The Last Stand - Brad Ferguson [46]
“Quite,” Worf said, working on his third sandwich.
“Do any of you require sexual release before the meeting?” Hellek asked politely.
Troi swallowed the wrong way and began coughing. “No, no, I’ll be all right,” she gasped, waving away several very concerned Krann.
“Er, I believe we’ll be fine, Hellek,” Captain Picard said. “That will be all for now.”
“Is Deanna Advisor to Captain all right?” Hellek asked, concerned.
“I’m fine,” Troi said, still red-faced and watery-eyed. “Really I am.”
“Then we’ll go for now and let you talk in private,” Hellek said, a trifle doubtfully. “One of us will be back to escort you to the meeting room at the appointed time. Good-bye.”
“Good-bye, then, and thank you for everything,” Picard said. The six Krann bowed, turned, and left the reception lounge with polite haste.
“All right,” Picard said after they were alone. “We have a number of things to discuss. Mr. Worf?”
The Klingon used the tricorder. “I am reading nothing except what should be here, sir—electrical current in the walls, environmental and maintenance systems in operation, and so forth. We are not being scanned—according to the tricorder.”
“Excellent,” Picard said, nodding. “Counselor, Lieutenant, do you recall our good friend Dathon?”
“Why, certainly, Captain,” Troi replied. “Didn’t he have two good friends, Darmok and Jalad, who met at—”
“Tenagra,” Worf finished. “Yes, I remember them all quite well. They were to be emulated.”
“Yes, they were,” Picard said. “They were fine role models for Starfleet officers. Actually, I think of them quite often. I recall especially well their story of how Pinocchio’s nose grew during his time inside the whale.”
Both Troi and Worf nodded. It was helpful that both of them had been raised by at least one Earth parent, and so each had a working knowledge of some of that faraway world’s more celebrated myths and legends.
“Yes,” Troi said. “It grew quite long, didn’t it?”
Worf nodded. “It had been given many reasons to do so.” The Klingon thought hard for a moment. “Do you believe that Pinocchio had a taste for missionary stew?” he asked after a moment.
Picard thought about it. “No, I don’t think so, Mr. Worf—at least, not as an appetizer. As I understood it, Pinocchio was quite a player of the game of cat and mouse.”
“Pinocchio had friends, though,” Worf said.
“Yes, and Aladdin needed exactly that kind of friend to patrol his harem, too,” Troi said with a studied contempt. “Pinocchio called all the shots, believe me.”
“I wonder whatever happened to Geppetto,” Picard said. “I wish they’d told us that part of the story.”
“It would be useful to know,” Troi agreed. “John Wilkes Booth at the theater, perhaps—or maybe Hirohito in his bedchamber.”
“Snow White and the apple,” Picard put in. “Just a feeling.”
“I think that was the way it worked,” Worf confirmed. “That seemed to me to be the way Pinocchio went about things.”
“What happened after that?” Troi asked.
“The shrink sat down and did her job,” Picard said. “When it was over, she left, to return another day. You know something? I’m a bit hungry, after all, and we’ve got a little time left to us. How are those sandwiches, Mr. Worf?”
Not very far away, Presider Hek and Drappa were listening closely to the conversation between Picard, Troi, and Worf.
“What is this gibberish?” Hek fumed. “Pinocchio? What in hull is a Pinocchio? Aren’t these people ever going to talk about anything important?”
“No one ever speaks about anything important in the reception lounge,” Drappa said. “It’s too thoroughly monitored for that, and everyone knows it. I don’t bother my people about it anymore, except in special circumstances. Presider, either these people from the starship are mindless idiots capable of speaking of nothing but old stories, or they’ve assumed they’re being monitored and are speaking in a kind of code.”
“Fine, then. Break it.”
“Oh, we’re trying,” Drappa said. “Our best cryptographers are already working on it—but they have no chance of success,