Huilan just let his middle pair of limbs rest on the ground, assuming the centaurlike stance which was his equivalent of sitting, at least in this ship’s low gravity. Actually K’chak’!’op’s quarters maintained a higher gravity than the rest of the ship, but it was still a bit light for him. “Oh, I know you are. Everyone’s been so concerned about you staying in here all the time, wondering if you’re agoraphobic or xenophobic or something. Although of course they know you couldn’t have gotten through Starfleet training that way, so they wonder if something’s happened recently to traumatize you, and they’re just ever so concerned,” he said with a touch of mischief.

His dark-adapted eyes picked up the HUD images in her contact lenses, which were translating his speech into simulated tentacle motions. “Yes,” she signed back, “it’s so very sweet of them to worry. I hope you can reassure them, dear.”

“Oh, I understand perfectly, Chaka. It’s not about phobias or antisocial tendencies or anything like that.” He ambled closer, looking up at her with his eyes wide, flattening out his dorsal spikes and wagging his short, wide tail, doing everything he could to maximize his blue-teddy-bear cuteness and put her at ease. “The simple fact is that it’s just too smallfor you out there, isn’t it?”

K’chak’!’op twisted her tentacles together, the equivalent of clamping her mouth shut. Huilan went on. “The doors are too narrow, the workspaces too cramped, the ceilings too low. And the turbolifts—”

“Ohh, don’t talk to me about the turbolifts,” she replied, though her voder rendered it in a light-hearted tone. “Don’t misunderstand, dear, I’m not a claustrophobe; it’s just so uncomfortable. I can’t let myself stretch out, and there’s so little room for my tentacles that I don’t feel free to express myself. I have to keep my words all small and cramped, and there’s no music in that! Besides, in such a tight space with endoskeletal people, I’m afraid to move around for fear I’ll crush somebody.”

“It’s not easy for me either,” Huilan commiserated. “You’re the biggest one on the ship, I’m the smallest—except for little Totyarguil, of course.” That was the baby of Olivia and Axel Bolaji. Born four months prematurely, he’d spent the past two months in an incubator in sickbay, and had been essentially adopted by the whole crew as they followed the tiny, helpless creature’s development toward viability. It amazed Huilan that something human could be so small. “I’m constantly having to strain upward to reach things, get special chairs to sit on, even ask for help sometimes—which isn’t easy for a S’ti’ach. On our world we’re top of the food chain, undisputed. It’s an ocean world, all islands. Resources and room are limited, so life stays small. It was quite a shock to the S’ti’ach ego to discover the galaxy populated by giants, let me tell you.” The process had been eased somewhat, Huilan reflected, by the Federation’s sensitivity in its choice of ambassadors. The first UFP representative to their world, Alexander, had been a humanoid no taller than a S’ti’ach, as well as a man of great wisdom and sensitivity. A member of an extraordinarily long-lived (and generally humansized) race, he had been a Federation diplomat for over a century, since a Starfleet crew had rescued him from the persecution he’d faced on his own world, Platonius. He had been pivotal in convincing the S’ti’ach that they could participate in the Federation as equals.

“Ohh, you poor dear,” K’chak’!’op signed, with a commiserating crackle of her mouthparts. “I hadn’t thought that it could be hard for you too.”

“But what I don’t understand,” Huilan went on, “is why you wouldn’t just tell anyone. Why have you dodged the issue every time it’s been raised?”

Her tendrils twirled, but no translation came; it must have simply been a nervous gesture. “Well,” she finally said, “it’s just that…well, Captain Riker and Dr. Ra-Havreii, they’re both so proud of this ship of theirs, and I just…I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. Especially that charming young Dr. Ra-Havreii—he did design the ship, and it was very clever of him, and I don’t want him to be disappointed.”

Huilan suppressed a snicker. “Now, Chaka. You know perfectly well that humanoid males are fully grown adults. They don’t expect to be coddled, and they don’t need to be.”

“Yes, I know that. And I know they’re my superior officers, I respect the chain of command and all that. But males just bring out the mother in me. Especially males who actually act, well, responsible and adult! It’s just so charming to see a male with something on his mind other than sex.”

You don’t know humanoids very well, do you?Huilan joked to himself. Particularly Ra-Havreii.But she had a point; since Pak’shree were only male for the decade or so between their immature neuter stage and their mature female stage, that was their only window to mate and ensure procreation, so they essentially spent their entire male stage fixated on mating. “I’m a male too, you know.”

“Ohh, yes, and you’re completely adorable. I hope you don’t think that’s rude of me, Captain Riker didn’t seem too amused when I called him adorable, but you’re just so irresistibly cute I can’t help myself.”

“Cute I may be, but I’m ruthless when I need to be. I won’t keep your little secret, because the captain deserves to know why you don’t like to leave your quarters. He’s a big boy, and so is Dr. Ra-Havreii, and they can handle it. The question is, what can youhandle?”

“I can go out when I need to, really. I just don’t liketo. I’m tired of bumping my head on doorframes. This ship just isn’t comfortable.You understand that, right, dear? As you said, it isn’t comfortable for you either.”

Huilan pondered. “No, I suppose you have a point. A ship like this—it isn’t really comfortable for anyone, is it? Everything’s a compromise. Everything’s designed to be a reasonable average. The temperature, the humidity, the gravity, the diurnal cycle, all calibrated to strike a balance between different species’ needs. Those of us with really different needs—Zaranites, Selkies, Elaysians—must wear special, uncomfortable suits during the day and know that our guests will never be fully comfortable in our own quarters. But there’s a human saying about compromise—it’s a solution that makes everyone equally unhappy. The conditions of this ship aren’t really ideal for any one species, and so nobody’s really comfortable. It’s an awkward way to live. It has been whenever it’s been tried in the past. Indeed, there are some who say that’s one reason why mixed-crew starships like this haven’t generally succeeded in the past—that it’s just too much trouble for species with such different needs to try to coexist in a single, closed environment. They say it’s just too much to ask.”

“Well, that doesn’t make a lot of sense,” K’chak’!’op said. “I mean, we’re space explorers, aren’t we? We seek out alien environments, often visit worlds much harsher than this.”

“True, true. But the claim is that when we come back to our home ships, the places where we spend most of our time, we want them to be comfortable and familiar.”

“Maybe so, but that’s no reason to abandon the whole concept! If people think that way, how far are they from deciding that it’s not worth listening to ideas they aren’t comfortable with? That way of thinking, it’s so shallow, it’s immature, it’s—”

“Male?”

K’chak’!’op gave off the equivalent of a laugh. “Sweet-heart, our males can’t be bothered to think about such questions at all. But it’s not the way a responsible adult should think.”

“I agree.”

“Good for you, dear.”

“So why are you still in this room?”

There was a long pause. “Ohh, you’re very good! That was very smart the way you led me to that, sweetie. You deserve a pastry for that, would you like me to get you one?”