Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [94]
Troi smiled. “I’d be glad to show him around.”
Picard looked back up at the viewscreen. “Commander Riker, I imagine you’d like a chance to clean up and have your wounds tended. Do you have any estimate for your return?”
“Worf is already making arrangements to retrieve the Collins with the help of the rangers—Geordi thinks he can nurse the shuttle back through the portal, and there shouldn’t be any real damage to her systems. I’ll call in when we know for sure.” He gave Picard a raised eyebrow and added with the last of his asperity, “The sooner, the better,” to which Picard gave only a wryly amused smile.
Once signed off, Riker sought and found the only chair in the room, sinking into it without regard for its size, ignoring the fact that his knees jutted up into the air. Rational thought abandoned him, leaving him with vague impressions of a need for cleanup and rest. After a moment he realized that Akarr stood before him, waiting for his attention.
“Commander,” he said, when Riker finally focused on him, and that was all. But he held out his hand in an awkward initiation of a human handshake.
After a moment, Riker took it, finding a way to fit his thumb between Akarr’s own two thumbs. And then Akarr withdrew his hand and left Riker sitting alone in the small room, staring at the garish Fandrean seal and considering that maybe he, too, had come back from this kaphoora with a trophy of sorts.
24?
Chapter Fifteen
Riker strolled into ten-forward with Deanna on his arm. Hunting grounds of a sort… and the kind he’d stick to for a while. He spotted an empty table beside La Forge and Data at the same time as Deanna, and they headed for it, attracted as much by Data’s animated conversation as the seating.
“Bodacious,” Data was saying. “Catbird seat, gild the lily, eating crow—”
“Data,” Troi said, mystified, “what are you doing?”
“Recounting some of the expressions I used in my recent experiment to determine how well the meanings of colloquial phrases from previous centuries have carried over to this one.”
Riker broke into a slow smile as Troi did an entirely evident mental hmm! and asked, “Did you come to any conclusions?”
“I decided against it.”
Even for Data, that didn’t quite make sense. “Say that again?”
La Forge looked up at them. “I suggested that he’s done enough of this sort of thing with the crew that his sample was skewed.”
“My wildly varying results would seem to indicate the wisdom of the observation,” Data said. “However, I did become aware of some interesting etymologies. Engineer, for instance, comes from the Old English word engynour—builder of military machines—which the English took from the French engignear… which can be traced all the way back to the Latin ingenium, meaning ‘inborn qualities or talent.” “
“Ingenium,” La Forge said, with exaggerated thoughtfulness. “I like it.”
“Chief Ingenium,” Troi said, her doubt apparent “I suppose it has a certain … ring to it.”
La Forge glanced at Data. “Well, when you say it that way … it sounds more like a warp propulsion fuel. I think I’ll stick to what I’ve got.”
“That might be best,” Riker said in amusement and moved to the empty table, leaving Data to try out a few final phrases on Geordi.
“Commander Riker!” Guinan said, looking up from the dolorous ensign she served. “Welcome back!”
“Definitely good to be back.” Riker pulled out a chair and Troi disengaged her arm and took a seat on the other side.
Guinan joined them there, nodding at her gloomy previous customer. “Just lost his sweetheart to the last starbase we visited.”
“That’s a shame,” Troi said, immediately empathetic and glancing back as inconspicuously as possible. When
she saw Riker’s raised eyebrow, she said archly, “Professional interest only, Commander.”
“Of course,” he said, not bothering to sound terribly convinced, and took an immediate if light token smack on the arm.
“Ow,” he complained. “Don’t you think the Legacy did enough of a job on me?” Of course, it had been the other arm, which was indeed still sore enough. Dr. Crusher