Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [105]
She continued to look at him. He was about to take his hand back when she finally reached out and grasped it. Her grip was just as firm as he remembered it.
“Nice working with you, too,” she told him.
He gazed into those eyes one last time and shook his head. How could he have been so far off base? He’d never been wrong about this sort of thing before.
“Right. Well, then … see you around.” He started for the door.
His hand was on the old-fashioned doorknob before he heard Lyneea’s voice.
“Chits and whispers, Riker! Can’t a girl have a little fun without you going all to pieces?”
He turned. She was standing now, the light from the window tracing a silhouette within the delicate shift.
“Don’t just stand there,” she told him. Her voice had softened to a purr, with just a hint of humor in it. “Tell me again how you looked into my eyes.”
Riker smiled. “I’ll tell you more than that,” he said.
Epilogue
“HI. NAME’S TELLER CONLON. Guess I’ll be your roommate.”
“Guess so. I’m Will Riker.”
“Where you from, Will Riker?”
“Alaska—on Earth. A town called Valdez. Ever heard of it?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“Don’t worry about it. Hardly anybody has.”
“Nice there?”
“Real nice. But don’t get me started. I’ll get all mush-mouthed and teary-eyed.”
A shrug, a laugh. “Okay, then, I won’t.”
“What about you? Where are you from?”
“Anywhere and everywhere. My dad was a career diplomat for the Federation—while he was alive, that is. We traveled around a lot when I was a kid—Beta Sargonus, Gamma Trilesias, half a dozen starbases. Like that.”
“Wow. Must have been incredible.”
“Sure, incredible. Hey, listen, Will, do me a favor? If I even think of going into the diplomatic corps—I mean, if I wake up one morning and mumble something about wanting to be an ambassador—I want you to strangle me. Don’t ask any questions. Just do it—okay?”
Now it was Will’s turn to laugh. “Maybe after I know you a little better. I don’t like to strangle people I hardly know. But tell me, just what is it about diplomacy that turns you off so much?”
Teller looked at him. “Ever meet an ambassador? One who’s been at it for a while?”
“I don’t believe so, no. We don’t get too many of them in Valdez; the Federation pretty much overlooks Alaska when it comes to diplomatic envoys.”
“Trust me—if you bumped into one, you wouldn’t like him. They’re chameleons, Will—faint imitations of whatever race they’ve been kowtowing to most recently. Empty beakers: you pour out one alien culture and pour in another. And whatever was them—the unique commingling of needs and desires that set out to be an ambassador in the first place—is gone somehow. Evaporated.”
Silence. “Well, Teller, don’t beat around the bush. If you don’t want to be a diplomat, just say so.”
“I’m saying so. And I’m not kidding about the strangling stuff.”
“We’ll see.”
“So now you’re wondering what I’m doing at the Academy. I mean, if I don’t want to get involved with alien cultures, why Starfleet?”
“I hadn’t gotten quite that far. But okay—why Starfleet?”
“Because we touch things when they’re new—when they’re bright and shiny and they’ve never been touched before. And then we leave them to the bureaucrats. That’s what life is all about, Will—getting in and getting out. Stealing a taste and putting the rest back. Take too big a bite out of anything—person or place—and it ends up taking a bigger bite out of you.”
“Hmm. Dorm-room philosophy.”
“Get used to it, Will. I’m chock full of such stuff.”
“Hey, speaking of bites—it’s almost chow time.”
“Right you are. Say, how’s your sharash-di?”
“It could be better, I suppose. Why?”
“There’s this redhead that I got friendly with on the way from Delta Ganymede. She’s some sort of expert at sharash-di, and she wanted to know if I played—which I don’t. But …”
“But if I play her—say, after dinner—it’ll give you a chance to get to know her better.”
“Something like that.”
He chuckled. “Fine—on one condition. Just don’t laugh when she whips me.”
“Absolutely not, Will. Absolutely not. Well, maybe a little.”
“Come in,” said Riker.
As the doors