Pantheon - Michael Jan Friedman [37]
“Sure,” he told her, grinning—trying to salvage what was left of his machismo. “No problem. I shouldn’t have surprised you like that.” Smoothing out his tunic, he held his arms out. “See? Good as new.”
She didn’t grin back. “There’s no excuse for this. It’s just that I was trained, early on, to—”
“It’s all right,” he assured her. “Really.” He held out his hand. “Geordi La Forge, chief engineer.”
She grasped it—more firmly than he expected. Though after what had just happened, he probably shouldn’t have been surprised.
“Idun Asmund,” she responded. “First officer of the Charleston. One of your captain’s guests.”
“I gathered as much,” he told her. “You don’t normally see too many command uniforms around here.”
“No, I don’t suppose you do.”
Just then, Duffy and DiBiasi walked in. When they saw Geordi’s companion, they stopped dead in their tracks. Apparently, she was every bit as striking as his VISOR had led him to believe.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Geordi explained. “This place is about to become lousy with engineers. We’re having a meeting, sort of—though you’re invited to sit in if you’d like.” He glanced at Duffy and DiBiasi. “I’m sure no one would mind.”
“Thank you,” said Asmund, “but no. I was just about to be going anyway,” she lied.
Geordi shrugged. “Suit yourself. See you around, then.”
She nodded. “Yes. See you around.”
As she crossed the room, neither of the newcomers could take their eyes off her. “My God,” said DiBiasi once she was gone. “Who was that, Commander?”
“No ranks here,” said the engineering chief, “remember? And as for who she is…she’s one of the Stargazer officers. You know, the bunch serving as Captain Morgen’s honor guard.”
Duffy grunted. “Some guys have all the luck.”
“Hey,” DiBiasi chimed in, “I thought all the captain’s friends were in Ten-Forward. What’s she doing here?”
Geordi shook his head. “I guess that’s her business,” he said. Suddenly, he saw those clawed fingers again—hovering like a hunting bird, ready to tear him apart. Shuddering, he put the image from his mind. “Come on. Let’s get some coffee.”
Beverly tucked one leg underneath her and sat down on her bed. Opening the box of audio modules, she picked one out at random.
How long had it been since she’d listened to Jack’s old tapes? A year? Two? Had she played them at all since she’d come aboard the Enterprise?
She looked at the module in her hand. Reading the stardate, she decided that the message was about sixteen years old—which meant she would have received it on…where? Delos Four? Yes—Delos Four. Unbidden, memories flooded her mind like gentle rains.
Rain. She chuckled. It hadn’t rained more than a dozen times during her entire internship in the Mariadth Valley, though the Delosians said that it rained there all the time. Of course, when one was as long-lived as the Delosians were, and used to places where it didn’t rain at all, a dozen times in four years may have seemed like “all the time.”
Her mentor, Dalen Quaice, had called Delos Four “the hottest, driest place in the galaxy.” She could see him bent over a zaphlid-calf, inoculating it for scale-fever and complaining about the heat. “It’s unbearable, Beverly. Have you ever been to Vulcan? No? Well, it’s pretty dry there too. But this place makes a Vulcan desert look like a rain forest.”
And without Jack it had seemed even drier, even more barren.
Taking a deep breath, Beverly slipped the tape into the mechanism next to her bed and waited for Jack’s voice to emerge from the speakers. When it did, she was surprised at how young he sounded.
“Hi, honey. Greetings from the Stargazer, where we’re wrapping up with the Mandrossa—still. It turns out that their negotiation protocols are a lot more complicated than those of other races we’ve encountered; even establishing an agenda for further contact has kept us here for weeks. In the end, though, I think it’ll be worth it. The Mandrossa are way ahead of us in genetics, and we can teach them a few things about immunology. The way it looks, both parties will benefit from the relationship.
“Unfortunately,