Double Helix 03_ Red Sector - Diane Carey [55]
He nearly stepped back and waited to be invited, but by now Captain Picard had risen and turned to greet him.
“Ambassador, welcome aboard,” the captain began, his deep theatrical voice communicating undisguised delight, and he even smiled.
Spock took his hand, a gesture he had come over the years to find suspiciously comforting, and thus held it longer than necessary for courtesy. When embarking on difficult missions, especially those couched in mystery, he had come to depend upon the sustenance of the human tendency to get to know one another quickly and with a speck of intimacy. Few races in the galaxy had that talent. He had come to cherish it. “You know Mr. Riker,” the captain invited pleasantly. “Ambassador, hello!” William Riker, yes the ship’s first officer. A bright smile, and no attempt to subdue his pride that a distinguished Federation identity had come aboard his starship.
“Good evening, Mr. Riker” Spock offered, and also took Riker’s hand. “And Dr. Crusher, of course,” the captain added, turning. Only the ship’s doctor, Beverly Crusher (in fact the person he had come here to meet), restrained herself from offering to shake a Vulcan’s hand.
She was a stately woman, tall, reedy, and red-haired, with a sculpted face that echoed a Renaissance painting Spock had once seen in the Manhattan Museum of Art. He found it a credit to Dr. Crusher that he remembered the painting now for the first time in nearly nine decades, but recalled also his thoughts at the time that the woman in the picture was pale and too thin. Understanding that humans’ emotional condition frequently communicated itself to their physical appearance, he surmised that the doctor was strained and troubled. She did not smile as did her captain and first officer, and that he also found suggestive. “Good evening, Doctor. I’m gratified to have you involved.”
“Now you’ll get some answers, Beverly,” Captain Picard told her with a placating smile. She glanced at him, then stepped closer to Spock.
“I’d like to say it’s my pleasure, Ambassador” the woman said, “but unfortunately I doubt any of us will enjoy the next few weeks.” “That will depend upon the outcome, as always:’
Spock slipped his traveling cloak from his shoulders and let his attending yeoman take it from him, leaving his arms a little cool with unencumberment. Though he felt obliged by tradition to wear the Vulcan robes and plastiformed emblems when moving among the public or visiting Starfleet localities, such dress aboard a ship seemed provincial. Among these men and women, he could feel comfortable in simple black slacks and his cowlnecked daywear tunic. The cobalt and-purple quilted strips running from his shoulders to his thighs were the only jewel-tones on the bright tan bridge, excepting only the shoulder yoke of medical blue on Beverly Crusher’s uniform. Again, he found himself wading in memories unbidden. And a few he had dismissed freely-the officers here on this bridge were people he knew, had encountered in a previous mission, and since allowed to fade from his mind. He had learned long ago to remember the names of ships, captains, and some officers-but that cluttering one’s mind with lieutenants, yeomen, and others tended only to inaccuracy. Eventually those crewmen and officers either disappeared into the mists of service or civilian life, or became commanders and captains themselves, in which case their names and ranks and ships turned into a long roster he would just have to amend later.
He remembered Captain Picard’s senior security officer, the noted Klingon who defied so much to be here, but he could not summon the name. The android at the science station, however, had a name that no mathematician could forget-Data. “There’re been two more skirmishes this morning, Ambassador,” Captain Picard reported. “The Starfleet ships Ranger and Griffith were set upon just outside the Crystal Ball Nebula, and the Ranger was actually boarded.” “Is everyone all right?” Spock asked.
“No fatalities, sixteen casualties, and apparently