SHIP OF FOOLS
Chapter 10
"Computer," said Lieutenant Worf, "run calisthenics program Worf alpha."
"Program is in progress," replied the computer.
Worf frowned. "Who is running the program?"
"Program has been initiated by Lieutenant Nagel."
The answer gave him pause. For a few moments he considered postponing his own exercise; then he thought better of it. After all, his early-morning schedule was common knowledge, and people could be expected to respect it. "Computer," he said sternly, "open holodeck."
The doors swished open. It was his combat program all right – the beginners' level, he realized a moment later. A few steps away Lydia Nagel, her back to the door, was fending off a green-skinned, gap-toothed being with a heavy scimitar. Intrigued in spite of himself, Worf stopped just inside the door to watch. She must have practised, he thought. Her footwork was quite good, even though her handling of the weapon was rather clumsy by his own standards. Nevertheless, a couple of seconds later the being collapsed, dissolving in a brief flicker of light as it went down. Nagel leaned on her scimitar, gasping for breath. Worf took two more steps, hearing the door close behind his back. "Not bad. At some stage we may – "
Nagel whipped round at the sound of his voice, her eyes widening. The next moment she had brought up her weapon and was going for him with a hoarse scream; it was all he could do to stand his ground. Flabbergasted, he managed to grip her wrists just in time, deflecting the heavy blade the moment it came whistling down. "Lieutenant!" he thundered. "At ease!"
She didn't react. Instead she pulled her left hand out of his grip with a savage snarl and a strength that surprised him, and drew her nails across his cheek with one fierce unhesitating movement that shocked him even more than Singh's attack the day before. He shoved her away with a brief grunt of pain, and Nagel lost her footing, stumbled, and came down hard on the deck. For a moment she lay still. Concerned, Worf took a step towards her to help her to her feet, but he realized almost immediately that she didn't need his assistance. She sat up quickly, if somewhat dazedly, and shook her head as if to clear her mind, tossing back a shock of gleaming hair at the same time; then she rose to her knees to smile at him with a fierce light in her eyes and her upper lip pulled back far enough to display a row of beautiful even teeth.
Worf gave up any attempt at reasoning with her. Utterly confounded, he managed a "Computer, exit!", and when the door swished open he left the holodeck as quickly as he could. The last thing a cautious look back over his shoulder revealed was Lieutenant Nagel who was sitting back on her heels, looking after him with a mixture of bewilderment, incredulity, loss – and, he thought a moment before the doors closed, something very much like dawning embarrassment.
Outside in the corridor he stood for a few moments to decide on the next steps. His cheek was bleeding, and the whole scene had an unreal quality to it. He hadn't quite decided what to do when the sound of footsteps made him turn rather hastily. Commander Riker rounded the corner, stopped in his tracks, and looked him over, his eyebrows slowly rising. "Something gone wrong with the program?"
"No. Lieutenant Nagel attacked me," Worf replied curtly.
"In your combat scenario?" Riker asked, incredulously.
"Yes," said Worf with a trace of embarrassment, wondering at the delighted grin that was slowly spreading over the first officer's face.
"Lovely spirited girl," commented Riker appreciatively.
"What?" said Worf. Then the truth hit home, and for a few seconds he stood speechless, fighting for composure in the face of the sheer absurdity of the situation. The first officer frowned, finally becoming aware of his discomfiture.
"Sorry. I really didn't... well, I thought you'd..." Riker gave it up. "Forget it. – You can't turn up on the bridge like that", he added, indicating Worf's bleeding cheek. "Come along to my quarters. Come to think of it, there's something I wanted to show you anyway."
- - - - - -
Main Engineering was fairly quiet when the captain emerged from the turbolift, only a couple of minutes after the beginning of alpha shift, and stopped for a quick look round. Some technical personnel were busy about the silent warp core – doing some routine checking, apparently. A few people were moving leisurely between the consoles. Lieutenant Barclay was standing by the central control table, studying some display, and Geordi was there as well with a padd in his hand, a dark-haired young woman peering over his shoulder. The captain couldn't recall her name, but her face was inextricably linked in his memory with the cup of hot chocolate she had once emptied down his uniform front. He tended to be wary of her. As usual, he chided himself for remembering the incident but not the name; as usual, he asked himself: Am I growing old? All three of them looked up when he started towards them, and for a moment he found himself thinking that their expressions were less than welcoming. Then he jerked his thoughts back into line. Nonsense. This is getting ridiculous.
"Good morning, Mr. La Forge. Lieutenants."
"Sir," the young woman murmured, retreating even as she spoke.
"Good morning, Captain. What brings you down here?"
There was nothing unwelcoming at all about Geordi's tone. In fact he was quite cheerful, even if the cheerfulness did appear a little forced. And he wasn't wearing the device. For the second time Picard pulled himself up sharply when he realized that it actually struck him that this was the case. I made that a direct order, didn't I?
"I wanted to have a look in on your search. How is it going?"
"Well..." Geordi's expression clouded. "Tell you the truth, sir, it isn't. We've been starting from scratch. My people here have been at it ever since. Scanning for tripolymers is just one of the things we've done. Nothing. You can see it for yourself – " He indicated one of the consoles, and Picard took a dutiful look at the readouts. He could hear Geordi clearing his throat behind him. "I was going to suggest something else, sir."
"Yes?"
"It's occurred to me that we may have been looking at this the wrong way. We simply assumed that something happened to Data, which really isn't terribly likely – and anyway we would have found him by now. But there was nothing to keep him from quietly going off by himself. Yes, I admit, it's not terribly likely either. But he has been doing that sort of thing, Captain."
"Yes. I remember. But wouldn't we know about that by now?"
Geordi gave one of his characteristic shrugs. "We've been checking and re-checking all the other possibilities, and frankly I hate to think what the odds are against finding anything by now. Oh, we've checked the shuttle launch records too, of course, and we know there were no unscheduled launches or anything that looked at all odd. But there are more ways of leaving the ship, especially if you're an android. Data could survive for quite some time out there. And there's beacons, probes – I'll go over those next. It's another thing we haven't done."
The captain found himself frowning slightly. Something about this didn't ring quite true to him – as if he had heard it once too often before. But he knew he had not. "Thank you, Mr. La Forge, I suppose that is a possibility. You have given up the hope of finding any answers on the ship, then?"
"Well, I have, in a way," Geordi confessed. "Captain, I don't want to sound callous, but frankly we've exhausted our possibilities here. We've checked everything we could think of, and when you asked us to we've checked it all again. And it's not as if I wasn't interested in finding an answer myself, you'll have to believe me there." Had that been a trace of impatience in his voice? No, it was more like a not-quite successful attempt at not sounding too pointedly patient. Picard told himself that he would hardly have noticed this under normal circumstances, and decided to let it pass.
"Very well, Mr. La Forge. Make it so."
"Yes, sir."
The captain had been in the act of turning away, but now he stopped, hesitated, and turned back. Now what was that supposed to tell me? How could those two words convey such a sense of... whatever it was? And had that been a smile flickering between La Forge and Barclay?
"Unless there is something else?"
"What else would there be, Captain?"
Not impatience, no. Patience, rather, tinged with a trace of forbearance. Picard was aware that both his annoyance and something much like hopelessness were showing through when he answered.
"You're aware that we're about to give up on Data, Mr. La Forge? And there is nothing – nothing – else that we could do?"
"Oh, we could run a third sweep, certainly. The point I'm trying to make is that if there's nothing to be found, we'll find nothing – no matter how often we try." He sighed. "However, if it would make you feel happier about this, sir..."
Picard frowned again. It all felt more wrong by the moment. There was something both about La Forge's choice of words and his way of coming up with them that sounded oddly... condescending, for lack of a better term. Almost as if he were humoring him, against his own better judgment, the way he might have humored a child.
And all of a sudden he thought he understood.
La Forge was playing with him.
Playing on his doubts, his bewilderment, even, perhaps, his fear for his own sanity, had been doing it, phrase by phrase, ever since this conversation had started, and Heaven only knew how long before today –
A moment later he was struggling to contain the wave of red fury he felt rising within himself, threatening to engulf him. Fury at having been led to consider what he had been considering, at the memory of those moments of silent anguish alone in his quarters, the realization that all of it had been inflicted upon him by somebody else. Somebody else. He felt violated, insanely, even knowing that no one had been there to see him and no one would ever know.
"Mr. La Forge," he said, very quietly, "I dislike your attitude."
There must have been something dangerous in his tone because Geordi looked up quickly, as if searching for further clues. Then he shook his head.
"I'm sorry, sir, I don't quite understand right now. If you'd just tell me what it is you want us to do, I'm sure we'd – "
"I believe you understand me quite well, Mr. La Forge. And I believe it is time we ended this charade."
Geordi frowned in his turn, then looked round as if to make sure there were no crew members within hearing. Barclay was watching with obvious interest from the other side of the central control table, and a couple of others turned back to their work rather quickly on noticing his scrutiny.
"Captain, might I have a word with you in private?"
Picard's expression hardened, and Geordi cursed inwardly. The conversation was already beginning to attract attention. This just wouldn't do. He took the captain's elbow, trying to steer him unobtrusively to a less conspicuous location.
"Captain – "
It was a wrong move if ever there had been one. After a brief moment of freezing silence Picard wheeled to face him, all cordiality gone.
"Mr. La Forge, let go of me!"
Something – whether it was an instinctive reaction to authority or the undertone of fury in Picard's still-level voice – caused Geordi to take a rapid step back.
"I... I'm sorry, sir – I didn't – "
He found he would not have to finish the sentence – and indeed he would have been hard put to think of anything to say. But the captain didn't wait for his answer. He gave him a look that would have chilled Geordi to the bone under any other circumstances, then he pivoted on his heel and left without another word. A couple of crewmen got out of his way rather hastily, flattening themselves against the bulkheads as if afraid of contagion. The chief engineer slowly let out the breath he only now realized he had been holding.
"Whew," he said softly.
"That could have gone better," offered Barclay across the control table.
"Oh, shut up, Reg," Geordi La Forge said wearily. "Let me think."
- - - - - -
The captain was dimly aware of a certain disquiet that seemed to be setting in the moment he stepped out of the turbolift onto the bridge, but he was in no mood to pay much attention to it. Ensign Lavelle half-rose from the command chair and sat down again when he saw Picard heading for his ready room, merely acknowledging him with a brief nod. In fact the captain would have been hard put to tell which of his ensigns it was he had been acknowledging. The faces of the bridge crew were a blur. There was a roaring in his ears that had been growing louder with every second, and a dull, cold ache rising inside him, a hollow feeling dangerously close to acute nausea. He didn't feel the floor beneath his feet any more. He sensed the door sliding shut behind him and almost fell into his chair, certain that his legs would have given under him a moment later, struggling for composure as the precarious certainty bought at such horrible price the night before crumbled to nothing within seconds. For a few moments he sat with his hands pressed over his eyes, half-expecting to black out. But the faintness passed, and gradually his senses came back to him – the roaring in his ears slowly fading, a feeling of the solidity of things returning. He lowered his hands, noticing the silence all about him, the familiarity of his quiet command center.
He drew a cautious breath. The sick feeling had subsided.
It's all right, he told himself. Nothing has changed.
Nothing, indeed. Only that his thoughts and behavior down there in Engineering had been as consistent with rampant paranoia as anything he could imagine. He could see it now, as clearly as Geordi must have seen it, and –
No. Not that, please, not that.
How long had he been making a fool of himself, then? To how many members of his crew? How long had they been indulging him? And then, like a silent, anguished cry: What's happening to me, for Heaven's sake?
For a few seconds he wavered on the brink of yielding – to chaos, to despair, to whatever horror might be waiting at the back of his mind... to acceptance. Then, with what now felt like a physical effort, he pulled himself together once again. No.
No. Come on – I'll just have to assume that I'm not going crazy. There's bound to be some way out of this –
He steeled himself when he realized that his thoughts promptly returned to the device. Very well. One way or another, that's the key.
If he wasn't going crazy, then his officers were indeed pursuing some agenda of their own. What was it Deanna had said? That it was the knowledge of their hearts' desire he was trying to keep from his crew, that they would not appreciate his interfering? People had certainly tried to throw him off that particular track – tried quite consistently, and not without success. Which suggested, under the circumstances, that it was the right track after all.
He paused at that, suspiciously checking the line of reasoning. It seemed sound enough for the moment. But then it would, to himself, he thought grimly.
Very well. Heart's desire, then. So what was it the thing was promising them? What could be stronger than duty and loyalty and everything he had come to trust – what could have happened, somewhere along the way, to make him such a threat in their eyes? Shouldn't he know – he, their captain?
But I don't, he thought. I just don't know... how should I? I don't even know my own... heart's desire... His mind stumbled over the words, even in thought. And whatever it was they were seeking, he couldn't give it to them. He couldn't allow them to have it. Not now, he thought, striving to win through again to the calm he had finally found the night before, not here and now... He couldn't allow it whether he himself believed in the thing's properties or not. You made a choice – all of you. We're here. We have an assignment. I won't let you quit now.
Even if they didn't understand why any longer. Even if they truly thought he was losing his hold on reality – on what had become their reality. And even if the ship, his ship was coming to pieces all around him.
I won't stand in your way afterwards if you want to pursue this. I owe you that much at least. It hurt – worse than he would have thought possible. His charges. His responsibility. His – children...
I'm not losing my mind. It only broke his heart. And this time he found no peace in the certainty, such as it was. He must do something about it all, and he didn't know what. Heart's desire. How did you fight – that? He could not even begin to guess what he himself would find there if he were to try. And his thoughts were going round in circles, unable to focus. Yes, I can, his mind added, despairingly. Just now, all I want is to be able to rest. I can't even think any more. Just rest, God, I'm so tired...
He looked round for something to occupy him, to take his mind off the unanswerable and his own helplessness for the moment. There was a stack of padds at his elbow, things waiting to be looked at, things he hadn't managed to get done over the past few days. He had not even seriously started on the report about the Mavvion mission. It all might have been a lifetime ago, and he couldn't bring himself to start on any of it now. In the end he swiveled his chair towards his window, showing not stars but the eternal glitter of the Mount Nebula, and sat there until the ready room lights dimmed automatically, the computer assuming from the utter silence that the room must be deserted, or that he had lain down to rest – and just sat there, numbly, until the turmoil had given way to a dead quiet.
- - - - - -