Possession - J.M. Dillard [8]
See you later, Commander …
She had been leaning over a console, but she had glanced up and turned her head so swiftly that her short, straight hair had swung about in an arc. Then she’d smiled brightly and given him an impish little wave. Swift and bright: those were the words for Janice. There was a brilliance to her, a radiance that couldn’t be captured by any holo. The likeness of her in her Starfleet file showed a plain-looking Asian woman with a broad face, dark eyes and hair; nothing special, nothing exceptional. Ordinary. Until you met her, shook her hand, and were dazzled by the light in her eyes and smile.
As swift and bright and focused as a phaser beam, yet so constantly cheerful, so apparently at ease that the stresses that came with being at the top of her Academy class—and later, the brilliant new ensign aboard the Enterprise—never touched her.
Or so Geordi had thought. But something had to have touched her, to have rattled her, to have eaten at her, for Janice to have made such a stupid mistake.
If he had only been on duty …
He clutched the cold metal calibrator in his hand and stared down at the bright-colored conduits in front of him, imagining how Janice must have looked when Singh found her, with all the light gone out of her.
“Geordi?”
“Oh. Sorry, Data.” He returned to the present with a sigh. “You’d just asked about memorial services, didn’t you?” His concentration wasn’t at its best at the moment, and if he didn’t answer Data’s question, he’d lose even more time.
He did the sensible thing, and handed the android the calibration device, so that Geordi could concentrate on something less critical while answering the question.
“I thought you had this whole mourning thing figured out, Data,” he said, watching the android perform the calculations at a staggering speed. “Wait, wait a minute—don’t forget to figure in the power curves… . Yeah, that’s it.”
Data nodded his long, pale face and continued the recalibration work. “As I said, I have analyzed this topic before—when Tasha Yar died, and also when I was planning your memorial service. However, I received mixed messages about the need and usefulness of such a service. I understand that it is intended to comfort the survivors, and yet that does not seem to be the case at all.”
Geordi smiled faintly, flattered by the fact that Data liked to discuss things with him, and often let him know that he didn’t feel a topic fully explored unless he’d gotten Geordi’s opinion. It was one of the things that assured him he and Data were truly friends.
“Memorial services do help,” Geordi said, thinking of the service for Ensign Ito they had just attended—and how strange it had seemed that Ito herself hadn’t been there with them. “They let the people who are grieving bring everything to an end. In a funny kind of way—they do make you feel better.”
Without a pause in his calculations, Data said, “No one at the service today looked like they felt better. Everyone seemed quite sad. That was true of Tasha’s service, as well.”
“Well, we were. Losing a crew member in a preventable accident is hard to accept. But having the service reminds us of the value Ensign Ito had, of what a fine person she was. And it reminds us of our own mortality.” He fell silent, realizing that perhaps Data had difficulty comprehending the subject because, technically, he had no mortality. It was one thing for which Geordi was grateful; here was one friend, at least, he didn’t have to worry about losing.
Data continued his work, but the tilt of his head and faintly distant look in his eye showed he was analyzing Geordi’s statement. At the same time, the android finished the recalibration figures and handed the palm computer to the engineer to check. Geordi scanned the results and smiled, pleased. It would have taken him more than twice as long to come up with the same results—and he would have had to concentrate.
“So you are saying,” Data continued, “that memorial services are not designed to bring immediate relief of sadness. That they mark the beginning of a grieving process