Dark Mirror Read Free

studies in deep space—preferably as deep as possible. After several years spent posted to starbases on the fringes of Federation space, Hwiii had requested a sabbatical to get even farther out and, on its granting, had arranged to hitch a ride with a passing Lalairu vessel on its way to the empty space above the Great Rift. Such a spot was perfect for his chosen work, investigation into the nature of subspace hyperstring structure: space uncontaminated by stars, planets, even dark matter—all of which could render equivocal readings that, for greatest usefulness, needed to be absolutely certain.
    So much Picard knew about the officer from his records, but he had had enough experience with mission specialists to know quite well that the records often left out the most interesting details, or the ones that later turned out to be most necessary to get the job done, whatever it might be.
    Picard hoped, as always, that he would be able to elicit that information from Hwiii before reassignment took him elsewhere. “Did you have a pleasant stay with the Lalairu?” Picard said as they went into the turbolift. “Deck five.”
    Hwiii laughed. “As pleasant as possible when your hosts don’t see any point in what you’re doing. I’m afraid I was more of a curiosity to them than anything else.” He looked as if he was smiling: not so much because of his mouth, which looked that way anyhow, but more because of a glitter that his eyes suddenly got. “Not that I’m not used to that anyway. But the feeling was more pronounced with the Lalairu. They behaved toward me the way we might behave toward someone who had come to us to study the art of breathing. We take it so for granted: anyone who spent all their time wanting to talk to us about respiration would probably be considered a little odd. But location and navigational issues are so ingrained in them and their language that they have trouble understanding how navigation can be studied apart from all the rest of life. Like studying cooking without also studying food.”
    Picard shook his head. “I was looking over the last communication from the Laihe, and I must tell you I had difficulty making head or tail of it. There was a general sense of concern over something being wrong with
someone’s
coordinate system… but the computer was no more certain of the translation than I was. I wasn’t sure whether the Lalairu were claiming that they were lost, or possibly that they thought
we
were. Either way, how lost can either of us be? Using their coordinate system, they found us without any apparent trouble.”
    Hwiii waved his flippers, a delphine shrug. “Captain, I’ll look at the transmission, if you like. But I don’t guarantee being able to make any more sense of it than you have. Context-positive translations are thin on the bottom when it comes to Lalairsa.”
    Coming out of the turbolift, they turned a corner and went a few doors down through guest quarters. Outside one door, Geordi La Forge and Data stood looking in while Geordi scanned the doorway with a tricorder and a critical look.
    “Gentlemen,” Picard said as they came up. Geordi looked up from the tricorder to grin at the captain. “One of my better efforts, Captain,” he said, “if I do say so myself.”
    “Gentlemen, Commander Hwiii. Commander, Mr. La Forge, Mr. Data.”
    “Pleased, Commander,” Geordi said. Data put his head slightly to one side and uttered a string of sharp clicks and squeaks ending on an up-scaling squeal.
    This time there were no two ways about it: Hwiii smiled. “Commander, that’s a very good Triton accent, and good fishing to you, too. You’ve got the Eastern intonation, though: did one of K!eeei’s people do the recording?”
    “I believe so,” Data said. “K!eeei was listed as a source in the Delphine course on cetacean epic poetry.”
    “Thought so. That accent is unmistakable.” Hwiii looked in through the open door of the room. “Are these really my