It seemed the Federation wanted to know everything about everything; their culture was young enough to still adhere to the illusion that anything *could* be known. Even Bajoran toddlers knew that the spirit counted, not the amount of information processed, stored or gained. But those prophet-forsaken Cardassians had left the ancient Bajor with no other choice but to become dependent on Starfleet, and so the Bajoran ensign Andra Laz had to spend a sizeable amount of his time transmitting redundant scientific data to Memory Prime, the central computer data base and archive of the Federation. For hours on end, the completely irrelevant details of some extremely repetetive measurements traversed his communications console en route to a series of communication relay stations and, finally, those insatiable memory banks from which they would never emerge again. Ensign Andra had heard rumours that in those giantic computer systems, independent virtual entities called pathfinders correlated the information that was incessantly piped into their mass storage; they would perhaps enjoy the data for a few nanoseconds the way you enjoyed a flower by the wayside while you were hurrying somewhere else. Other than that, there was no use for it that Laz could imagine.
He turned to the workstation on his left which he used to transfer some Federation encryption programs to his sister Adarys, who was working for the provisional Government of Bajor and had the exhausting task of providing every village on the Northern Continent with its own public comm station. After she'd listened all days to the elders from Cowpad 2 whining and arguing that they were utterly independent from Cowpad 1 and absolutely had to have their own comm, despite the fact that the other village was just a cow's tail away, she really needed something light and funny to relax. He typed a sarcastic comment into the console and turned right again to see the data for Memory Prime still painting long streaks on the monitor, marking the nervewrackingly slow progress into subspace. Of course he wasn't exactly supposed to transmit private messages while he was formally on duty; but even those federated children couldn't expect their deputy communications officer to let himself be bored to death on the job, plus, of course, it was Adarys he was sending the stuff to, Adarys who'd think nothing of spending the nights after her tiresome workdays decyphering Cardassian messages that nobody else could make head or tail of.
His third terminal beeped in its usual, nerve-jarringly Cardassian way. Ensign Andra swivelled over to accept the following message:
"Delayed Federation personnel arrived aboard freighter *Millenial Falcon* at Marak I. space port, asking to be collected by a station runabout. End message."
Andra Laz couldn't suppress a giggle. Those pitiable spoilt Federation brats had doubtlessly been given a rough ride by his impossible cousin. And Marak was a crummy freighter port on the North Continent not at all equipped for handling passengers; small wonder those people whined for a runabout. How typical of Gal not to change his route by an inch for anybody whosoever; from any larger port they could have taken a shuttle to the station, but Captain Andra Gal of course had to unload his junk at Marak. Of course he'd made them pay through the nose, and had made them work, and had gotten them to instal lots of newfangled Federation technology in his sorry bucket of bolts.
The console in the middle had finished its transmission and asked coolly for in-depth information to certain datasets; those miserable pathfinders never got enough. In addition, the third terminal completed the transfer as well, and Adarys herself, returned from her thankless comm net users, answered in blinking capital letters: YOU MADE THIS UP, DIDN'T YOU? NOT EVEN THE VULCANS COULD INVENT SOMETHING THIS USELESSLY NEAT.
With three fast gestures, he contacted Major Kira in Odo's office because of those Starfleet people, relayed the patfinders' request to the science section, and asked Adarys to wait a moment.
"Additional data follows", Lieutenant Dax announced; Adarys commeted, WE'RE SO IMPORTANT TODAY; AREN'T WE?, and Major Kira asked him to wait. He sent the renewed streams of data into subspace, confirmed that he was waiting and turned to Adarys again to elucidate on the uselessness of those Federation codes. Just when his sister lost interest and began ribbing him about his newest love affair that had ended in stalemate, as usual, Major Kira came back to him and saved him from his sister. "Ensign, take the *Rio Grande* and collect the Starfleet people yourself; we're officers, not a private transport service, and we've got enough problems of our own as it is. Kira out." He confirmed the order and told Adarys "Coming over myself; meet me in half an hour at Mark I.", and logged out of the terminal on his right. He notified Marak that a runabout was on its way, and cut that connection as well. He called for relief to monitor the data flowing into subspace, hoping they wouldn't fall asleep on the job; and when a shy, mousy-faced young woman in a grey Bajoran uniform arrived hurriedly to take over, he went on his way, glad to escape from ops.
Kira and Odo were in the constable's office, facing an an extremely agitated Arcturan merchant who claimed that O'Brien had tried to sabotage his ship. He seemed absolutely unwilling to calm down and was uttering exotic threats in his roughshod grammar. Some misplaced Starfleet personnel needing to be rescued from Marak was about the last thing she could use, unless...
"I just received a message that a Starfleet technician specialising in alien technologies is due to arrive at the station; if you'd just wait for an hour, he'll certainly be able to get your ship up and running, but we've really got more pressing matters on our hands."
"Not alien my ship", the Arcturan grumbled, retreating.
Kira called the *Rio Grande* from Odo's console. "Hurry up, ensign; we need the technician you're going to bring."
"Confirmed", the ensign answered confidently, and Kira and Odo were finally free to return to the problem about the Cardassian security codes.
Andra Adarys was a person who silently commented on everything she saw, kept her counsel and then disgorged her collected witticism at her brother in the most unsuitable situation. These Starfleet officers made excellent raw material for that.
She leaned in a corner of the hangar where they waited for the arrival of the runabout; she'd manhandled her atmosphere glider ruthlessly enough to take only twenty minutes to reach Marak. She noticed immediately that those people had had a lot of difficultities on their way here. Gal was already gone when she arrived; she'd have to ask him for particulars on this haul the next time she met him. Fedration personnel was usually well-balanced and polite towards each other, whereas this lot was obviously not on speaking terms among parts of themselves. After five minutes she'd isolated one pole of the tension in the only non-Terran of the group, a tall, skinny Vulcan with a long face, a pointed chin and surprisingly beautiful eyes who stood in a corner on his own, was occasionally spoken to and gave only the curtest of answers instead of starting a conversation. When Laz hadn't arrived eight minutes over the appointed time, she began searching for the Vulcan's adversary among the humans and located that person in a medium height blond male with a broad grin talking shop with a tall, muscular black man. The three minutes that remained until her brother finally landed she whiled away by deepening her observations. The Vulcan exhibited an arrogance she would have taken for an unmistakeable sign of insecurity in a Bajoran or Human. The pointy-eared ones were elitist in any case; but this one needed to demonstrate his superiority to all and sundry, which was suspicious. He was weird in any case. Instead of the square Vulcan bangs they all usually wore, he kept his hair shorn very closely, creating the effect of a black cat's fur. He seemed to use the expressionless severity of his face to belie the beauty of his impressive dark eyes which constantly smouldered against his grave stance. He wasn't just cool and logical but actively hostile. When the runabout came at last, a middle-aged blond woman said goodbye to him. He nodded at her and turned to go, but she tried to place a conciliatory remark she referred with a wave of her hand to the blond male. On this, the Vulcan just waved his weirdly spread-out right hand the way the pointy-ears do, and marched in long strides through the rain towards the runabout. The woman angrily stared at his retreating back and called after him, "Suvuk, don't forget you're only mortal, after all!" Laz, who was getting out of the runabout, hastily stepped aside when the Vulcan boarded so unerringly as if nobody else was present.
A few steps through the drizzle brought Adarys to her brother. "Now tell me why-", she began, but Laz interrupted.
"I have to go back at once. What are you planning to do tonight?"
"Nothing. Why?"
"When I come back, I go off duty; if you want to, I can take you to DS9, and we can have a drink at Quark's."
"Hm", Adarys considered. "I can take the shuttle back, but then my colleague will have to collect the glider. She passes Marak on the ground shuttle anyway; it won't be a bother for her to get it. I hope she isn't going to park it in ditch again, though. Put your passengers aboard while I transmit today's codes to her, okay?"
Underway to DS9, while her brother piloted the runabout, Adarys once more contemplated the almost tangible tension within the group. Both of the opponents readily noticed all of the others while stubbornly ignoring each other. The blond man stared out of the front window, his glance passing the Vulcan's head by two inches with unwavering control as to keep it from landing on that nonexistent object, while old pointy ears held his neck very stiff as if to repel any notice from behind. As she could see the only the back of the Vulcan's head, Adarys concentrated her observations on the human.
Adarys boasted some abilities that could be called uncanny, and were always extremely elusive. Every time one of her hunches was confirmed by subsequent information, she took it as a personal triumph. As a former member of the Bajoran underground she claimed to be able to see at a glance where a person's political loyalties lay; and as a the sister of a gay brother she spotted immediately whether somebody was gay or staight. The blond man, an impressive but no way exceptional specimen equipped with the appropriate quantities of eyes, hair, arms and legs, and the usual smooth and expressionless human nose, seemed to hold no particular political views, obviously under the pretext that only his work counted for him. And he was just as obviously gay. If he'd tried to make a pass at the Vulcan aboard Millenial Falcon that would constitute sufficient cause for the animosities. And if he'd tried to make a pass at the Vulcan, any Vulcan, he was certainly somewhat unbalanced mentally, as nobody with well-adjusted self esteem went to a Vulcan to get himself snubbed. And if he was that sort of a difficult case, her brother would certainly become interested in him, because good old Laz had somewhat of a season ticket for that problematic type. Doubtlessly he could use some more balance in his own pagh. Adarys decided to warn her brother against the blond human when they finally got to that drink at Quark's; that way they could spare themselves another round of the same.
On DS9, the new arrivals were greeted by some of the officers. Laz logged his return, went off duty at the same go, and took her down to the promenade. But when they entered Quark's some small, slimy Ferengi sneakily fondled Adarys' behind and mumbled something about wonderfully ample forms and voloptuous women, which made her so angry the difficult blond guy and arrogant pointy-ears instantaneously dropped to the deepest reachest of her memory, not to emerge for a very long time.
O'Brien was much less than happy. He'd waited for the new arrivals at the shuttle bay to intercept the new technician and send him to upper pylon three, where the Acturan ship was docked; but the red-haired ensign in a gold Starfleet uniform he met first was security and didn't know of anything. "I think you must be looking for Lieutenant Aneski or whatever his outlandish name is; the blond-haired one over there", he said and went on his way.
Lieutenant. What the hell did Starfleet think by sending a fully-fledged Lieutenant when the Chief of Operations was only an ensign? O'Brien couldn't fathom their logic. The man was to work for him; so how in blazes was he supposed to give orders to someone who outranked him? And if everything had to happen at once, which was the rule on DS9, he didn't have the time to politely ask the damn Lieutenant each and every time if he could please do this or that for him. And if he gave the Lieutenant free rein, the efficiency of operations would doubtlessly suffer; furthermore, he was the damn chief here, and responsible for any technology going on aboard the station. And with a view to the decrepit state the station insisted in staying in he didn't have the time to waste on questions of rank and protocol, of all things. This man was the specialist for alien ships and Cardassian junk, and he was a damn Lieutenant. It wasn't fair.
Disgruntled, O'Brien turned to the blond human when he passed him. "Excuse me, I hear you're the new technician."
The Lieuteant grinned at him enthusiastically, although a bit tiredly. "And you're the chief, I see. What can I do for you? Did someone throw their exotic junk at your feet and demand you overhaul it at once?"
"An Arcturan, ah, Sir."
"Arcturan ships on principle have to stop for spare parts more often than for refuelling. And don't call me sir; you're the chief here. You tell me what to do, and I do it. That's what I'm here for. Where is the ship?"
"Upper pylon three. What am I to call you, Sir?"
"Name's Äänekoski."
"?"
"Forget it. Call me JP, or Lieutenant, or whatever you want as long as I know you mean me. Is the guiding system Cardassian or Federation equipment?"
"Cardassian, unfortunately. I never had the time or the parts to exchange such a non-essential system."
"No problem; I can cope with that. I hear you're Irish."
"Miles O'Brien, Sir, ah..."
"Call me Sir if you prefer that; I don't mind either way. I don't intend to curry favours, but is there a bar on this station?"
"Quark's, on the promenade."
"A Ferengi. Interesting. For the right price he'll coax stout or salmiakkikossu from his replicators. D'you think we could meet there after the shift, and you tell me the basics about this station?"
"After the shift won't work; we're always on duty here when we aren't actually sleeping. Just tell me when you're through with the Arcturan. It will be a pleasure to tell a knowledgeable fellow about all the misfeatures of this Cardassian heap of junk. The others don't want to hear about it any more. I was told your speciality were alien ships, though, Lieutenant."
"Any alien technology, and if nothing's coming, I'll work with what we have here. I won't sit around doing exactly nothing while you're "always on duty", chief."
"I have to go down here. You'll find the guidance console over there. See you later. Oh yes, and welcome to Deep Space Nine."
"See you, chief."
O'Brien took the turbo lift back to the core, well content with his excellent new colleague.
Dax wasn't so lucky. She'd known Suvuk's work for years and was looking forward to having such an eminent scientist on the station. She idly waited for him at the shuttle bay as all the computers in the science section had been busy for hours ordering data that was to be sent to Memory Prime, and she didn't have anything else to do. She recognised Suvuk at once, as he was the only Vulcan among the new arrivals and would be, in fact, the only Vulcan on the station. Even when she was still Curzon she'd heard rumours that the scientist was a renegade against the Vulcan ways, divorced from the traditions and conventions of his homeworld, and she hoped for a less formal and complicated collaboration with him than she would have to expect with an ordinary Vulcan.
Lieuteant Suvuk was last to leave the shuttle. She intercepted him without committing the mistake of trying to shake his hand or otherwise touch him. "Welcome to Deep Space Nine. I'm Jadzia Dax, science officer of the station, and this is already the second life in which I'm interstedly following all your publications. I'm looking forward to working with you."
Suvuk lifted his hand for the Vulcan salute. "Peace and long life, Lieutenant. You're a Trill, I see. I have done some work on your culture several years ago; your concept of individuality is absolutely remarkable. But that is not what I am here for. I am on an assignment to search for traces of a spacefaring cetacean civilisation, and will only marginally be concerned with the day-to-day processes of your department. It would be inappropriate to talk of cooperation in that context. I merely request of you the use of a fully equipped science console with access to all relevant databases so I can start my work without delay."
What an arrogant little fellow. "But I suppose you will need my assistance in evaluating our data; I know where to find things, and what we have here, and can spare you a lot of fruitless searching."
"I know what you have here. If I were merely interested in your data, I could have stayed at the academy. I will gather my own data and evaluate material from ships returning through the wormhole. I do not intend to impede your activities in any way":
"Lieutenant, you won't be an impediment. I am at your service with all my experience; I am looking forward to discussing your views with you":
"Thank you, I am quite able to deal with all that myself. If you could assign me an office with the aformentioned science console, I will leave you to your doubtlessly pressing work."
Who the hell did the little twerp think he was?! "Lieutenant, I was a scientist when your grandmother wasn't even born; you can trust my abilities."
"You know nothing about my grandmother. I will go and find my quarters and afterwards report to your station so you can assign me my office."
With that, he simply went away. Dax stared after him, speechlessly, while the metaphorical green fumes came from her ears. Why, by all the lives of her old soul, did the best scientists always have to be such - cranks?!
He turned to the workstation on his left which he used to transfer some Federation encryption programs to his sister Adarys, who was working for the provisional Government of Bajor and had the exhausting task of providing every village on the Northern Continent with its own public comm station. After she'd listened all days to the elders from Cowpad 2 whining and arguing that they were utterly independent from Cowpad 1 and absolutely had to have their own comm, despite the fact that the other village was just a cow's tail away, she really needed something light and funny to relax. He typed a sarcastic comment into the console and turned right again to see the data for Memory Prime still painting long streaks on the monitor, marking the nervewrackingly slow progress into subspace. Of course he wasn't exactly supposed to transmit private messages while he was formally on duty; but even those federated children couldn't expect their deputy communications officer to let himself be bored to death on the job, plus, of course, it was Adarys he was sending the stuff to, Adarys who'd think nothing of spending the nights after her tiresome workdays decyphering Cardassian messages that nobody else could make head or tail of.
His third terminal beeped in its usual, nerve-jarringly Cardassian way. Ensign Andra swivelled over to accept the following message:
"Delayed Federation personnel arrived aboard freighter *Millenial Falcon* at Marak I. space port, asking to be collected by a station runabout. End message."
Andra Laz couldn't suppress a giggle. Those pitiable spoilt Federation brats had doubtlessly been given a rough ride by his impossible cousin. And Marak was a crummy freighter port on the North Continent not at all equipped for handling passengers; small wonder those people whined for a runabout. How typical of Gal not to change his route by an inch for anybody whosoever; from any larger port they could have taken a shuttle to the station, but Captain Andra Gal of course had to unload his junk at Marak. Of course he'd made them pay through the nose, and had made them work, and had gotten them to instal lots of newfangled Federation technology in his sorry bucket of bolts.
The console in the middle had finished its transmission and asked coolly for in-depth information to certain datasets; those miserable pathfinders never got enough. In addition, the third terminal completed the transfer as well, and Adarys herself, returned from her thankless comm net users, answered in blinking capital letters: YOU MADE THIS UP, DIDN'T YOU? NOT EVEN THE VULCANS COULD INVENT SOMETHING THIS USELESSLY NEAT.
With three fast gestures, he contacted Major Kira in Odo's office because of those Starfleet people, relayed the patfinders' request to the science section, and asked Adarys to wait a moment.
"Additional data follows", Lieutenant Dax announced; Adarys commeted, WE'RE SO IMPORTANT TODAY; AREN'T WE?, and Major Kira asked him to wait. He sent the renewed streams of data into subspace, confirmed that he was waiting and turned to Adarys again to elucidate on the uselessness of those Federation codes. Just when his sister lost interest and began ribbing him about his newest love affair that had ended in stalemate, as usual, Major Kira came back to him and saved him from his sister. "Ensign, take the *Rio Grande* and collect the Starfleet people yourself; we're officers, not a private transport service, and we've got enough problems of our own as it is. Kira out." He confirmed the order and told Adarys "Coming over myself; meet me in half an hour at Mark I.", and logged out of the terminal on his right. He notified Marak that a runabout was on its way, and cut that connection as well. He called for relief to monitor the data flowing into subspace, hoping they wouldn't fall asleep on the job; and when a shy, mousy-faced young woman in a grey Bajoran uniform arrived hurriedly to take over, he went on his way, glad to escape from ops.
Kira and Odo were in the constable's office, facing an an extremely agitated Arcturan merchant who claimed that O'Brien had tried to sabotage his ship. He seemed absolutely unwilling to calm down and was uttering exotic threats in his roughshod grammar. Some misplaced Starfleet personnel needing to be rescued from Marak was about the last thing she could use, unless...
"I just received a message that a Starfleet technician specialising in alien technologies is due to arrive at the station; if you'd just wait for an hour, he'll certainly be able to get your ship up and running, but we've really got more pressing matters on our hands."
"Not alien my ship", the Arcturan grumbled, retreating.
Kira called the *Rio Grande* from Odo's console. "Hurry up, ensign; we need the technician you're going to bring."
"Confirmed", the ensign answered confidently, and Kira and Odo were finally free to return to the problem about the Cardassian security codes.
Andra Adarys was a person who silently commented on everything she saw, kept her counsel and then disgorged her collected witticism at her brother in the most unsuitable situation. These Starfleet officers made excellent raw material for that.
She leaned in a corner of the hangar where they waited for the arrival of the runabout; she'd manhandled her atmosphere glider ruthlessly enough to take only twenty minutes to reach Marak. She noticed immediately that those people had had a lot of difficultities on their way here. Gal was already gone when she arrived; she'd have to ask him for particulars on this haul the next time she met him. Fedration personnel was usually well-balanced and polite towards each other, whereas this lot was obviously not on speaking terms among parts of themselves. After five minutes she'd isolated one pole of the tension in the only non-Terran of the group, a tall, skinny Vulcan with a long face, a pointed chin and surprisingly beautiful eyes who stood in a corner on his own, was occasionally spoken to and gave only the curtest of answers instead of starting a conversation. When Laz hadn't arrived eight minutes over the appointed time, she began searching for the Vulcan's adversary among the humans and located that person in a medium height blond male with a broad grin talking shop with a tall, muscular black man. The three minutes that remained until her brother finally landed she whiled away by deepening her observations. The Vulcan exhibited an arrogance she would have taken for an unmistakeable sign of insecurity in a Bajoran or Human. The pointy-eared ones were elitist in any case; but this one needed to demonstrate his superiority to all and sundry, which was suspicious. He was weird in any case. Instead of the square Vulcan bangs they all usually wore, he kept his hair shorn very closely, creating the effect of a black cat's fur. He seemed to use the expressionless severity of his face to belie the beauty of his impressive dark eyes which constantly smouldered against his grave stance. He wasn't just cool and logical but actively hostile. When the runabout came at last, a middle-aged blond woman said goodbye to him. He nodded at her and turned to go, but she tried to place a conciliatory remark she referred with a wave of her hand to the blond male. On this, the Vulcan just waved his weirdly spread-out right hand the way the pointy-ears do, and marched in long strides through the rain towards the runabout. The woman angrily stared at his retreating back and called after him, "Suvuk, don't forget you're only mortal, after all!" Laz, who was getting out of the runabout, hastily stepped aside when the Vulcan boarded so unerringly as if nobody else was present.
A few steps through the drizzle brought Adarys to her brother. "Now tell me why-", she began, but Laz interrupted.
"I have to go back at once. What are you planning to do tonight?"
"Nothing. Why?"
"When I come back, I go off duty; if you want to, I can take you to DS9, and we can have a drink at Quark's."
"Hm", Adarys considered. "I can take the shuttle back, but then my colleague will have to collect the glider. She passes Marak on the ground shuttle anyway; it won't be a bother for her to get it. I hope she isn't going to park it in ditch again, though. Put your passengers aboard while I transmit today's codes to her, okay?"
Underway to DS9, while her brother piloted the runabout, Adarys once more contemplated the almost tangible tension within the group. Both of the opponents readily noticed all of the others while stubbornly ignoring each other. The blond man stared out of the front window, his glance passing the Vulcan's head by two inches with unwavering control as to keep it from landing on that nonexistent object, while old pointy ears held his neck very stiff as if to repel any notice from behind. As she could see the only the back of the Vulcan's head, Adarys concentrated her observations on the human.
Adarys boasted some abilities that could be called uncanny, and were always extremely elusive. Every time one of her hunches was confirmed by subsequent information, she took it as a personal triumph. As a former member of the Bajoran underground she claimed to be able to see at a glance where a person's political loyalties lay; and as a the sister of a gay brother she spotted immediately whether somebody was gay or staight. The blond man, an impressive but no way exceptional specimen equipped with the appropriate quantities of eyes, hair, arms and legs, and the usual smooth and expressionless human nose, seemed to hold no particular political views, obviously under the pretext that only his work counted for him. And he was just as obviously gay. If he'd tried to make a pass at the Vulcan aboard Millenial Falcon that would constitute sufficient cause for the animosities. And if he'd tried to make a pass at the Vulcan, any Vulcan, he was certainly somewhat unbalanced mentally, as nobody with well-adjusted self esteem went to a Vulcan to get himself snubbed. And if he was that sort of a difficult case, her brother would certainly become interested in him, because good old Laz had somewhat of a season ticket for that problematic type. Doubtlessly he could use some more balance in his own pagh. Adarys decided to warn her brother against the blond human when they finally got to that drink at Quark's; that way they could spare themselves another round of the same.
On DS9, the new arrivals were greeted by some of the officers. Laz logged his return, went off duty at the same go, and took her down to the promenade. But when they entered Quark's some small, slimy Ferengi sneakily fondled Adarys' behind and mumbled something about wonderfully ample forms and voloptuous women, which made her so angry the difficult blond guy and arrogant pointy-ears instantaneously dropped to the deepest reachest of her memory, not to emerge for a very long time.
O'Brien was much less than happy. He'd waited for the new arrivals at the shuttle bay to intercept the new technician and send him to upper pylon three, where the Acturan ship was docked; but the red-haired ensign in a gold Starfleet uniform he met first was security and didn't know of anything. "I think you must be looking for Lieutenant Aneski or whatever his outlandish name is; the blond-haired one over there", he said and went on his way.
Lieutenant. What the hell did Starfleet think by sending a fully-fledged Lieutenant when the Chief of Operations was only an ensign? O'Brien couldn't fathom their logic. The man was to work for him; so how in blazes was he supposed to give orders to someone who outranked him? And if everything had to happen at once, which was the rule on DS9, he didn't have the time to politely ask the damn Lieutenant each and every time if he could please do this or that for him. And if he gave the Lieutenant free rein, the efficiency of operations would doubtlessly suffer; furthermore, he was the damn chief here, and responsible for any technology going on aboard the station. And with a view to the decrepit state the station insisted in staying in he didn't have the time to waste on questions of rank and protocol, of all things. This man was the specialist for alien ships and Cardassian junk, and he was a damn Lieutenant. It wasn't fair.
Disgruntled, O'Brien turned to the blond human when he passed him. "Excuse me, I hear you're the new technician."
The Lieuteant grinned at him enthusiastically, although a bit tiredly. "And you're the chief, I see. What can I do for you? Did someone throw their exotic junk at your feet and demand you overhaul it at once?"
"An Arcturan, ah, Sir."
"Arcturan ships on principle have to stop for spare parts more often than for refuelling. And don't call me sir; you're the chief here. You tell me what to do, and I do it. That's what I'm here for. Where is the ship?"
"Upper pylon three. What am I to call you, Sir?"
"Name's Äänekoski."
"?"
"Forget it. Call me JP, or Lieutenant, or whatever you want as long as I know you mean me. Is the guiding system Cardassian or Federation equipment?"
"Cardassian, unfortunately. I never had the time or the parts to exchange such a non-essential system."
"No problem; I can cope with that. I hear you're Irish."
"Miles O'Brien, Sir, ah..."
"Call me Sir if you prefer that; I don't mind either way. I don't intend to curry favours, but is there a bar on this station?"
"Quark's, on the promenade."
"A Ferengi. Interesting. For the right price he'll coax stout or salmiakkikossu from his replicators. D'you think we could meet there after the shift, and you tell me the basics about this station?"
"After the shift won't work; we're always on duty here when we aren't actually sleeping. Just tell me when you're through with the Arcturan. It will be a pleasure to tell a knowledgeable fellow about all the misfeatures of this Cardassian heap of junk. The others don't want to hear about it any more. I was told your speciality were alien ships, though, Lieutenant."
"Any alien technology, and if nothing's coming, I'll work with what we have here. I won't sit around doing exactly nothing while you're "always on duty", chief."
"I have to go down here. You'll find the guidance console over there. See you later. Oh yes, and welcome to Deep Space Nine."
"See you, chief."
O'Brien took the turbo lift back to the core, well content with his excellent new colleague.
Dax wasn't so lucky. She'd known Suvuk's work for years and was looking forward to having such an eminent scientist on the station. She idly waited for him at the shuttle bay as all the computers in the science section had been busy for hours ordering data that was to be sent to Memory Prime, and she didn't have anything else to do. She recognised Suvuk at once, as he was the only Vulcan among the new arrivals and would be, in fact, the only Vulcan on the station. Even when she was still Curzon she'd heard rumours that the scientist was a renegade against the Vulcan ways, divorced from the traditions and conventions of his homeworld, and she hoped for a less formal and complicated collaboration with him than she would have to expect with an ordinary Vulcan.
Lieuteant Suvuk was last to leave the shuttle. She intercepted him without committing the mistake of trying to shake his hand or otherwise touch him. "Welcome to Deep Space Nine. I'm Jadzia Dax, science officer of the station, and this is already the second life in which I'm interstedly following all your publications. I'm looking forward to working with you."
Suvuk lifted his hand for the Vulcan salute. "Peace and long life, Lieutenant. You're a Trill, I see. I have done some work on your culture several years ago; your concept of individuality is absolutely remarkable. But that is not what I am here for. I am on an assignment to search for traces of a spacefaring cetacean civilisation, and will only marginally be concerned with the day-to-day processes of your department. It would be inappropriate to talk of cooperation in that context. I merely request of you the use of a fully equipped science console with access to all relevant databases so I can start my work without delay."
What an arrogant little fellow. "But I suppose you will need my assistance in evaluating our data; I know where to find things, and what we have here, and can spare you a lot of fruitless searching."
"I know what you have here. If I were merely interested in your data, I could have stayed at the academy. I will gather my own data and evaluate material from ships returning through the wormhole. I do not intend to impede your activities in any way":
"Lieutenant, you won't be an impediment. I am at your service with all my experience; I am looking forward to discussing your views with you":
"Thank you, I am quite able to deal with all that myself. If you could assign me an office with the aformentioned science console, I will leave you to your doubtlessly pressing work."
Who the hell did the little twerp think he was?! "Lieutenant, I was a scientist when your grandmother wasn't even born; you can trust my abilities."
"You know nothing about my grandmother. I will go and find my quarters and afterwards report to your station so you can assign me my office."
With that, he simply went away. Dax stared after him, speechlessly, while the metaphorical green fumes came from her ears. Why, by all the lives of her old soul, did the best scientists always have to be such - cranks?!