Chapter 37
Picard took the two steaming mugs of coffee from the replicator then set one down on the computer console in Beverly's quarters automatically, his eyes locked on the micro-scanner resting on the desk as he sipped from the second.
"Well?" he asked.
She looked up from the tricorder that had been attached to the scanner and gave a disgusted shake of her head. "Still no good," she sighed.
"Maybe if we used the terminal in Sickbay..." Picard began to suggest.
"And have Greg Matthews asking questions?" she retorted, affixing him with a quizzical look. "I thought you wanted to keep the lieutenant's medical history quiet," she reminded him.
Picard gave her a troubled look. "I thought doctors were required to keep medical information confidential," he said.
"We're supposed to," she replied. "That doesn't always mean we do," she added disapprovingly
He frowned. "You don't trust him, do you?"
"No," she sighed. "Not that I have any reason not to - technically, he's competent - more than competent; he's probably a better doctor than I am, technically - but I'm not comfortable with him." She shook her head, uncertain of the cause of her vague dissatisfaction with the man. "Let's just put it this way: I'd trust Greg to treat my condition - but I wouldn't trust him to treat me. But," she conceded, "maybe that's just me - or maybe it's just that he's new, or maybe it's just this mission."
"Or maybe there's a reason you don't trust him," Picard added.
She raised a brow at him, and was rewarded with a smile.
"You don't get to be Chief Medical Officer of a starship without developing good instincts about people," he reminded her. "If you're not comfortable with Dr. Matthews, there probably is a reason. When this mission is over, I'll request his reassignment," he said.
To his surprise, however, she shook her head. "That won't be necessary, Jean-Luc; personal feelings aside, he is brilliant... if a bit brusque," she added, remembering Geordi's less-than-glowing report on the man's behavior in the shuttle bay.
Picard watched her for a moment, then slowly nodded, reluctantly giving in to her. "All right," he conceded, then looked back at the scanner. "Is there any way we can use the terminal in Sickbay without him realizing what we're doing?"
"No - but we shouldn't need to," she insisted. "This terminal is as good as the one in my office. We should be able to do it here - if we can do it at all," she added grimly.
"Then the scanner didn't work?" he asked, glancing askew at the miniature device.
Beverly shook her head again. "It worked, all right - at least it worked as well as it could - but it was never designed as a comprehensive diagnostic tool," she reminded him. "Starfleet invented it with the sole purpose of being able to detect a Shape-Shifter without having to resort to blood tests."
He nodded, remembering; there had been some hope that if the Dominion infiltrators could be found covertly, without alerting them to the fact that their presence was suspected, then Starfleet could isolate them, feed them disinformation - and wait for the Dominion to reveal themselves at a time and place when Starfleet was ready for them.
The plan had been ideal, Picard reminded himself - but like many ideals, it never materialized.
"I remember," he murmured. "But I also remember it didn't work," he added.
"Not for that, no; the Shape-Shifters were too thorough, too adept at mimicking the structure of the races they imitated - right down to the cellular level. Nonetheless, it did prove itself as a handy little medical scanner - albeit at a very limited range. Perfect for covert use, when you want to find something out that the other person doesn't want found out," she added with a grin, reminding him that that was what they had just used the device for - then frowned. "Though I think I'm treading on thin ice, ethically."
"Because you want to find out what's wrong with one of your patients?" he scoffed gently.
"No - and that's precisely the problem here. Andile is _not_ one of my patients, Jean-Luc - and until she is, or until I have a real reason to make her one, then I am bound to keep my hands off - even if I'm sure there's is something wrong with her," she added frustratedly.
"It was an order," he reminded her.
Beverly gave a rueful smile, is if daring him to remember a time when she would violate her ethics at his - or any person's - command. "I seem to remember it was a suggestion," she countered.
He bowed his head, conceding the point. "In any case..."
"In any case, I used it," she gave in, somewhat relieved that the device hadn't worked, sparing her any more of the internal moral debate. "Ethics aside, I can't bear to see someone in so much pain - emotional or physical - and not try to do something about it. Using this..." she said, brandishing the micro-scanner, "I thought if I could get close enough to Andile, it might give me some information about her, about whether she has some underlying illness..."
Or whether she might not even be who she claimed, Picard added, knowing Beverly had had the same thought when she agreed - reluctantly - to his suggestion to use the device.
He understood her reluctance; he had hated making the suggestion in the first place - but it wouldn't have been the first time that a Starfleet officer had been kidnapped - or killed, he added grimly - and replaced by a surgically altered look-alike. And while the micro-scanner might not be able to detect the subtleties of a Dominion shape-shifter, it could certainly tell the difference between a genetic human and a Cardassian, Romulan or Klingon.
But not a surgically altered human, he reminded himself, keeping that possibility open in the back of his mind.
His thoughts playing on that possibility, he watched as Beverly entered a new set of commands into the terminal - then angrily thumbed the power control to the keyboard. "Damn it! Still nothing! No matter what I do, Jean-Luc, I'm still showing high levels of tritanium in the readout. It's got to be a fault in the scanner, but every time I try to filter out the tritanium, I lose the lieutenant's signal, too," she complained. "It's almost as if there was tritanium in the lieutenant herself!"
Picard gave her a puzzled look. "But that's possible, isn't it?" he asked. "Tritanium is used in some surgical procedures..." he reminded her - as if she, a physician, needed reminding of that basic fact.
"Yes - but not in the quantities I'm detecting," she replied staring at the screen. She played with the terminal a moment longer, then gave a frustrated sigh, pushed herself back from the desk and looked up at him. "Tritanium is sometimes used in orthopedic surgical procedures," she explained patiently. "If a bone is badly broken, if the healing process indicates that it will never recover full strength or mobility on its own, the pieces can be reset around a tritanium framework. It's light but incredibly durable - Data's skeletal structure is made from tritanium - but unlike many metals, tritanium's fully compatible with organic tissue. The crystalline structure allows the bone to integrate into the lattice and build on it - and the bone will be as dense and as durable as it was before the break. But the amount of tritanium needed in that type of repair is miniscule; what this readout shows is more than any bone repair could possibly account for," she said, flatly.
He hesitated for a moment, wondering if she could possible have forgotten what he told her earlier. "She was badly injured at Sipantha..." he began - but Beverly stopped him immediately with a touch.
"Not this badly," she said, shaking her head, "If she really had this amount of tritanium in her body, that would mean that more than half her bones had been rebuilt," she informed him.
He looked at her, somewhat blankly.
"No one survives that kind of injury, Jean-Luc," she explained patiently. "That many broken bones, broken so badly that they all require tritanium lattices... No," she insisted after a moment's thought, "it had to be something else. A fault in the scanner, maybe, or something in Ten Forward interfered with the scanner - or there was another computer glitch," she added with a tired smile.
Picard smiled, then shook his head. "I think we can discount that possibility, Doctor. After all, we haven't had any other problems with the medical programs," he reminded her, "and I think it a little unlikely that we'd suddenly have an isolated problem in this one area. More likely your first suggestion was right; something interfered with the scanner, or..." His voice trailed off, his eyes losing their focus as he stared emptily into the room.
She gave him a knowing - and disapproving - look. After fifteen years together, she knew him well enough to know - or at least suspect rather certainly - what he was thinking. But knowing what was on his mind was not the same thing as giving voice to it - and she wasn't about to open that can of worms. If he wanted to broach the topic that was nagging at him... But that was precisely what he wanted, she realized equally quickly: he needed to talk about his concerns, with someone he could trust implicitly - without damaging the subject's reputation in the process.
Beverly smiled. There was a compliment in that trust, she knew - one she was not about to betray now. "Or what?" she pressed him - gently.
"Or someone interfered with it," he replied, raising his eyes to hers.
"Someone?"
He gave her a frown, disliking her goading him into speaking the answers they both already knew. But one of them had to say it, he reminded himself; one of them had to speak the thought out loud - if only to quash it. And I, he reminded himself, am the captain.
RHIO.
"The lieutenant," he growled tersely.
She shook her head. "Jean-Luc, I know there is some circumstantial evidence against Andile - and I know you don't care for her personally - but be reasonable," she said, smiling tiredly at him. "After all, an hour ago you were telling me you thought she had deliberately moved the discussion ahead two hours for the sole purpose of avoiding us - now you're saying she also just happened to be wearing a body frame of tritanium just so I couldn't take a scan of her?" she teased. "I know you've said she's the most prepared officer you've ever known - but I think that's carrying things to extremes, even for a saboteur."
"It does sound a bit paranoid," he admitted sheepishly.
"Well," she conceded gently, "let's just say it's unlikely. About as unlikely as us finding an answer from this tonight," she added, giving the computer screen a final disgusted glare. "Come on," she added, rising from the desk, taking her mug in one hand and Picard in the other and guiding him toward the room's couch.
Sinking in, she settled into one corner of the cushions, curling her legs beneath her, and cradling the mug in both hands. "You're right about one thing though," she continued, sighing with relief as the cushions sank around her. "She is hiding something. What I wouldn't give to get her in Sickbay for a thorough work-up..." she sighed. "The woman's positively cachetic, Jean-Luc! That type of thinness isn't normal - which means it's either there's something seriously wrong with her physically or there's something even more seriously wrong with her psychologically."
"Any idea which?" Picard pressed.
Beverly shook her head. "I'm a doctor, Jean-Luc, so it's in my nature to assume it's physical - but the more I think about it, the more I think this might be something for Deanna," she announced then looked at him.
"How so?" he asked.
"She refused to shake hands with me," she reminded him.
Picard shook his head disapprovingly, still taken aback by the behavior of the engineer. "It was rude, I'll admit," he conceded, "but I'm not sure how that qualifies the lieutenant to be one of the Counselor's patients. After all, it was by the book."
"Yes," Beverly agreed, adding, "when one's culture prohibits shaking hands. But hers doesn't; she's human..."
"But not from Earth - and there are many human cultures both on and off Earth that frown on direct physical contact," he argued - then shook his head. "Though she did shake hands with me when we met," Picard recalled, sighing disappointedly at the lieutenant's breach of protocol. "Still, I don't see how that makes her a candidate for Counseling," he added. "Remedial training in shipboard etiquette, perhaps - but not Counseling."
"Except she didn't forget the protocol, Jean-Luc; she followed it – exactly as required," Beverly countered.
"Then all the more reason to ask why that should qualify her for Counseling?" he asked.
"Jean-Luc," Beverly sighed patiently. "You're the ship's captain; no crewmember is going to refuse to shake hands with you except where cultural prohibitions exist. It just isn't done. Crewmembers defer to your cultural practices as a matter of respect. But Lt. Andile didn't avoiding shaking hands with me because she didn't respect me; she did it for a very simple reason: I would notice what you clearly didn't."
He shook his head, puzzled. "What? What didn't I notice?"
"Her sleeves," Beverly replied.
He stared at her for a moment, stunned. "Her sleeves?" he finally repeated.
"Yes," Beverly confirmed solemnly. "They're too long."
He stared at her a moment longer - then broke into a smile. "Is that your diagnosis, Doctor?" he asked. "That the lieutenant refused to shake hands with you because her sleeves were too long? And you think she should see Counselor Troi because she lacks a sense of fashion?" he asked teasingly, wondering if the physician weren't making too much of such a small detail. "That's hardly a surprise considering her profession; it seems to be a common ailment among engineers. They pay more attention to their engines than they do to themselves."
"Except Andile does pay attention to her uniform," Beverly replied. "She has to."
Picard stared at her, now thoroughly confused by the woman's logic - or lack thereof.
"Andile's uniform's ten years out of date, Jean-Luc," she explained patiently. "It's still regulation, of course - from everything I've seena dn heard, I can't imagine her violating a basic regulation like uniform styles - but that pattern is so obsolete that it's probably not in the standard replicator files any more. And while I can understand why she wears it - it's the most practical outfit for her working conditions - in order for her to get the uniforms, she had to have written a replicator program specifically to make the uniform - and if she's going to go to that effort, she's not going to deliberately have the sleeve end in the middle of her palm the way hers do - unless that's exactly where she wants it to end. She's trying to hide something, Jean-Luc, something she doesn't want to risk showing by shaking hands with the ship's CMO," she added.
"Such as...?" he pressed.
"The scars," Beverly replied. "She's cut her wrists, Jean-Luc."
He stared at her, astounded.
Impossible! he decided instantly. Lt. Andile was a veteran of eighty years in Starfleet, he reminded her silently; she had been given award upon award, medal upon medal for her valor, for her bravery in saving the lives of her crews and her fellow shipmates. An officer like that would never try suicide!
Would she? he added a moment later, his instant rejection of the idea fading as he began a sober assessment of the woman's personality - or tried to.
My God, he thought. I've known of this woman for fifty years - but what do I, what do any of us really know about her? Who am I to say she couldn't have tried to kill herself - and who am I to judge her if she did?
The reasons that drove people to end their own lives - or to try to do so - were more varied than anyone could ever know - and no one, not even the most sensitive of empaths could ever understand the pain that accompanied so many lives, he reminded himself. Bravery had nothing to do with it; even the bravest of souls could sometimes find no way to carry the burden of pain that life gave them, and sometimes suicide seemed the only way to escape the pain, to flee the hurt... The haunting echo of Andile's soft words in the lounge came back to him, the sound of her voice, redolent with pain for Deanna and Will, heavy with a loss Picard suddenly realized he could never even imagine... She knew pain, he realized. She knew hurt - and as sorrowful as her voice had been, he knew that it had been a grief he could never imagine - or hope to live with.
And perhaps Andile had decided she could not live with it, either.
"I didn't know," he admitted quietly. "There's nothing in her file... I didn't even imagine..." He let his words trail off.
Beverly stared at him, confused - then her eyes widened and her mouth dropped as she realized what Picard must have been thinking. "Oh, no! No!" she said emphatically. "I didn't mean that at all Jean-Luc," she insisted. "A suicide might cut herself once, twice, several times - but what I saw on Andile's wrists were hundreds of scars - so many that they've formed into thick bands - though I'm not sure that what I saw was any more comforting," she admitted. "Some of those scars are new."
Picard stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "I don't understand," he said.
"Self-mutilation, Jean-Luc. I suspect she's cutting herself - deliberately. It's not unheard of," Beverly added quickly as she saw the worry rise in the man's eyes, "and it's certainly in keeping with what I've heard of Andile's penchant for self-abuse: working too many hours, not eating, not sleeping - cutting herself, scarring herself is simply a more outward expression of her own self-loathing," she explained.
"But... why?" Picard replied, finding himself even more appalled by this possibility than he had been by the thought of a suicide attempt.
Beverly shook her head. "For the same reasons that she abuses her body in other ways - but I don't know what that reason is. That's why I said I thought the lieutenant's problem was more Deanna's department than mine, Jean-Luc; she may be physically ill, too, but it's her mental state I'm concerned about. She's punishing herself for something: either something she's done - or, if she really is the perfectionist that Will's made her out to be, something she hasn't done."
He fell silent, a look of intense pain covering his face, reminding Beverly once again how intensely he felt the needs - and the problems - of those he commanded.
He has such passion, she thought to herself, such feeling for his crew... and despite their history, Andile was a member of his crew now, his responsibility... No wonder the crew loved him as they did, she thought - and how sad that he had never found a woman who could be the sole recipient of that passion. How could Anij have rejected him? she asked herself, bitterly reproaching the woman for her refusal of his proposal.
But I refused him as well, she reminded herself a moment later, knowing she had been as much a cause of the man's loneliness as the Ba'ku woman had.
Ashamed by the pain she had caused him, she turned away, unable to face him - until his voice cut through her moment of self-misery.
"Is there anything you can do for her?"
Beverly chewed her lip, thinking. "I'm not sure," she admitted at last. "If the cause of her perfectionism, this insatiable drive of hers, is physical as well as psychological, I may be able to treat the underlying cause - but without Deanna to treat her as well, any treatment I perform isn't going to last," she confessed.
"Then I'll order her to report for counseling..."
"How?" Beverly asked with a tolerant, but unhappy, smile. "You can't require someone to undergo counseling unless their behavior is affecting their performance, or they pose a threat to the ship or to themselves," she reminded him. "And in Lt. Andile's case, her perfectionism isn't affecting her performance in the least - if anything, it's enhancing it."
"But the self-mutilation..."
"Is a theory. I don't have any proof - and even if I did, it isn't life threatening," she replied calmly. "I said there must have been hundreds of scars; if she was suicidal, she could have killed herself at any of those times. She hasn't; she's not trying to kill herself - only punish herself - and there's no way I could support you if you wanted to claim that type of behavior as life-threatening. Abusive, yes; pathological, no. That doesn't mean I have to like it," she added at his accusing glare.
He considered for a moment. "You said there's a chance that there might be something physical behind this behavior..."
"There are illnesses that affect one's mental health..." she agreed.
"Then why didn't you didn't order her down to Sickbay, Doctor?" he said. "If you suspect she's ill, you could have dreamt up some pretense."
"I don't need a pretense," Beverly countered instantly. "She hasn't had her physical yet. All I have to do is call her in and tell her it's time."
"Then why didn't you?" he asked, surprised at the oversight in the usually perceptive woman.
Beverly opened her mouth to protest, then hesitated, stopped - and gave him a perplexed look. "You know, I don't know why I didn't," she admitted. "That was my first reaction when I saw the scars, to remind her that she hadn't been down yet - but ... but I guess I had it in my mind that you didn't want me to," she conceded, the argument sounding weak, even to her.
"I didn't want you to do so without cause - but if you feel there's a legitimate reason..."
Beverly hesitated again. "Well, complete physical is required of all new crewmembers..." she started hesitantly.
Picard looked at her hopefully - then saw the reluctance in her eyes. "But...?" he said.
"But once I bring her in, I'm never going to have a chance to get that close to her again. She's going to resent me, resent any efforts I make to help her recover - and for any therapy to work, she's going to have to want to get well - she's going to have to want to be helped. And right now, she doesn't want that."
"She can't refuse treatment," Picard reminded her. "Regulations require..."
"Regulations require all Starfleet crew and officers to submit to necessary medical treatments," she countered. "But if push comes to shove, she can refuse treatment - by resigning," she reminded him.
He stared at her aghast. "And you think she would resign, rather than be treated?" he asked, astounded at the idea.
Admittedly, he hated having to endure the ministrations of the medical profession - but not so much that he would leave Starfleet. The very idea that Lt. Andile would leave over such a trivial matter was almost incomprehensible!
"I don't know," Beverly admitted. "But considering the importance of this mission - and considering how important you said Andile may be to the success of this mission, I'm not willing to risk it.
"Right now, the door's open to her," she reminded him, "but the moment I get her down there, against her will, it's going to slam shut, and it's never going to open again. I'd rather not do that, Jean-Luc; not until I have to," she said slowly.
He drew a deep breath, then shook his head. "Maybe she's not aware of her condition..."
"Of course she's aware," Beverly interrupted him. "She's aware - but she doesn't want help. If she did, she wouldn't isolate herself as she does..."
"Isolate herself?" he said with a smile. "Bev, the woman's in the middle of everything! First with the installation of the engines, now with the computer problem, the nightly talks..."
"In the middle, yes - but alone," she reminded him. "She doesn't have any friends on board - not real friends - no one she can talk to..."
"There's Data," he interjected.
Beverly smiled a knowing smile. "Yes, there's Data. The one person she spends the most time with, the one person to whom she's most likely to talk - and the one person on this ship who could least empathize with her problems," she said.
Picard's eyes narrowed. "Are you suggesting that that's why...?"
"She's involved with him?" Beverly finished. "No, not the only reason; I'm sure her affection for him is genuine - but I have no doubts that his emotional naiveté is one of the factors involved in making that relationship come to be. Intellectually, he understands emotions and feelings - but when it comes to how to apply and interpret those feelings, he's still learning - and from her. He's not going to challenge what she tells him - at least not the way that you or I would, because he simply doesn't have the experience to know differently. The knowledge, yes - but if there's one thing that Data's learned over the past few years, it's that knowledge and experience are a far cry from one another - and when it comes to emotions, experience wins. He knows it - and Andile does as well - and don't doubt for a second that she won't use that uncertainty of his to protect herself," she said firmly.
"Protect herself from what?" Picard asked worriedly.
"From getting the help she needs."
He gave her a puzzled look.
Beverly smiled. "The first step in being treated for any illness, Jean-Luc, is admitting the truth behind it. Signs, symptoms, risk behaviors... If you don't tell your doctor the complete story, as best you know it, it's much harder to get the proper treatment." She reached for his hand. "When I went to LaBarre, I knew you were in pain - but there was little I could do for you until you were willing to talk to me, to tell me what happened..."
He gave her a cool - and non-too-pleased - look. "And that's why you came? To 'treat' one of your patients?" he asked. "And am I now cured?"
She smiled patiently, ignoring the sharp barb. "There's no cure for the kind of hurt you felt, Jean-Luc - only time - time and the knowledge that there are people who love you and will be there for you, whenever you need us," she said gently.
He closed his eyes, regretting the callous remark, then squeezed her hand gently. "I'm sorry, Bev," he said. "You didn't deserve that."
"No," she agreed, "but I understand it. In a crisis, you - me, everyone - begins to doubt everything. We've known each other for years, Jean-Luc - and in those years we've come to trust one another - but after what happened with Anij, you've begun to doubt everything - including that trust. You're going to need to test it - time and again - until you're sure of it. But you are reasonably sure of it - or you wouldn't have accepted this mission.
"Andile, however, does not trust us. Oh," she quickly added, seeing him beginning to open his mouth to argue the point, "she trusts us professionally - I have no doubts she's read the personnel file of everyone aboard - but personally?" She shook her head. "That kind of trust comes only with time and experience with people; she's had as little with us as we've had with her. No, she doesn't trust us - and until she does, she's never going to let us know the truth about her."
"Which is...?" he asked quietly.
"That she's not perfect. That's she's human, flawed - that she's made mistakes."
There was a gentleness to her voice, a tenderness that let Picard know she wasn't speaking of the engineer alone. "Beverly," he began to anser, his voice equally gentle but unyieldingly firm, "I've never said I was perfect..."
"I didn't say you did," she replied. "But I know there's a level of perfection that you - and Andile - demand of yourselves. I see it - and the pain you feel - every time you're forced to change a decision, every time you have to obey an order you know is wrong or violates your conscience. It tears at you, making you wonder if this - this one act - is the one that will destroy your reputation with the crew. You've never understood that they know you better than that, Jean-Luc; that your reputation is how the rest of the world knows you - but they know you as the man - and it is that man, not the reputation, that they admire."
He looked at her for a moment, then snapped, "Admire? Admire me for trapping them for two years in this ship, watching as the war went on without them, unable to help their friends, their families, their worlds, as the Dominion threatened everything they swore to protect - just because I had to stand my ground?" he snapped.
Her jaw dropped. It had been two years, she thought to herself; two years - and we've talked this through a hundred - a thousand times!
But still it tore at him, she suddenly realized, stricken by the depths of his pain - and at his refusal to let it go.
"Jean-Luc, don't you dare doubt what you did in the Briar Patch!" she snapped back. "You saved those people; you saved their world! What you did was right - and you know it!" she reminded him.
"In my mind," he growled. "But not according to Starfleet - and my crew paid the price!" he retorted
Beverly stared at him, shaken by his intensity - then reached for his hand.
"That's why you tried to leave us behind," she added, taking his hand in hers, remembering the expression of dismay that had come across his face as the six officers had confronted him as he loaded the Captain's yacht that fateful night two years before.
He had been stricken by their unexpected presence at the Calypso that early, early morning as he prepared for his lone departure; stricken, afraid for the lives - and the careers - of the people he called friends - and yet, she knew, he had been grateful, too, for knowing their dedication to him had run beyond the depths of simple loyalty to their captain - and on to the depths of trust in their friend.
He looked down at the soft hand in his, then slowly raised his eyes to her, the self-doubt and anger still heavy in his expression. "I knew what I had to do, Beverly - but I never wanted any of you..."
"...to be hurt," she concluded for him. "We knew that, Jean-Luc; you were our captain. You would never knowingly let us come to harm.
"But what greater harm would there have been in letting us sit idly by while you defended the principles on which Starfleet and the Federation were founded - while we did nothing? Jean-Luc, if we have trust in you, it's because we know you hold the same values we do. And if you could risk everything for them, could we do any less? Would you truly have wanted us to?" she pressed him.
He stared back at her - then slowly shook his head. "But I didn't want what happened, either," he said softly.
"I know," she agreed. "But what you did for the Ba'ku was right. We know that - and we know that whatever it cost us personally, it cost you a thousand fold. But as much as it hurt you, as much as it hurt us all, we can sleep at night, knowing that we did what was right," she reminded him.
He raised his eyes to meet hers, the doubt still there, but joined by a thankfulness for her understanding - and her compassion.
"I don't think Andile wanted whatever happened to have happened, either," she continued. "But unlike you, she doesn't have the knowledge that she can talk to us about it - that she can trust us enough to tell the truth. And so she keep it - whatever it is - to herself - and suffers."
"Or maybe she believes she has to suffer," Picard added suddenly.
"What?"
"Beverly," he started, turning to her, "you don't believe Andile could be a saboteur, do you?" he asked.
"No," she said firmly. "She's too dedicated, too loyal to Starfleet..."
"And yet..." He hesitated, thinking, trying to put the myriad pieces together in his mind. "And yet, what if she was placed in a position of having to choose between the welfare of Starfleet - or the Federation," he added, an idea coming to him, "and the welfare of the crew? Which one would she choose?" he asked.
Beverly stared at him, the awful answer materializing in her thoughts. "Jean-Luc," she began to protest, "You yourself told me that Andile has never allowed Starfleet to use any of her equipment of ships unless they had been proven time and again to be safe..."
"Because there were options available," he interrupted. "There were other ships available, other engines... but what if this time there were no other options? What if the survival of Starfleet or the Federation required the failure of this ship or this mission?" he asked her, alarm growing in his eyes. "and what if that failure was dependent on Lt. Andile?" he pressed. "Wouldn't that be enough for even someone as dedicated as she was to have turned against the welfare of her crew?"
"She would never agree to it!" Beverly protested.
"She would - for the greater good," he countered. "But not easily," he admitted, "not without protesting the decision. Maybe not without punishing herself for what she knows she's going to have to do," he added grimly.
Beverly stared at him for a long time, horror-stricken - then shook her head. "No. No," she said firmly. "This self-punishment of hers goes back a long way," she insisted. "That kind of traumatic weight loss, the scars on her wrists... This self-abuse goes back years, Jean-Luc!" she declared.
"Two years?" he asked. "To the time of the accident at Sipantha?"
Beverly thought, then admitted, "Yes - but what does Sipantha have to do with this?" she added.
"I'm not certain, but... Whatever the lieutenant and her team were working on, it resulted in an explosion big enough to rip apart an asteroid," he reminded her.
"A new weapon," Beverly realized.
"One that may have been developed using technology in violation of our treaties," he suggested.
She thought for a moment. "And you think the Cardassians and the Romulans found about it?" she asked.
"It's a possibility," he conceded.
"But if they knew about it then, why wait until now to dissolve the Federation Council?" she asked.
"Maybe they're not," he replied. "Maybe this conference isn't about reestablishing the council. Maybe it's just a pretext, a cover, to explain something else," he said.
"Such as...?"
"The disappearance of a Starfleet ship," he said.
She gave him a puzzled look. "You've lost me," she admitted.
"Beverly," he replied, "the last time the Federation was caught using outlawed technology - on the Pegasus," he reminded her, "we had to settle with the Romulans by releasing all the information we had on the project. This time, imagine they - and the Cardassians - won't settle so easily. Imagine they want something more... substantial. Like temporal warp drive," he added.
"Andile's engines," she whispered, horrified.
"They couldn't give them the technology directly," he agreed. "not without providing the same information to all the allied planets. It would be a violation of the Federation Council agreement. But if the only ship with temporal warp were to disappear - and with the only engineer who fully understands that theory - Starfleet could write it off as a tragic accident. And the Romulans and the Cardassians could emerge with their own forms of the drive in a year or two, the natural development of a basic theory, with no one the wiser," he said grimly.
"And us?" she whispered.
"They can't afford to let us return, knowing that this was a ruse to cover Starfleet's reparation for having violated a treaty," he told her solemnly.
Beverly closed her eyes, bit her lip - then looked back at the man. "That would explain so much - the rushing of the ship to preparation..."
"It could be used to cover our disappearance," he agreed.
"... the fact that so few of the crew were called back..."
He nodded. "Some of us had outlived our usefulness," he agreed, tightening his grip on her hand. "And some of us hadn't," he added. "That's why you weren't called back; Starfleet had no reason to be rid of you - but once you knew about the call back, they couldn't stop you from returning - not easily, not without creating suspicions in your mind. And so..."
"And so this is how it ends," she said bravely, refusing to let him see the fear that was welling up in her.
He smiled, knowing her put-upon bravery was no greater than his own. "No. It isn't over yet, Beverly - and knowing what we know - or at least what we think we know - maybe we can stay one step ahead of Starfleet," he informed her.
Beverly gave him a frank look. "It's not Starfleet I'm concerned about, Jean-Luc. You've outwitted them before. I'm worried about Andile. From everything you've told me about her, I suspect that if she's determined to see this through, there's very little any of us can do to stop her."
Picard thought for a moment, then nodded, knowing she was right.
But no one, he reminded himself, not even the legendary Andile, was perfect. Even she couldn't succeed in every plan she made.
Especially when there was a chance she didn't want to succeed.