Free Star Trek: The Original Series - 082 - Federation by Judith Reeves-Stevens, Garfield Reeves-Stevens Page B

up. “Poker?” he said. Had Data mentioned something about poker?
    The android was most solicitous. “It is a card game, sir. I play each Thursday night with my fellow officers. If you recall, we have often invited you to join us.” The captain looked up to the ceiling of his ready room, trying to remember something about poker. Picard rubbed at the side of his face. He could still feel Ambassador Sarek’s fingers there, on the katra points of his nervous system. The effects of the mind-meld still trembled within him, though the maelstrom of emotions that had raged through him yesterday had now dwin-dled to slight, recurring eddies. But still his mind dealt with disturbing flashes of detailed knowledge of the ambassador’s life. t I dcan would know how to deal with this, Picard told himself. A It/ time ()/’ training in mind-control techniques would permit the ca,sv setting aside of information obtained from other minds. And there were other minds. Sarek had mind-melded with hundreds of different beings in his more than two centuries of life, and the echoes of the psychic force of all their collective experiences now also reverberated within Picard.
    “Captain Picard?” Data said more emphatically. “Shall I call Dr. Crusher?” Data’s familiar voice brought a moment of clarity. Picard shook off a sudden visual image of the red-tinged mountains of Sarek’s walled estate—not his. The only property in which Picard had an ownership interest was located in France. Picard tugged at his uniform to smooth nonexistent wrinkles.
    “No, Mr. Data, I’ll be fine. It’s just that… from time to time I find myself overwhelmed by an unexpected memory from Ambassador Sarek’s past.” Data observed Picard carefully. Picard understood his purposeful gaze.
    “But the memories are lessening in both strength and frequency,” Picard said firmly. “Both the ambassador’s wife and Dr.
    Crusher have agreed that there will be no long-term, detrimental effects.” “I hope that that is true,” Data said. “It has been my observation that emotions can be confusing and dangerous when allowed to develop out of control.” Picard smiled at Data, and this time the expression came naturally. “And yet you still wish to experience them.” Data took on a thoughtful expression, one of his subroutines, Picard knew, designed to help the android relate to humans by providing subtle body-language cues to his thought processes. “It is, as the ambassador would say, a most illogical goal, but one to which I aspire, nonetheless.” “You sound as if you’re halfway there already,” Picard said with amusement, mixed with a sudden burst of friendship for his ofihcer, a feeling he shared to some extent with almost all of his command staff, but which, like Sarek, he too often allowed to remain hidden. Since he had first taken command of the Enterprise, almost three years earlier, Picard had enjoyed watching Data’s growth as a… person. There was no other word for it. To watch that complex intellect wrestle with ideas and ideals that most humans took for granted helped Picard see the universe through fresh eyes, innocent eyes. At the age of sixty-one, he realized he needed that rejuvenating experience more often. It was a law of nature that when growth stopped, stagnation set in.
    For now, the Enterprise helped Picard keep that law at bay. But it was always out there, circling, like predatory norsehlats worrying a herd of vral, waiting to pick off the old and infirm.
    Picard blinked, momentarily distracted. “Mr. Data, would you happen to know what a norsehlat is?” Data responded without hesitation. “A nonsentient predator native to the southern, high-mountain deserts of Vulcan, filling a similar ecological niche to that of the Terran wolf.” “I see. And a vral?” ‘In context with norseMat, I would presume the word vral is a plural form of vralt, which is a nonsentient herbivore, similar to a Terran mountain goat, again