SHIP OF FOOLS
Chapter 09
The captain gave himself a few moments to pull himself together after the first officer had left. Now, to himself, there was no denying that he was shaken, much more than he would ever have shown, more than he had first thought, that there was a dull ache as if he had been hit, hit hard, just below the ribs; it took him a conscious effort to steady his heartbeat. What was that about? Will wasn't serious, was he? Then why am I taking it like that? What's happened to everybody round here, for Heaven's sake? And then, inevitably: But has it happened to everybody around here? Beverly said –
No. Stop it. I can't start second-guessing myself, I'll just get paralyzed.
But things were getting out of hand. One way or the other, it was high time to do something about it. No point in this –
He drew a deep breath and addressed the intercom.
„Computer, locate Counselor Troi."
He had thought he knew what the answer would be, and was a little surprised when the disembodied voice replied: „Counselor Troi is in her office."
She should be resting, he thought, and at the same time he felt a certain relief. At least he could broach the subject in a semi-official manner – as, indeed, he should.
He touched his communicator. „Picard to Troi."
„Troi here. What is it, Captain?"
„Could you spare me a few minutes, or are you occupied?"
He could hear the smile in her voice. „I am rearranging my files, Captain – you cannot in good conscience call that occupied. You are most welcome."
„Very well. I'll be there in a minute. Picard out."
She was sitting in the armchair by her small table, wearing her counselor's serenity like a badge of office. The captain lowered himself onto the sofa, feeling acutely uncomfortable and out of place. It had never before occurred to him that he usually spoke with Troi either in his own quarters or in his ready room – places, he realized now, where he felt at ease. Perhaps they neutralized some of the inherent advantage she had over him, that added insight which he could not match and which sometimes, and certainly at this moment, made him a little nervous.
„You're still wearing that thing", he said.
„I'm officially off duty, Captain. Doctor's orders." She gave him a small smile. „Yes, I know what you told Geordi – I met him in the turbolift. But in fact I've never worn it during appointments, and I wouldn't even if I had your permission. It seems to enhance empathic links, and that might have been difficult to handle – both for myself and for others." She crossed one leg over the other and tilted her head towards him. The smile grew warmer. „So much for me, Captain."
Picard felt himself relaxing a little. „Do you know why I wanted to see you?"
„I think I would prefer to hear it from you."
He sighed. „Very well. You are aware of my feelings with regard to that device. I've tried to keep an open mind – apparently I haven't been too successful. So much for me... Now we've had a series of unpleasant occurrences that started more or less at the time the device was introduced – people behaving erratically one way or another. I didn't see any connection at first. It just seemed to be getting worse. Today I saw a list of the people who have seen Doctor Crusher over that device – sent there by you, I understand. There wasn't a name there that hadn't been linked with some sort of trouble lately." He drew a breath. „When I pointed this out to her, she told me I am being hysterical about the whole issue – paranoid, in fact. I have since heard the same thing from Commander Riker. I haven't, for all my efforts, heard a satisfactory explanation for the problems we're having. I am very concerned about all this, Deanna. I would like your opinion about it."
„About what aspect of it, Captain? The device, or what has been said to you?" She shook her head. „No, don't answer that. It was obvious the moment you came in. You are quite upset."
„I suppose I am. Deanna, I don't know what to think. It's as if I had ceased to speak the same language. What I believe I see is an obsession with that thing, and a total refusal to consider any side-effects it may be having – to the point that the discipline on this ship is breaking up. But then I'm told that I am the one obsessed with it, and that I am seeing problems that aren't really there. I should have thought that the rows and breakdowns and breaches of discipline we've had would register as facts, but nobody else seems to be making the connection, and meanwhile things are getting out of control. Frankly, I'm at a loss what to think about it."
„A rare admission. Could it be that it is the giving up of control that's at the core of the issue for you, sir? The voluntary giving up of control by others who are willing to trust their own unconscious and the fact that this is something that is beyond your control?"
„Are you telling me that I am obsessed with control?"
Now she was looking amused. „Captain, obsession is not something people would normally associate with you. But if you had one, it would probably be with control. Not over others – but you'll admit you feel rather strongly about anything you perceive as a loss of control over yourself..." The amusement faded. „And it seems only natural that when this... mastery... is threatened, you'll tighten your grip on the reins. If anything your recent experiences have reinforced this. You are worried and tired and far from fully recovered, and this assignment must have stirred up some ghosts for you."
„Deanna, I believe I told you at the time – "
„Forgive me, Captain", she interrupted, „but what you told me at the time was that you were so brutalized you would have broken down in another minute or so. That there was nothing you wouldn't have said, or even believed, if it would have stopped them from torturing you further. Don't get me wrong, sir. Nobody in the world could find fault with that. I don't know how many people would have held out as long. But your sense of reality was collapsing, and you know it. You are aware that it can happen. It frightens you, and you would do anything to keep it from happening again. But – " She was studying her hands for a few seconds, a troubled expression on her lovely face. At last she looked up. „There's a proverb about not seeing the wood for the trees, isn't there? In fact it's something every psychologist knows. In a way, you may have ceased to speak the same language."
„I'm afraid I don't understand."
„What you have been through is an experience unique to yourself, something nobody else shares with you. You have been wounded in a very tender spot, and it colors your responses – more, I believe, than you realize. In a way you are creating your own reality, and something that makes perfect sense to you may sound quite strange to others. Right now you believe you see your control of the situation slipping again. Now if you would allow yourself to let go, to take a step back – find yourself again and find some peace – "
„Don't", he interrupted sharply. „Don't you start telling me that my nerves are playing tricks on me and that things will look quite different once I have had some rest."
„Very well, I won't", she replied, rather dryly. „But – Captain, have you ever considered the possibility that you might be biased in your evaluation of all this? Prejudiced, even?"
„I have. In fact I know I am. I dislike the whole idea of that thing. We've been over this before, haven't we? Believe me, I'm aware of my own angle in this. But there are some facts here that have nothing to do with it. And whatever I may have thought of it before, it now surpasses my worst expectations."
„I see." She shifted in her chair; for a moment he thought she would rise and come over to him; then she apparently thought better of it. „But, sir, your horror of letting go of the reins – even if only for a time and only to some other part of yourself – is not shared by everyone any more than your personal experiences are."
„Must you trace everything back to Celtris III?"
„Look", she said, very gently. „I told you before that some experiences will take time to get over. You have never, ever, allowed yourself enough time. You will try and force yourself to heal. It doesn't work like that, sir. You may convince others, and even yourself, for a time, but it will come back, and it may come back in a form you didn't expect."
„Like chasing shadows of my own imagining?" he demanded harshly.
„Like allowing your concern for your crew and your own very real fears to distort the picture, Captain. Don't judge yourself too severely."
„So what you're telling me is that my experiences are seriously impairing my judgment, that I'm developing an obsession with control, and that my arrogance in assuming I know best keeps me from even considering the possibility."
„You have called it that, Captain. I haven't. What I do say is that you are pronouncing on something you don't even know, while refusing to get to know it. I'll leave it to you to decide if that is arrogance, or what else it might be. But in fact I was going to suggest something that might resolve all of this."
He looked up quickly, hopefully. „Which is?"
„Try it. Try it now. I'll monitor you."
„But you told me the effect isn't immediate."
„It isn't. It takes a few hours at least to be felt. But the very first effect it has is to clear the mind – not to cloud it, as you seem to fear, or distort your thinking. You could see that much for yourself, and you wouldn't need to go any further from there." She smiled a little sadly. „You can trust me, you know."
Picard was silent for a moment, then he shook his head. „I do know that. But still... I don't think so. I may not be objective now, but then neither are you – and at least at the moment I'm aware of it. What I have seen of the workings of that thing makes me doubt I would still be aware of it afterwards."
„I expected as much." She appeared to be collecting her thoughts for a couple of seconds; then she looked up with an air of having come to a decision. „Very well. You came here for my opinion. You are an explorer, Captain, but when it comes to your own mind you are terrified of the unknown. Sometimes you will shut it out rather than facing it. I believe you are afraid of what you might find, and there is nothing you fear more than the thought of breaking up. You're shutting it out now, and you cannot bear watching others exploring the mind without fear. And no, you are not objective – you are very far from it."
„Deanna", he said carefully, speaking against a rising panic now even while he knew he could not hide from her, „I don't think you understand. I am trying to protect my crew from something that appears to me risky at best, and as badly timed as it could be. We have an assignment. We haven't come out here to – to explore our unconscious, and I don't believe that Geordi, for one, would voluntarily have chosen his present attitude if he had known in advance what it would entail."
„Protect them, sir? Are you sure you are not trying to protect them from themselves – deciding what is good for them and what isn't? What you are trying to keep from them is the knowledge of their own hearts' desire, do you realize that? I believe they have a right to that, and normally you would be the last person in the world to deny them this right. And many of your crew will neither understand nor appreciate your interfering in this, you know."
„Well, we'll just have to remember that I am the captain of this vessel, then", he said, rising. „This has gone far enough. Counselor, I'm sorry, but in the end I have to rely on what I believe I know. And that, in this case, is that things have been going from bad to worse on my ship since that thing has been running rampant on it, and that as long as there is a possibility it is responsible for that I cannot tolerate it any more."
She was looking up at him, alarm and concern on her face – concern not for herself but, he realized with a sudden pang of fear, for him.
„Captain, do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"
„I believe I do. You're telling me that I am cracking up, and I don't think I am. We're talking at cross purposes – we have been doing that ever since I came in. I don't like going directly against your advice, Deanna, but I don't think I have a choice left in the matter."
„What are you going to do now?"
„I don't know. But I will do something before I allow everybody on this ship to betray themselves and everything they've come out here for."
„Are you sure that is wise, sir?"
„I'm quite sure it's the right thing to do." Hoc volo, sic iubeo, sit pro ratione voluntas. The words came to him unbidden, like a comment from someone else; he hadn't thought of them for years. But he was sure – wasn't he? He wasn't just imposing his will upon others, taking their choices upon himself, taking over their minds, was he? What was he doing here anyway – seeking reassurance? About what? His sanity – or that he was doing the right thing in trying to shield his crew from – that?
An obsession with control. Was that what it was? What if he was indeed losing his mind?
For God's sake, give it a rest.
Then he realized that he was still standing halfway between the sofa and the door and that Deanna was still looking at him, and that the doubts chasing one another through his mind had just contradicted what he had told her a moment earlier, and that she was reading him like a book. The confusion, the effort to get through to what he knew – knew – to be the convictions of his own sane, reasoning mind. The slowly rising anger, the chilling suspicion that nothing he could say would change her opinion about his attitude – about his mental state. And something he wouldn't even consider right now, something... frightening –
And all that under the eyes of his counselor.
„Captain", she said, almost in a whisper. „Sir, please, you mustn't..."
„It's all right", he said hoarsely, turning away. „I'll find the way, don't worry."
It was like a release to be out of her company after that. He walked down the corridors with no thought but that of regaining the peace of his own quarters. But when the door at last slid shut behind him he was aware only of an unwonted loneliness – loneliness and a deep, aching sense of betrayal. Beverly. Will. Deanna. Had he ever before quite realized how completely he trusted them – how much power went with that trust, until now? How come it could hurt so much?
What next? For Heaven's sake, what do I do next?
Well, there was one thing he had to do. He turned to his private terminal and hit a couple of keys. A moment later a high two-note whistle reverberated through the room. It would reverberate through every room and corridor of his ship, overriding every page and signal and communication in progress.
„All hands, all decks, this is the captain. I need your full attention. You may have taken note of a wire device intended to promote peace of mind that has proved popular lately. There are indications that it may interfere with the carrying out of duties, and the discipline on this ship. For the duration of this mission and until further notice the use of this device is banned unconditionally. Picard out."
His mind reeling, he turned away. What have I done now? Made an immortal fool of myself? Across the room he could see the Mount Nebula glittering outside the windows. Already his own words seemed unreal, as if they couldn't possibly have been uttered by himself. It had become uncannily familiar of late, that feeling of reality slipping away. Hadn't he been entertaining the idea that something was going on, some secret agenda was being pursued on the ship, behind his back – to be shocked almost out of his mind when Beverly put it into words? A conspiracy on the Enterprise? He had seen witch-hunts before, he had told himself that it must never, ever, happen to his own judgment, and now –
He dragged himself back from the edge of the chasm that seemed to be opening up beneath his feet. Stop it, Jean-Luc. Now. You're simply driving yourself to distraction.
No point in starting to second-guess himself now. He could be wrong either way, there was no way of telling any more. But all his instincts told him that something was wrong with that thing, that it had done something to those who advocated it, something uncontrollable. Well, it did do something to the mind, was supposed to do it – wasn't it? How could anybody allow this to happen – or expect him to allow it when something within him recoiled in horror at the mere thought?
For the truth was that he was terrified, terrified of the thought of allowing anything to lock on to his own mind, probing – or was it indeed, as Deanna said, terror of what he might find there? It might well be. He truly didn't know. And he truly didn't want to know.
Don't deceive yourself. You know perfectly well.
No, he thought. I don't want to go over that again.
So it was about loss of control after all, wasn't it. About having another will imposed upon you, your choices overridden, your convictions violated, your mind invaded against... No. No.
They don't understand. How could they?
Very well, so his experiences were influencing his judgment. All experiences did that, always. And since his judgment had been trusted far enough to make him captain of Starfleet's flagship and commanding officer of a thousand people, certainly he must be allowed to take his experiences into account when deciding where to take them. And he couldn't allow anything like this to be done to them. Once, perhaps, but not any longer. Not with the responses implanted in him since then, that instinctive horror –
I believe you are afraid of what you might find, she had said.
I am.
Had he really spoken, or was he imagining the words? And was this at all like losing your mind – this breaking down of the barriers that kept things apart, the spoken word from the silent thought, memory from the passing moment?
I can't –, he thought, no longer certain what it was he was trying to keep at bay. And then the barrier collapsed, as he had known it would, and he felt a moment of gratitude because he was where he was, and alone, and at least there would be no witnesses to what was to follow...
... that place he had been taken to on the Borg ship, shivering in the thin cold air, a chill, uncomprehending terror slowly growing in him until it seemed to him that he could hear the passages and machinery echoing with his heartbeat. They had stripped him to the skin, the whirring and clicking of their cybernetic enhancements all around him; and he had not struggled then, sensing that it would avail him nothing, saving his strength for whatever was to come.
I will resist you with my last ounce of strength.
But when it came, he found that the Borg knew, that they had been right all along.
Strength was irrelevant.
Strength of the body, strength of the mind, the will – all irrelevant. They had overcome his resolve as easily and effortlessly as they had cut through his skin, probing, acquiring, right down into the deepest recesses of the soul, and he had been still, all links severed, unable to move, to cry out, unable even to take refuge in unconsciousness, his mind held just as his body was, immobilized. They had not even used restraints on him when they started on the surgery. He had kept still, quite still, his caged mind looking on in incredulous terror as they took him over, thrumming metal and circuitry locking on and merging into him, and he might have screamed with anguish and revulsion, but he could not.
How much do you remember, sir?
Everything.
And he had remained so, unresisting, extinguished, silenced to become the voice of that other mind, a name torn from his own against his will.
I tried so hard –
It had not been good enough by far. Had they ever noticed? Had they experienced one fraction of a second's difficulty in overcoming his desperate will to resist, one heartbeat's delay before the barriers his mind was trying to put up? It would have been some comfort, some last, desperate shred of comfort, something salvaged of what he had been, but this was a place where it didn't matter what he was and where all comfort was left behind, and he had never been able to deceive himself for long. They had not. He might have spared himself the trouble. His resistance had been futile, right from the beginning; his struggling meant nothing to them, left no trace in their collective mind. No notion why, no interest, no hate and no mercy. They were beyond all that. Nothing he did or thought or felt would ever get through to that mind, that gigantic work of machinery that had effortlessly broken him.
It was three years now. He had put it firmly into the back of his mind. But sometimes, when he was alone and tired or off his guard, it would come back to him, a waking nightmare, and he would find himself transfixed, remembering, remembering.
We would rather die.
But he had not been given a choice, certainly not the Klingon way of escape into an honorable death, not then and not afterwards when his pride and honor were in shreds and there was nothing left in him to protect or to salvage. Too late then, even though there had been moments when the memories had seemed too much to bear. The freezing terror and the deep, abiding fury at what had been done to him, the anguish and the shame. The crushing weight of that unspeakable horror, Wolf 359, a betrayal, a failure that had scarred and stained him for the rest of his life –
I intend no harm – no harm...
And then there had been the moments when he had forced himself out of black despair by sheer force of will, telling himself that he would not break, would not break – not now, after all that had happened, not after somehow, in some utterly incomprehensible way surviving that hell and pulling his ship and crew... and... and he shrank at the thought of what besides... out with him. Not after they had risked their lives and so much beyond that to save him, and had stood with him afterwards, in spite of everything they had witnessed. Will. Data. Worf. And Beverly and Geordi and Deanna, and, yes, Shelby, and all these others – these thousand who still looked to him, unflinching, unafraid of what he had been. It had been torture at times to force himself to meet their eyes, but if they chose to trust him he could not betray them again. He could not leave them.
Very well, he thought, exhausted. Let me be paranoid about it, then. It's perhaps the most precious thing there is, that right to choose. That – integrity...
I'm not going insane. This is real. I won't let that damned thing take over my ship and my crew just because they don't understand what's happening. If they still want to go along with this once we know more and this mission is over –
Yes, what then?
And was everybody, then, acting strangely with the sole exception of himself?
I can't help it, he thought, becoming aware of his surroundings for the first time. He was still on his feet, still standing in the middle of the room with his back to the door. And that was the Mount Nebula glittering faintly outside the curving windows overhead.
Minutes? Seconds more likely. He was weary enough to collapse where he stood. Instead he gingerly felt his way to the sofa beneath the front windows and sat down.
He should try to get some sleep he knew. He also knew, from long experience, that he wouldn't be able to, not for a number of hours; exhausted or not, the mind would not let go now. Try thinking of nothing, he told himself, leaning back until the greenish glitter outside filled his field of vision, willing himself to calm down. Just... nothing...
It would be a long night.
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