in a lovely restaurant in New Orleans called Sisko’s-owned and operated by the station commander’s father-eating the best gumbo he’d ever had. Dina was eating crawfish, and telling him all about what the Hood had been doing for the past nine months.
“The Klingons are getting to be a real problem. They’re scary enough when we’re their allies, but it’s really no fun to be on their bad side.” She chewed some crawfish, then swallowed a great deal of water. “So what about you?”
“Well, I’ve been kind of throwing myself