For the first time in a week, Geordi was relaxing. Between the damage to the Freedom, the repairs on the Enterprise, and the frequent meetings with Captain Picard on the androids, he was beat. There were just too many details for him to take care of.
When he had accepted his post as the chief engineer of the Enterprise, he had looked forward to all the perks, the respect, the authority. He hadn’t counted on the headaches, and insomnia. Being the chief engineer wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. But what was? Geordi enjoyed the job despite the drawbacks.
He had nearly crawled back to his cabin after overseeing the last transfer of crew and equipment back to the Enterprise, and monitoring the systems checks Picard had ordered. He’d quickly peeled off his uniform and left it in a pile by the door. There was something else that was more important, right now, something even more important than sleep.
A bubble bath.
There was a holodeck facility right next to his quarters, one he could use practically whenever he wanted. And right now he wanted—no, needed—the benefits of a hot bath. He had prepared the program weeks ago.
He slipped on a robe and headed down the corridor. A few simple commands, and the computer began assembling the program. In seconds, the door to the holodeck opened, revealing a huge, stainless steel tub filled with a mountain of bubbles. Steam rose from the water’s surface, temporarily misting his VISOR.
“Beautiful,” he said to himself.
He scanned the tub with his VISOR, and, satisfied that the temperature was perfect, he stripped off his robe and settled himself gingerly into the foamy water. Almost as an afterthought, he removed the metallic VISOR from his face and placed it within easy reach outside the tub. Getting the thing wet wouldn’t hurt it, of course, but the bath would leave a soapy film that was a real pain to clean.
Geordi was about to submerge everything but his nose when the door chimed.
Damn, I knew I should have turned that thing off.
“Who is it?” he called out.
“Commander Data,” came the tinny reply.
“Come in,” he called. A few seconds later, he heard the door open, and the sound of footsteps, which stopped before the tub.
“What’s up, buddy?” Geordi asked.
He could almost hear the frown in Data’s voice. “What is the nature of the device you are utilizing?”
“It’s a bathtub, Data.”
His friend was silent a moment. Geordi knew Data was retrieving the necessary information from his personal library. “Ah, a device for bathing used before the invention of the aquatic shower, which was in turn replaced by the sonic bathing system. May I assume that you are in the process of a—”
“Bubble bath? Yes, I am.”
“I do not see the point. The sonic shower attachment in your lavatory unit provides an efficient method of removing surface waste from the epidermis without using the ineffective and unsanitary method of water.”
“Decadence,” Geordi explained. “It relaxes me, Data. Hot water and soapsuds beats the hell out of nice clean sound waves. Consider it a religious ritual, if you like.”
“I see.”
Geordi didn’t have his VISOR on, and so he couldn’t see his friend. Yet there was something in the android’s voice that told him something was wrong.
“Data, why are you here?”
“I find myself in an unenviable position. The captain’s decision to abandon the Vemlan androids to their fate is disturbing to me. It is not the course I would have pursued. Yet as a Starfleet officer, I can not help but uphold his wishes.”
“Yes,” said Geordi patiently, “I figured as much. Data, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you into getting friendly with the androids like this. I wouldn’t have if I had known what would happen.”
“Make no apologies; I have enjoyed the time and the experience a great deal. I just do not wish it to end so violently. To this end, I have tried to discover a reasonable solution to the problem, but I continually find potential solutions in conflict with the probable actions of both the androids and the Vemlan navy. I even considered the possibility of fabricating evidence for the navy to believe that the androids had been destroyed, allowing them to escape.”
“Wouldn’t work,” Geordi said. “Too many technical problems. And the navy would figure something was up.”
“As I anticipated. The situation as it stands can lead only to death and destruction on both sides. It is an illogical and futile course of action.”
“Well, that’s your problem then. When you have a situation that just won’t work out, sometimes the only thing you can do is change it a little bit and see if it works better. See it from a different viewpoint. And if it still doesn’t work, well, sometimes you just can’t win. That’s engineering.”
“That is a depressing philosophy, Geordi.”
“No one said life was fair.”
“So Dr. Pulaski continually reminded me. However, there has to be a way to rectify this situation and avoid loss of life.”
“You mean, save your friends.”
“Though that, too, is a consideration, I place the highest value upon avoiding conflict. Life is too unique an attribute to be wasted in futile endeavors.”
Geordi whistled. “Data, that was downright philosophical. A month ago you would have been too concerned with whether or not you count as ‘life’ to worry about that.”
“I have always considered uniqueness to be too valuable to be wasted.”
“But do you consider yourself a living being?”
There was a long pause. Geordi almost thought that the blunt question had driven Data away, but he sensed his friend was still standing before him.
Finally Data spoke. “I have come to consider myself alive,” he said, softly.
“Data, that’s great!” Geordi exclaimed, splashing warm suds onto the floor. This was a major breakthrough. They’d had long discussions on the subject; Data spent most of the time examining the clinical aspects of sentience. Geordi had tried to get him to see the more intuitive side of the question. Almost all of the discussions had ended with the android doubting his own sentience, after which he moped. Had Geordi been less patient, he would have stopped having those talks a long time ago.
“Perhaps. I am finding that the attributes of life are not as beatific as they are reported.”
“Meaning you can get hurt.”
“Exactly. Though I have no emotions, there are still problems.”
“Well, that’s part of life, pal. Eventually you’ll find that getting hurt is as beneficial as feeling good.”
“I do not understand.”
“I’m not sure I do, either. A good friend of mine once told me that conflict was the only real instructor. Look, if nothing else comes out of this, won’t you have learned something about yourself?”
“Perhaps. It still does nothing to solve the problem, however.”
His bath was getting cooler. Geordi reached out with his toe and touched the panel that instructed the image to add warm water to the tub. As it splashed in, he sighed, and closed his eyes.
“Data, if anyone can sort out this crazy mess, you can. I have faith in you. Dr. Soong programmed a creative spark into you, along with a healthy dose of analytical genius. Try to use it. In all honesty, none of us—and I’ll bet that includes the captain—wants the androids to get destroyed either. Just apply yourself.”
Data considered. “The root of the problem is that the Enterprise, though powerful enough to tip the balance in favor of either side, is unable to do so. In order to save the Freedom and the lives of the organic Vemlans, it is necessary to involve the Enterprise.”
Geordi shook his head. “Captain Picard’s already decided the conflict has nothing to do with the Federation.”
“There lies my problem. In order to involve the Enterprise, the conflict must also involve the Federation in some significant matter.” Data was silent, then, for a long time. Geordi almost asked if he was still there.
<
br /> Then his friend spoke again. “I believe I have a solution.”
“A solution?”
Data nodded. “It will be necessary to do some research, but there is still several hours of the captain’s deadline left. More than sufficient time.”
“What is it?”
“I will have to check the reference computer for legality . . .” he began as his voice got farther away. Eddies in the air currents wafted by Geordi’s face, and the sound of retreating footsteps could be heard. “Data, come back here and tell me what’s going on!” Geordi shouted to his friend. Seconds later he heard the sound of the automatic door opening and closing and the slight change in pressure that accompanied it.
“Oh well,” Geordi said, sinking back into his bath. Knowing his friend, he suspected he’d find out what was up—sooner, rather than later.
While the rest of the ship hurried to their tasks, their battle only a few hours away, Jared entered the gardens to think, the important work having been seen to by subordinates. He was surprised to find the large, lush room vacant save for Maran. The librarian was sitting on a bench, staring vacantly at a crinsilla flower tree. The spectrum of shades of purple and lavender suited her mood.
“I expected to find Kurta here, not you,” he said, sitting beside her. Maran turned to look at him and smiled sadly.
“Sorry to disappoint you. I’ve done all I can do for the battle, and it was either sit in the library and sort tapes or come in here and collect my thoughts. If we’re dead in a few hours, it won’t matter if the tapes get sorted or not.”
“True,” Jared said, and smiled. He studied the flowering tree as well, appreciating the natural symmetry of its petals. “I like this one. It comes from the Zessol peninsula, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. I came from there. Zessol had the largest library in the hemisphere. A beautiful building, too, half underneath the mountains. These things,” she said, indicating the plant, “were all over; local agronomists considered them weeds. Crinsilla flowers blossomed every season, everywhere. It got so that you were sick to death of purple after a while. I never knew how much I would miss those stupid little plants,” she said, bitterly.
There was a long silence. Jared knew Maran as well as anyone in their group did, but that didn’t really extend into personal matters. Maran had always been a very private person. Oh, she was good at her job; he had never seen anyone even come close to equaling her skill in organizing and retrieving information. But there was so much he didn’t know about her.
“Were we so bad off, I wonder?” she said. “Home, I mean. Sure, we were slaves, but we Alphas didn’t have it so bad. I could have kept piling up tapes and learning things for centuries.”
Jared considered. “Yes, I think about such things, too. I didn’t have it so bad, either, until they refitted me for the Games. And I hate to think that we did all that mayhem to be free, just to be wiped out here.” He shook his head. “I don’t know. I started this movement so full of idealism that it hurt. After a while, it just got bigger than I was.”
“If you could do it all over again, would you do it the same way?”
“Good question,” he said. Jared thought about it. It was the needless deaths that hurt him the most. His master had been kind and undemanding, more a friend than an owner. He had taught Jared the importance of life, the preciousness of existence. When he thought about all the times he had stood on the operating side of a gun, watching his victims being ripped apart by energy blasts triggered by his fingers, it wrenched him someplace deep inside.
Yet he knew life when he saw it. The screams of androids he knew being torn to shreds in the Games by lumbering, vicious killing machines or each other also wrenched him. They, too, were living. Their terror was as great as any Vemlan’s would have been, their sorrows and despairs as profound. As long as a single android was being unfairly treated, he could not rest. They had wanted him to destroy his own kind in the Games, and he resisted. And under the old rules, he would never have been allowed to love Kurta the way he did.
“No regrets,” he said finally. “None at all. I think I’d do it all over again the same way.”
“It’s funny, I was working on a project for some researcher at Zessol. It was a study on the effect of android intelligence on the progress of Vemlan culture. It was his theory that we would eventually replace humans as the motivators in society. The humans were becoming decadent and stagnant, and the androids were becoming more active and intelligent every year. Maybe in a couple of hundred years we would have taken over anyway.”
“Perhaps. But that’s a few hundred years of slavery too long. I’d be interested in looking at that study sometime, provided that we aren’t atomized by then.”
Maran shook her head. “All I have is the working notes. The study began just before the violence started. It ended when a mob of radicals invaded the library and killed the researcher for being a collaborator.”
“Oh. Well, perhaps it will be re-created someday.”
“Perhaps.” She looked at the tree again. “They burned all the crinsilla trees, too. When I saw it last, the library looked like a huge tomb.”
“I wish that—” Jared’s thought was interrupted by an insistent beep. He immediately took his communicator from his belt and snapped it open. “Jared. Report.”
“Captain,” came a tinny male voice from the machine, “I have an audiovisual communication from the Enterprise for you. It’s from Commander Data.”
“Are you sure it’s for me?” he asked, surprised. “He’d be more likely to want to speak with Maran,” he said.
“No sir, he was quite specific.”
“I’ll be right there. Jared out.”
“Out.”
Jared snapped the communicator closed again and replaced it on his belt as he stood. Maran’s eyes were as big as saucers. He paused.
“Is everything all right?”
Maran swallowed, and stood. “Data told me the last time I saw him that he was working on a solution to our problem. I never thought he’d find one in a million years, but . . .”
“But you may have underestimated him,” Jared said. “Very well, let’s go hear what wild scheme he has come up with to help us.”
“How would you rate the coming battle, Mr. Worf? Your professional opinion, please.” Captain Picard was back on the bridge, examining a tactical schematic on the main screen of where the combatants were. His Klingon security officer was at the console behind him, checking over the firing relays.
“Sir,” he began in his low voice. “I assessed the strength and attitudes of both sides by using the sensor arrays.
“The navy ships are true warships, though their design is primitive. They were not designed for journeys far beyond their solar system, however, and could be running low on fuel and supplies. Their armaments are primitive but effective. The navy is made of professional soldiers who expect combat. From what I have been able to learn from their ship-to-ship transmissions, however, their morale is low and they are inexperienced with this type of battle, preferring to attack a weaker planetary opponent from orbit. They will try to swarm the android craft and seal any escape route. To prevail they must capture or destroy the Freedom.
“The androids will fight fiercely,” he continued. “They know the navy will show them no mercy. Their ship is faster and better armed, but no match weapon for weapon for the navy. The androids follow orders perfectly, however, and have a record of using guile to achieve victory. Their ship is newly repaired and less vulnerable due to their artificial endurance. To win, they must simply avoid and escape from the navy.”
“Will they be able to?”
“I consider that doubtful, sir, considering the overwhelming firepower of the navy,” continued the Klingon. “However, in every conflict there is a certain element of chance. Random factors can play decisive roles in battle. Computer predictions indicate that there will be a very high casualty rate in any case. It will be an . . . interesting battle.” He del
ivered this last line with a wolfish grin.
Picard sighed. “Yes, I was afraid of that. Many people will die today. It’s frustrating.”
“Captain, incoming message from the Freedom,” Wesley said, turning in his seat.
“Display,” he called, motioning toward the main screen.
The face of Jared loomed on the screen. Behind his mask of seriousness, there was a relieved glimmer, like that of a man who has received a last-minute reprieve from the headman’s axe.
“Captain Picard, I wish to speak to you,” he said, formally.
“You are doing so, Captain. Proceed.”
“I have reviewed the Articles of Federation you provided for our reference. It is a most impressive series of documents. It shows an admirable flexibility for dealing with alien races.”
“Well—yes, thank you. But I don’t think you called me to discuss political science.”
“Of course not,” he smiled. “I called to make a request.”
“Which is?”
“Not a request, actually, but a petition.”
“A petition?” asked Picard. “What do you mean?” Jared took a deep breath. “The crew of the Freedom has caucused, and the matter has been put to a vote. We, as a sentient, starfaring species, present a formal application for membership in the United Federation of Planets.” He paused, watching Picard’s stunned expression, before he finished.
“You wouldn’t join us, so we decided to join you.”
Chapter Nine
SHOCK AND SURPRISE at the androids’ request reverberated around the bridge like a clap of thunder. A bold maneuver, one Picard would have openly admired had it been politic for him to do so—and had it not put him in such a difficult situation.
By necessity starship captains, far from Starfleet Command, were forced to improvise in the line of duty. There was a large element of risk in seeking out unknown alien races. A captain might be called on to be an ambassador, a businessman, a diplomat, a tactician, a strategist, a warlord, a judge, or many other things in the line of duty. He or she therefore had binding authority to deal with a variety of circumstances in the field, on behalf of the Federation.
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