Intellivore - Diane Duane [9]
“It certainly gives me that idea,” Troi said. She was eyeing one of the side screens, where the course was displaying. “A lot of dashing around in the early stages, anyway.” Data turned toward the counselor with a quizzical expression on his pale golden face. Troi smiled. “Did you want to add something, Data?”
“If I might point out, Counselor,” Data said. “The course still serves our mission, both the escort-and-convoy segment and the continuation of Captain Maisel’s galactic drift survey. It is also incidentally statistically satisfying in terms of seeking out new loci of untoward occurrence—”
Picard blinked at that, and Riker, too, looked bemused. “Excuse me, Mr. Data. I passed my statistics courses without too much trouble, but what the devil is a ‘locus of untoward occurrence’?”
“It is an area, either experiential or physical, in which a significant percentage of undesirable conditions obtain,” said Data. “These include a wide range of objective and subjective phenomena, including structural and ethical failures—”
Troi began to smile again. ” ‘Ethical failures’? Data, are you implying that the structure of space understands ethics?”
If he didn’t know better, Picard would have sworn that the android looked confused. “The theoretical terminology employed simply refers to various scholia of mathematics which contain ethical modes, such as Trill and Hamalki. ‘Ethics’ in mathematics merely refers to those ranges of physical results deemed undesirable, a highly subjective and variable subset—”
Oh, dear, Picard thought, here we go …
“Wait a minute,” Riker said. “It looks like we’ve come right around in a circle here. Mr. Data, let me hazard a guess. Are you saying that this course has a better than even chance of taking us somewhere where something ‘bad’ will happen? A raid on a world where there’s an archaeological dig going on, or an attack on a settled planet or a ship in transit? Something of that kind?”
“Yes, Commander,” Data said. “The mathematics involved are grounded in a variant of lottery theory. Taking into account more recent developments in statistical technique, such as those reservoir description and stochastic modeling theorems advanced over the past several decades by T’Veih and Oronal, it is obvious that—”
Picard raised an eyebrow and once again began studying the padd he was holding. What he had learned some time back was that when Mr. Data uttered the words “It is obvious that … ,” it was sometimes better for one’s temper to start getting caught up on the paperwork. He stayed where he was, though, watching as Troi began to find the bridge ceiling unusually interesting.
“—an extension of so-called fourth-order Vennatypical locus variant identifications,” Data went on, oblivious, “can be expanded to include specific occurrences in space-time, including the occurrences of high-ion-flux patches such as remain in—for example—the wake of armed engagements in or out of warp, each kind of residue generating its own residue which a sufficiently complex equation may include and predict. Within normal statistical parameters, of course.”
“Of course,” Riker said, his blue eyes glittering with glee. He glanced at Troi, who was trying mightily to suppress a yawn. Perhaps it was time for the captain to step in and rescue his beleaguered crew, thought Picard.
“Such kinds of analysis have been bruited about for a while,” the captain said. “Some Starfleet statisticians were suggesting that all Starfleet ships should routinely follow such ‘negative-satisfaction’ courses. The idea didn’t last long. What serving captain would sit still for being forced into patrols where the chance of something good happening was purposely minimized?” He smiled a little grimly, remembering the uproar at one captains’ conference where the issue had been discussed.