Chapter 21

Deck Three around midnight

"I'm telling you, Data, there is no such thing as 'acceptable parameters' for a power drain. And if I hear Argyle say something like that again, I'm going to recommend to Captain Picard that he appoint a new Chief Engineer."

"Geordi, I do not believe that Lieutenant Commander Argyle appreciated your suggestion that he throw his 'whole diagnostic method out of the closest airlock'."

"Well...I don't appreciate his diagnostic method."

"Similarly, I do not think he would appreciate you suggesting that the captain replace him with another officer."

"Data...sometimes I feel like that guy is in my job. You know what I mean?"

"No, Geordi, your meaning escapes me. Your job duties consist mainly of-"

"Of flying the ship...I know, Data! And shouldn't I worry that Captain Picard is going to think that's all I am capable of? I know ambition is a human trait, Data, but stay with me here."

Data immediately dropped his gaze to his feet which were walking almost perfectly in time with Geordi's. Then he realized his friend was not speaking literally. "I am still with you, Geordi. However, we have only been on board the Enterprise for several weeks. Perhaps you should give yourself additional time to demonstrate your abilities to Captain Picard."

Geordi slowed as they reached the turbo lift. "Data this might be a little off topic...but has Tasha said anything to you, about me? You know, since the Tsiolkovsky epidemic last week..."

"No."

"Nothing at all? Not even about something awkward I might have said during that whole...thing?"

"No."

Geordi watched Data closely. "Would you tell me if she had said something about me?"

"No," said Data.

"What? Data, we're friends."

"But I am also friends with Tasha," said Data. "So even if in theory she had said something about you, Geordi, I would be prevented from telling you for ethical reasons."

"Huh," said Geordi. "So the same ethical protections apply to me then, right?" Data nodded. "Well in that case, don't mention anything I just said...okay?"

"Okay." Data nodded again and stepped on to the turbo lift. "I am scheduled for the midnight shift on the bridge," he said. "Good night, Geordi," he said as the doors shut.

"Yeah, see you tomorrow." LaForge gave Data a small wave and then he stood there for a few more moments, thinking about how to boost the power efficiency without the Chief Engineer noticing. Suddenly he heard at least two pairs of footsteps racing down an adjacent corridor; and something else he didn't recognize. Realizing he was near the Ciapathian guest quarters, he hesitated. But after hearing one person shout out in a non-human language, instinctively he ran toward the commotion.

Picard stumbled out of bed, palming his communicator and trying to steady his breathing. He shook his head, angry at the failure of his subconscious to demonstrate even a shred of self control while he was sleeping. Of course, he admitted that his dream life was considerably less constrained than his daily life, in which his self-control ruled everything. "Doctor, I'm not dressed...I've been sleeping."

"Don't worry about it, Jean-Luc," she said. "Your secret will be safe with me...and the two late shift nurses on duty. I'm in the minor sick bay on deck three. I'll see you soon?"

"Yes. Picard out." He sighed, and wrapped a robe quickly around himself. He didn't have time to change. His pajama pants would have to do for now, as she was insisting on seeing him right away. I need you. He closed his eyes, and he heard her voice in his head. Then his eyes snapped open and he tried to leave the dream behind in his room as he exited his quarters.

Beverly was determined to call him by his first name, which would only lead to increased familiarity between them. This could create problems among the crew if they sensed that he somehow tolerated anything less than professionalism. He would have to either nip it in the bud, and tell her to use his title, or suggest a compromise. Deep down he knew that maintaining decorum every second of the day was hardly worth her deciding to stop speaking to him at all, which is what she would likely do if his request irked her as he suspected it would. "Why are you doing this?" he imagined she might ask with barely contained outrage. "We've known each other for years, Jean-Luc..." And he would respond to the effect of: "Doctor, I'm your commanding officer. It's simply not appropriate." At that point, there were any number of responses she could offer, and in his imagination none of them ended well for him.

The bottom line was that this was just the beginning of a professional relationship that he knew they both hoped would last for a long time. They had to learn how best to work together.

He shrugged mentally. He would let her have it her way. Using her first name didn't have to mean anything more significant than the fact that they had known each other for years, had spent many of those years apart, and now were getting to know each other again. That was all. He had to separate Beverly Crusher the professional person, and his subordinate in rank, with the woman who, in his private moments, invaded his thoughts. It was crucial that she did not see this division within him, this emotional weakness. It was equally important that she did not gain the impression that he did not respect her as a professional person.

These things, he told himself, were far more important than a long suppressed attraction. At that very moment he had to struggle not to allow the thought to creep through-the one that always did: had she, perhaps long ago...ever felt as he did? It was the unanswered question, was the one which left him in a quiet and sometimes oddly comforting loneliness as he stared up at the ceiling each night. It was the question that had never been asked out loud, to which the most primal and neglected part of him desired that the answer was yes.

"There you are," she said impatiently, waving him into sick bay. She hadn't exaggerated about there only being two nurses on staff that night. It was very quiet, and all of the bio beds were empty. He glanced around, surprised that he found the space so unfamiliar. Granted the ship was new, but he'd stepped inside this smaller sick bay perhaps only once since coming aboard.

"Look, we're a match," she said with a soft smile as he approached.

"Hmm?"

She looked him up and down and then gestured at her own clothing. It was then he noticed that she was wearing the exact same plain dark blue bathrobe that he was. Of course, all of the senior officers had been issued one. "We match," she repeated with a smile.

"Oh," he said, smiling now too. "Yes of course."

"I couldn't sleep," she said quickly. "Something was just...needling me. And so I came here, and remembered something I should have done yesterday." She nodded at one of the nurses, and then moved swiftly past him down a hallway. When she reached her destination she turned back to him. "I'm sorry to wake you, Captain, but I really thought you should see this."

She waved her hand over the door lock and walked into a large laboratory ahead of him. The lighting was so low, that he nearly bumped into a table. "This way," she said, putting her hand on his upper back to guide him. He immediately tensed and she dropped her hand to her side. She looked at him in the low light and then to his surprise she reached out to touch his forehead with the back of her hand, as if checking for a fever. He resisted the urge to spring backward into a table full of lab supplies to escape her touch.

"Are you feeling alright? You're perspiring," she said abruptly and it almost sounded like an accusation. He merely shook his head. "I thought you said I woke you," she pressed him, sounding bemused. He blushed and was thankful for the low light.

"I was-I mean, you did wake me," he said, correcting himself. "I suppose I rushed to meet you here," he said, and it was half true.

She shrugged. "Increase lights to sixty percent," she ordered the computer and it complied. "We don't want it too bright in here or it will be hard to see it."

"It?"

She pointed to a microscope. "You'll need to look through the scope. Just let me get it adjusted," she said, putting her face forward into the viewer of the scope. The instrument made a few whirring sounds.

He watched her gazing into the microscope, and twisted the fluffy belt around his waist, feeling silly and vulnerable without his uniform. "Beverly," he ventured.

He watched her smile into the microscope. "Yes, Jean-Luc?"

"About that..."

"About what?"

"I've been thinking about this, and have concluded that it's more appropriate for me to use your professional title, and for you to use mine." He clasped his hands behind his back, waiting tensely for her reply.

Oh boy. She stood up straight and stepped away from the microscope, turning to him. "By more appropriate, you mean, you don't want me to stop calling you Captain in front of the other crew members...right?"

"Yes," he said, feeling his body relax a bit. She wasn't angry with him. He dropped his hands back to his sides.

"That's fine, of course I don't want people to think I don't respect your rank," she said easily.

"But it's alright...it's fine of course when we're in private," he responded, and immediately was not sure why he had. If he had been able to properly kick himself, he would have done so.

Her expression changed immediately to one of surprised curiosity. "Private...like right now, you mean. We are alone after all."

"No...your staff is in the next room," he objected quietly.

"And yet, I doubt anyone would hear you if you decided to call me Beverly," she said with a soft smile.

Picard felt his body tense again inexplicably. "I'm quite serious about this Beverly," he said firmly, taking a step backward.

"Of course," she said turning back to the microscope. She fell silent for about five seconds, then said: "So if your robe was to fall open just slightly enough to be inappropriate, should I say 'Captain, your robe is open', or is it alright if I use your first name?"

He looked down sharply, and pulled the robe closed to cover his chest. "You might have mentioned it earlier," he said, feeling his neck grow hot with embarrassment.

She adjusted the microscope, still peering into it. "I wasn't sure of the rules," she said. "But now I know. There," she said pulling back with a smile. "Now you can take a look... Jean-Luc."

12:30 AM

The front door kept beeping, and for some reason his mother hadn't gotten up to answer it. Wesley walked out of his room and expected to find the door to his mother's room closed; but it was open and she wasn't there. "Mom?" he called out, but she was nowhere to be found. The door beeped again. "Okay, I'm coming," he said in a louder voice. "Open," he said, and the doors hissed open to reveal Hatha. Wesley's eyes widened in the kind of surprised moment you have when you wish time would slow down order to figure out a plan. But none was forthcoming.

Hatha said something completely unintelligible to him, but it sounded desperate. "Wait here," he urged her and ran to the coat rack where his mother's blue lab coat hung. He quickly ran his hand along the front of the coat and snapped off the com badge. Racing back to the door, he switched the communicator to the universal translator feature.

"You have to help me," Hatha said, pushing past him into his quarters. She turned around quickly. "I've noticed you...but I don't know your name."

Wesley tried to stand up taller. "I'm Wesley...but you can call me Wes...or whatever you want to..." he mumbled noncommittally as she began pacing around the living room wordlessly.

"There has to be some way off of this ship and out of the sector," she said. "Run away with me? My name's Hatha, by the way."

"Uh...run away?" Alarm bells started going off inside Wesley's brain. This girl was completely crazy. Beautiful and crazy.

"Maybe we can steal a shuttle?"

With the emphasis on crazy.

"No, no...we can't do that," he said quickly. Channel your inner Picard, he told himself. "Hatha, why don't you sit down and we can try and talk this through calmly?"

She looked around wildly when he tried to guide her to sit down at the table. "Are your parents home?"

He shook his head. "My Mom's not here. Probably delivering a baby or something," he said with a shrug. "She's a doctor," he added, not knowing what else to say.

She sighed, and dropped her face into her hands. "I have to get out of here. I can't marry him."

He sat down slowly next to her. "I heard you last night, you know when you were arguing with your father. Why won't he listen to you?"

"It's my role. If Petral selects me, then I must marry him."

Wesley felt a wave of disgust. He had seen Doctor Petral at the dinner, and he never would have guessed that he was the one Hatha was supposed to marry. But now he knew why she wanted to run away. "So he just chooses someone and they don't have any choice in the matter? That's not right," he said with growing disbelief.

"The Ascension is not right or wrong...it just is."

"What's the Ascension?"

"I don't know," she said. "My father says that the Ascension is our future, but no one actually tells us what it is. All I know is that it is the justification for why Petral collects wives.

"Collects...you mean he has more than one?"

She closed her eyes. "It's normal in our society to have multiple spouses. But when Doctor Petral takes a wife, she eventually disappears...forever."

"Can you see it?" Beverly asked.

Picard strained to look into the microscope, but couldn't focus on any one part of the swirling figure in front of his eyes. "Not if I'm expected to know what the hell I'm looking at," he murmured.

She patted him lightly on the back and he tensed under her hand. So jumpy. "Here, stand back, I'll project the image," she said patiently. He stood up and moved aside.

A holograph of the microscopic detail now spun above them in mid-air. "Oh," he said, now seeing something very recognizable. "It's a double-helix...DNA," he said, glancing at her questioningly.

"Yes," she said pointing up at it. "But this isn't just any DNA, Jean-Luc. This is human DNA."

He rubbed his jaw and just looked at the DNA strand as it spun in front of them.

"When we landed on Trana IV I picked up some samples...of that blood in the village, remember?"

"Mm hmm."

"Well, there was so much going on, that I didn't even test the samples. Until now."

He frowned and folded his arms over his chest not wanting to wait for the bombshell. "Are you suggesting the Tranans are actually human?"

"Yes! Who else would this blood be from? No one on the away team was injured until the caves, and the Tranans were the only humanoid beings on the planet when we arrived."

He cleared his throat and looked down at the floor. "As far as we know yes...but there is something perhaps you haven't considered."

She raised an irritated eyebrow. "What?"

"What if these Brethren...what if they are human? We know that the Tranans were trying to escape them. There could have been a conflict of some sort before we arrived-that could be blood from the Brethren. You know there was something about my conversation with Admiral Nechayev that wasn't quite right. She knew more about Federation involvement in this sector than she wanted to tell me."

"But Nechayev and you have known each other for years, Jean-Luc. She wouldn't lie to you about something this serious, would she?"

He leaned against a lab table. "I really don't know. Like you, I am just attempting to think through the possibilities."

She placed her hand on the table next to him, looking up at the DNA strand. "There's something else here, Jean-Luc. Whoever this person is or was, the one thing I do know is that this DNA belonged to a clone."

"A clone?"

She nodded. "This entire strand was engineered."

He sighed, not happy with an additional wrinkle. "Assuming you're right, Beverly, and there are humans out in this sector, how did they get here? There is no record of human travel or settlement in this sector prior to this mission."

"If you'd let me just test one of the Tranans on the holodeck..."

"No," he said with quiet firmness. "We've been over this before."

She stared back at him. "Alright then. Let's assume that I am right about this, that this blood belongs to someone in Rolani's group. If they're human then how can we possibly be violating the Prime Directive by testing them. They're human!"

"If you are correct," he allowed. "And I'm not saying that you are...everything we know about the Tranans tells us they are a pre-warp civilization. It would be the same as going back to pre-warp Earth and interfering with the humans there. Besides, there are countless things about the universe we still don't understand. Humanity may not be unique to Earth. Perhaps humans developed elsewhere under the same environmental conditions."

"Jean-Luc..."

"My point is, we simply cannot be sure."

"Yet," she said, determined to have the last word.