Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [25]
There were many things which could not be taken back. Such an error and a disservice, promoting the boy to the bridge so early, without the earning. Not so much a disservice to the bridge, but to the boy.
Picard watched the viewscreen, turning away from the young face that occupied his mind now.
Yes, promoting Wesley to the bridge had aroused the resentment of Starfleet officers who might not be as brilliant but might be more deserving. Wesley Crusher had become the supreme knick-knack- a pretty display of talent, but not really functional. Anything he did on the bridge had to be monitored, no matter that he could calculate things inside his head sometimes before the computer made its reports. That was just how it was.
And why did I do that to him? Picard wondered, letting the familiar thought roll through his mind all in that one glance. Do I feel so responsible for his father’s death? Do I owe Jack Crusher so much for the mistake that killed him … that I would make another mistake with his son? Am I so anxious to gain the gratitude of this boy’s mother that I would use his brilliance to showcase my good will? And now I risk destroying his distorted image of himself if I withdraw his status as acting ensign and put him back where he belongs … Ah, Picard, tu t’es fait avoir.
He sighed, and turned to his command crew. “All right. Ensign Crusher says ghosts. It’s as good a starting point as any.”
Worf’s Klingon brow puckered. “But, sir, ghosts are fables!”
“Perhaps so, from a metaphysical perspective,” Picard said evenly and without a pause. “But we’re not going to address that. We’re going to approach them from a wholly scientific vantage. Disband all thoughts of wraiths and think in terms of alternate lifeforms and mind forms. Mr. Data, what can you give me on that?”
Caught off guard by having so folklorish a subject cast at him, Data blinked and appeared suddenly helpless.
Riker stepped in, knowing better, but still not fast enough to stop himself. “An android wouldn’t know anything about life, sir, much less the occult.”
The captain’s eyes struck him like blades. “I’m talking about spectral apparitions, Riker, and you are out of line with that remark. Aren’t you?”
Bruised, Riker nodded smartly. “Yes, sir, I guess I am.”
“I asked Data a question.”
Data may or may not have appreciated the dressing-down on his behalf, but the fact was he found himself floundering on such a subject. To a being for whom knowledge had always meant plain facts, this mystical concept was quicksand. Very conscious of the attention he was getting, Data glanced at Riker, straightened a little, and spoke.
“Sir,” he began, “I would postulate that, since the lifeforms were picked up by Geordi’s visor and then by the recalibrated bridge sensors, they are not foibles of Earth thaumaturgy, but indeed of a substantive hylozoic constituence.”
Picard’s mouth crumpled. “What?”
“They’re real.”
“Oh. You might’ve said so.”
“Sorry, sir.”
“What you mean,” Picard continued, “is that something incorporeal need not be unalive. Traditionally, ghosts are unalive. These beings aren’t.”
Data cocked his head. “Difficult to say, sir. That transgresses into the realm of semantics. We would have to isolate what it means … to be alive.”
The android’s sudden discomfort with those words drew Picard’s attention once again to his eyes, to the boyish innocence of a being who had gone all the way through Starfleet Academy, spent a dozen years