“Perhaps,” Dakal acknowledged. “But at best, they would still be smart animals. Technology is impossible on a world like this.”

Eviku threw him a surprisingly cold look. “Are animals only of worth if they build tools?”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“Then what did you mean?”

“Simply that a technological species would be a more interesting find.”

“You mean you have no interest in life too dissimilar to your own. I had thought that by now this crew had moved beyond such divisions.”

“I resent your implication. Sir.”

“Hold it, both of you,” Pazlar said. “There’s no sense in fighting over something that’s still strictly hypothetical. At worst, you have a philosophical difference. Just let it go.”

Dakal and Eviku both mumbled chastened acknowledgments, but neither offered an apology. Bralik felt Pazlar had been a little harsh to Eviku, but she said nothing more about it, in the spirit of the Thirty-third Rule of Acquisition. “So,” she said, hoping to get things back on track. “Anyone up for a new round of drinks?”

Deanna Troi sat on a coral beach, watching the undulations of an endless ocean and contemplating the strange sensation of the ground beneath her rocking gently like the deck of a large ship. Will Riker’s arms went around her from behind, hands resting atop her ever more ample belly. “Aren’t you glad we came down here after all?” he asked.

She turned to smirk at him. “What, down to the holodeck?”

He gave her a rueful look. “I was just trying to get into the spirit of the illusion.” He turned to the others with them on the beach. (Could it be a beach, she wondered, without sand? The surface below her was somewhere between coral and chitin, but ground down by the action of the waves.) “Not that it needs my help,” Will went on. “It’s remarkably convincing. This is a real-time feed?”

Doctor Ra-Havreii nodded. “From the surface station’s sensor feed.” The away teams had established a base camp on one of the planet’s larger floating islands, a cluster of over two dozen disk-shaped floater colonies fused together, part of an archipelago (or school?) containing multiple such large clusters—suggesting that its latitudes had been fairly calm for some time, devoid of any massive swells or storms that might break up such a large cluster and endanger an away team and its supplies. “I’ve adapted the same software I used to allow Melora—Commander Pazlar—to interact by holopresence with the crew.” He nodded at Pazlar, who stood next to him. Their hands brushed together discreetly, but Deanna sensed the mutual warmth that passed between them. “So it’s highly detailed and current. The only difference is that you have no holo-avatars on the surface, so any change you make in the environment will be simulated only. But I’ve been working on a prototype for a compact mobile emitter robust enough for away missions—”

“Thank you, Doctor. We can discuss that another time.” Underneath Will’s reluctance to sit through another of the Efrosian chief engineer’s ivory-tower technical lectures, Deanna sensed, was a distaste at the idea of replacing live explorers with simulations, even ones operated by telepresence. It would be safer, certainly, but it grated against Will’s explorer spirit.

That thought led him to gaze out at the ocean, and she felt his wish to be down there for real, without technological intercession. “So what do you think the odds are we can see some squales from here?” he asked.

“Given how imager-shy they are, sir,” Pazlar replied, “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

The squales had become as much a running joke over the past few days as a source of genuine, growing curiosity. Multiple explorer teams had reported sensor readings of moderately large chordates in groups of six to twelve, built something like large dolphins or small whales but with several large tentacles toward the front and a cephalopod’s ability to flash vivid colors on their skin. They seemed to be a match for the creatures Aili Lavena had glimpsed on her first dive. These “squid-whales,” a nickname soon shortened to “squales,” repeatedly showed up at a moderate distance from the away teams, hovering in the vicinity, but at every attempt to approach and investigate them more closely, they donned camouflage colors—suggesting their skins contained color-changing chromatophores like Terran cephalopods—and retreated in haste. Optical scans from Titanshowed pods of them traveling on the ocean surface, suggesting they were air breathers, yet when approached they dove deep and seemed able to remain submerged for hours. The biologists believed they had a dual respiratory system like the Argoan sur-snake. Bugeye piscoids had repeatedly been detected at the same times as squale contacts, suggesting they were associated somehow, like pilot fish and sharks.

“But you do think they’re the source of the complex calls we’ve been hearing?” Riker went on.

“There does seem to be a correlation with their proximity.”

Will nodded. “Very well. Keep me posted. Dismissed.”

Ra-Havreii and Pazlar exited together, holding hands, and Deanna felt their amused approval at how their captain and diplomatic officer presumably intended to make use of the simulation. Lovemaking while extremely pregnant was difficult but not impossible, and being in the water—or a force field facsimile thereof—increased one’s options.

But for now, Will was still busy taking in the sensory experience of Droplet, and she was content to share in his feelings. Yet there was a bittersweet tinge she couldn’t ignore. “You wish you could be down there for real, don’t you?”

He cradled her against him, a hand atop where their daughter rested in her womb. “I am exactly where I want to be, imzadi. Now and forever.”

She showed her appreciation for his sweet talk, but then said, “It’s all right, Will. You don’t have to reassure me of your commitment. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have regrets. I miss beaming down to new worlds as much as you do. I understand perfectly.”

He threw her an uncertain look—more puzzled than skeptical. “Do you really? To be honest, I’m not sure when the last time was you went on an away mission. It’s been months.”