Unification - Jeri Taylor [45]
And then there were the two missing ships: the T’Pau, the quest for which had begun this whole adventure; and the Tripoli, the huge cargo ship that had been used to store equipment that was routinely stripped from starships consigned to the depot.
It was, reflected Riker, an ambitious and remarkably clever plan. The Tripoli—they weren’t sure how yetmhad quietly been slipped from its docking space. Whenever shipments werebeamed to its coordinates, the smuggler’s ship apparently took its place and received the goods, then warped away with no one the wiser.
“It seems to me that would mean there was a collaborator on the surface,” mused Riker. They were on board the Enterprise, seated in one of the small security offices on Deck Nine; Riker was leaning back in his chair, absorbing the information Gretchen was relaying to him, mulling it over, worrying it like a pup with an old sock. “The computer would have to have been reconfigured to indicate the Tripoli was still there. Unless the locking coordinates were showing on the computer, whoever was programming the transport would have known there was nothing there.”
Gretchen was nodding, her glossy black hair pulled back today into a thick braid. Riker noted idly that he liked that look on her. “I think there was someone else involved, too,” she was saying. “So does Dokachin. He’s written a scanning program to look for patterns in computer usage during the last year. He’ll cross-reference the usage patterns with personal and duty logs to find who might be responsible.”
Riker nodded his approval. “We need to find that person. They might be our only link to whoever it was that piloted the smuggleifs ship.”
“Dokachin will transport on board at fifteen hundred hours,” said Gretchen. “Maybe he’ll have some results by then.”
“That leaves time for lunch,” said Riker, realizing that it had been hours since breakfast. “Join me?”
“We have a replicator in the conference room,” offered Gretchen. “We can eat and continue to study files.” She rose and Riker grinned as he got to his feet. Naylor set a pace that few could match; she was single-minded in her diligence. He wondered if she was always this absorbed in her work. If so, he doubted that she had any friendships, male or female, for there would be literally no time to formulate them.
He also realized that for all the hours they had spent together this week, he knew remarkably little about her. She was friendly and cheerful, but other than sharing first names, they had exchanged no other personal information. Riker decided to do something about that.
She ate sensibly, as he somehow knew she would: a vegetable salad and rice bread; he opted for an omelet even though he’d never quite adapted to the taste of replicated eggs.
‘Td rather have them fresh,” he admitted, and she looked at him in mild surprise. “You mean—cook?” she queried.
“I enjoy cooking. Not all the time, mind you, but I make a mean omelet myselfi” “With what?” She sounded genuinely mystified. “With whatever I can find… eggs, vegetables, that kind of thing. It doesn’t happen often.” He was silent for a moment, dousing catsup on the omelet. Replicated catsup was even stranger than eggs, but somehow the two complemented each other.
“I’ve never cooked,” she stated flatly. “My mother didn’t cook. No one in my family has ever cooked. I don’t understand—it just seems like a waste of time.”
He smiled. This was not an uncommon attitude. In fact, it was becoming rarer and rarer to find anybody —especially in Starfleet—who had ever participated in any kind of food preparation. “To me, it’s a creative outlet. Every time I make something, I try to vary it a little, so it never comes out the same way twice.”
“Why?” Her brow was knotted in a frown.
He shrugged. “Aren’t there things you just like to do… for no reason except that it gives you pleasure?”
She considered. “I like to work. That gives me pleasure.”
“I mean besides work. Music, art, reading, sports…” He paused, remembering the fragrant hills of her home, and offered, “Gardening.