McCoy was just flipping to the middle of the book and skimming the pages there when a man sat down next to him. The doctor looked up. The humanoid was fairly tanned, with black hair and yellow irises. It wouldn't have been too out of the ordinary for him until he spoke.

The man seemed to beam at him with his voice but not the rest of his face. It looked odd on a human, but, and McCoy thought of ZEX, there were plenty of alien life forms out there that didn't communicate the way a human did. Some used telepathy, others used sign language, and yet others used color displays, or body language only. It didn't stop that momentary reaction against the conflicting messages, but he was practiced enough to get over that instinct quickly.

Did he just call him a meatbag?

Maybe he'd heard wrong. "Mornin'," he said. Maybe he had or hadn't, but he'd certainly heard him actually preface that good morning with 'greeting'. McCoy's mouth threatened to quirk. "Can't say I've ever heard a greeting quite like that."