The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [127]
So she gave her guarded approval for Data to return to duty, with the proviso that she would remain to monitor him. This also let her work directly on the project after all, and she relished the opportunity. After months counseling her former crewmates, it was refreshing to exercise her skills as a contact specialist again.
It fascinated her to study Sofia Borges’s work on the Tamarian language. Deanna recalled Picard describing how he had divined the meanings of Dathon’s phrases from context, tone, and body language. The Tamarians, it seemed, did the same on a much deeper level. As with Mandarin or Betelgeusian, variations of meaning and syntax were communicated through pitch. Body language and gesture conveyed other specifics much like a sign language. Borges’s insight had enabled the revision of universal translator protocols to record these tonal and gestural cues—often too subtle for most humanoids to read—and gain a fuller translation as a result. She’d also recognized how integral their written language was to their communication, particularly where mathematics, science, and engineering were concerned. Though the emphasis was different, the Tamarians saw writing as an extension of their normal communication. Their language was one of symbols and images, and that had always included physical symbols, whether ritual objects or written markings, as much as verbal or gestural ones.
One of the most intriguing things was how closely their mathematical notation was tied to their musical notation. Borges had recordings of Tamarian engineers and programmers literally singing equations and instructions to one another. Even in ordinary speech, numerical information could be conveyed through the pitch of a Tamarian’s vocal harmonics, though it could be hard for human ears to discern the nuances. (This answered the infamous question one linguist had posed to illustrate the apparent limitations of Tamarian as a practical language: “Mirab-his-sails-unfurled factor what, sir?”)
While Deanna studied for the pending negotiations, Data, Geordi, and Borges’s team finished up their work on reprogramming the emotion chip. The team seemed to be getting along more effectively, but Deanna could tell that Data was suppressing his frustration and unease rather than truly overcoming them. She did what she could to instruct him in anger management but considered it a palliative for the deeper problem. For what it was worth, though, Data had an advantage. For humanoids, muscular tension and fatigue played a key role in perpetuating a bad mood, but Data had no muscles per se to tense. That made it easier for him to cast off anger and anxiety, but it forced her to adapt her methods, since he couldn’t use physical relaxation as a means toward emotional focus.
In time, Data and Geordi decided they were ready for a test. Deanna watched uneasily as the Tamarian cognition program was uploaded into Data’s emotion chip. These were uncharted waters; there were few cases of an individual changing the very way he thought and perceived the world, except in instances of brain damage—or that of Data’s own installation of Soong’s chip. And he was still new at adjusting to that. But despite her concern for a patient and a friend, Deanna had to admit to great curiosity about the results and what they would mean to the science of psychology.
Once Data rebooted and opened his eyes, he looked around in confusion. “Data? You okay?” Geordi asked.
“Omicron Theta. Tripoli. What?” He blinked, looking around in confusion. “The crew on the bridge. When the Satarran scan occurred.”
“What does that mean?” Borges asked.
“He’s referring to a time when we had our memories erased,” Deanna told