Except that Akarr glanced back at Riker, and offered none. Instead he said, "We have information regarding the shuttle s.h.i.+eld failures, and why the Federation seemingly sent us out in faulty equipment. I'm sure you've been worried about that, my ReynSa."

"We've all been worried about it," Troi said, the first to catch on to and puzzle over the undercurrents in the communication.

"But no one more than the ReynTa's own mother," Riker said.

Akarr said steadily, "If you'd also known of the problems with the tranquilizer darts, my ReynSa, I imagine you would have been too overwhelmed with worry to concern yourself over Takarr's information about the probes."

She didn't ask him of which problems he spoke; she didn't comment about the importance of Takarr's discovery. She ignored Atann's questioning look and said, "And yet you still somehow took a kaphoora trophy. Such achievement! How did you manage?"

"That," Akarr said, turning a daleura posture on his own mother, "is a story for another time. But how that story is told depends on what happens here."

Silence followed, in which the ReynSa took a physical step backward and quickly checked Atann's reaction. Atann didn't note it; he was too busy puzzling over the strange nature of his son's words. As were Troi and Picard. While Troi glanced from one to the other of them, hunting for clues, Picard looked to Riker. A captain's demand. Make this make sense.

Riker heard it loud and clear. He lifted his chin in the smallest possible increment, an acknowledgment and promise. Later, it said, and he hoped it would be enough.

Atann would have spoken to his son then, but Akarr got there just before him, still addressing his mother. "My ReynSa, I was pleased to hear that the ReynKa received acceptable terms for the use of the charts. Nothing that happened here should affect that situation ... don't you agree?"

"Akarr," she said, "you are not making yourself entirely clear. The ordeal of your kaphoora-"

In another bold move, Akarr cut her off. "There are some things that should remain private, and further discussion of my kaphoora at this time would make that impossible."

"Unfortunately," Riker said, inserting himself back into the conversation, "I suspect that such discussion would be inevitable, if the ReynSa insists on delaying the transfer of the star-chart data."

"That sounds like a threat," Atann said, although he clearly couldn't tell just why it would be.

"Yes," Picard said with a gentle smile-and byplay that Riker 1knew he'd missed. He and Akarr weren't the only ones here communicating with implications and innuendos. "I believe it is."

Tehra cleared her throat, a strangled noise involving plenty of under-purr. "I understand," she said briskly. "And after thinking about it, I must conclude that our data concerning the probes is incomplete-and that further investigation would require unacceptable delay. Atann, I withdraw my objections to the chart transfer. I trust your impeccable judgment in this matter."

"That's wonderful!" Troi said, infusing a little unfettered enthusiasm into the mix, playing straight man for them all.

"Indeed it is," Heard said, and Riker could see the genuine relief in his face. "In fact, I would suspect that Mr. Data is just about ready to proceed. Why don't you and I check on that, ReynKa ... Counselor, perhaps Takarr would like to tour the s.h.i.+p? There's plenty here to interest a young man of science." And Takarr, who'd gone from studied belligerence to astonishment at his mother's proclamation about his probe observations, now alerted in unmistakable eagerness.

Troi smiled. "I'd be glad to show him around."

Picard looked back up at the viewscreen. "Commander Riker, I imagine you'd like a chance to clean up and have your wounds tended. Do you have any estimate for your return?"

"Worf is already making arrangements to retrieve the Collins with the help of the rangers-Geordi thinks he can nurse the shuttle back through the portal, and there shouldn't be any real damage to her systems. I'll call in when we know for sure." He gave Picard a raised eyebrow and added with the last of his asperity, "The sooner, the better," to which Picard gave only a wryly amused smile.

Once signed off, Riker sought and found the only chair in the room, sinking into it without regard for its size, ignoring the fact that his knees jutted up into the air. Rational thought abandoned him, leaving him with vague impressions of a need for cleanup and rest. After a moment he realized that Akarr stood before him, waiting for his attention.

"Commander," he said, when Riker finally focused on him, and that was all. But he held out his hand in an awkward initiation of a human handshake.

After a moment, Riker took it, finding a way to fit his thumb between Akarr's own two thumbs. And then Akarr withdrew his hand and left Riker sitting alone in the small room, staring at the garish Fandrean seal and considering that maybe he, too, had come back from this kaphoora with a trophy of sorts.

24?.

Chapter Fifteen.

Riker strolled into ten-forward with Deanna on his arm. Hunting grounds of a sort... and the kind he'd stick to for a while. He spotted an empty table beside La Forge and Data at the same time as Deanna, and they headed for it, attracted as much by Data's animated conversation as the seating.

"Bodacious," Data was saying. "Catbird seat, gild the lily, eating crow-"

"Data," Troi said, mystified, "what are you doing?"

"Recounting some of the expressions I used in my recent experiment to determine how well the meanings of colloquial phrases from previous centuries have carried over to this one."

Riker broke into a slow smile as Troi did an entirely evident mental hmm! and asked, "Did you come to any conclusions?"

"I decided against it."

Even for Data, that didn't quite make sense. "Say that again?"

La Forge looked up at them. "I suggested that he's done enough of this sort of thing with the crew that his sample was skewed."

"My wildly varying results would seem to indicate the wisdom of the observation," Data said. "However, I did become aware of some interesting etymologies. Engineer, for instance, comes from the Old English word engynour-builder of military machines-which the English took from the French engignear... which can be traced all the way back to the Latin ingenium, meaning 'inborn qualities or talent." "

"Ingenium," La Forge said, with exaggerated thoughtfulness. "I like it."

"Chief Ingenium," Troi said, her doubt apparent "I suppose it has a certain ... ring to it."

La Forge glanced at Data. "Well, when you say it that way ... it sounds more like a warp propulsion fuel. I think I'll stick to what I've got."

"That might be best," Riker said in amus.e.m.e.nt and moved to the empty table, leaving Data to try out a few final phrases on Geordi.

"Commander Riker!" Guinan said, looking up from the dolorous ensign she served. "Welcome back!"

"Definitely good to be back." Riker pulled out a chair and Troi disengaged her arm and took a seat on the other side.

Guinan joined them there, nodding at her gloomy previous customer. "Just lost his sweetheart to the last starbase we visited."

"That's a shame," Troi said, immediately empathetic and glancing back as inconspicuously as possible. When she saw Riker's raised eyebrow, she said archly, "Professional interest only, Commander."

"Of course," he said, not bothering to sound terribly convinced, and took an immediate if light token smack on the arm.

"Ow," he complained. "Don't you think the Legacy did enough of a job on me?" Of course, it had been the other arm, which was indeed still sore enough. Dr. Crusher's magical sickbay tricks did not, she informed him sternly, work on older wounds-nor wounds that had been soaked in a neutralizing sap sealant. Of course, in the next breath, she was wondering if he hadn't been able to bring some of that sap back with him... ?

He had to admit that he'd been too busy to think about it.

Troi, not fooled for a moment, said with no sympathy whatsoever, "It was the other arm."

Guinan just smiled, as if all was right with her world. "What can I get you folks?"

"Mareuvian tea," Riker said, and, when they both turned to look at him, said, "What? A fellow can't go light?" He frowned at them, but when it didn't work, gave up. "Dr. Crusher suggested it."

"It does have mild restorative powers," Guinan agreed, as sage as ever. "Counselor?"

"I'll have the same," she said, and gave Riker the kind of mischievious smile that was more likely to alarm him than draw him into the fun. "In the spirit of... I don't know, in the spirit of something."

"Two Mareuvian teas, in the spirit of something," Guinan said. "Coming right up."

"Where's Worf, anyway?" Riker asked. "I know he had off time. I half-expected to find him in here raising a drink to the cartiga."

"He's on the holodeck," Troi said, still smiling-although at least this time it was aimed at Worf. "He's trying to figure out a way to integrate those very cartigas into his calisthenics programs. After he cleans out all the Tsoran-sized opponents the captain added."

Riker thought about it a moment, then nodded. Yes, that seemed just about right, too. That's all there was left at this point-cleanup. The probes had been withdrawn, the Ntignano evacuation was speeding along-and, an interesting note: just as the Enterprise was leaving orbit, one of the more ... dedicated communications lieutenants picked up the planetary news that the ReynSa had abruptly gone on an extended trip to be with her ailing parents, while Takarr remained behind under the tutelage of his older brother. Indeed, Picard had said, which just about said it all.

Guinan arrived with two tall, frosted gla.s.ses of tea, each topped by a stalk of green. "Mareuvian tea," she said. "With mint."

Riker plucked his out and deposited it into Deanna's drink. "I've seen enough towering greenery for a while, thank you."

Guinan just smiled. But as she turned away, she hesitated, looking at him from under raised, nonexistent eyebrows. "Well?" she asked. "Does it?"

Ever get any easier. Of course she remembered her question to him, the last time he was here.

"Not to judge by this experience," Riker said. Not only stuck in an annoying diplomatic baby-sitting job, but stuck with it in a carnivore-filled jungle. No, make that a carnivore-overflowing jungle.

All the same ... his time with Akarr had changed the kid. Neither of them had really wanted to admit it, but it had. A coming of age that the kid hadn't expected when he'd gone looking for tooth and claw ... a coming of age Riker hadn't thought him capable of.

So maybe they both learned something.

But it was going to be just as d.a.m.n annoying the next time around.

"What was she talking about?" Troi asked, giving Guinan-back behind the bar and talking to another officer-and then Riker each a curious look. Her most curious look. The one that was only slightly less scary than it was mischievous, her black eyes even more beguiling with that spark behind them.

"I'm never really sure," Riker said, evading the question as neatly as possible. And he wasn't. He'd have to think about it some more. He sighed, sipped the tea-bland, to his tastes, but if Dr. Crusher said "restorative," then restorative it was-and found, among the jumble of his thoughts, one reasonably safe conclusion.

If nothing else, it seemed certain that after his time with the Legacy carnivores, baby-sitting Data's cat Spot would be-as Data himself would say, in his current colloquialism-hunting state of mind-a breeze.

Riker closed one eye and thought briefly back to previous experience with Spot. Thought of the cartiga. Thought of Spot.

Maybe not.