Taking Wing - Michael A. Martin [13]
As Pazlar stepped into the alcove, a growing feeling of comfort washed over her. Using the wall keypad, she manually closed the outer door behind her, to avoid causing discomfort to anyone who might be inclined to pop across the entryway’s threshold to say hello. Next she made sure that the hover platforms were locked into place against the wall, and that no loose tools were lying atop them, since the slightest bump could send them flying after she lowered the artificial gravity. “Computer,” she said, “drop gravity in alcove to one-sixty-fourth g.”
Immediately, the pain and fatigue in her joints dissipated. Pazlar pushed off against the deck beneath her feet and rose into the air. Dodging the hover platforms, she glided effortlessly over to the inner door on the ceiling, arrested her motion there, and touched the palm pad set into the bulkhead beside it. The door slid open, and Melora entered her quarters.
The lights were bright inside. Coming to a halt against the curvature of the far wall, she looked straight upward to the next level, where her bathroom facilities were located. She saw Chief Bralik, the noncom Ferengi geologist, exiting the room with surprising grace, considering the room’s low-g environment.
“Whew!” Bralik said, a sour look on her face. Then again, maybe that was an entirely normal expression for a Ferengi.
“Doctor Bralik,” Pazlar said. “May I ask what you’re doing in my quarters?”
Bralik pivoted to look down at Pazlar, her eyes wide and her sharp, uneven teeth bared. “Oh. Sorry. Chief Engineer Ledrah invited me to tag along.”
Pazlar grabbed a handhold and pushed herself smoothly upward, trying to keep the look of puzzlement off of her face. “Why exactly did Ledrah invite a geologist to inspect the retrofit of my quarters?”
Scratching one of her ears—Pazlar wasn’t certain, but it seemed to her that male Ferengi had far larger ears than did the females—Bralik seemed nonplussed by the question. “Probably because I used to work at the micro-g Karcinko mining facility back in the Ferengi Alliance. I got used to these kinds of long, vertical spaces there. Most of the ones down the mines had a lot more grak floating about, though.”
“You were a miner there?” Grasping another handhold, Pazlar oriented herself alongside Bralik. The diminutive Ferengi woman did indeed seem to handle herself very well in low g, a knack that even some seasoned Starfleet veterans never acquired. “Please don’t take this the wrong way, but I’d always thought that those sorts of jobs were off-limits for Ferengi women.”
Bralik snorted. “A lot has changed during the last few years, thanks to Zek and Rom. On the other hand, some people are still stuck in the past. Take the mining trade, for instance. Once I helped the senior engineer work out the flaws in his construction plans for the Karcinko facility, he dumped me for a more bountifully figured chava. My reputation was already ruined, so I decided to stay on at the facility rather than slink back home.”
“So you went there as a mining engineer?”
Bralik chortled again. “No. I went there as the senior engineer’s property. Wasn’t even allowed to wear clothes. But I picked up my interest in geology there, and started studying it on the sly.” She paused for a breath. “I’m older than I look, you know.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Pazlar said, confused.
“I mean, I’m not some genius child prodigy geologist. I’ve paid my dues. After that horrible accidental cave-in that killed the senior engineer and his chava, I went to other mining facilities to study, and eventually went out-system. This is all before all of Zek’s reforms, you understand. Ferengi females almost never went off on their own back then.”
“Ah,” Pazlar said, nodding. Why is she telling me all this? She pointed up to the third level of her narrow, silo-shaped quarters. “Is Nidani up there?”
“Yeah,” Bralik said, pushing herself upward. “Come on. I think she’s up there patching up a Jefferies tube that runs behind