Gulliver's Fugitives - Keith Sharee [100]
He rose.
“Anyway, thanks to you all.”
“It’s the counselor you should thank,” said Picard. “We would have left Rampart knowing nothing about you and the fate of the Huxley if it weren’t for her.”
“Then, thank you especially, Counselor Troi.”
Now he really was smiling.
“I hope I can be of further help,” she said.
“One favor,” said Bowles. “Don’t tell me too much about my past. My childhood and teens and all that. I was in your Ten-Forward lounge earlier, talking with your alien hostess-philosopher. She said I was in an enviable position, because I get to do all that all over again. Anyway, I think I’m going to go have some more of her tea and advice.”
He left and the doors swished shut behind him.
“Why don’t you take the bridge for a moment, Number One,” Picard said to Riker. “I need to speak with the counselor. Afterward, I have something in mind for us.”
“Aye, sir.”
When Riker had gone, Troi and Picard sat silently. She watched the stars outside the porthole, and Picard watched her.
“Still having regrets about your choice?”
“What choice?” she asked.
“The choice to watch Oleph and Una’s movie. Take a risk in the interest of discovery.”
“No. I learned something. I had an anxiety I wasn’t even aware of. You remember I had been telling you lately that you were concealing too many emotions?”
“Yes. I believe we still have a meeting pending on that.”
“Well … I was actually afraid that I was burying my own feelings and needs too much. That was my anxiety. That, being an empath among a crew of a thousand, responsible for their emotional well-being, I was neglecting my own feelings.”
“You wouldn’t be the first counselor to have that problem.”
“Well, whether it had any basis or not, the anxiety itself was there and had to be reckoned with, and before all this happened I was projecting it onto others.
“Still, I couldn’t see the cause of it all. But in those Other-worlder myth-dreams, I ran right up against it. That’s why I kept seeing myself turn into a statue—it was my own fear of turning into a cold, unfeeling person. In the end, when I passed through that stone state and came out alive again, the fear worked itself through.”
“The statue-woman who wakes,” said Picard. “The Winter’s Tale.” He patted the book on his desk, and was silent for a time.
“Are you going to continue your research into the works of human imagination?” he asked finally. “The research you started after seeing Oleph and Una’s movie?”
She felt herself tense up at the thought.
“On an intellectual level, I know I should continue the work. But the flesh is weak. That research was how this all began. When I started the research I released the mythical characters from the movie to run rampant inside me, and I’m not ready to face that kind of loss of control. It could happen all over again, as soon as I make my first inquiries to the computer. And neither I, nor Oleph and Una, can say how long that danger will persist.”
“Counselor, I’m not suggesting you should do anything you don’t want to, or anything dangerous. I just hope you’ll one day continue with the research, that’s all.”
“I promise, I will.”
She had tried to sound fearless, but failed.
He paused before speaking again, and she could see the little wheels turning.
“Deanna,” he said casually, “do you remember that Big Number you once told me about?”
She had to smile at his mental agility. He had a way of coming up with something you said long ago and rubbing your nose in it.
“You’re talking about the number,” she said, “based on average synapse count, of possible states of one human brain—the number of possible thoughts and feelings