DINNER AT TEN-FORWARD

by ardavenport

- - - Part 4 continues: A Night at the Improv

The juggler dropped one of his clubs and the others immediately followed. He quickly picked them up and recovered his act, but the mood was already broken. This was his third major disaster and Picard sincerely hoped that he would be concluding soon. He slouched further down in his seat. Doctor Crusher's elbow brushed the arm of his jacket, an un-subtle reminder that he probably should sit up and at least look like he was interested.

Normally, Picard would never have even considered going to such a mixed amateur performance. But when Doctor Crusher had mentioned that Data was performing with Ensign Ikainet as a last minute replacement his interest had been piqued. On numerous occasions he'd assisted the android in his holodeck theatric excursions, generally serving as audience and critic. And he'd specifically encouraged Data to study Shakespeare. But they hadn't done Shakespeare lately, though he had heard that Data was working on a scene with a young woman who was rumored to be interested in more than theater. The rumor (and Picard disapproved strongly of rumors anyway) seemed to have been groundless.

Mercifully, the juggler finished and took his bows. Picard politely applauded with everyone else. A woman (he recognized her as a shuttlecraft maintenance specialist) in a blue gown stepped to center stage and began singing an Irish folk song in a beautiful operatic soprano. Picard's mood mellowed a bit. This was one of the high points of the evening. For the most part he'd been gravely regretting his rash decision to attend. He'd had no idea that his crew was capable of so much bad vaudeville. And Data was the penultimate act in the show.

The woman finished and then ruined her performance (for Picard, at least) by making her second selection a sing-a-long.

"Daisy, Daisy, tell me your answer true..." the crowd sang out with increasing gusto. Picard stayed tight-lipped through it all. He could see Crusher half singing along as well, obviously holding back out of deference to him. He felt a tiny pang of guilt for dampening her enthusiasm. He even knew the words to the song and it surprised him that he remembered them after all these years. When he was growing up, his family often sang together and he had very fond memories of those times. But he drew the line at singing in front of the whole crew. He had come primarily to see Data and was willing to sit through the other acts for it, but no more.

He rather wished Data were sooner in the lineup, but that wouldn't have freed him from the rest of the show, anyway. Even if Data's performance had come earlier he still wouldn't have been entirely free to leave. Being captain, his leaving in the middle of the show carried more weight than for a lesser member of the crew. And, of course, he was sitting near the front so everyone would see him go, if he did.

The song ended and the singer withdrew to loud, appreciative applause. After a moment the stage darkened. Picard straightened in his seat. Finally it was Data's turn.

The curtains parted to reveal a low platform on stage right. It was decorated like a balcony with a low bannister and tall vases of roses. Data appeared in an Elizabethan costume, with brown tights and a short cape. A spotlight followed him.

"He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

Oh, no, Picard cringed inwardly. If he'd known Data had picked this scene he might not have come.

A spotlight appeared on the balcony and for a moment nothing happened. Ensign Ikainet, in purple Elizabethan skirts and corset, and veiled head-dress, stepped onto the balcony. She strolled smoothly about the balcony, stopping to smell a rose she cupped in her hands, her gestures were utterly different from anything he'd seen from her. She actually moved naturally, as if she were a living humanoid.

"But soft! What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Juliet is the sun!..." Picard slouched in his seat again. "...It is my lady; O, it is my love!" Data recited with flawless technique and not the slightest trace of passion. Doctor Crusher slouched in her seat.

Ensign Ikainet looked earnestly outward toward the audience, opened her mouth as if to speak and closed it. Her expression surprised Picard. She really did look earnest, sad, even passionate.

"She speaks, yet she says nothing..." Data went on jarringly. But Picard kept his eyes on Ikainet. She'd completely lost her marionette-on-a-string mannerisms. Her arms, her body moved fluidly, gracefully, accented by the costume. Why didn't she do that more often if she was capable of it? Picard wondered.

"Aye me!" she exclaimed, no gasping, no extended vowels. It didn't even sound like her voice.

"She speaks," Data responded. "O, speak again, bright angel!..." A lot of people in the audience were slouching in their seats now. "...And sails upon the bosom of the air," Data finished.

There was a pause, a hush, while Ensign Ikainet stepped to the front of the balcony.

"O Romeo! Romeo!" she bellowed, shattering the demure characterization she'd portrayed a moment ago. Data jumped, startled. "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" She scanned the crowd with her huge, bulging eyes as if she were looking for him in a fog. "Deny thy father! Refuse thy name!..." she went on melodramatically. Picard sat up. What had happened?

"Shall I hear more? Or shall I speak at this?" Data continued a little hesitantly, having regained some of his composure after the initial shock.

"'Tis but thy NAME that is my enemy..." she raised her hands as if she were leading a battle. "What's Montague? It is not hand." Whack! She slapped the side of her head with her hand, "Nor foot." Wham! A flower pot crashed down to the stage. "Nor arms, nor face..." She waved her arms and shook her head wildly. A general chuckle went through the audience. "That which we call a rose..." She strewed flowers about.

"I take thee at thy word..." Data answered, still in character. Ikainet leaped into the air in badly overacted surprise before answering back. A few people openly laughed.

"...Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague?" Ikainet slowly shredded a single rose while she spoke, a maniacal gleam in her eyes.

Data pursued his part relentlessly to Ikainet's increasingly farcical rendition. Data approached the balcony as he spoke, but his movements were wary, at odds with the words he was speaking.

"...wert thou as far as that vast shore washed with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise." Without warning Ikainet dove forward, seized Data by the collar and dragged him up over the banister.

"Thou knowest the mask of night is on my face..." She held Data at arm's length up off the ground and theatrically acted out the more literal parts of her speech with her free arm. Doctor Crusher coughed and covered her mouth, laughing, but Picard sat still and silent in his seat. Data experimentally tried prying her hand off him, but her grip was unbreakable. "O gentle Romeo, If thou dost love, pronounce it faithfully..." Data brought his legs up, planted his feet on her chest and tried pushing away from her, but she was totally immobile, even to the android's titanic strength.

"...pardon me, And not impute this yielding to light love, Which the dark night hath so discovered," she finished, looking imploringly up at Data. He stared back, down at his crazed Juliet.

"Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear, that tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops-" Data went on haltingly, placing a foot on her forehead, but she didn't budge a millimeter.

"Oooooooooo!" She swung him around and down so he was bent backwards. She swiftly changed her grip so that one hand trapped his right hand, the other supported his back. Eyes wide, Data's spine stiffened in her grasp. "Swear not by the moon." Step, step. She advanced and he was forced to scuttle backwards with her. "The inconsistent moon." Step. "That monthly changes in her circled orb," Step. "Lest that thy love prove likewise variable." Step, step. She went backwards this time and he rigidly shuffled forward with her.

"What shall I..." Step. "...SWEAR by?" His voice unexpectedly increased in volume and pitch with the movement. Step.

"Well, do not swear..." She advanced again. They looked like they were doing a tango. That impression was further reinforced when Ensign Ikainet snagged a rose in her teeth as they passed close by a flower vase. The audience was in hysterics.

"Goot night, goot night! As zweet re'ose an' rest come to t'y heart as that wit'in 'y 'reast!" she spoke around the thorny flower stem. She suddenly straightened, twirling her partner.

Click!

Data swung his arms up, executed a perfect backwards somersault over the low balcony railing and landed on his feet, well out of his Juliet's reach.

"O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" he implored.

She stood there, face frozen in surprise, still clutching Data's hand and forearm.

She spit out the rose. "Oooooooops," she answered loudly. "What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?"

"The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine," Data answered, backing away.

"I gave thee mine before thou didst request it." She clutched his severed appendage to her chest. "And yet I would it were to give again." Data kept backing away.

"Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?" He was almost to the stage exit.

"But to be frank and give it thee again..." she finished her part using Data's arm to wave back at him. "...I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu!" she cried waving Data's hand in his direction. The lights went down.

The audience applauded enthusiastically, but Picard, tight-lipped, didn't move.

After the show he and Doctor Crusher found Data and Ikainet amidst a knot of players and supporters.

"That was...different, Data," Geordi LaForge congratulated uncertainly.

"You did not enjoy it?" Data asked, concerned.

"Oh, it was great," LaForge amended, smiling, "I was just a little surprised that you, um..." Unsure of the polite terminology, he lowered his gaze to Data's now re-attached arm.

"Ah, that was a...last-minute...suggestion on Ensign Ikainet's part."

"Mr. Data," Picard addressed him evenly, having heard all he needed to hear. "After you and Ensign Ikainet have changed I would like to see both of you in my ready room."

Smiles all around faded and disappeared and an uncomfortable silence settled in the immediate vicinity.

"Yes, Sir," Data answered. Picard turned and left.

*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*

Data and Ikainet stood side-by-side, at ease in front of Picard's desk in his sparsely decorated ready room. Picard evaluated his subordinates, but his stern gaze was wasted on both of them. Data, with the surety of a machine, knew that although Picard had adopted a disciplinary posture he had done nothing wrong and must be there only to supply information. Ikainet, who was completely incapable of anticipating anything, waited with her usual neutral pose, ready with every fact she knew about Picard and a total recollection of everything she'd done since arriving on the Enterprise in the fore of her mind.

"Commander," the captain began, "Ensign, I'm puzzled by your performance tonight. You appeared to begin it in one style, but end it quite differently. Did you rehearse it that way?"

"Nooooo," Ikainet replied immediately.

"We improvised," Data amended.

"I see." Picard digested this. "And just how did you improvise it, Mr. Data?"

"My role was primarily a responsive one, Sir."

"I see. So, you did most of the improvising, Ensign?"

"Yeeeesss."

"Why?"

Still facing Picard, she pointed at Data. "He was dying out there."

"And that was sufficient reason to change it?" Picard asked harshly. She stood there with her mouth open in one of her "thinking" postures. Picard's question was just not specific enough to trigger a new answer out of the thousands of possible replies that she could respond with. So she repeated the one she'd already given.

"He was dying out there," she repeated with more emphasis.

"And that was sufficient reason for breaking Mr. Data's arm off?"

"Sir, Ensign Ikainet did not 'break my arm off'," Data interrupted Picard in mid-reprove. "I'm quite capable of activating the servo-mechanisms of my arm release on my own. They are-"

"Thank you, Mr Data." Picard cut him off. He'd already guessed that Data had probably initiated the disconnection himself, judging from his perfect landing on stage. But he also felt sure that Data would never have willingly displayed such a drastically mechanical aspect of himself during the stage performance, unless he were acting under duress. "Why did you add it to your performance, Mr. Data?"

He hesitated. "I request that I be allowed to answer that in private, Captain."

"Ensign, please wait outside," the captain ordered.

After they were alone Data explained. "During the performance, when Ensign Ikainet grabbed my back she inadvertently placed her fingers over my off switch. It is specifically designed so that it is unlikely to be activated by accident, but Ensign Ikainet's strength is such that she could have easily done so. I deemed it necessary to use drastic measures to avoid this. Disconnecting an arm seemed preferable to risking being deactivated in public."

"She didn't tell you ahead of time what she was going to do?"

"No," Data admitted. "I believe it was a spur-of-the-moment decision on her part, based upon the audience's initial response to my performance."

"Then you approve of her actions?"

"Not her methods, Captain. They were reproachable and possibly injurious to myself. But her improvisation did elicit a favorable response," he mused thoughtfully.

Picard, arms resting on the glass top of his desk, pursed his lips in thought. He called Ensign Ikainet back in.

"Ensign, why did you change your performance tonight?"

She pointed at Data again. "He was dying out there."

"Yes, I know, Ensign. You've said that already. But you began your performance in a serious fashion."

"We will copy a recorded performance. We were using it as a model."

"And then you changed it."

She nodded vigorously. "I switched to a different interpretation."

"You mean somebody's done Romeo and Juliet that way before?"

"Two mid-twenty-second century comedians, Jaren and Suchet, on Mars Colony Three."

"I was not aware of that," Data commented to her, his gold eyes inquisitive.

Picard dismissed the fact for the moment. The subject was wondering. "Regardless of where you got it from, didn't it cross your mind that you might be publicly embarrassing Commander Data?"

"It was less embarrassing than his acting," she pronounced cheerfully, nodding sagely and pointing at Data.

Picard sat stunned for a moment by the utter tactlessness of her statement, not to mention that it verged on insubordination. It was true. But it hardly needed to be verbalized.

"I'm putting you on report, Ensign, for gross misconduct towards a senior officer." He waited for a reaction and only got her perpetual stupid smile. "Dismissed." His ire was aimed at Ikainet, but it was clear that both officers were invited to leave, and they did.

"Mr. Data," Ikainet addressed the android as soon as the door closed. Everything that Picard had said and done had imparted to her the idea that she had given offense. And now an action needed to follow. She needed to do something, and that prospect delighted her.

Data turned to her as they stepped into the turbolift, leaving the bridge. Her oversized blue-eyes on him, she said, "I apologize for embarrassing you." The doors closed. "Deck twelve." The car started downward.

"It is appropriate for you to tender an apology at this time, Ensign. However I am incapable of feeling embarrassment," he instructed. "Although the net result of your action was positive in relation to the audience response, I would have appreciated it if you had informed me of their likely initial reaction during our rehearsal."

"We didn't have an audience. Then." Data puzzled over this. He knew from her records that she had a strong tendency toward immediate responses to situations and a very weak rating for planned actions and deductive reasoning, but he hadn't calculated what the severity of these traits could lead to. He quickly re-evaluated the methods he'd been using while working with her on the Caroomad system mission plan.

*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*

"...I must conclude that my attempt at telepathic communication with Cadet Ikainet to be totally unsuccessful. The experience strongly reminds me of a pictorial that my human co-workers consider humorous. In a first drawing two Starfleet officers are standing on an apparently barren plain reporting back to their ship that they have found no sign of life on the planet they are on. In a second drawing the same two Starfleet officers are shown from a very great distance to be standing atop the head of an extremely large creature. I believe a similar situation exists with Cadet Ikainet except that in her case I can at least sense her presence; however, her intellect, in whatever form it might take, appears to be too vast or too diffuse or too alien with which to establish a link with..."

Troi sat back in her chair and looked at the words glowing yellow on her screen. She'd never seen a Vulcan, psychologist or otherwise, use so many adjectives and anecdotes in a report before.

The door chimed. It was exactly 15:00 and Captain Picard entered, punctual as always, when she answered. She clicked off Dr. Suris' report and folded her hands on her desk. "Captain."

He looked about uncomfortably before settling into the chair opposite her in the "office" portion of the room. Troi sensed the tension within him. He didn't like being in her office. There was nothing about it to make him uneasy, in fact it was specifically decorated to make people feel comfortable. The neutral colors, sofas, low table and subdued lighting were more characteristic of a living room than an office. But it was still the ship's counselor's office. People brought their problems there, discussed them, re-lived them, displayed them in front of another person. Most people on the ship had visited at least once, even the ship's captain.

When he wished to consult her, Picard normally asked to speak to Troi in his ready room, safely ensconced in his own lair while they talked. But this time she had politely pleaded a busy schedule (which was only half true) forcing him to come to her. She hadn't seen him in her office in many weeks and she was curious to see how he would react.

As she expected, he was uneasy, but he quickly put it aside once they began discussing the subject of his visit, Ensign Ikainet.

"Counselor, how different is Ensign Ikainet?" he asked.

"Very," she admitted. "And those differences will inevitably lead to unexpected situations, like last night," she hinted at the previous night's performance. Picard's frown hardened and he told her about his disciplinary action toward Ikainet. He carefully left out the part about Data's off switch. If Data wanted her to know about it (if she didn't already know) he would tell her himself.

Troi sensed that he wasn't telling her everything, just as much as she needed to know. But what she found more interesting was the impression that Picard wasn't nearly as angry about Ikainet as he was curious and irritated by her.

"I would think that given her age, and her position on Caro that you would find her quite interesting from a historical point of view," she commented about what she sensed from him. Ancient cultures and archaeology were a serious hobby of the captain's and it seemed natural to the Betazoid that he might be intrigued by Ikainet's direct relationship with the development of Caroomadi civilization.

"Hmmm, I did review the essential historical facts about Ensign Ikainet, Counselor. And while I do find them interesting, Ikainet is still a member of my crew and I cannot allow myself to show any favoritism toward her by making a special study of her past." Picard adhered to a very strict code of command ethics.

"I noticed you avoided sitting too close to her at dinner when she arrived." Picard moved on to a question he'd been meaning to ask the counselor since Ikainet's first night on the ship.

"Ensign Ikainet's presence is very localized," she admitted. "Across a room I can barely tell that she's even there. But sitting next to her, her presence is quite intense, and if I touch her at all she completely drowns out my impressions of any other people in the room."

"What do you sense from her?" her asked softly, his curiosity focused on her answer.

"She's...vast, Captain," Troi began slowly. As always, it was difficult for her, to put into simple words what her empathy told her. "And...empty."

"Empty?"

"She's totally devoted to the moment at hand." Hoping to make the point clear to him, and herself, she tried mixing her impressions with what she'd read in Ikainet's psychological profile. "Ensign Ikainet is able to recall anything she's done or seen, but I don't actually sense that from her. That ability doesn't affect her emotionally at all. Memories don't move her. It's what she's doing at any single moment, and especially how she's interacting with her surroundings that she responds to.

"In fact," Troi continued, "she acutely needs the variety, the changes, the interaction she experiences with other beings. She can't create any of those conditions on her own. And it goes far beyond defining her sense of self-worth. Without others to respond to, to provide her with the...plurality of possibilities that interaction brings her, she might not even have a reason for existing."

"I find that fantastic, considering what she is." the captain answered. "Starfleet thinks that she and the Roocaroom could be millions of years old. They don't even think she evolved in this dimension. What could she possibly find on Caro or in Starfleet that's so fulfilling?"

Troi shook her head. "Nobody's really sure. There is speculation that she and the other H'cars may have some irregular characteristic that biases them toward the space we live in, but nobody's been able to confirm it. But on a personal level, I could sympathize with her. I wouldn't want to spend my life, however long it is, alone, floating in space."

"Nor would I, Counselor. But you and I are humanoid. Starfleet doesn't even think that she experiences time the same way we do," Troi didn't answer him on that. She'd only given a cursory glance at the technical details of Ikainet's records. Warp field theory and inter-dimensional physics were not her favorite subjects.

"Do you think she can solve the Caroomad problem?"

"No."

"But you still think she can help."

"I think that we can do something to help. I don't think that Ensign Ikainet is capable of even figuring out that there's a problem at all on her own. And if she works with us, we might be able to accomplish something."

- - - End Part 4