Dark Mirror Read Free Page A

quarters?”
    Picard looked in, too, and was impressed. The room had been stripped of the usual furnishings, floored with sand, and flooded. Behind the open door, a force field, like the one Hwiii wore, but more robust, was holding the water inside, flat as a pane of glass. In the pale sand, aquatic plants appeared to be rooted: huge tall ribbons of brown seaweed, interspersed with taller, slenderer fronds of delicately waving translucent green, like hair. Up and down the hairlike seaweed, translucent pods burned with a cool blue light that shimmered, fading and brightening, as the currents in the water moved the weed. Below the apparent ceiling of the quarters, lighting suggested sun above the rippling Surface of the water. Across the room, the onefeature remaining that seemed slightly out of place was the windows, looking out on space and the stars, for the moment unmoving while the ship ran in impulse. But possibly a spacegoing dolphin would not find this too out of place.
    “It’s partly constructs, of course,” Geordi said, somewhat apologetically. “But the biology department keeps seed in stasis for most of the bigger seaweeds, kelp and so forth, in case an emergency requires bringing up hydroponic support for the oxygen supply. I drew some of those stores, asked bio to clone and force a few specimens for me.”
    Hwiii chattered softly in Delphine for a moment before saying, “Mr. La Forge, this is palatial! I thank you very much indeed. Too many times I’ve been stuck swimming around in something that most closely resembled a motel room.”
    Picard burst out laughing. “I’m sorry, Commander, but when were
you
last in a motel room!”
    The eyes mirrored the always-smiling face for a moment. “Don’t laugh, Captain. The publicity side of the organization calls me, occasionally, and even Starfleet specialists wind up doing the rubber-chicken circuit. Though in my case it’s more usually rubber mackerel.”
    It occurred to Picard that this particular specialist would probably make more interesting publicity than either the two-legged kind or more alien ones. He suspected Hwiii knew it and took it in good part. “I think you’ll find the food to your liking here, though,” Picard said. “The synthesizers know what fresh fish should taste like.”
    Hwiii looked wistful. “I wish they knew what
live
fish tasted like, Captain, but unfortunately, that’s something they can’t quite manage. The aromatic esters just aren’t the same somehow.”
    Picard looked thoughtful for a moment. “I must admit… the caviar does occasionally seem to lack something.”
    Hwiii chuckled. “It doesn’t matter, Captain. I can’t fish up here, but I can’t do clean-hyperstring research back home, either. Too much interference! No, each thing to its proper place, and the fish can take care of themselves for the moment.”
    “I would like to discuss your researches with you if you have leisure to do so,” Data said. “Especially as regards the relative ‘cleanliness’ of hyperstring structures in spaces empty of dark matter.”
    Hwiii snapped his jaws in annoyance. “I wish I had more researches to discuss, but we had just gotten into such space—this area, in fact—when the Laihe decided all of a sudden that she was going to turn back inward toward the settled worlds. We only spent a month and a half in space empty enough to suit the criteria I was investigating, so I haven’t much new data to share, or many new conclusions about it. But, at your leisure, let’s split a fish or two and discuss what I’ve got.”
    “
Bridge to Picard,”
said the captain’s communicator. He touched it.
    “Picard. Go ahead, Number One.”
    “
A hail from the Laihe, Captain,”
Riker’s voice said. “
She says she’d like to talk to you at your convenience… I think.”
    Picard smiled ruefully. “I’ll be right up… Commander Hwiii, will you be all right?”
    “Captain,” Hwiii said in what sounded like complete