Read Online Star Trek: The Original Series: Rihannsu: The Bloodwing Voyages by Diane Duane & Peter Morwood - Free Book Online

were all big, and dense, and had heavy gravity, for which their various versions of the humanities were equipped. So the Inaieu had been built to accommodate the primarily “Denebian” crew who would be handling her—such as the Eyrene transporter officer. She was typical of her people, looking very much like an eight-legged, circular-bodied elephant with no head and four trunks—a squat, golden-skinned, powerful person, and one (with her six-foot diameter) rather too large for any merely hominid-sized transporter platform.
    When they were all materialized she came out from behind her console and bowed by way of respectful greeting—a Denebian bow, more of a deep knee bend. “Captain, gentlemen,” she said, “you’re expected in main briefing. Will you follow me, please?”
    “Certainly, Lieutenant,” Jim said, noting the stripes on one of the four sleeves; noting also, with mild amusement, that all there was to the uniform was those sleeves. The Lieutenant led the way out into the hall, moving very quickly and lightly—and understandably so; the common areas of the ship were apparently kept at light gravity for the convenience of a multispecies crew. “Hi-grav personal quarters?” Jim said to McCoy.
    “So I hear. They had to do quite a bit of juggling with the power-consumption curves to make it work out. But this ship’s got power to burn.”
    “That’s no joke, lad,” Scotty said, peering in an opening door as they went past one of Inaieu ’s six engine rooms. “That one warp-drive assembly in there is by itself half again the size of the Enterprise ’s.”
    Jim glanced at Scotty, who was now nearly walking backward, and looking hungrily back the way they’d come. “Later, Scotty,” he said. “I think we can spare you time for a tour. We have to do a routine exchange of ships’ libraries anyway; you might as well stop in to see the chief engineer and exchange pleasantries.”
    “And equations,” McCoy said.
    Scotty smiled, looking slightly sheepish, as the group entered a turbolift about the size of a shuttlecraft, and their Eyrene escort said, “Deck eighteen. Low-grav.” The lift went off sideways, then up, at a sedate enough pace; but even so Jim had to smile to himself. All the Denebian races, it seemed, love the high accelerations and speeds they were so well built to handle; and the thought of the speeds the lifts in this ship probably did when there were only Denebians aboard them made Jim shudder slightly. But that was part of their mindset, too; no Denebian would ever walk anywhere it could run, or do warp three if it could make warp eight. Life was too interesting, they said, to take it slowly; and certainly too short—if you have only six hundred years, you must make the most of them! So they plunged around through space, putting their noses (those of them who had noses) into everything, and thoroughly enjoying themselves; the galaxy’s biggest, merriest overachievers, and a definite asset to the Federation. Jim was very fond of them.
    “Here we are. This way, gentlemen,” said the Eyrene lieutenant, and hurried out of the lift. The four of them went out after her, hurrying only slightly, and were relieved to see her turn leftward and gesture toward an open door. “Main briefing, gentlemen.”
    “My thanks, Lieutenant,” Jim said, and led his officers in.
    Main briefing, as he suspected, was about the size of a tennis court. The table was of that very sensible design that the Denebian races used when dealing with other species; a large round empty space in the middle, where Klaha and Eyren and!’ hew would stand—they never sat—and chairs or racks scattered around the outside of the table for hominids, along with bowl chairs for the Deirr. This way everyone, whether they had hominid stereoscopic vision or multiple eyes or heat sensors, could see everyone else; and of course everyone was wearing intradermal translators, so that understanding was no problem. At least, no