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He didn’t bother explaining that he was certain because he had heard it. The other members of the duty shift would probably explain it to her, or she’d figure out Crusher’s style sooner or later. Attempting to explain it now would simply delay matters, and Crusher knew the captain would be eager to leave for their mysterious destination as soon as possible. Besides, to him it was intuitively obvious that the hum of the warp-core reactor was pitched too high into the treble range by at least a few dozen hertz.

Sure enough, the repair crew found that the matter reactant injector was acting up, and it was the work of just a few minutes to get it fixed, such that when Picard called down from the bridge for warp five, engineering was ready and able to supply it. Crusher was only grateful that it hadn’t been the antimatter injector that was the culprit, as he had no desire to recalibrate the magnetic fields that isolated the antideuterium from the normal matter surrounding it.

Once they were under way, Crusher slid out a seat and called up his most current project on the console. He had been tinkering with some warp field equations for the last few weeks, trying to increase the engine’s efficiency. He’d already managed to improve on the Starfleet specs for a Galaxy-class starship by a considerable margin, but he was sure there was still room left for improvement. He was halfway through tweaking the equations and testing the results in simulation when he heard the characteristic footfalls of the ship’s science officer. One of the benefits of having lived on board the same ship for so long, first as a civilian, then as a member of the crew, was that Crusher nearly always knew who was coming up behind him just by the sound of their steps.

“You just going to stand there all morning?” he finally said, freezing his simulation and swiveling the chair.

“My apologies, Wesley, I did not want to intrude.” A. Isaac stood a few feet behind him, arms held loosely at his sides, expression neutral.

“No problem, Isaac,” Crusher answered with a smile. “This isn’t anything that can’t wait.” He tapped the console, saving the simulation and returning the display to defaults. “What’s up?”

The android glanced up at the bulkheads, and smiled. “If I were to say 'the ceiling,’ would that engender laughter?”

Crusher chuckled, shaking his head. “Only of the charitable sort, Isaac.” He stood. “Not really very funny.”

Isaac frowned slightly. “Ah.” He brightened fractionally. “But it was humorous, if only slightly?”

“Very slightly.”

The android nodded, thoughtfully, his gaze dropping to the deck.

Most of the other members of the crew might have taken Isaac’s expression as unremarkable, but then most members of the crew didn’t have Crusher’s experience with android physiognomy and programming. As the ship’s chief engineer, Crusher was responsible for doing any maintenance or repairs to Isaac’s android body, as well as assisting Isaac in performing software diagnostics. It was, perhaps, one of the reasons that Isaac seemed to have developed such a strong bond of friendship with Crusher, much like the bond Crusher remembered the former chief engineer and the ship’s erstwhile ops manager sharing. Thinking of La Forge and Data, Crusher wondered how he would feel if Isaac, whom he saw not only as a colleague but also as a friend, were to disappear one day, suddenly and without any warning, only to turn up ten years later out of the blue.

“What’s bothering you, Isaac?”

Isaac tilted his head with an eyebrow raised, lips pursed. It was a characteristic gesture, the result of overlapping programming imperatives, which Crusher recognized as signifying surprise commingled with a touch of admiration.

“Wesley, your ability to intuit android emotions is intriguing. Still, I cannot help but think that I am wrong to be continually surprised by it. After all, you grasp scientific concepts that elude most of the other crewmen, even those organics in the science department under