The Sky's the Limit - Marco Palmieri [129]
“But those contacts were decades apart,” Geordi said. “Doesn’t seem so urgent.”
“Only because our time sense is more linear than theirs,” Data reminded him. “Now that we have achieved initial contact and sought a dialogue, the question has become more urgent to them. If we do not successfully demonstrate our ability to coexist harmoniously with the Children of Tama, they will see no other choice but to declare war on us. Partly out of self-defense, partly because that is simply what the mythic duality demands.”
“So the stakes are even higher than we knew,” Borges said. “We can’t afford to fail.”
After the briefing, Deanna pulled Data aside. “I must say, I’m impressed at how patient you were with the Tamarians’ rather…inefficient way of conducting a dialogue.”
“Thank you, Counselor, but my emotion chip deserves the credit. When my mind is functioning in Tamarian mode, I have little sense of the passage of time.”
“Well, maybe that could help you improve your patience the rest of the time.”
Data shook his head. “I doubt it. All it does is throw my problem into relief. It is taking all my control to avoid outbursts of impatience with others.”
She frowned. “Data, I think there are still underlying issues you aren’t allowing yourself to confront.”
He closed his eyes, and she felt his attempt to rein in his irritation. “I am not surprised that you have not moved past that yet. You are a dog with a bone. A reyfel on the scent. Granny Ku’ula when her mind is made up. The Zerekian Oak before the flood.”
Deanna stared at him. “Data?”
He broke off, pondered for a moment, and gave her a small smile. “Nothing to worry about, Counselor. A touch of metaphor spill-over.” He chuckled to himself. “If you will excuse me, Daughter of the Fifth House.” He walked away, still giggling. Deanna watched his receding form with concern.
Deanna reported her observations to Geordi, but when he reset Data back to Tamarian mode the next day, his diagnostics gave no indication of instability. “At least, nothing outside expected parameters,” he told her. “Going back and forth like he’s doing…it’s bound to confuse anyone a little. But he still passed all the perceptual tests. This is Data we’re talking about, after all.”
She wasn’t reassured. “Does any of us know what that means anymore? Even Data?”
But she had no grounds for vetoing Data’s role in the day’s ritual. This involved an exchange of myths and stories to give each group insight into the other’s heritage and worldview. The Tamarians had several planets’ worth of myth and literature at their beck and call, and Deanna absorbed it with interest. (She was particularly curious about the lore of Shantil III, home of the Darmok myth. The Enterprise computer had held only fragmentary references to its mythos, courtesy of a summary in an anthropological text discovered in the ruins of Promellia. But Shantil had been one of the Tamarians’ first alien contacts, apparently providing them with much of their mythic vocabulary as well as their advanced technology.)
On his part, Data regaled the Tamarians with the lore of the Federation, acting out tales ranging from the Ramayana and Shakespeare to Tarbolde and the Gestes of Andor. Like them, he employed a detached nonverbal mode to indicate that the tales were being told for ritual or didactic purposes rather than as earnest metaphors for his own intentions. Given the violence and venality inherent in so much of ancient literature, this was a vital distinction.
But Deanna sensed something changing as Data related Othello’s murder of Desdemona—something that had been lingering beneath the surface and was now beginning to emerge. “Othello with a light. Desdemona in her bed,” she heard. She had set her translator to tune out the annotations and render only the basic words, doing her best to read the subtexts on her