GHOST SHIP Read online

  She tipped one hand up as it leaned against her thigh and said, “No . . . Tasha’s right. Because though there’s no perception of aggressive intent,” she said, pausing then to say the one thing that truly frightened her, “doesn’t change the fact that I’m receiving glimpses of violent destruction.”

  Not giving those ominous statements any chance to take hold on the imaginations of the bridge crew, Picard lowered into his command chair beside her, hoping to put her and everyone at ease. He was aware of the effect these little disturbances were having on the crew, especially when they saw Deanna Troi’s usual poise inexplicably shattered. “Can you focus on that? Are we in danger?”

  “That’s what confuses me, sir,” she said steadily. “While I see images of destruction, there seems to be no intent behind it, even though it’s definitely the product of a mind and not natural phenomena. As I said, no violent intent.”

  “That’s reassuring, at least.”

  “But, sir, you don’t understand.” She stopped him from rising with a light touch on his forearm. “I shouldn’t be getting concrete images at all. It’s simply not among my abilities to receive visions and forms. As such,” she added reluctantly, “I’m not certain you should trust my judgment.”

  A soothing smile appeared on Picard’s princely features. “I trust your interpretation, Deanna.”

  “But she’s a telepath,” Dr. Crusher pointed out. Until now the doctor had been a silent observer, fascinated both personally and professionally by Deanna Troi’s story of unwelcome impressions and unfocused dreams, and as her voice cut through the distinct tension, it added a touch of common sense they needed right now. “She’s not a psychic. There’s an important distinction, you realize.”

  “Yes, that’s true,” Troi said, looking at her gratefully. “That’s what I mean. The difference between what I can do and what I’m somehow being forced to do.”

  Piecing it all together and still getting a choppy mosaic at best, Picard nodded. “Tell me what you’re feeling,” he said, “in one word.”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Several long and anxious minutes went by as she selected and discarded a number of possibilities. Those around her watched as each crossed her face, each perplexing her with its inadequacy.

  Then she found it. Or the one that came closest. For the first time in all those minutes of searching, Troi fixed her gaze on Jean-Luc Picard and worked her lips around a word.

  “Misery.”

  When she spoke, the misery shone in her eyes. She was caught in empathy for that instant, empathy for the beings whose impressions she was being given, or being forced to receive. It was as though she were asking, imploring, for help. After a pause she drew a breath and sighed, her lovely brows drawn tight as she realized the full impact of that word was somewhat lost on them. After all, they weren’t feeling it.

  Picard saw the change in her face. “Misery can be many things, Counselor,” he said to her.

  She nodded. “Yes,” she agreed. “Clinically I would call it a kind of dysphoria. But I’d be inaccurate to say there was no physical suffering. Yet I don’t perceive a sense of body. It’s quite confusing, sir. I’m sorry.”

  “Permission to stop saying that, Counselor,” Picard offered. He placed his hands on his knees and stood up. “Now, let’s see about these ships.” He led the whole crowd up to the extra-large monitors at the aft science station, where Worf was moving aside to let everyone curve around his post. The captain spoke up immediately. “Computer, show me various military vessels from—when did you say?”

  Troi stepped forward, somehow managing to stay close to Riker, to gather strength from his presence. “The most familiar one was late nineteen-eighties, Captain. An Aegis cruiser, according to records.”

  “Computer, engage as specified.”

  On the screen, almost instantly, a 2-D image of the Aegis appeared.

  Picard asked, “Is this the right ship?”

  “Oh, no, sir. Simply the right . . . idea. The right age.”

  “Computer, expound upon this index.”

  The Aegis was replaced by a different vessel, then another, and another, while the balmy female voice ticked off descriptions.

  “Destroyer, United States Navy . . . PT boat, United States Navy . . . computer support vessel, Royal Canadian Maritime Command . . . light amphibious transport, United States Navy . . . nuclear submarine, Navy of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . . . Invincible-class V/STOL carrier, Royal Navy of Great Britain . . . CV-type conventional-power aircraft carrier, United States—”

  “Stop!”

  Troi drew back from her own outburst, but continued to point at the screen. “This is very close.”

  “Close, but . . . ” Picard prodded.

  “But . . . I don’t know. I know very little about surface vessels.”

  “Computer, specify this vessel.”

  “U.S.S. Forrestal, CV-59, commissioned October 1955, United States Navy.”

  “Very well, continue.”

  Another ship popped on the screen, looking much the same to the untrained eyes watching it now. “CVN-type nuclear-powered full-deck aircraft carrier—”

  “Yes!” Troi jolted. “Yes, this!” She pressed a hand tightly over her mouth, profoundly moved by what she saw.

  Picard remained subdued, capping her reaction with his own implacability. “Computer, specify.”

  “U.S.S. George Washington, CVN-73, Enterprise-class aircraft carrier; commissioned January 1992, United States Navy.”

  Troi pulled her hand from her mouth. “This is extremely familiar to me.”

  A tangible discomfort blanketed the bridge. All eyes flickered, then settled on her. Of course, she felt it without looking. Self-consciously she corrected, “Rather, to the impressions I’ve been channeling.”

  “Yes,” Picard murmured, glancing at Riker over Troi’s dark head, “of course. You said something about names.”

  Troi stared at the aircraft carrier as if she feared it might disappear like all the other images. “Vasska was one. Arkady . . . and Gor . . . Gorsha—no, it’s not right, not complete.”

  “Data, you up here, please.”

  Caught by surprise, Data all but hurtled to them from the lower deck, taking the seat at the science station as though he’d been deeply stung by their not asking for his help earlier. Riker moved aside a bit farther than necessary, giving in to a twinge of prejudice, but he forced himself to let it pass. Data was the qualified one. An instrument running an instrument.

  Evidently Data was ready to guide the search through Enterprise’s vast memory core, focusing on the specific type of aircraft carrier and the names Troi had spoken; he didn’t request that she repeat them. His fingers nearly tangled in his haste to participate and be useful amid all this talk of feelings and senses and memories.

  If there was disappointment, he didn’t allow it to show on his face.

  “Sir,” he began, “I regret this may take some time. I’ll have to operate by a process of elimination. May I suggest you allow me to notify you once I pull it off.”

  If that was his polite way of asking them not to hang over his shoulder the whole time, it worked.

  “Very well.” Picard motioned the little crowd away and leaned toward Riker. “What was it he said?”

  “Sir—” Tasha raised her hand in a brief gesture, and quickly drew it down when Picard turned. “I’m Lithuanian.”

  Picard swallowed an impulse to congratulate her and merely asked, “And?”

  “And I recognize those names. They’re Russian.”

  “Ah! Very good, Lieutenant. Mr. Data, make use of that.”

  “You bet,” Data clipped, and didn’t see Picard’s double-take as he turned to his station.

  “Captain . . . ” Troi turned abruptly. “If I may, I’d like to return to my quarters. Perhaps I can clear my mind. Focus in on these impressions, or let them focus in on me.”

  Picard noticed that Data was still watching him, as
though the decisions hinged upon one another—computer search and mind hunt. “That’s sound strategy,” he told her, “since we don’t seem to be able to zero in on it any quicker with our hardware. I want you to be careful, however. And nothing is too small to report.”

  “Yes, sir,” she murmured, and as she pivoted toward the turbolift she caught Riker’s concerned gaze. “I promise.”

  The bridge was wide, the walk to the turbolift uncomfortably long as Troi deliberately kept herself from showing anxiety. Riker’s own legs tensed; he empathized with her every stride, wished he were going with her, that he could somehow help. Seemed like lately all he and Deanna could be to each other was a mutual distraction . . .

  “She’s a very competent broad,” Data offered.

  So innocuous. So deadpan . . .

  Riker stopped breathing. Picard glowered. LaForge and Worf both stiffened in place, Tasha flushed, Bev Crusher looked away.

  Troi was barely reaching the turbolift. Had she heard?

  Data sat in a pool of perpetual good intentions, his chair swiveled ever so slightly toward the rest of them, and as all eyes crawled to him with that collective reprimand his expression became confused. He glanced from each to the others. “Chick? Dish?”

  The turbolift doors brushed open. A preoccupied ship’s counselor stepped in.

  “Bird? Bun? Babe? Skirt? Fox?”

  “Data!” chorused Picard, Riker, and Yar, just as the lift doors closed.

  The android flinched, and closed his mouth in an almost pouting manner. His gold-leaf face took on a sudden innocence; he looked vulnerable. Under their scolding eyes, he retreated once again to his memory search through the starship’s deep mainframe, and Picard noticed a definite shift of Data’s shoulders when attention fell away from him.

  “Stations, everyone,” Picard said casually, setting the mood for the bridge to relax until there was a reason not to. The tension didn’t entirely dissolve, but each officer made a laudable effort not to contribute to its increase.

  From one side Picard accepted a graceful nod from his ship’s chief surgeon. He recognized the decidedly medical gesture—Crusher wasn’t going to offer an opinion—not yet. Not until all the cards were on the table. Not about Troi’s agitated condition, not about these unclinical occurrences, not about anything.

  “I’ll be in sickbay, Captain,” she said roundly, “whenever you need me.”

  Picard nodded an acknowledgment, warmed beyond logic by her words, and the past once again moved between them, the mutuality of sadness and vision that had made them acquaintances long ago yet had also stood in the way of their ever becoming close. He watched with a twinge of regret as Crusher pivoted and left the bridge.

  Burying his feelings, Picard approached Riker from so practiced an angle that Riker didn’t notice him until he spoke. “Mr. Riker.”

  “Oh—Captain . . . aye, sir? What can I do for you?”

  “Better ask what you can do for yourself. Tell me again what you saw in the corridor.”

  Riker shifted uneasily, unhappy with the idea that he’d been “seeing things.” He still held a heavy rock in his stomach, his brows still tightened over his eyes no matter how he tried to relax his face. “I wish I knew. It looked as solid to me as you do now—he did, rather. When it faded, I assumed it was overbleed from Troi’s holographs. But it wasn’t. And I wasn’t imagining it.”

  “How can you be sure of that?”

  “Because it didn’t do what I would’ve expected it to do. I think my imagination would make something act as I might expect it to, but this . . . man . . . reached out to me with the strangest expression. It’s difficult, sir. I’d like to be more concrete—”

  “Captain,” Data abruptly called from above, whirling in his chair. “I have it, sir.”

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Wesley Crusher raised his head as his mother strode into their quarters off the main sickbay. His face had the typical porcelain smoothness of sixteen-year-old skin, his hair combed a little too neatly, his clothing pin-straight on his skinny frame. He’d taken to looking more like that since the captain made him acting ensign. It seemed to Beverly Crusher that Wesley was keeping himself perfectly groomed just so he wouldn’t look out of place among the uniformed personnel on the bridge, and like any sixteen-year-old he carried it to extremes.

  “Wes,” she began, not in greeting. “I need you to do something for me.”

  He gladly turned away from his study tapes. “Sure, Mom. What?”

  “Are you scheduled to go onto the bridge today?”

  “Me? Well, not exactly. Mr. Data asked me to help him catalog some physics theories sometime this week, and I was going to use that as an excuse to go up there later—”

  “Can you do that now?”

  Wesley got to his feet, which made him suddenly as tall as his tall mother. “Really? I mean, how come?”

  “Baby-sit the bridge for me.”

  Wesley’s smooth face fractured. “Huh?”

  “I want you to keep an eye on things for me. There’s something going on, and nobody’s sure what. It’s affecting Deanna Troi, and if I can’t have her expertise to call upon, then I want to at least keep a jump on conditions.”

  Wesley grimaced. “Mom,” he began, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

  Dr. Crusher grinned sadly at him. “Call it medical intuition. Call it anything you want, but just be my spy on the bridge. I can’t go up there myself because I’ve got a lineup of pediatric checkups this afternoon, and besides, I’d be too obvious. Will you do it?”

  He shrugged, sure there was a catch somewhere. “Of course I’ll do it.”

  She patted the side of his face as she was given to do once in a while just to remind herself that this bright, lively, tall fellow was still the seven-and-a-half-pound infant who hardly ever slept a night through until he was twelve years old. “Thanks, buster. I’ll never forget this.”

  She started toward the lab entrance, but turned when Wesley asked, “Mom, just what is it I’m supposed to be watching for?”

  Beverly Crusher didn’t slacken her pace as she turned once again in midstride. “Use your imagination.”

  Riker entered Troi’s quarters hesitantly. He knew he was interrupting much sooner than she expected. And there she was—so much like before, so much.

  “Back again, Bill,” she murmured, and she smiled at him. The dim quarters lit up just a little.

  It took him by surprise, as it always did, that “Bill.” Very few people called him that, and on this ship, only Troi. Only Deanna. “I’m sorry about this,” he said, approaching her, but this time not sitting down. “Believe it or not, Data’s already found the file. I didn’t want to bug you so soon, but—”

  “Don’t apologize,” she said. “It doesn’t really suit you.”

  His brows went up. “Doesn’t it? That’s bad.”

  Troi shrugged. “Depends on the source.”

  “The source doesn’t have the luxury of not knowing how to apologize,” he said. “Maybe someday.”

  “Maybe someday Captain Riker. Don’t you think?”

  “You’re digging, Deanna,” he accused with a grin. “I’m just so many loose-leaf pages to you, and don’t think I don’t know it. I’m not ready for captaincy, but I admit—”

  “That first officer is an awkward position,” she completed fluidly.

  Riker laughed and dropped into the nearest chair. “Quit doing that, will you?” At first he lounged back in the chair and casually waved his hand, but time was pressing, and he leaned forward again almost immediately. “I hate to rush you.”

  “It’s all right. I’m anxious for the answer as much as for the peace. Solitude is not that welcome a companion.”

  Riker paused then, wondering if she could sense his empathy for her, and the inadequacy of his understanding. Ultimately, as he found himself unable to draw away from her steady unshielded gaze, he simply asked, “Why do you stay? What can it do for you to stay
among humans? We must drive you crazy.”

  Troi laughed. “Oh, Bill . . . you’re such a decisive fellow. Don’t you know why I stay?”

  “I’m on audio, Counselor. Tell me.”

  Her smile changed, became more wistful, and she looked down. When she looked up again, her coal eyes sparkled. “I like humans.”

  Riker grinned. “Do you really?”

  “Yes, quite a lot. Better than I like Betazoids. But don’t tell anyone.” She pursed her lips conspiratorially. “Yes, I like them. Even though I make them uncomfortable, I like them very much. They’re so honest, so well-meaning, they have such deep integrity as a species . . . and my human half has given me something few Betazoids possess.”

  “What’s that?”

  She squared her shoulders against the back of the chair and said, “Discipline. Self-discipline, I mean. And . . . I believe I possess an intuition Betazoids never had to develop. My mother and her people take everything at face value, and they often think it’s a joke to invade the minds of others. I’ve learned that in the universe nothing can be taken at face value, and I learned that from humans. Do you know that as an alien hybrid, I can actually read a wider range of emotions than full Betazoids? Even though the impressions aren’t clear, I can do that. I have many advantages thanks to my human side, and I’m proud of it.”

  Riker was appreciably silent, surprised by her generosity. He knew how often she must feel alone. He saw the glances that were cast at her as she came into a room or left one. For a long time he’d wondered if his affection for her was indeed affection or just a man’s protectiveness toward what he perceives as a woman’s weakness. Troi bore an excess of handicaps in her position as ship’s counselor, a position that was new to Starfleet, new to the Federation, and still undefined. No one really knew, or at least understood, what her purpose was on the ship. But they all knew she was here to watch them, to evaluate the overall psychological condition of the ship’s complement and report to the captain as necessary. A mental guardian—or watchdog, depending on perception. Someday the Federation would be able to define the post of ship’s counselor, or people would just get used to the idea, but for now Deanna Troi and the few like her would have to brook the vagueness.