different solar systems felt there was far more to him than that, who was he to argue.
He heard a sound in the living room and scraped the last of the soap off his throat before he walked out of the bathroom. A tall, graceful Bandi woman was collecting his breakfast tray. She glanced up at him and smiled. Riker returned the grin—and then remembered he was wearing only a casually wrapped towel around his waist. He grabbed for the overlapping edges that held it together to anchor it securely.
“I didn’t expect anyone to be in for that tray so soon,” he said.
“An hour is surely sufficient to ingest your food.”
“Yes, it usually is,” Riker agreed mildly.
The woman studied the plate with its almost untouched eggs, bacon and toast. The eggs were green—possibly some aberrant factor in the chickens the Bandi raised. “It is unhealthful to leave food waste exposed to the air,” she commented.
“That’s a good point,” Riker agreed. “If you’ll excuse me. . . .”
“You did not eat your eggs, Commander Riker. Were they unsatisfactory?”
“No, no,” he said quickly, not wishing to give offense. “To be truthful, after the night I had, eggs just didn’t appeal to me.” Green eggs in particular, he thought. The going-away party his fellow senior officers on the
Hood
had thrown for him had been a rather boisterous affair that had gone on far into the night, and he’d consumed a generous amount of the food and libations available. His stomach quivered again at the thought.
The Bandi were apparently not aware of that sort of human digestive frailty. The woman studied the eggs critically. “I see.
Not
satisfactory. You wish something else.”
“No. No food at all. Don’t worry about it.” He apologetically indicated his state of undress. “If you’ll excuse me . . . ?” he said again and ducked back into the bathroom. When he heard the woman exit, he slipped into the spacious bedroom and changed into his standard duty uniform. The new Starfleet design (black form-fitting jumpsuit, with a cranberry inset to designate command officer) was so comfortable he almost preferred it to civilian clothes. In fact, everything about his stay at Farpoint Station had been more than comfortable, to date.
When he first saw the luxury apartment he’d been given, with its two bedrooms, two baths, large living room and dining area, he had asked for something smaller and less ostentatious. To his surprise, Zorn, the
groppler
or administrator of the station, had assured him there was nothing smaller.
Many things puzzled him about the station and its personnel. He had offhandedly remarked to the Bandi woman who seemed to attend the apartment that he preferred classic oil spacescapes to the contemporary abstract holo presentations that hung on the walls. He had gone out to sightsee for a few hours and returned to find the suite walls decorated with classic Chesley Bonestell and Robert McCall paintings. They appeared to be originals, and yet he knew the genuine originals were owned almost exclusively by museums and art galleries, most of them on the planets of Sol’s system. Then there had been the plants. His mother had been an avid gardener and passed her love of green and blooming things along to him. The day before, he had noticed that an Earth-like garden in the mall was inefficiently planted. The plants that needed more sun to prosper were too much in the shade, and he had mentioned the fact in passing to the
groppler
. An hour later, he had gone by the garden again and seen that the plants had all been rotated to take best advantage of the sun. Small things—but they had been changed so
quickly
.
Riker knew Starfleet was asking questions about the Bandi and Farpoint Station, questions that needed answering. He had a hunch that the
Hood
’s rendezvous with
Enterprise
, ostensibly for the transfer of personnel, was an elaborate excuse to probe for some of those answers.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
He heard a sound in the living room and scraped the last of the soap off his throat before he walked out of the bathroom. A tall, graceful Bandi woman was collecting his breakfast tray. She glanced up at him and smiled. Riker returned the grin—and then remembered he was wearing only a casually wrapped towel around his waist. He grabbed for the overlapping edges that held it together to anchor it securely.
“I didn’t expect anyone to be in for that tray so soon,” he said.
“An hour is surely sufficient to ingest your food.”
“Yes, it usually is,” Riker agreed mildly.
The woman studied the plate with its almost untouched eggs, bacon and toast. The eggs were green—possibly some aberrant factor in the chickens the Bandi raised. “It is unhealthful to leave food waste exposed to the air,” she commented.
“That’s a good point,” Riker agreed. “If you’ll excuse me. . . .”
“You did not eat your eggs, Commander Riker. Were they unsatisfactory?”
“No, no,” he said quickly, not wishing to give offense. “To be truthful, after the night I had, eggs just didn’t appeal to me.” Green eggs in particular, he thought. The going-away party his fellow senior officers on the
Hood
had thrown for him had been a rather boisterous affair that had gone on far into the night, and he’d consumed a generous amount of the food and libations available. His stomach quivered again at the thought.
The Bandi were apparently not aware of that sort of human digestive frailty. The woman studied the eggs critically. “I see.
Not
satisfactory. You wish something else.”
“No. No food at all. Don’t worry about it.” He apologetically indicated his state of undress. “If you’ll excuse me . . . ?” he said again and ducked back into the bathroom. When he heard the woman exit, he slipped into the spacious bedroom and changed into his standard duty uniform. The new Starfleet design (black form-fitting jumpsuit, with a cranberry inset to designate command officer) was so comfortable he almost preferred it to civilian clothes. In fact, everything about his stay at Farpoint Station had been more than comfortable, to date.
When he first saw the luxury apartment he’d been given, with its two bedrooms, two baths, large living room and dining area, he had asked for something smaller and less ostentatious. To his surprise, Zorn, the
groppler
or administrator of the station, had assured him there was nothing smaller.
Many things puzzled him about the station and its personnel. He had offhandedly remarked to the Bandi woman who seemed to attend the apartment that he preferred classic oil spacescapes to the contemporary abstract holo presentations that hung on the walls. He had gone out to sightsee for a few hours and returned to find the suite walls decorated with classic Chesley Bonestell and Robert McCall paintings. They appeared to be originals, and yet he knew the genuine originals were owned almost exclusively by museums and art galleries, most of them on the planets of Sol’s system. Then there had been the plants. His mother had been an avid gardener and passed her love of green and blooming things along to him. The day before, he had noticed that an Earth-like garden in the mall was inefficiently planted. The plants that needed more sun to prosper were too much in the shade, and he had mentioned the fact in passing to the
groppler
. An hour later, he had gone by the garden again and seen that the plants had all been rotated to take best advantage of the sun. Small things—but they had been changed so
quickly
.
Riker knew Starfleet was asking questions about the Bandi and Farpoint Station, questions that needed answering. He had a hunch that the
Hood
’s rendezvous with
Enterprise
, ostensibly for the transfer of personnel, was an elaborate excuse to probe for some of those answers.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard
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