Stupid

Captain's log, supplemental

The Enterprise left the orbit of Starbase 313 three hours ago, transporting fifty guests to the Ark11 opening.

Our estimated time of arrival has been revised, however, to allow Lieutenant Commander Data to assess an unusual variance of space debris. I have granted the Lt. Comm an hour to determine if it is what we fear – debris from a vessel.

If it is the Bounty, it is well off its last known location and intended course.

Despite the reason for their visit, our guests appear to be in a convivial mood. The experience of traveling on a Starfleet ship seems to outweigh the circumstances.

It was as though the Ark11 party had started early, Picard mused. He did not begrudge his passengers their excitement. Some guests had come at the behest of their governments. Some had come from worlds all but destroyed by the Dominion. How could he resent them making the most of their unexpected ride on a Starfleet vessel? So long as they didn't interfere with the running of his ship, he wished them well.

He went back to tinkering with artifacts for his lecture. Using a tiny brush he flicked invisible specks of dust from a nephrite adze. A chirp broke the silence.

"Yes, Mr Data?"

"Captain, I have completed my analysis of the debris."

Picard held the adze up, squinting with one eye. "What can you tell me?"

"All the debris was manufactured in origin, sir," Data said, eliminating the possibility that it was natural space junk. "And all fragments exhibit signs of stress from an explosive force."

Picard's delicate brush movements slowed.

"Also, sir, all the pieces I tested emitted tritium isotopes in unusually high amounts. It is not inconceivable that the fragments were part of a larger construction that was torn apart by an explosion caused by a tritium reaction."

Picard froze.

Very carefully he laid the adze on a thick blanket on his desk. He knew he wasn't going to like the answer to his next question.

"Are you suggesting these fragments come from a nuclear detonation?"

"Yes, sir. Other explanations are possible – however, based on the evidence, I consider an explosion the most likely scenario."

The captain's forefinger tapped the side of his nose. "Data, are you able to estimate when this explosion occurred?"

Picard's knowledge of pre-first contact nuclear physics was rusty. What were the half-life calculations for tritium reactions? The remains of an historic nuclear explosion would leave only minute traces of detectable radioactive material, wouldn't they?

He had to ask. "There's no way this debris could be leftover from a nasty incident, say, three hundred years ago?"

Data's emotion chip interpreted the statement and tone accurately. "I am afraid not, Captain. This debris is from a fresh nasty incident."

"How fresh?"

"From the isotope breakdown, about approximately 48 hours, 4 minutes, 13 seconds and 11.32 hundredths of a second fresh, sir."

Something about Data's assuredness bothered Picard, but he couldn't put his finger on it. He scratched his head as he tried to work it out.

"Sir, I was attempting humor."

Picard held back a groan. "Timing, Mr Data," he said. "Remember, timing is as essential to a joke as the punch line."

"Yes, sir. I am endeavoring to determine appropriate intervals of–"

Picard coughed.

"With further analysis of the trajectory pattern and rate of speed I will be able to determine if the explosion was from an internal or external force, sir."

Picard stared at the artifacts in front of him. "Data, is there any possibility this is debris is from a ship? The Bounty?"

"I'll run more diagnostic tests, captain. The Bounty was directly on route to Ark11. This debris would be well off course."

Picard tapped his chin this time. "You understand the implications, don't you, Data?"

"Tritium warheads were outlawed more than two hundred and fifty years ago, sir. Large scale mining petered out less than ten years later. Today, tritium is a controlled element. All mining operations must adhere to strict monitoring policies and the distribution of tritium is closely regulated. It is still used in some medical procedures, but only rarely and always in exceptional circumstances."

"Would a tritium warhead still be obtainable these days?" Picard asked.

"I will research the topic, sir."

"Excellent, Mr Data. Do what you can."

Even if this wasn't the remains of the Bounty, this find would require more investigation. If Data's theory about a recent nuclear explosion was correct, they had another problem. Picard was anxious to find out just how much of one.


Ceilings on spaceships were long overdue for a decorative overhaul. After two hours on his bed, fully clothed, with the lights on full, Riker had had plenty of time to contemplate the slate gray surface above him.

Recessed lights were discreetly pocketed amongst thin synthetic pipes inset halfway into the ceiling material. The pipes crisscrossed the room forming star patterns.

Those pipes formed part of the ship's bloodlines – one way information and power were circulated to the organs of the ship. Some of those cables probably passed through her room, connecting them in yet some other unknowing manner.

The sheets had been kicked into a heap at the end of the bed, but he was still sweating. Even as he forced his eyes to stare into the light above him, the battle was nearly over and his body begged to be allowed to fall into the sleep it desperately craved.

To fight sleep, he forced himself to recall as much as possible – the look on her face when she realized; the emptiness of her eyes; the hollow feeling he had in his chest; the horror of reaching for her and finding nothing.

There was fire in his feet, in his legs, in his groin, in his stomach. An invisible weight pressed on his chest and his heart was pounding to escape.

Suddenly it was all too much. He gasped and bolted upright – a diver fighting to break the surface. His chest screamed as he sucked in the air.

Unthinking, he sprang from the bed. His nails dug in as he clenched his fists.

"This is ridiculous." He strode from the room without a backward glance.

The corridor was empty. It was ship's night. Most of the ship's inhabitants were probably tucked up enjoying the luxury of a good night's rest. Riker stalked along, shying away from the occasional silhouette of a distant crew member on duty.

The airy quiet blended with the faint hum of the ship's engines. Noises, the odd clank here and there, the hiss of a door opening and closing, carried far.

He lost track of where he was heading – unusual, as the first officer would claim to know the ship better than he'd ever known any person ... or lover. He wandered up corridors, down corridors, onto turbolifts, seeking the loneliest, emptiest corners of the ship.

An ocean roar thundered in his ears. He felt alone – drifting. If he was at sea, a hand in the water was pulling him down. He would struggle. Just one last chance to see her face, to look into her eyes, to know the comfort of being part of something greater than himself – that would be his dying plea.

His pace slowed.

With the thought of her smiling face he came to.

He was on a deck he couldn't immediately identify. He took in his surroundings. The brushed metallic walls, the dusky carpet which lined the corridors. His senses registered the thrum of the ship again. His body was no longer burning; instead, he was chilled. He hugged his arms around his body, trying to orient himself.

He couldn't continue to function this way.

He'd been snappish, less tolerant and dead to the feelings of most of his subordinates for days. He'd controlled himself well. It had been a good fight. But the risk that something might happen, that he might do something rash because of this situation, was too strong.

There was only one person even remotely capable of helping him deal with himself. Unconsciously, he turned toward a turbolift. Awake or not, he could orient himself to her anywhere in space. She'd know he was coming. She'd be ready for him. His pace quickened.

As he made his way along the hallway, he became aware of a new sound breaking the night silence. A dull, penetrating and constant doof doof doof. Riker put his hand to the wall but snatched it back when he felt the wall pulsate.

He was on the holodeck and the noises he could hear came from a suite which was obviously being used dangerously.

He saw red.

Was it some primal instinct which made him storm to the door and bang?

He could have overridden any lock on the door. Instead he tried a more physical approach. Using his fists to pound, he started to bellow.

"Get this door open," he yelled. "I said open this damned door now."

He was unprepared when the door panels whisked aside and a woman's face appeared. She ducked his blow.

Riker recoiled.

"I am so sorry," he said, raising his voice to be heard. "Are you okay? Ma'am?"

"Mr Riker?"

The millennial expert Lark stared at him. Behind her, red and green dots of light glowed in the darkened room. Humanoid outlines jumped about with the music. Now that the sound wasn't muffled, Riker could make out a melody.

His anger surged. "What the hell is going on here?"

"Do I really have to spell it out for you?"

Riker blinked, disbelieving what he thought she had said. "I'm sorry. Did you just ask me if–" Of all the gall.

"Good grief," he said, "Computer, shut this racket up – NOW."

Voices started to complain; he yanked Lark from the room, host duties be damned. The door closed on them.

She didn't seem perturbed. Far from it. In fact, if anything, she was rather nonplussed.

Riker felt rattled. By his own overblown behavior and by her ease.

"Do you know how much noise you were making?" It came out angry, but he could feel the emotion melting away from him. The whole situation was just so curious.

"Do you know how long it took me to work out how to get it that loud?"

Riker stared at her, not sure what approach to take.

"For some reason the only way I could get the speakers to work properly was to disengage some sort of safety protocol," she went on.

Riker struggled to comprehend what she was saying; the hour was late and despite the adrenaline rush, he was dead on his feet.

"Can you just tell me what's going on?" he asked. "Is this one of your concerts … because I can tell you now if that's how you usually conduct them there's no place on this ship for one."

She looked upset. "Oh, no. No, that wasn't one of mine. Let me explain–"

"Please do."

"I wanted to illustrate a point, and when someone described the holodeck to me, I thought it would be a superb way to recreate a millennial venue atmosphere."

"So, in other words, a concert."

"Yes – but not my own. Using the data banks Ensign Alijamo was able to program a concert featuring millennial musicians."

"And the noise?"

"Speaker technology was still in a fairly primitive form around the millennium. The sound of a speaker today compared to a speaker from 300 years ago is incomparable. The sound reproduction quality may be worse, but it's still a useful experience for insight into what the music would have sounded like. Unfortunately" – she frowned – "the holodeck program must have created damaged speakers because they wouldn't work properly. It wasn't until someone deactivated the safety constraints that the music could be heard properly."

She was looking him in the eyes. Her tone was serious. Her expression proclaimed innocence. Riker didn't buy it.

"The purpose of the safety protocol, Ms Lark, is precisely for that reason – safety. If the computer would not allow you to play your music as loud as you wanted, then it must have been too loud. It was trying to protect you or, in this case, your hearing."

"Ah, but," she said, waggling her finger, "the speakers would not play anything at any level."

"Perhaps your music offended the computer's sense of good taste."

Riker didn't usually get a kick out of being nasty. Where was this bastard coming from?

He wasn't expecting the response he got.

Lark threw up her arms in mock disgust. "Good lord! Et tu, PC?"

She shook her head. "Is everyone prejudiced against the millennium? I protest! We have stupid, stupid soulless blah forced on us today and yet we scorn one of the greatest ages of musical development ever …"

She took in the non-amusement on Riker's face.

"Omigod … you should see yourself!"

She started laughing so hard Riker wondered if she was going to fall over. She put a hand on his shoulder to steady herself.

"You have to understand, Mr Riker. It's just that it makes me so happy." She spoke with a sincerity hard to fake. "I get ... electrified ... by music – I don't know how else to describe it. Using your holosuite I was able to recreate my dream concert."

A wistful expression passed over her face. "We don't play with toys at the Institute. The council is a tad parsimonious when it comes to having fun – so to have the opportunity to arrange to have whomever I want sing, what I want sung, where I want it sung and when …"

Her joy was infectious. Rather than repel the officer, Riker couldn't help but be intrigued by what had so animated the woman.

"Oh, I know the volume was unacceptable," she said. "I guess I just wanted to push the boundaries. Besides, the volume was fairly moderate by Y2K standards. And, your crew seemed so interested. Some of them were actually enjoying it, I think. Do you know what it's like to find people who can also get genuinely swept up in something you're passionate about?"

His anger had abated; all that was left was the intrigue and desire to know just a bit more about this woman – to step into that room. If there was something else he had been planning to do, well, that could wait, couldn't it? Someone should probably make sure the concert didn't violate any Starfleet conduct codes ... shouldn't they?

"So, would I know any of these musicians?" he asked, extending an olive branch.

"Why don't you let me introduce you." She reached for his elbow to lead him through the door.

"Just so we are clear … you're not going to have the volume up too loud, are you?"

Riker had to adjust to the low light before he could make out what he was seeing. The room she had created was small. Not at all what he had been expecting.

The party had got on with itself, but at a level far more acceptable to the officer. He was taken back by the number of faces he recognized. In the hours she had been aboard, she had gathered a respectable coterie. Riker estimated about thirty lower deck crew members were bobbing up and down on the tiny dance floor, which, he noted, was wooden, and bouncing.

The music now, he had to admit, was catchy, but the lyrics (the ones he could make out) didn't impress him.

"Where's your head at, where's your head at," the rhythmic chant repeated.

There was a little stage at the back of the room. What looked to be a limestone block wall was covered with black sheets. The offending speakers – taller than he was – were at the sides of the stage.

The two men on stage were not quite hidden behind an antique computer and – Riker stared – an old record player? Or was it called a turntable? Or a phonograph. One of the men (he wore glasses) was dressed in a crisp old fashioned suit. The other had on a kind of shapeless short-sleeved t-shirt. The shirt was splashed with reds and yellows. Its wearer also had on a pair of glasses with darkened lenses. Sunglasses?

Hundreds of posters lined the walls, including an inordinate number featuring penguins. There were even penguins (wearing blackened glasses) emblazoned on the speakers.

Lark directed a bemused Riker to several people at the back of the room.

As they approached a table, a voice called out. "There you are. You're missing your own show, Lark."

It was Sudamen. Dr Montgomery and another member of the Dunedin Institute party were at a table tucked further into a dark corner. Riker reminded himself not to get too close.

When Sudamen saw Riker, a flicker of recognition and something else – annoyance? surprise? – crossed his face. He recovered quickly, leaving Riker to wonder if he had just imagined it.

"Commander – welcome," Sudamen said. "I see she's roped you in too. Be wary – she'll have you chained and enslaved before you know it – you'll be able to check out anytime you like, but you can never leave."

Lark groaned. "Lord, Sud ... that was terrible. Nice try, but cheesy just the same."

Riker glanced at them both, unsure of the part he had just played in an obvious game between the two.

Sudamen laughed. "Don't mind us."

On the song's dying beats, Lark jumped easily onto the stage.

"Guys, Simon and Felix," she said with a flourish into a microphone with a cord. A cord!

Riker found himself in a sea of claps and cheering. Lark hadn't finished.

"Because I'm sure you all have shifts to get to, I think a change of pace might be needed to help you get to sleep, so tonight we're going to finish off with a millennial special – a little tortured angst. It's my very great pleasure to introduce you to a singer who would need no introduction if this was a Lilith Fair festival …"

A woman stepped from the shadowy side of the stage. She and Lark exchanged a few inaudible words, before more people with instruments joined them. It was a tight fit on the stage.

Riker leaned against a rickety wooden bench.

"Beer?" a grizzled man in period costume offered.

"Why not?" Riker took the proffered glass bottle – one with a tight metal cap, which didn't seem to want to unscrew. He looked about the room, hoping he appeared nonchalant. He was saved by Ensign Perim, who picked up a small hand tool on the table and appeared to jimmy the cap.

Riker willed himself to stop being so self-conscious. If the ensigns had picked up the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of an old culture in such a short time, so could he.

He felt stupid, but reminded himself bottle openers were hardly de rigueur in the 24th century.

"Here," Sudamen said, handing one over. Riker studied it – an old-fashioned pocket knife with extra tools. It did the job.

"Commander, that peculiar stop we took in the middle of nowhere today – was that anything we should be concerned about?"

On stage, the musicians weren't rushing things. A guitarist was strumming a few chords and tuning strings. The singer was sound checking the mics, speaking into them one by one (she had an almost standard North American Terran accent) and periodically calling for more fold back.

As Sudamen looked ahead, Riker tried to gauge whether there was any hidden meaning in the man's question.

"An unanticipated engineering problem was all," he replied. "Nothing that should worry you or any of your party."

"There's been no further development on the Bounty, then? I only ask," he added when Riker glanced his way, "because we nearly traveled on it. We were unexpectedly late to Volln'm and missed our flight. We had to switch to the Fleur-de-lys. To think that something has happened to the Bounty ... well, you can understand how ill I might be feeling ..."

"I didn't know."

On stage, the singer stood calmly while behind her a man fiddled with a massive drum kit. When he was content with the set up, he had to squeeze against the wall to reach his seat. It was his crashing drum solo that kicked off the performance.

Riker was moderately impressed. There was more for him to admire in this woman's performance than the previous song. The music was more soothing and her voice could have cut crystal. Her band was skilled. They handled their instruments with ease, making complex sounds appear effortless. Their voices soared in harmony with hers.

"Do you recognize her?" Lark had sidled up to the men.

Riker found it hard to peel his eyes away from the stage. "No. Should I?"

She shrugged. "Every great artist deserves to be remembered. Then again, maybe nothing's meant to last forever. It makes me sad, though, thinking about how much has already been lost."

Riker considered her downcast expression.

"But," he countered, "as much as things are lost, there's always something that eventually takes its place."

"Everything's relative, I guess." She smiled. "But is the replacement as good as the thing it replaces?"

"Is merit measurable?" he asked. "Surely, value is arbitrary? A culture, or a generation within a culture, establishes value. They discard what has lost value and preserve that which they treasure."

She considered his response.

"All musical styles evolve. And a generation will naturally choose the sounds it wishes to represent itself. A natural selection, if you will. So, yes, there is fair argument that a superseding style can be considered greater in value by the people that chose it.

"But if we could access all music, from every time? Is it possible one style may be considered greater than another in that setting?"

Riker failed to come up with a snappy answer.

"Don't let her draw you into this conversation, Commander," Sudamen said.

Lark ignored him.

"Imagine musical styles were a thing you could wrap," she said. "Imagine all your friends bought you a different musical style for your birthday. Some gifts are small and simple, others big and weirdly shaped. How likely is it that you'll like each one equally?"

I never had a birthday cake, Riker thought. Ever.

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Sudamen picked up his bottle. "If you don't mind, I think I'll just enjoy the concert from over there."

The tall man pushed his way closer to the stage.

Lark wasn't about to give up her birthday present analogy.

"Are you drawn to the biggest present? The one with the strangest shape? Or the most regular shape? The one with the nicest paper or the best presentation? Or, are they all identical? Or all the same weight. The same shape – just your average plain package."

Riker rejected a wisecrack about packages that came to mind. Then again, didn't that joke have its origins somewhere in the 20th century? He didn't know the answer to that either.

"Is it really important to have an answer?" he asked. "Regardless, your example only works as a single point of view. Not unless you've suddenly been decreed the grand determiner of musical value for all time."

Fearing he sounded snide, he said, "Can't you just say music is what it is and get on with the job of whatever it is you do with music?"

She fixed him with a glare.

"Most of the time that's exactly what I do," she said. "But haven't you ever wondered what music from, for example, ancient Egypt sounded like. What melodies they had – whether an ancient Egyptian composed a song so beautiful that if it were discovered and played today it would be a new sound to you – a new sound that you liked and were thankful to have heard?

"Or would it be just another tune? Can it be valuable in its own right, or does context give it value?"

"You've obviously thought about this at considerable length," Riker said.

"Impossibilities frustrate me a little." She laughed. "Did that all sound way too silly? I try not to let my wilder speculations get in the way when I'm teaching. Sometimes, you just want to share an idea, though, no matter how ridiculous. Just to put the thought out there."

"So, it's not just millennial music you like ... you think there might be some ancient lullabies you could be just as passionate about? What about modern music?"

"At the risk of sounding dogmatic, most of what passes for popular today is shite."

Riker gave a low whistle. "Harsh. Hope you show more mercy when you grade your students."

She smiled. "I can't put my finger on it, but none of today's music really engages me the same way millennial music does."

She turned a glass on its base, sinking into a thought.

"It's weird, you know. We talk about millennial music, but the term is deceptive. In my field of study – I'm an anthropologist – I don't just look at what music was produced in the period. I study what music the millennials used to express their culture. Where they used that music. How they sourced it. Where it came from. It was the age of sampling – a kind of historical and cultural cannibalism. That's the biggest paradox I find in the period. Sure, it was also regarded as the age of waste and rampant consumerism – but the millennials get the blame for something they inherited, not a problem they created for themselves."

Riker found himself caught in her sympathy.

"Music in the 20th century went through the most amazing flux and development. It was inevitable that technology would eventually impact on music the same way it did other facets of society. Those developments irrevocably changed the way societies functioned. Self-imposed limits and taboos inherent in a society couldn't develop as quickly – as they were they were no longer relevant. For some time, world cultures operated blindly in a new kind of world where the old constraints no longer held them back. Everything was cast against the frame of a market economy. In later decades, an American president made the first now infamous reference to people as consumers. The groundwork was laid. Consumers, good, bad, old, young knew what the agenda was. 'Growth,' they cried. 'Without economic growth we will fail, we will die.' There was an impossible-to-believe-in-hindsight lack of disregard for one important factor."

"Earth's fixed resources," Riker said, familiar with the theory.

"The universe has yet to throw up the magic bag of infinite supply. We remember that now. We factor that into how we operate life, just as any ancient culture did to ensure its self-perpetuation. But we've only achieved this by learning the hard way. The millennials deserve recognition for their own slow realization. They were born into a time when this knowledge had been lost because it no longer seemed pertinent. Sure, things got tough once they had stretched their resources to capacity and they were forced to deal with the problem head on. But, there were warning signs, and people did start reading them. There was a burgeoning sense of the limits they had to work within. The greater need to conserve and preserve, the weighing of cultural values versus straight capital gain. I have a student working on a thesis at the moment, examining links between the concept of recycling and a greater emphasis on sampling in millennial art forms.

"It was a time of gross waste, but also a time of recycling, fossicking, re-use. As fast as they wasted, they created. As fast as they wasted creation, they created from waste. That's the paradox."

"I've never really thought about it in those terms before," Riker said, stuck on some of her unusual terminology.

Lark sipped her drink.

"Music was made to fit into the economic framework, like everything else. It became just another commodity. All of a sudden there was more, and it was more readily available – but fortunately that didn't cheapen all of it. Okay, sure, these guys invented the concept of canned music … but the good stuff? That benefited from a lot of the developments that only came about with the canned stuff because of the vast sums of money poured into it."

"Like anything, you have to accept the good with the bad," Riker said, understanding this idea.

"Exactly."

"So, why can't you feel this way about modern music?" He wondered if she considered her prejudices in the same light as she saw others' dislike of the millennial period.

"The same way you can like one character in a story and dislike another. It's all about personality, Will. We have our ups and downs these days – the war has obviously spread a blackness across many people's hearts. But, in other ways – ours is the society that inherited humanity's ability to, in the end, get things right. We're too perfect now to produce shattering, electrifying, tear-your-heart-out music. We need to mess up more."

Her gaze wandered to the musicians on stage. Riker got the impression for a second she was galaxies away; pensive – looking not at a holographic trick of subatomic particles but reaching back through time to see a long dead singer deliver a heart-stopping performance just one more time.

"And the society which we have decried as fatuous, self-absorbed and infantile – it produced some truly beautiful and innovative sounds. Music is a reflection of culture. The emotion you find in 20th century and millennial music is infinite, because they had it all, selfishness, selflessness, a world balanced by its good and its bad, every conceivable shade of gray, a desire to be saved, their own sense of impending doom ..."

Riker considered her gravely. "Yes," he said, "but we have better speakers."

"This is true." Her laughter seemed slightly irreverent against the passionate singing of the woman on stage.

"Sleep has left me alone to carry the weight of unraveling where we went wrong"

A chill shivered up Riker's spine. The lyrics jolted him. He had been on his way to talk to her before he had become distracted.

"How stupid could I be? A simpleton could see that you're no good for me, but you're the only one I see … everything changes"

That was wrong, he thought. The song had it all wrong. She wasn't wrong for him. They were exactly right for each other ... everything changes.

And, just like that, his stomach lurched. A stitch-like pain was tearing the muscles in his abdomen.

"You'll have to excuse me." He was up and forcing his way through the crowd to the exit.

Outside he doubled over against the wall. His hands pushed into the sides of his head as he sank. Panic gripped him.

Gritting his teeth and pushing through the pain, he tapped his comm badge. "Counselor Troi?"

The comm was silent. "Riker to Troi. Deanna?"

Frantically, he went through his options.


Where's Your Head At? by Basement Jaxx
Stupid, by Sarah McLachlan