Data's guard would have had a willing sympathiser at that moment. At the table, Picard was having similar issues with the other Soong brother, if for very different reasons. He resisted the urge to bury knuckles into his temples and rub away a headache. Lore's voice was grating on him. The endless arrogance, the unbelievable contempt for his audience. Things weren't helped by the fact that the Intractan aide keeping an eye on them both for the record was evidently a born fidgeter. The fellow had been doing everything - shuffling, exhaling at irregular intervals - if he'd had a wristwatch Picard was sure he would have been checking it compulsively.

" - heading for Tractusaria, so of course I said - hey!"

Lore's voice, along with the thread of his story, cut off in a sharp snap. "Hey, you! The pen pusher! If you can't stand still, sit the hell down before I lose my temper."

He flicked a glance at Picard, obviously missing the relief behind the shocked expression on the man's face. "What? He's shifted his weight sixteen times in the last two point eight minutes. It's getting on my nerves." He grinned. "Metaphorically speaking. I don't have nerves."

"Captain Picard, you have eight minutes remaining." The Intractan aide's voice was as slow and sibilant as usual, but Picard could have sworn an extra minute had just been knocked off his time. Gratitude to Lore for his intervention warred with fury at the android having compromised the good will of their captors.

Now that's interesting. When did I start thinking of myself as a proper prisoner, not just a man taking part in a unique cultural experience?

"Lore, you'd just found out she had a ship. Why didn't you simply take the parts you needed for your own ship and leave her behind?"

"Well, that's just not very chivalrous," said Lore, utterly deadpan once again save for the gleaming yellow eyes.

"It's nothing special," said Lore, trying not to let his enthusiasm ruin what was a perfectly good lie. Had he been biological, he probably would have been drooling.

This wasn't a ship. This was…this was a technical dream. No, not a dream, a flight of fancy. The woman snorted from a few steps behind him. She was making heavy weather of the mud, and Lore had not slowed his own pace to wait for her. Well. Not much. He had needed the ship too much to lose her completely.

And now it was right in front of him, despite the bubbled scars of phaser fire across its flanks, and it was beautiful, and he was only sad it had spent so long belonging to someone else.

"Oh, it's special all right," the woman had said. "Anything that old and crabby is special in its own way." She gave him a suddenly searching look. "Hey. How old are you, anyway?"

"Thirty-six," he lied.

"Funny. I would have guessed older."

Lore was unmoved. His vanity didn't stretch to the physical self when his technical self was busy engaging with the intricacies of the ship. Was that a Vulcan recycling duct tempered with some Angrebar holding pistons -

"And you're definitely not Ingellian or human. So what are you?"

It was quite impossible the amount of talking she did. He ignored her, running a hand over the burns in the hull and the smoother edges of an entrance hatch in the thing's belly. A sharp fizz of feedback stung at the sensors on his fingers. He frowned.

"She bite you?"

The woman was smirking at him. "She doesn't like strangers. Weird, though. Most people at least scream a bit or jump when they come up against her security field."

"I don't scream. Or jump." He gave her a look. "Ever."

"Again, what are you? Some kind of robot?"

"Yes," he said, carelessly, suddenly bored with lying. "Open the hatch, I want to have a look at her."

"Now you're starting to sound like my last boyfriend."

He was turning, actually drawing back his fist preparatory to slinging her on her back with a well-aimed punch, when the hatch hissed above him as the seals released. Dim lights were flickering on in the dark interior as the ramp lowered, jerkily, as if it was being manually unwound by an elderly human with arthritis.

The woman stared at him, as if weighing up the tiny physical clues of violence in his posture, then shoved past him. "And you lie like him," she added. "Robot. Stupid."

Lore didn't waste time responding to that. He hung close to her as she struggled up the ramp, not willing to let the chance of a better ship slip through his hands.

And this ship was like nothing he'd ever seen before.

"Describe the ship," said Picard, interested despite himself. Data's encyclopaedic knowledge of ships was well-known to him, and Lore probably had similar resources to draw on. If this woman had something that Lore didn't recognise…that was a good place to start. Was it as simple as theft?

But Lore was looking at him with utter disdain, and Picard reluctantly remembered he was trying to keep on the android's good side. "Please," he added. But the damage was done. Lore's horribly mercurial temper had turned.

"I'm not your trained monkey, Captain," said Lore sharply, "and if I remember correctly, your sorry hide is on the line just as much as mine is. Probably more, because even if you escape prison here your Federation masters will break you over their knees for causing a diplomatic incident."

"Try not to sound so pleased," said Picard, resting his chin on his hand - and as he'd barely hoped, Lore laughed.

"Picard, I will sound all that and more if we end up in the same Intractan jail cell."

"Aren't we already?" said Picard, feeling suddenly tired, and swallowed his annoyance when faced with the mental image of being stuck there. "Now please, Lore. There must have been something special about the ship that you were willing to put up with the vagaries of a pregnant woman in order to own it."

"Captain Picard, you have one minute remaining," said the aide, from behind him, and Picard was certain this time he could hear smugness in that alien voice. "Please give your closing remarks."

Picard fixed Lore with an intent stare, even as the android sighed, and said: "Before the next time. Think about the answer to this question - assuming that she has nothing against you personally, why would this woman want to have you thrown into prison?"

And Picard was escorted out with Lore's angry growl of "I don't know!" ringing in his ears, which was very little comfort.

I'm running out of time, and Lore's running out of motive.

Maybe I have been going about it the wrong way. I've been advancing all along assuming that Lore is guilty. If I assume he is innocent -

Like Commander Riker before him, Picard really wished he could just have five minutes to talk to Data.