A small, puzzling smile tugged at the corner of Deanna’s mouth. “Acknowledged,” Riker said. “Tell the transporter room that Commander Troi and I are on our way. Riker out.” Turning away from the railing, Riker reached out to the platform’s interface console and deactivated the Orion Arm simulation.
He turned back toward her. “What’s that smile for?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Deanna said, brushing the question aside.
Riker’s eyes narrowed with good-natured suspicion, but he decided to let the matter drop. As the captain and counselor walked together toward the exit, the walls of the lab shifted, returning to their usual standby display of the visible universe surrounding Titan.Beyond the gridwork of the ship’s drydock, the orange sunlit face of Mars dominated the space to starboard, the flat, smooth lowlands that were home to Utopia Planitia’s ground installations obliquely visible to the extreme north; at Titan’s port side, the stations and maintenance scaffolds of Utopia’s orbital complex stood out starkly against the yellow-white brilliance of Sol.
“Has the rest of the senior staff come aboard?” Riker asked Deanna as they exited the lab and strode into the corridor. He nodded at two of the ship’s biologists as they passed, an Arkenite whose name he couldn’t recall at the moment, followed by a lumbering Chelon of the palest green Riker had ever seen on a member of that species. The scientists nodded back.
“Almost,” Deanna answered. “Dr. Ree is the last. Well, except for the first officer, of course. But assuming nothing goes wrong there, you’ll be able to hold your staff meeting on schedule, and with everybody present.”
Riker tried to keep his expression steady as they passed an exposed length of the corridor wall, where several techs from the Corps of Engineers were still working at replacing a faulty ODN relay in a replicator network that crossed half the corridor. The work looked considerably more complicated than it had half an hour ago, the last time Riker passed through this section.
“I’m less worried about having a quorum at the staff meeting than I am about launching on schedule.”
“Don’t be such a worrier, Will,” Deanna said. “A few bumps along the way are natural. We still have two weeks. She’ll be ready.”
“Any new bumps I should know about?”
“Not really. Just the challenges you’d expect from trying to accommodate a crew this biologically diverse aboard a single starship. I was on deck seven while the construction team was putting the final section of Ensign Lavena’s quarters into place. I must say it’s a little unnerving to see a wall of Pacifican ocean water that extends from floor to ceiling. If we ever have a forcefield problem, her quarters will have to stay sealed, otherwise the rest of that deck will have a huge flood on its hands.”
Riker smiled. Titan’s distinction as having the most varied multispecies crew in Starfleet history was one in which he took great pride. He was convinced it set the right tone, for the right mission, at just the right time in the Federation’s history. Small wonder, then, that it was also an engineering and environmental nightmare. At least, until all the kinks were finally worked out.
“You’re right,” Riker said. “I’m not going to worry about it. Besides, it wasn’t all that long ago when we had to deal with ships that could have taken on a lot more water than that.” Our honeymoon on the Opal Sea,he thought. Quite an adventurethat was.
They reached a turbolift and stepped inside. “Transporter room four,” Riker instructed it. The doors closed, and the lift started to move.
“There’s something I do need to bring up,” Deanna said. “It’s Dr. Ra-Havreii.”
“What about him?”
“He’s asked to remain aboard Titanduring its shakedown.”
Riker frowned. “Did he say why?”
Deanna shook her head. “He wasn’t specific, but I could tell he was troubled about something.”
“A problem with the ship?”
“No, I asked him that immediately. He said he has no concerns about how Titanwill perform, and his emotions bear that out. This is a personal request.”
Riker nodded, considering the matter for a moment. “All right. Let him know he’s welcome to remain aboard during the shakedown. No, wait, belay that. I’lltell him. A personal invitation from the captain is the least of the courtesies I can extend to Titan’s designer. And while he’s with us, see if you can probe a bit deeper about his reasons for staying aboard—without offending him, of course. Maybe after Dr. Ree is settled.”
“Understood,” Deanna said, and there it was again—that small, restrained smile, the same one she had nearly released when Jaza had informed him of Ree’s imminent arrival.
The lift halted, depositing them outside the transporter room. Riker stopped. “All right, Deanna, what is it?”
Her smile finally broke loose entirely, spreading across her face until it became a grin. It was almost as though she was trying to keep herself from laughing. Not a good sign.
“You never read that file I left you on the Pahkwa-thanh, did you?” she said.
The Pahkwa-thanh,Riker thought. Dr. Ree’s species.“I didn’t see the hurry,” he said aloud. “What’s important to me about Dr. Ree are his talents and his record as a Starfleet physician, not where he comes from. I care about whohe is, not whathe is.”
“But you’ve never met him,” Deanna said, still smiling enigmatically. “Nor any other Pahkwa-thanh.”
“Deanna,” Riker said, then lowered his voice upon noticing a passing crewman. “If there’s something about Ree I should know before I meet him, what is it?”
Deanna straightened his combadge as though preparing him for an admiral’s inspection, her demeanor suddenly innocence itself. “As you said, it’s probably not important. So let’s just go meet him.” Doing a quick about-face, Deanna marched into the transporter room before Riker could stop her. Now more than ever, he questioned the wisdom of captaining a ship whose crew included his wife as a senior officer and adviser. He knew he could trust whatever decisions Deanna might make on his behalf to be in the best interests of both himself and Titan’s crew. But he was also well aware that she wasn’t above having a bit of fun at his expense in the process.
Riker sighed and followed her inside.
“Good evening, sir,” said the young lieutenant who was standing behind the transporter console.
“Good evening, Lieutenant.” Riker searched his mind, but still didn’t remember the young man’s name. “I’m sorry, but what was your name again?”
“Radowski. Lieutenant Bowan Radowski,” the dark-complected technician said. “And no apology is necessary, sir. We all know who we’reserving under, but I’m sure it’s difficult learning so many new crew members’ names.”
Riker tried not to smile. He wasn’t certain if the transporter chief belatedly realized that he had just insulted his captain’s intelligence, but Riker knew no offense was meant. Kind of reminds me of something I might have done inmy younger days,he thought.
A beep sounded from the console, and Radowski quickly ran his fingers over the controls. “Dr. Ree is standing by, ready to beam over.”
“Energize, Mr. Radowski,” Riker said.
On the transporter pad, the familiar luminal effect grew and coalesced into a solid being. As it materialized, Riker finally understood why Deanna had been so amused by his casual ignorance of Dr. Ree’s species.
He had known from the head shot in Ree’s personnel file that the doctor was quasireptilian. But he saw now that the little 2-D image, taken head-on, had been misleading. At his full height, Ree must have been over two meters tall, and was built like a running dinosaur. Ree’s scaly, vivid yellow hide was accented by jagged stripes of black and red, and partially covered by an oddly configured Starfleet medical uniform designed to fit his unusual frame. A thick tail snaked behind two powerful legs, which had clearly evolved to chase down prey, and whose feet ended in talons and rear dewclaws. Ree’s upper limbs more closely resembled humanoid arms, though it was hard to gauge their length because he kept them bent at the elbows, folding them close to his upper chest. His iguanalike head held a mouth full of sharp, finger-length teeth that glistened wetly.