Distant Shores - Marco Palmieri [38]
Good idea, Harry thought. Wish I’d thought of that.
“Besides,” she continued as she began eating her yogurt and fruit, “wouldn’t you rather perform? I’ve been told you play beautifully. What’s the instrument called?”
“The clarinet,” Harry said, warming to Kes’s interest. “It’s a wood-wind instrument. Who told you I played… uh, beautifully?”
“Tom mentioned it.”
“I can’t remember ever playing when Tom was around.”
“No?” Kes asked. “Maybe someone told him and he was just repeating what he’d heard.”
I don’t remember ever playing for anyone, Harry thought, then realized that perhaps this was the point. Music had been a large part of his life before he had come aboard Voyager. In the years since being drawn to the Delta Quadrant, he had found it more and more difficult to find time to practice, let alone enjoy his gift. “Huh,” he said. “Well, then maybe I’ll pick out a couple pieces and start rehearsing.”
Kes said, “That would be wonderful,” then smiled broadly, which, Harry thought, was almost reward enough right there.
“That bastard,” B’Elanna said. “I wish I’d thought of that.”
Harry nodded, then shrugged as he knelt down beside the repair drone he and B’Elanna had been attempting to program to scrub the exhaust manifolds (Neelix had only managed to scratch the surface of the work that needed to be completed). “Yeah, but I wouldn’t envy him too much. I get the impression the job is turning out to be more demanding than Tom expected.”
“Why?”
“Because Neelix can’t say no to anyone. I think the problem started when Dan Fisher-you know him?”
“Delta-watch commander. Yeah, our paths have crossed once or twice.”
“Well,” Harry said as he popped the maintenance cover off the drone, “when Neelix asked him if he had any ideas for the talent show, Dan said he wanted to do the speech Theoden gives just before the Riders of Rohan charge the Morgul horde…” Harry must have sensed the complete and utter blank stare B’Elanna was giving him because he stopped in midsentence and asked, “You’ve never read The Lord of the Rings, have you?”
“No.”
“Or watched the movies?”
“No.”
“Or played in the holonovel?”
“No.”
“Or…”
“Assume the answer is no.”
“Philistine.”
“Geek.”
“Touche,” Harry said, and pulled out his tricorder. “Anyway, this was all meant as kind of a joke. Dan was just trying to fake out Neelix, get out of the show, but Neelix just said, ‘Great! Wonderful! Let’s do it!’ “
“And Fisher couldn’t back out.”
“No,” Harry said. “Worse. He started getting into the idea. Now he has Tom programming in the backgrounds and characters for five hundred horsemen.”
“So Fisher’s a geek, too?”
“I think that’s a yes.”
“Wow,” B’Elanna said wonderingly. “How’s Tom going to find the time to do all that programming?”
“I don’t know,” Harry said as he dumped the revised code from the tricorder’s memory into the drone’s. “But if he wants to stay behind the stage, he’ll need to figure out something.”
“So you’re going to be helping Tom?” Chakotay asked.
“What?” B’Elanna said looking up from the engineering console.
The first officer had been making a tour of the bridge, stopping and having a quiet word with everyone on duty. Chakotay did that kind of thing, B’Elanna knew; his way of keeping his finger on the pulse. Most of the time, he didn’t ask about whatever the crewman was doing at the moment, seeming to prefer to hear about off-duty projects or hobbies or even gossip. Somehow-B’Elanna didn’t know precisely how-from these little bits and pieces he managed to diagnose the mental health of the crew. “Helping Tom,” he said. “With the holodeck programming for the talent show.”
This was three days after her discussion with Harry and B’Elanna had been wondering if it would be Chakotay or the captain who would first inquire about her plans for the show. She had been considering her options: perhaps she would say she had something planned-for some reason, baton twirling came to mind-and then make sure there was a disaster in the engine room the night of the show. A small disaster, but something that would require her immediate attention.