Progenitor - Michael Jan Friedman [13]
It was exactly what he had hoped to avoid.
“All right,” Wu said, regaining her composure. “Then perhaps—”
The engineer didn’t wait for her to finish her suggestion. Instead, he turned and made his way back to the turbolift, having embarrassed himself quite enough.
As he reached the double doors, they slid apart for him. He was about to enter the lift compartment when he heard a familiar hiss.
Picard’s ready room door was opening. Simenon turned his head in time to see the captain and Ben Zoma emerge.
Before they could go anywhere, the Gnalish hurried over and planted himself in front of them. Picard looked surprised. But then, he had probably never seen his chief engineer move so quickly before.
“Mr. Simenon,” he said.
Ben Zoma smiled. “Everything all right?”
The Gnalish wasn’t in the mood for niceties. “Can I see you in private?” he rasped. “Both of you?”
Picard’s eyes narrowed. No doubt, he was trying to divine the reason for Simenon’s discomfort.
“Of course,” he said at last.
“Good,” the engineer snapped, and led his superiors back into the captain’s ready room.
Ensign Nikolas was whistling to himself as he made his way to the bridge for his training session with Commander Wu.
Wu wasn’t exactly known as an easy taskmaster. People didn’t often whistle on their way to meetings with her. But this once, Nikolas felt justified in doing so.
To that point in his career on the Stargazer, he had earned a reputation for arriving at his training sessions just in the nick of time, raising the eyebrows of the officers in charge of them. In fact, some of the ensign’s friends had picked up on his habit and given him the obvious moniker: “Nik of Time.”
But this time he wasn’t going to show up exactly when he was due. For once, he was going to be early for something.
That was his intention, at least.
But as Nikolas passed the doors to the ship’s gymnasium, which were situated between his quarters and the nearest turbolift, he saw them slide open. And out of the corner of his eye, he saw a feminine figure come out of the gym.
Of course, he wouldn’t have allowed himself to be detained if it was just any feminine figure. But it wasn’t. It was Idun Asmund, her cheeks flushed with evidence of her exertions, her skin glistening with a thin sheen of sweat.
Nikolas didn’t know he was slowing down to acknowledge her until he had already done it. “Lieutenant,” he said a little awkwardly.
She glanced at him, her eyes the blue of polar ice, and said, “Ensign.” Then she made her way down the corridor.
As he watched her retreat, he couldn’t help smiling. Idun Asmund was a living work of art. No, he corrected himself—better than that. She was a genuine masterpiece.
“Nikolas?” said a familiar, high-pitched voice.
The ensign looked away from the object of his admiration just long enough to see who had greeted him. He found himself peering down at a small, pink humanoid who—as the ever-sensitive Joe Caber had gleefully pointed out—looked a lot like a plucked chicken.
In this case, a plucked chicken in midnight-blue gym togs.
“Obal,” said Nikolas.
The Binderian, who worked in security under Pug Joseph, looked up at him with a distinct glint of curiosity in his eyes. “What are you doing?” he asked.
Nikolas resumed his admiration of Idun Asmund. “Appreciating one of the finer things in life.”
A moment later, the helm officer vanished around a bend in the corridor. The ensign sighed. All good things come to an end, he mused, and he couldn’t think of anything better than the sight of such an attractive woman.
Nikolas turned to his friend—and realized something. “Hey... you were working out in the gym just now, weren’t you?”
“Why, yes,” said Obal.
The ensign smiled. “You know what? You’re one lucky guy.”
“And why is that?”
“Well,” said Nikolas, “it’s not everybody who gets a chance to share a gym with one of the Asmund twins.”
The Binderian’s brow wrinkled over his big, round eyes. “What does luck have