Lothar's
arrival was not unexpected. I knew that he was attempting to repair Surak's Razor …
again … and that
Starbase 688 was a common location for us to run to or meet at after getting into trouble or being separated. The lax enforcement of rules here had been rather convenient for us in the past on more than one occasion - as was the station's computer's tendency to
lose all records containing the name "
Storvik." I had made a
mental note to investigate that last phenomenon; perhaps I would get the chance when/if the time came for me to assist the station's personnel in the location and correction of security flaws in the main computer.
I reached the docking level, but Lothar was already gone. I could see, however, that he had left an impression. The Lothar-shaped dent in the floor neatly matched the Lothar-shaped hole in the hull, and security personnel had already roped off the area with plastic tape bearing the legend:
"CAUTION! LOTHAR-RELATED INCIDENT!"
People were giving the area a wide berth. The tape was obviously a new development for the station, but people certainly remembered Lothar's previous visits (even if all of the casualties had been
Mib Khan).
But whereas Lothar was absent, I did see someone else whom I recognized: Captain Leslie Wong of the USS Cairo. Lothar and I had
attacked her ship once while escaping from Earth and the imposter
Janeway; and he seemed bound to
repeat the feat about a year later after the imposter
Janeway's unlamented demise. I did not believe that anything productive would result from her finding me, so I reversed my course and returned to the turbolifts.
It did not require a great deal of logic, in any case, to deduce where Lothar had gone if he had left the docking area. I made my way to the nearest bar to seek him there.