Tooth and Claw - Doranna Durgin [95]
He had to admit that he’d been too busy to think about it.
Troi, not fooled for a moment, said with no sympathy whatsoever, “It was the other arm.”
Guinan just smiled, as if all was right with her world. “What can I get you folks?”
“Mareuvian tea,” Riker said, and, when they both turned to look at him, said, “What? A fellow can’t go light?” He frowned at them, but when it didn’t work, gave up. “Dr. Crusher suggested it.”
“It does have mild restorative powers,” Guinan agreed, as sage as ever. “Counselor?”
“I’ll have the same,” she said, and gave Riker the kind of mischievious smile that was more likely to alarm him than draw him into the fun. “In the spirit of… I don’t know, in the spirit of something.”
“Two Mareuvian teas, in the spirit of something,” Guinan said. “Coming right up.”
“Where’s Worf, anyway?” Riker asked. “I know he had off time. I half-expected to find him in here raising a drink to the cartiga.”
“He’s on the holodeck,” Troi said, still smiling—although at least this time it was aimed at Worf. “He’s trying to figure out a way to integrate those very cartigas into his calisthenics programs. After he cleans out all the Tsoran-sized opponents the captain added.”
Riker thought about it a moment, then nodded. Yes, that seemed just about right, too. That’s all there was left at this point—cleanup. The probes had been withdrawn, the Ntignano evacuation was speeding along—and, an interesting note: just as the Enterprise was leaving orbit, one of the more … dedicated communications lieutenants picked up the planetary news that the ReynSa had abruptly gone on an extended trip to be with her ailing parents, while Takarr remained behind under the tutelage of his older brother. Indeed, Picard had said, which just about said it all.
Guinan arrived with two tall, frosted glasses of tea, each topped by a stalk of green. “Mareuvian tea,” she said. “With mint.”
Riker plucked his out and deposited it into Deanna’s drink. “I’ve seen enough towering greenery for a while, thank you.”
Guinan just smiled. But as she turned away, she hesitated, looking at him from under raised, nonexistent eyebrows. “Well?” she asked. “Does it?”
Ever get any easier. Of course she remembered her question to him, the last time he was here.
“Not to judge by this experience,” Riker said. Not only stuck in an annoying diplomatic baby-sitting job, but stuck with it in a carnivore-filled jungle. No, make that a carnivore-overflowing jungle.
All the same … his time with Akarr had changed the kid. Neither of them had really wanted to admit it, but it had. A coming of age that the kid hadn’t expected when
he’d gone looking for tooth and claw … a coming of age Riker hadn’t thought him capable of.
So maybe they both learned something.
But it was going to be just as damn annoying the next time around.
“What was she talking about?” Troi asked, giving Guinan—back behind the bar and talking to another officer-and then Riker each a curious look. Her most curious look. The one that was only slightly less scary than it was mischievous, her black eyes even more beguiling with that spark behind them.
“I’m never really sure,” Riker said, evading the question as neatly as possible. And he wasn’t. He’d have to think about it some more. He sighed, sipped the tea-bland, to his tastes, but if Dr. Crusher said “restorative,” then restorative it was—and found, among the jumble of his thoughts, one reasonably safe conclusion.
If nothing else, it seemed certain that after his time with the Legacy carnivores, baby-sitting Data’s cat Spot would be—as Data himself would say, in his current colloquialism-hunting state of mind—a breeze.
Riker closed one eye and thought briefly back to previous experience with Spot. Thought of the cartiga. Thought of Spot.
Maybe not.
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