Boogeymen - Mel Gilden [11]
“What do you think of it?”
Data cocked his head. From long experience, Wesley knew this meant he was about to fling a zinger of a question. Data said, “I think it can be useful if used with the proper care. Why do you ask?”
Data was his friend. He could trust Data with his innermost hopes and fears. Wesley said, “I’m testing my ability to command by using Starfleet training programs.”
“Ah. And how will the Borders scale help?”
“I want to design an alien that will challenge me, that will help me find out if I’ll ever be good enough to be captain of a starship.”
“No such alien exists.”
“Right.”
“Ah. Then you wish to create such an alien and interact with it.”
“Right.”
Data leaned back in his chair and picked up a calabash pipe that lay in a nearby ashtray. Affecting the mannerisms of Sherlock Holmes, he tapped the stem of the pipe against his teeth, something he did occasionally when considering a problem. Wesley had never seen him actually light the pipe, but just holding it made Data seem more thoughtful.
Data sprang to his feet and began to pace the cabin. He had plenty of room. Data had fewer personal possessions than anyone else Wesley knew. In a clipped Holmesian accent, he said, “You wish to design an alien of superior cunning and intelligence, yet entirely without compassion.”
“Right,” Wesley said again. “Just for the holodeck.”
“Of course.” Data sat down, laid the pipe carefully in the ashtray, and began typing into the computer terminal. His hands moved very fast, were almost a blur. Wesley stood behind him, watching. In a few seconds, Data reviewed what had taken Wesley hours to read. Then Data leapt into unfamiliar territory.
Scarcely ten minutes later Data stopped. He popped a clear cylindrical chip into the slot on the terminal, touched a few keys, and seconds later handed the chip to Wesley. It was now a pale blue. “This chip contains the parameters of the aliens you desire along with the Borders scale equations. I suggest you ask Lieutenant Commander La Forge to help you install them in the holodeck computer. No one knows more about the Enterprise systems than he does.”
“Thanks, Data.” Wesley bounced the chip in one hand while he looked over Data’s shoulder at the schematic of the Enterprise on the wall.
“Was there something else, Wesley?”
Wesley smiled at his own presumption. He never thought of himself as a fan type. He said, “Tell me. What is Professor Baldwin really like?”
“Like? He is a white human male, almost two meters tall and weighing slightly more than one hundred kilograms.”
Wesley smiled as he shook his head. Evidently Data had even less inclination to be a fan than he did.
“Is that funny?” Data said.
“Usually when people ask what someone is like, they want to know about the individual’s personality and whether they have pleasing features.”
A little confused, Data said, “He seemed pleasant enough.”
“Okay, Data. Thanks.”
Wesley left the cabin as quickly as seemed polite. He didn’t want to spend the rest of the day discussing human attractiveness with an android.
Captain Picard sat at one end of the big obsidian slab that served as a table in the conference lounge just off the bridge. He tried not to stare while he wondered again what it was in Commander Mont that Starfleet found valuable. Mont had a certain blustery charm, but he seemed to know no more about aliens than Lieutenant Shubunkin did. There were times when Picard was convinced that Mont knew considerably less.
For instance, when Mont and Shubunkin had first come on board at Starbase 123, Picard had thrown a small formal dinner to welcome them. During the dinner, talk had turned to the hot exobiology topic of the moment—a newly discovered race, the Trilg. They were unusual in that while they had grasping organs very much like human hands, they had no technology whatsoever.