Oblivion - Michael Jan Friedman [30]
Afraid that it was coming from an open door, he turned his head in the direction of the storage room’s only entrance. But the door to the adjoining cosmetics parlor was closed, a concession to their need for secrecy.
He had barely assured himself of the fact when he felt four strong fingers clamp down on his cranium and rotate it ninety degrees to the right.
“Calm yourself,” said a husky, feminine voice.
The captain frowned. “I was only trying to see if—”
“I’m almost done,” the voice added.
Suddenly, he felt the robe he had been wearing whisked away from him. Then two viselike hands lifted him off the stool on which he had been sitting.
Guinan, who had been standing off to the side and watching, tilted her head appraisingly. But, ominously, she didn’t see fit to say anything.
The captain reached for the top of his head. Somehow, it wasn’t quite where he had expected it to be. But then, a significant part of what he usually found there was conspicuous by its absence.
And when he finally did find something, it was disquietingly smooth.
The next thing he knew, a mirror had been placed in front of him. “What do you think?” asked the same husky, feminine voice, with what struck Picard as excessive enthusiasm.
He couldn’t help wincing a little. The complete and utter lack of hair above his eyebrows made him look a great deal like his father—and at the age of twenty-eight, he wasn’t at all ready for that.
Thanks to the mirror, the captain could see the female who had depilated his head standing behind him. Like all Dranoon, she had pale green skin, a squarish head on a massive frame, and a thick mane of blue-black hair.
At that particular moment, he envied her the mane.
“It’s…different,” he told her.
“Actually,” said Guinan, “it’s a good look for you.”
Picard wished he could agree with her.
The Dranoon, whose name was Dahlen, put the mirror down. Then she opened a drawer and took out something that looked like an old-fashioned, Starfleet-issue hypospray. Holding it up to the light of an overhead fixture, she pressed the tiny white buttons in its side in what appeared to be a familiar sequence.
“What are you doing?” the captain asked.
The Dranoon shrugged. “You want to change your appearance, don’t you?”
He eyed the device in her powerful green hand. “I thought I already had.”
“You still look human,” she told him. “I thought you might want to address that.”
“And become…what?” Picard wondered.
“A Cataxxan,” Guinan replied.
“Exactly,” said Dahlen. Then she pressed the device against the captain’s neck and released something into him.
He looked at his hand. Something was happening to his skin there. It was slowly but surely becoming darker—and changing color as well.
“Purple suits you,” the Dranoon noted, and held up the mirror for him again.
In a matter of moments, the captain saw a Cataxxan looking back at him from the surface of the mirror. He had to admit that the disguise was an effective one. His own mother would have had trouble recognizing him.
“All right,” said Dahlen, “you’re done.” She turned to Guinan. “Your turn now.”
Picard took consolation in one thing: no matter how bizarre he felt with his head shaved, Guinan was bound to feel a good deal more so.
He was still thinking that when his benefactor removed her great, gray hat…and showed him a pate every bit as hairless as his own!
“Something wrong?” she asked.
The captain shook his head. “No. Nothing at all.”
“Except my head.”
He indicated his indifference with a shrug. “Lots of humanoid species are hairless.”
“But you didn’t expect me to be that way.”
Picard’s first impulse was to protest to the contrary. Then he realized that it would be better if he simply came out with the truth.
“I didn’t,” he admitted.
“Well,” Guinan said, “as it happens, I’m not naturally bald. I’ve just been through some…interesting times lately.”
As she said it, her eyes took on that faraway look again. And this time, there was more pain in them than usual.
Interesting times indeed, the captain thought. And once more, he found himself wondering