The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [120]
He frowned, but it was a classic Data frown of puzzlement. “I assumed you had been briefed on the Tamarian communication project.”
“Oh, I have been. I was invited to participate, but unfortunately I had other obligations.” The former EnterpriseD command crew had scattered to various short-term assignments, expecting to be reassembled once the new Enterprise was completed. For the second time, Picard’s reputation as a commander and importance as a statesman had spared him the stigma that befell most captains who lost their ships, ensuring he would remain at the vanguard of the fleet and have his pick of command crew. But for now, Deanna had been busy counseling former shipmates—many of them civilian scientists and their children—who were still suffering trauma from the Enterprise’s destruction at Veridian III. “But I want to hear it from your perspective.”
He nodded. “Very well. It began when Captain Picard introduced me to the noted xenoanthropologist Doctor Sofia Borges, who had come to him with an intriguing request…”
“There’s no question,” Sofia Borges said, “that what you and Captain Picard achieved with the Children of Tama was a remarkable breakthrough.”
“I cannot take credit,” Data told the doctor, who was a human female of approximately thirty-five standard years, standing 1.72 meters in height, and showing a mix of Native American and Mediterranean in her physiognomy. He felt a desire to impress her, one he believed to be associated with his moderate physical arousal at her appearance, but this was overridden by his loyalty to Picard and his commitment to accurate presentation of the facts. “Captain Picard achieved the breakthrough independently of the more limited work that Commander Troi and I were able to perform aboard ship.”
“Still,” Borges replied, “the work you did in determining the nature of the Tamarian ego structure was valuable for putting the captain’s achievement in context.”
“I am pleased that you think so,” he told her, smiling.
“Besides,” Picard said, “all I did was help set the process in motion—or rather, make it possible for the late Captain Dathon to do so.”
Data took a few microseconds to review the events of stardate 45047.2 to 45048.6. The Enterprise had traveled to El-Adrel IV to meet with the Children of Tama, an enigmatic race that had made several prior, unsuccessful attempts to open relations with the Federation. Though universal translators had been able to interpret their basic vocabulary, their grammar had remained incomprehensible, their statements appearing to be merely a hodgepodge of names and descriptions. Despairing at Picard’s lack of comprehension, the Tamarian captain, Dathon, had beamed himself and Picard to the planet’s surface while his ship had generated atmospheric interference to prevent rescue. On the planet, Picard had learned that the Tamarians communicated through metaphor and allusion based on their culture’s mythology and literature. Dathon’s plan had itself been a metaphor of sorts, reenacting the myth wherein the hunter Darmok and the warrior Jalad met on an island, battled a beast, and departed as friends. Regrettably, reality had diverged from the myth and Dathon had not survived the encounter. But his sacrifice had been recorded by the Tamarians as a new myth, and they had departed peacefully. More recently, they had sought to engage in further diplomatic discourse with the Federation.
Picard continued. “Doctor Borges and her colleagues are doing the real work of building upon that first contact and establishing a meaningful relationship with the Tamarians.”
“Which is proving difficult,” she said. “With all due respect to Captains Picard and Dathon, the understanding they brought us was only the first step. Yes, we know now that Tamarian is a series of allusions to myths and history, but that just raised a wealth of new questions. How do they teach the basic vocabulary to their children, or convey the full stories of those myths in the first place? How do they communicate technical information or give instructions