Reunion - Michael Jan Friedman [22]
“Well,” she said, “that’s what the well-dressed sickbay is wearing these days. What do you think?” Greyhorse nodded. He seated himself across from her. “Very impressive, Beverly. Not as impressive as your holodecks, but impressive nonetheless.” Picking up a tricorder lying on Crusher’s desk, he put it through its paces. “A far cry from what we had to put up with on the Stargazer. We were lucky if both biobeds were functional at the same time.”
She regarded him. “Tempted?”
He looked up from the tricorder. “I beg your pardon?” “You know,” she said. “To ship out again?” Greyhorse chuckled dryly. “Beverly, there is no sickbay in existence that could tempt me to do that. Don’t be deceived by the fact that I signed on with a deep-space exploration ship, where patient care was my first priority. I have always preferred things to people-which is why Starfleet Medical suits me so well. I would rather peer over my morning coffee at a computer monitor than have to deal with something that can talk back.”
Crusher looked at him askance. “You mean you don’t get even a little twinge now and then? A desire to push out the frontiers?” “I am pushing out the frontiers. I would think you’d know that, considering you pushed them out with me for a year or so.” He shook his head. “Truth be told, I should have been an engineer-like my father and brothers.”
Now that she thought about it, Crusher remembered Greyhorse’s saying something about a course in engineering at the Academy just before he switched over
to the medical curriculum, to avoid becoming “just another Greyhorse family robot.”
“I don’t know what kind of engineer you’d have made,” she said. “But you’re a damned fine doctor.” He put the tricorder down and met her gaze. “It is very kind of you to-say so, Beverly.” His eyes narrowed mischievously. “And, I might add, very. discerning as well. Now, if you don’t mind, could we take in some other part of your ship? I have this premonition that if I stay too long, I’m actually going to have to treat someone.”
Normally, the gymnasium was quiet at this time of day-which was one of the reasons Riker chose this hour to work out. He was a social enough being in every other aspect of his life, but he’d learned something long . ago: If you came to the gym to shoot the bull, all you’d end up exercising was your mouth.
Unfortunately, the gym wasn’t as deserted as he would have preferred. As the doors to the room parted, he could hear the sound of heavy breathing, amplified by the echoing gym walls. Entering, he saw that someone was on the horizontal bar—someone slender and female, her hair bound tightly behind her head, moving too quickly to be easily identified. For a moment Riker stood there, silently appreciating the grace with which each intricate maneuver was performed-not to mention the streamlined form that was doing the performing.
The gymnast, on the other hand, seemed not to have noticed his presence. Nor was that difficult to understand, given the concentration she must have had to apply. This had to be someone new to the ship, he told
himself. Nobody he knew was capable of those kinds of moves. As he watched, the woman extended herself full-length, swung around the bar a couple of times, and then leapfrogged over it. The momentum she’d built up carried her almost half the length of the gym before she landed on a mat. A little stumble at the end marred what otherwise would have been a perfect routine. Riker had already begun clapping before he realized whom he was clapping for. Then the gymnast turned around, a little startled-and he found himself staring at Tricia Cadwallader. “Criminy!” she said, her hand resting on her breast. “You could have let me know you were there!”
He shrugged. “Sorry. I was too dazzled to think straight.” Cadwallader blushed through her light sprinkling of freckles. “I wasn’t that good. You should have seen me back at the Academy.” Riker tried not to gape at the way she filled out her cutout tank suit. What