DINNER AT TEN-FORWARD
by ardavenport
- - - Part 7: Night Errors
Captain Picard poured a fresh cup of tea for the doctor.
"Thank you." She picked up the cup and saucer and sipped the Earl Grey. The breakfast between them had been mostly eaten. They sat across from each other at the dining table in Picard's quarters.
"I really don't know much about it, Jean-Luc," she continued. "I usually don't discuss warp field mechanics with Wesley." She smiled over the rim of her cup.
"Well, Commander Data said that he wanted permission to do some tests on her warp field containment for a class project." Picard ate the last corner of a sweet roll. "It sounded rather intriguing."
"Well, he got in some early work on it when he helped me with Ensign Ikainet's physical when she came on board."
"How did that go?"
"Oh fine, I suppose." She put her cup aside and propped her elbows up on the table, her hands under her chin. "Except that it was something like giving a physical to the ship's engine core."
The captain smiled back. He knew that subspace physics bored her. "I'm glad Wesley was able to help."
"So am I," she agreed.
Picard wiped his mouth and put his napkin down on the table beside him. Regretfully, breakfast was finished. It wasn't that he felt reluctant to go on duty, but he enjoyed his breakfasts with Doctor Crusher. They shared their morning meal much more often together since his encounter with the Borg. It had taken a few weeks for him to recover from that and she'd gotten in the habit of checking on him in the morning. Breakfast with her had gotten to be a bit of a habit that stayed.
They both got up and started to clear the table.
*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*
Redhawk handed her note padd to Gillan. She'd gotten up early and pursued a slightly different line in her investigation, and it had paid off. Instead of interviewing just the scientists and engineers working on the Caro communications, she'd spoken with the support staff; the accountants, the purchasers, the record keepers. They didn't know anything more about the technical facts they wanted, but now they at least had a trail of what the Caloom study project had been buying, who worked where and their operating schedules.
Gillan scanned the information on the note padd while the computer correlated it with the information they'd already gathered. The map on his screen blossomed. A satisfied smile spread across his face as he looked up from the note padd.
"Great. Now we might be able to find out what they're hiding." Ayla Redhawk stayed standing at attention while she watched him manipulate the new data like it was a bright, shiny new toy. He could at least thank me for it, she thought a little sourly as she watched the back of his head.
Finally he turned back to her.
"This is just what we needed," he said, raving about the results glowing on his screen. The whole project seemed to be a sorry tale of missed deadlines and poor planning. People were switched around in the middle of their tasks; similar departments operated independently, often duplicating work; red, green, orange charts linked late project deadlines with the bureaucratic tangle. Gillan's organization chart showed a trail of responsibility in blazing white leading to the head administrator's office at the Tungaras University. It seemed to Redhawk that the original assignment-to collect technical information about the Roocaroom in the Caroomad inner system-had been completely swallowed up by their investigation of the project politics on Caro.
"I'm going to finish tying this in with what I've compiled," Gillan said and then turned to her. "Then I want you to complete the report and give it to Mr. Data."
"Me, Sir?" she asked, surprised.
"Well, you've talked to more people on Caro than anyone else. And this," he gestured to his screens, "gives us the best picture we've gotten yet of what's been going on. I think you ought to get credit for that at least."
She smiled back at him.
"Yes, Sir."
"Redhawk." She stopped and turned back to him. "Thanks."
*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*
The peas slipped off Lieutenant Barclay's trembling fork. He lowered it to his plate.
"What's she doing now?" LaForge asked.
"I-I think she's flossing her head." LaForge and Cor Haas turned to look. Ensign Ikainet, a few tables away from them had gotten a string from somewhere and had managed to run it through her ears. She tugged it from side to side.
"I don't believe it." Haas looked away from the spectacle. Haas was a civilian ergonomist studying the quality of the Enterprise layout for future starship construction. She'd been hovering around Engineering for the past three days. "That creature's really in Starfleet?" she asked LaForge.
"Yeah."
Lieutenant Monroe arrived at their table. She paused, warily looking toward Ikainet's table, and sat down with them. Monroe and Hass had been dating since the second night that Haas had been on the ship.
At Ensign Ikainet's table, Wesley Crusher cringed. It had been a mistake for him to have lunch with her and Doctor Blakox. He'd heard the stories about what Ikainet did in Ten Forward, but it hadn't occurred to him what it would be like to be sitting there watching her do it next to him. Crusher wondered how Blakox could stand it. But the sociologist seemed perfectly content and neutral, even as the eyes of Ten Forward focused in on their table.
Ikainet finished her demonstration and released the ends of the Spican string bean. She sucked it up into her head and the bean disappeared. Wesley was grateful that only one of them had come with her salad.
"I realize that everyone does stare at you," Blakox began, "but you're getting some particularly fearful looks from that table over there." He pointed, and Crusher recognized Lieutenant Barclay and Lieutenant Commander LaForge sitting there. The fearful looks were coming from Monroe, a newly promoted junior lieutenant who had just been posted to the night watch on the bridge.
Ikainet looked at Blackox's finger and then at where it was pointing. Her mouth grinned with joy and she waved both her arms over her head in some manic form of greeting. Crusher saw Monroe cringe and try to hide behind a blonde woman with vertical indentations on her forehead.
"Someone you know?" Blakox asked cheerfully.
Back LaForge's table: "She arrived at the Academy my junior year," Monroe told her companions. "And everyone learned right away that you never tried to pull anything on Cadet Ikainet."
"Like what?" LaForge asked.
"You know...the usual practical jokes and ragging the new cadets." LaForge nodded his understanding. Barclay looked distinctly uncomfortable, as if Monroe were dredging up painful memories for the nervous lieutenant. "But things like that would always backfire on her. Especially if you tried anything in the dining hall.
"She might act stupid, but she's not as dumb as she looks," Monroe warned.
At their table, Ikainet explained her relationship to Monroe to Crusher and Doctor Blakox.
"So you were classmates at the Academy," her supervisor noted. Blakox was proud not to have attended Starfleet Academy. He'd gotten his academic training on his homeworld, Iotia. He'd joined Starfleet as an officer/specialist and had gone through his 90 day indoctrination at the Starfleet training center on Mars.
"Cadet Monroe is upper class. When I was at the Academy." Ikainet nodded.
"I see. Then you were chums in school together."
"Nooooooooooo."
"Nooooooooo," Blakox imitated the H'car. "I suppose not. Unless all your old friends try to hide from you. Just what was your connection to her?"
"Cadet Monroe is really bad. If she sits with you at dinner, you'll have to sit at attention until your food gets cold. And then you'd better eat the way she tells you, or you'll be there all night. And that's if she likes you."
"Ah, yes. Upper class hazing. Where all proto-Starfleet officers get in their training quota of ritualistic sadism. She sat with you at dinner, didn't she?"
"Yeeeeeeesss!"
"What did you do?"
Ikainet smiled pleasantly at them from her seat at their table and without moving her head jammed her fork into her right eyeball. With both arms she twisted and pulled on the fork, extracting the eye. It came away with a squishy, slurpy sound: little dark purple strings broke away from it. The eyelid and socket closed and caved in immediately after it was gone.
Blakox and Crusher watched in horrified fascination as she laid the eyeball on her salad plate. Then she daintily picked up her knife and prepared to slice it.
She paused, looking at the knife critically with her remaining eye and then laid the fork down. She opened her mouth and proceeded to sharpen the knife on her small, yellowish lower teeth. The edge of the knife make a horrible grinding noise as she sawed it back and forth.
While she did this, the eyeball, apparently gaining some life of its own wiggled and furiously worked its way off of the fork. It flopped onto the lighted tabletop with a little squeaky noise. The eye turned this way and that, as if looking for an escape. Ensign Crusher nervously sat back in his chair when it looked his way. Having lunch with Ensign Ikainet had definitely been a big mistake.
Ikainet finished her knife sharpening, picked up the fork and skewered the eye again. Laying it back on the salad plate, she prepare to carve it up.
Guinan interrupted just as the knife was descending on the squealing eyeball.
"We generally don't have people eating themselves here in Ten Forward," she instructed in a firm but friendly voice.
"Ooh!" Ikainet exclaimed, lowering the knife.
"I think she's right," Blakox told her. "It's not very conducive to good eating." Several people had left the tables around them. "But I suppose you did make your point," he noted with satisfaction. The table where Lieutenant Monroe had been sitting was now empty.
*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*
Burnt umber, naples yellow, ultramarine blue. Picard squeezed small blobs of each onto separate corners of his palette. Yellow ocher, mauve, English red. He glanced at Ensign Boris Yin, the model, and added a squirt of cadmium red, medium.
He hadn't painted in some time and he'd had to drop something else from his schedule to make room for it. He hated taking up an activity and then fickly neglecting it. If he was going to do something, he wanted to be serious about it, or at least carry it to some resolute termination. And he didn't think he was quite finished with painting.
The door to the room opened. Wearing a white coverall, Ensign Ikainet marched in carrying paints and palette and brushes. Picard tensed and then forced himself to relax, determined to not let her presence distract him. Ikainet scanned the whole room and then stomped over to an easel behind him. The captain heard her clattering and arranging her things, but he did not turn to look at her.
The rest of the art students arrived. The painting session wasn't an actual formal class, just a scheduled gathering. Ensign Yin, who had an extensive background in classical and modern painting techniques, was the closest thing to an instructor that they had, but he would only be supplying advice upon request when he wasn't posing.
Yin took his place on the platform, disrobed and assumed a Michelangelo-esque posture, but his eyes were conveniently pointed toward a chronometer at the far end of the room so he could pace himself to twenty minutes at a time.
Picard drew a rough outline of Yin and the draped boxes around him. The woman to Picard's left immediately filled her canvas with colored shapes and then began painting in details. The captain kept his eyes forward, on his own work and away from the obvious skill and speed being wielded by his neighbor. Paint slapped onto the canvas behind him. Picard couldn't imagine what form Ikainet's picture would be taking, but she was clearly going about it as noisily as possible. He recalled Captain Tzaki's words about Ikainet's ability to come up with an infinite number of irritating activities.
The class proceeded in relative silence. Yin took his first break, put his robe on and strolled about, politely viewing the art. He offered no comment, except for a smile and a nod toward Picard's painting. But when he stepped back to see Ikainet's interpretation the captain saw him blanch, his eyes widening before he quickly moved on. Ikainet was in the back of the room, so no one else could see her work and no one else went to look. Yin resumed his pose and Picard went back to methodically filling in his outlines, going left to right on the canvas.
Halfway through the second session, the door whooshed open and Lieutenant Commander Data entered. After spotting Picard he quietly went to him and reported that a representative of the Caroomadi government would speak with him tomorrow about the Enterprise's inquiries into the possible source of the difficulties with the Roocaroom.
"Interesting," Data commented toward Picard's canvas after he'd finished with ship's business. Picard did not ask him to elaborate. Data's artistic analyses were painfully thorough and honest and while he knew that they were sincere and intended to be enlightening, the captain just wasn't in the mood for it. Data moved on to silently appraise the work of the other students. He stopped when he got to Ensign Ikainet's work.
"You did not paint the model," the android finally stated, cocking his head several different ways.
"Is it...required?" Ikainet inquired breathily. Data shrugged.
"No, I suppose not. But this is highly...unusual." Somebody's curiosity got the better of them and Picard heard someone get up to go take a look at the H'car's art. There was a strangled, unintelligible sound of exclamation. And then a few more people got up to have a look, with similar sounding reactions.
Picard's brush had stopped moving and he realized that he was going to have to get up and look at it himself. Yin was starting to twitch.
The captain put his palette down and went over to where most of the class had gathered. Sheepishly looking down at their feet, everyone quickly edged aside for him.
Picard stared at the canvas. Then at Ikainet. Then back at her picture. Ikainet's white coveralls were now covered with splotches of pigment. A white streak marked the dark purple-brown skin on her cheek. She'd even gotten yellow and orange specks in her purple hair and a yellow splatter on one of her huge, oversized eyeballs that she hadn't bothered to wipe off. Everyone else, except Mr. Data and Ikainet, looked away, even backing up a pace or two as if the immediate area had suddenly become hazardous.
There on the canvas, as could be seen from Ikainet's seat behind him, in a beautifully photographic style, the background meticulously detailed, was a perfect rendition of the back of Captain Picard's head.
His jaw tightened. How dare she! His eyes returned to the Calo.
"You find this funny, Ensign?" he demanded in a low tone.
"Funny?" she gasped out in return, with a large-eyed expression of mild concern.
"Yes, funny, Ensign," he shot back, his voice rising. "I suppose you thought people might be amused by it." He gestured toward the painting. "Well, I am not." He advanced, standing over her. He got no reaction. She didn't back up, or even flinch; she just looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. This fueled his fury. Didn't anything get through to her? I don't care what you can do, Ensign. You can't buy my pardon by getting rid of Nagilum. That does not give you kicense to do anything stupid thing you want.
"Do you imagine, Ensign, that what you did yesterday entitles you to take liberties now?" he asked with contempt.
"Yesterday?" this seemed to puzzle her. All the events of the previous day collected together in one huge mass, along with every fact she knew about Picard, painting and 'funny'.
Picard could see down into her open mouth. Past her teeth it looked like a void. Was it possible that this was just another random, inane act, or a self-centered attempt to prod them into entertaining her? It didn't matter which it might be. If she was supposed to be in Starfleet, and an officer, then he damned well expected her to know when she was annoying people and to avoid doing it.
Utterly silent, everyone else around them shuffled in place, unable to leave lest they attract their captain's attention. The entire room cringed, except Ensign Ikainet. Even Data looked repentant.
"Ensign, you will clean yourself up." Picard didn't believe for a moment that the blobs and drips of paint covering her weren't yet another of her tactics to attract attention to herself. "And then you will report to my ready room on the bridge. Is that clear?"
"Riiiiiiiight."
"And get rid of that." His eyes flicked toward Ikainet's painting.
"Riiiiiiiiiiiiight." She nodded vigorously and picked up her things. With her brushes and paints piled onto her palette which she balanced on her head, she seized the canvas and marched out with it, holding it in front of her at arms length. The paints and brushes on her head stayed perfectly still as she stomped out with her usual heavy step.
Picard watched her leave. Then he went back to his own painting and began cleaning his brushes, dipping them in solvent and wiping them off on a rag. The other people in the room collected their things; brushes, paintings. Yin put his slippers on and wearing his robe left the room carrying his other clothes. Somebody knocked over a jar of solvent. The container bounced and rolled across the floor. Picard didn't look up as several people scurried to clean up the mess. He carefully cleaned each brush, removing all stains of pigment from the ivory bristles. By the time he'd finished, the room had emptied.
*oo*oo* *oo*oo* *oo*oo*
Commander Riker sat doing absolutely nothing.
Actually he was serving the last of his duty watch on the bridge, after which he had a date with Shantoya M'Baro. He reclined in the command chair and allowed himself the privilege of a few minutes contemplation. The other officers all around him minded their stations while he idly stared at the whizzing star pattern on the main view screen.
Commander Riker enjoyed his rank. He enjoyed being in charge, but being only second in command left him room to get involved in the tasks he directed. To do some of the real work. Not that the captain didn't. Picard was no more demanding on any of his officers than he was on himself, but he went about it in a detached and formal way, dignified and befitting a captain. Riker knew he would handle his own command in a much more personal fashion whenever he chose to take that step. At the moment, he was in no hurry.
One of the forward turbolifts opened and Picard emerged. Hastily, Riker stood, but Picard didn't even look up at him. He just turned to his right and walked the few steps from the turbolift to his ready room and disappeared. Riker glanced at Worf, shrugged and sat down again.
A moment later, one of the rear turbolifts opened. Riker saw Ensign Ikainet troop down the carpeted ramp to Picard's ready room door. She stood there facing the closed door, her back to him for a few seconds until Picard acknowledged the door chime.
"Commander Riker, report to my ready room."
Riker got up. Upon entering he found Picard seated at his desk, Ikainet standing before him in some approximation of attention. Picard looked angry. Riker smiled professionally.
"Yes, Sir."
"Commander, I don't think that Ensign Ikainet is making satisfactory progress on our plan for solving the Caroomad problem. We're only three days away from her home system and I'm not satisfied we're sufficiently prepared." Riker knew that Data, LaForge and Ikainet, along with a large percentage of the science and engineering departments had already prepared a detailed plan of what they were to do, plus several alternate plans just in case they were needed. "I think Ikainet needs to devote more of her time to our mission. Lieutenant Gillan's team has done some exemplary work in uncovering some of the sources of the problems we've been having communicating with Caro, but there still seems to be a lot more to do. I'm sure Ensign Ikainet here could help. I want her assigned to working double shifts. I want results. I want the Roocaroom project and the Tungaras involvement in it thoroughly investigated before we get there."
Riker nodded. "Yes, Sir."
"You're dismissed Ensign. Wait for Commander Riker outside."
"Yes, Sir," she answered. Ikainet spun around and left.
"Number One, I want her busy all the time," Picard stated as soon as she was gone. "Either working on the Caroomad mission or something else, I don't care which. Captain Tzaki included a long list of things to keep Ensign Ikainet busy in his logs; consult them. I don't want to see her at all until we get to Caro."
For a brief moment Riker considered asking Picard exactly what it was that Ikainet had done this time, but the evil-tempered look in his captain's eyes convinced him that he should check the grapevine later.
"I'll talk to Dr. Blakox and Lieutenant Gillan about rearranging her schedule. And I think Ensign Crusher wanted to do some more elaborate scans on her warp field for his class project."
"Excellent. Make it so." Riker left the ready room. Ikainet stood waiting for him, centered in front of the door to Picard's office. She wore a smile and looking not a bit like a junior ensign who'd just been reprimanded and subjected to her superior's disciplinary action.
"Come on," he said brusquely and led her to the turbolift.
- - - Part 7 continues . . .