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 neverwent 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 the bulkhead right past your sleepsack.”
Pazlar glided up after her. She wasn’t surprised there was still work to be done. Her living space was, as far as she knew, the only vertically oriented crew quarters ever built into a Federation starship. She supposed that “built” was probably the wrong term; Ledrah and her staff had actually retrofitted a narrow space spanning three decks in order to fashion living quarters suitable for an Elaysian.
“Hey, Ledrah!” Bralik bleated loudly, her voice echoing up and down the shaft. Pazlar made a mental note to apply some sound-dampening fabric or foam to the walls.
A familiar face emerged from an open access hatch. Ledrah looked harried, gripping a tool of some sort between her teeth. Her shock of bluish hair was matted with sweat; it would have been free-floating except that the Tiburon had it clipped to one of her large, seashell ears.
Ledrah mumbled something, releasing the tool from her mouth as she did so. It drifted forward and down in a lazy ellipse, but before the clearly micro-g-unaccustomed engineer could snatch it, Pazlar had already done so.
“Thanks,” Ledrah said. “Sorry it’s still such a mess in here. I’d hoped we’d be farther along on the reconstruction by now.” She lowered her voice slightly, gesturing with one hand up to the fourth—and highest—level. “I’m starting to think having Paolo and Koasa on the job might be more trouble than it’s worth. If I’m not having to redo something they’ve done wrong, they’re arguing about which way to do it right the first time.”
“But they’re handsome,” Pazlar said, smiling. “And they’re twins.”
Ledrah carefully extricated herself from the Jefferies tube hatch, laughing. “You’re right. And they aren’t anywhere as bad as I make them out to be.” She cautiously kept one hand on the rail, to steady herself in the micro-g environment.
“My understanding among your type is that hostility often masks attraction,” Bralik said, her toothy smile showing. “Better be careful. They’re junior officers.”
With a mock scowl, Ledrah waggled a mottled, salmon-colored finger at the Ferengi. “You just watch yourself there. I know some of your secrets, too!”
As Bralik put her hands up, as if to protest her innocence, Melora spoke up. “I really appreciate all the work you’re putting into the place, Commander.”
“Well, it is a challenge, but it’s about time we tried something new,” Ledrah said. She looked around guiltily and dropped her voice. “Not that there’s anything wrongwith Ra-Havreii’s basic design, mind you. It’s just nice to see a few of my own ideas integrated into this ship, too.”
“I’ve never met a chief engineer yet who didn’t want to make the ship she’s serving on her own,” Pazlar said.
Engineers.She thought for a moment of Reginald Barclay, the shy man with whom she had shared a brief romance while serving aboard the Enterprise.She understood that in the time since then, he had been an active part of Project Pathfinder, which was instrumental in bringing the lost starship U.S.S. Voyagerback to Earth. She hadn’t spoken to Reg in years, and wasn’t certain even now whether she was avoiding him, or vice versa. Or if their protracted mutual silence was mere happenstance.
Perhaps once she was fully settled aboard Titan,with a mission or two under her belt, she would make the time to contact him.
“Hellooooo,” a pair of heavily accented voices called from above them, in unison. Ensigns Paolo and Koasa Rossini came swimming down toward them, pulling along a cart of tools between them.
“Ooooh, your favorite junior officers are here,” Bralik said, not quite quietly enough.
Ledrah flushed a bright pink, particularly along the vertical ridge of tiny horns that bisected her forehead, then lobbed the small instrument in her hand straight at Bralik.
Pazlar stifled a laugh as the object bonked the Ferengi woman directly between the twin lobes of her cranium, then ricocheted off into the room’s lower levels.
I think I’m going to like this crew,she thought. For once,I’m not the only outsider who has to adapt. We’reall going to have to adapt to each other.
Nurse Alyssa Ogawa watched the rhythmic, repetitive motions of Xin Ra-Havreii’s long, wispy white mustachios. She found the effect almost hypnotic.
He’s trembling,she realized with no small amount of surprise. Why is he so nervous?
“How long did you say this had been bothering you, Commander?” Ogawa asked.
Idly playing with the pips on the collar of his standard Starfleet duty uniform, Dr. Ra-Havreii swayed unsteadily toward one of the biobeds and reclined heavily on it. He assayed a laugh, but its apparent breeziness was belied by a subtle deepening of his slightly rusty complexion. “It comes and goes. I can usually cope with it, but it’s flared up since I came aboard. One of my stomachs seems to have remained behind at the Utopia ground station.”
Ogawa reflected on how ironic it was that a designer of starships had such wobbly space legs.
Offering him what she hoped was a reassuring smile, she said, “Then let’s see what we can do about that. Short of sending a search party down to look for that missing stomach, that is.”
He returned a pale reflection of Ogawa’s smile as she walked to an interface console, where she checked the pharmacological database for broad-spectrum antinausea agents that were compatible with Efrosian physiology. Selecting one, she retrieved the proper vial and a hypospray from one of sickbay’s equipment shelves and returned to her patient.
She touched it to the commander’s neck and released the drug into his system.
“Feeling better?” she asked after a moment.
He nodded tentatively, his long, shimmering white hair undulating with the motion like some undersea reef-creature as he sat up slowly on the biobed. “Thank you, Lieutenant. I’m most grateful.”
“Happy to help. You still need to see one of the doctors, though,” she cautioned. “I recommend doing it as soon as possible.”
Ra-Havreii nodded again, hand to abdomen as he breathed.
“I take it you don’t make it out of the lab very often,” Ogawa said.
Ra-Havreii seemed to hesitate before answering. “Not for several years. Nearly four decades of theoretical engineering for the Skunkworks seldom required that I leave Mars.”