Possession - J.M. Dillard [11]
Too bad about her face, he thought, peering again at the bright blue eyes, small nose, bland straight teeth, and full lips. But then, human males were far less particular than he.
The woman spied Alexander as the youngster gaped at the large graphic hologram. “Finally! A spectator! I knew my big eyeball would suck someone in.” She leaned down conspiratorially to the startled boy. “All the other scientists were only worried that their displays would be accurate. Concise. Ed-u-ca-tion-al.” She said this last as if it were supremely distasteful, making Alexander grin. “But not me! That’s too boring. I went for the sensational—the big eye! The window of the soul.”
She fiddled with a remote device, and suddenly the great optical hologram looked down at them and blinked. Suddenly, the eyelid turned into an antique window shade and snapped up, rolling around and around as if broken.
Alexander giggled helplessly, and the happy sound touched Worf in a way little else could. This bright difficult boy was all he had left of his mate, K’Ehleyr; his son’s honest laughter was so like hers, it pulled at his heart.
“Now, watch this,” Dannelke said, and made another adjustment. The display above their heads shifted as the great eye became translucent. Even Worf’s lips parted in amazement as the blood vessels feeding the organ pulsed and throbbed.
“Wow!” Alexander breathed. “You can see all the rods and cones.” He pointed up at the eye. “And look—there’s the lens inside, and way in the back, the optic nerve!”
The scientist smiled in surprise, pale pink lips stretching wide to reveal white even teeth. “Hey, you know a lot about this.”
“He took top honors in his elementary anatomy class,” Worf said, trying not to sound too proud. “They covered four species.”
Dr. Dannelke looked at Worf squarely for the first time, and the Klingon had the uncomfortable sensation that she was eyeing him as blatantly as he had her not a moment before. Then she bowed her head in Alexander’s direction. “Pretty impressive. You should be running this display, not me. Come over here.”
Alexander glanced at Worf for approval; when his father nodded, he hurried over to the scientist. She handed him the remote and said, “Okay, let’s see what you can do with this.”
As the boy studied the small device, Dr. Dannelke turned to Worf and said quietly, extending her hand, “Dr. Kyla Dannelke.”
Worf took the hand, careful to hold his strength in check. Her grip was weak—for a Klingon’s—but impressively strong for a human female. “So I gathered,” he said, nodding at her name on the holo display. “I am Lieutenant Worf. And this is my son, Alexander.”
She nodded, glancing back for a moment with unfeigned pleasure at the boy, then turned back to Worf. “When I realized how few of my colleagues were interested in appealing to the children on board, I decided my work was a natural. His obvious interest is quite a reward! Is he really good at the life sciences?”
“When he applies himself,” Worf said honestly. “But I think his central interest is in physics. He wants to know how starships fly. I don’t have to prod him in that area.”
“Physics?” She turned to study Alexander with amazement.
The boy was in complete concentration, his tongue tip peeking out between his lips as he carefully used the remote to display the layers of connective tissue that surrounded the eye.
“That’s wonderful,” Dannelke said, but there was a note of clear disbelief in her tone.
“Pardon me, Doctor,” Worf said, “but you sound inordinately surprised.”
Her pale skin flushed—a reaction that distracted Worf, as he watched capillaries bloom, spreading flame across her white cheeks and neck. “Well, it’s just—I mean—” She stammered, then stopped, clearly reconsidering what she had been about to say. “Forgive me, but I’ve had only limited exposure to Klingons. I would have thought his interests would