From: Gershon
Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 22:04:46 -0500
Subject: USS CHESAPEAKE: Fore Play (text)
MD 3.1230
Counselor's Office
Lunch on a Starship has its advantages and disadvantages. The advantage
is that with the right programming, you have a choice of thousands of
dishes. The bad news is that instant service strips the joy of anticipation.
Stavay Tats-Marush's Talaxian Braised Root settled like a block of iron in
her stomach. Less than one minute after she entered the Officers' Mess,
she was eating; in less than ten minutes, she was out and carried a stomach
ache back to the Office. It would be tempting to sleep the rest of the
day, after a joyless confrontation with ENS Keyrin and an uncomfortable
exam by the Ship's Doctor.
Unfortunately, LT Murray wasn't the only person requiring a once-over by
the Ship's Counselor. There were--what?--thirty or so, and the sooner
the evaluations were over, the better. Mood music was definitely necessary.
"Computer, play, "Come Inside", by Orbit."
Immediately the room filled with a vibrant, clanging noise. Wonder what
the CSO would think of it?, thought Stavay. There should be more than
enough material to get a basic impression, as the long list of submissions
to scientific journals indicated. All of them made good reading -- well,
the first 40 percent were good reading, then Murray turned her sharp
analytical mind to the topic matter and dissected any interest Stavay had
from that point on.
It was of interest that Murray's mother was a psychologist. Stavay had
noticed Murray and her "psychometrical" studies: indeed, she had written
an article about it. It indicated an interest in the mind and how the mind
worked, to say the least. Yet for all of LT Murray's psychological
dabblings, a handful of Science Department workers had come complaining to
Stavay about Murray's overbearing, mothering manner. There were some
perplexing incidents concerning the "Mathematical Logic Division" (was that
what it was called?) that were quite intriguing--not that she'd hear a first
hand account from any of the Vulcans.
Stavay had two goals. One, to get Murray not to be so "overwhelming". Two,
to test a hypothesis....
****************************************************************************
Counselor's Office
MD 3.1300
LT Anne Murray walked into the office, looking for the green Shrevashal
woman. Hopefully, this wouldn't take long. From what LT Murray had
read, Tats-Marush had had no degree in psychology. Tats-Marush understood
the concepts of the mind from the viewpoint of a nurse, but was undoubtedly
weak on the theoretical underpinnings. Realizing that she couldn't put
off a visit to the Ship's Counselor forever, she put the time into sizing
up her Shrevashal "opponent", and read up on the customs of the Shrevashal
and the Bolians to boot. She was ready for anything.
Stavay watched Anne enter the room. Murray was tall--quite tall. Even
when Stavay was male, Anne would have been a good 8 or 10 centimeters taller.
With her haircut and her bearing, she looked like one of those cookie-cutter
Vulcans from the notorious MLD.
"Lieutenant Tats-Marush? Lieutenant Anne Murray, CSO. I'm here for my
appointment." Murray sat down, almost indicating to Stavay that she
should begin.
"Thank you. This will be a brief interview, and I won't do a lot of talking.
You'll find your clothes in the adjoining room."
"What?"
"Uh, your clothes, Mr. Murray. We're going to the holodeck."
Murray looked suspicious. The last time she had heard that line, Kevin
Mallory had taken her to a scene that she'd rather forget.
"This isn't one of those roleplaying programs, is it?"
"Of course not," Stavay replied. "A pastoral setting. If you want to continue
wearing your duty uniform, you're free to do so...but the clothes in the
other room are much more confortable."
"You know we're supposed to be in uniform at all times," countered Murray.
"True. However, this is technically a 'psychological exam using the
therapeutic programming of the holodeck'. At least, that's how I'm going
to get away with wearing non-issue clothing. You can wear whatever you
want. But we're going to be late."
Well, thought Murray, I promised Catherine I'd try my best...
"Very well. Give me five minutes," answered Murray.
***************************************************************************
Holodeck C
MD: 3.1315
The interview was not going as well as Murray thought. Not at all.
The setting was that of a golf course ("I can't remember the name. Probably
the fantasy golf course of some Terran programmer."), and Stavay began the
interview by playing golf. Or better yet, did *not* begin the interview.
Stavay had conjured up a set of clubs for herself and Murray, unasked,
along with golf cart. Stavay wore a blue sweater and white short pants.
Murray wore a tan blouse with grey slacks and socks with a tartan pattern.
And Stavay was saying...nothing. Nothing at all. The Counselor had invited
Murray along to play, and Murray accepted, hoping this would lead to some
type of conversation. Maybe the Counselor liked to chat and golf at the
same time. Murray's role was limited to asking the Counselor for golf tips,
as Murray had never played golf before.
"Arch your back...bring the head of the club behind your ear. And...you're
ready."
Murray slammed at the ball, which steered 45 degrees away from the direction
she wanted. Stavay pointed at the ground. "You might want to replace your
divot." A small divot of sod had been lifted out of the ground by the club
head.
The next twenty minutes consisted of random slogging of the ball about the
golf course. Anne was beginning to tire of the futile activity, to tire of
engaging in an activity for which she had no talent or skill.
"Frankly, Counselor," Anne stated in exasperation, "if you don't say
something, I need to be going. I have important work to do!"
Stavay steered without looking. "What makes you think this isn't important
work?"
"I don't see golf as having anything to do with a psychological evaluation."
Not to mention my fitness for duty, thought Anne to herself.
"On the contrary. I can tell a lot about a person by how they play golf."
I'll just bet, thought Anne. She's treating golf as though it were a
psychometric test. She arched a skeptical eyebrow.
"And what have you learned, Counselor?"
The Counselor smiled. "That every shot you make slices 30 degrees to the
right."
Anne sensed that the Counselor was deliberately baiting her, and she didn't
like it. She drew her breath in sharply, biting her lip to keep from yelling
at her. Stavay climbed out of the golfcart. The Counselor replied, "Well,
if you have any ideas as to how this evaluation could go better, go right
ahead."
Easy for you to say, thought Anne darkly. Now, finally away from all the
condescending and patronizing behavior of Mallory and the measured hostility
of his predecessors, this new Counselor was forcing her into a position of
true incompetence, which seemed to be occurring with disturbing frequency of
late.
This can't be happening, thought Murray. The Counselor has every intention
of playing golf...and keeping me in the holodeck all the same! She
tried to think about the polylinear recalibration of the computer's
decision making Daystron matrix. The Counselor seemed completely unconcerned
that Murray was closing her out.
Maybe Stavay would rubber stamp Murray's evaluation:
"LT Murray is a happy and capable officer, with no neuroses, and plays
a mean game of golf." Actually, she wasn't doing that at all. She was
behind, and she couldn't steer the stupid ball either. On the other
hand...if Stavay took such a casual, carefree manner for something so
important, God knows *what* the Orion might write down! She might have
Murray sized up as a loony. And the Counselor was giving no feedback at
all! I can't believe this, thought Murray. I'm actually starting to
get aggravated....
Looking to break the tension, Murray asked, "Have you ever heard of
psychometrics?"
"Uh huh. One asks a series of questions. It's sort of a psychological
Rorschach test."
"Mind if I ask you some of those questions?" asked Anne. If the Counselor
was going to insist on persisting in playing golf, she would need a similarly
familiar ground in other areas... and she was very familiar with psychometry.
Stavay lined up the putter. "Go ahead."
"If you were at--", Murray blurted before being interrupted with a CLUNK!
that indicated Stavay had putted her ball into the hole. Murray
continued. "If you were at a party, and you found a cockroach in the
salad, would you say anything to the hostess if she were a friend?"
"Far from it," answered Stavay, "I'd eat it with relish."
Murray stared at the Counselor. "I didn't think the Shrevashal ate insects."
"Well, take it from a Shrevashal. They do."
Unless there was something she had missed in the files, which seemed highly
unlikely, the Counselor's reply couldn't be correct. Anne narrowed her eyes
slightly. Flippant tone, nonchalant air. The Counselor had had some
practice with this, it seemed. Well, that suited Anne just fine. Two could
play this game.
"If 100 people your age were chosen at random, how many do you think you'd
find leading a more satisfying life than yours."
"Hmm," answered Stavay, "Almost all of them. I'm a green Orion woman.
How much lower can you get on life's totem pole? I hate my job. I hate
counseling. My life is a disaster from one end to another."
Anne's eyebrows shot up despite her attempts to remain neutral.
"You *hate* counseling?" she demanded. "Then why do you do it?"
"For the thrills mostly. It's a great way to meet cute, uh, guys."
"Do you judge others by higher or lower standards than you use to judge
yourself?"
"By lower standards. The mass of sentient life is eternally preoccupied
with money, power, fame and cheap sex. As a matter of fact, I think I
look at life with a clear view than most of the unwashed masses."
Completely illogical, extremely egocentric view, delivered with the
maddeningly flippant tone of voice. It came to Anne in a flash of insight.
The Counselor was deliberately sabotaging the test, throwing in factors that
should be absent from a real reading. Anne jumped out of the cart, furious.
It was one thing to be truly strange, like Commander th'Tellan; it was
something else entirely to deliberately skew a test result.
"Frankly, Counselor," she said coldly, "if you were merely amusing yourself,
you might have let me know that you weren't interested."
Stavay stopped the cart. "And I'm saying that if you expect people to answer
these type of questions, you have to expect that they'll answer dishonestly.
That's what throws 'sciences' like psychometry out of the window. Take
the Rorschach test. As long as you don't find of images of sex or violence
in the inkblots, they'll mark you as 'sane'. I simply gave you some
interesting answers. If they weren't as flippant, if I had put a little
bit of emotion in my answers, if I had been more creative in my phrasing--
you might have taken the answers *seriously*, Mr. Murray.
"Your first lesson, Mr. Murray. Don't take me at face value."
"Is that the big lesson I'm supposed to learn through this golf game?",
snapped Murray. "You think I don't take that into consideration when I use
these scales?" she continued, her black curls seeming to stand up taller on
her head. "This was my main interest outside of the sciences, *Counselor*.
I resent your thinking I wouldn't see through it... because I *did*. Do you
think I would have asked you those questions if I'd thought you would
deliberately attempt to undermine my work?" Furious with the Counselor, but
more furious with herself for losing control of her emotions so quickly, Anne
prepared to leave. "Arch!" she snapped.
"Override: Murray 45-22-33-4! Security overide."
Stavay answered. "Belay override, order of Ship's Counselor. Therapy
in progress, default to CPT Bell, CO USS CHESAPEAKE." Stavay smiled.
"Now if you were ENS Keyrin, you *might* be able to evade the firewall
I just put up. She's very good with computers. As for leaving...you'll
just wander the golf course until the time runs out."
Whether or not the Counselor had meant the comment to be insulting, Anne was
willing to interpret it as such. How *dare* she compare her with Ensign
Keyrin? Anne was naturally competitive, and having someone so blatantly
state an inferiority on her part acted as a severe blow to her self-esteem
and a burning fuel for her building antagonistic feelings toward the
Counselor.
"Fine." Murray began walking. Tats-Marush followed.
"If you're interested in your final evaluation--"
"--of what?", asked Murray, not even turning.
"I'm just seeing what you'll do in a situation. You seem to be something
of a control freak."
Murray turned to face the Counselor.
"Hardly." Her jaw ached with tension. "I am the last person to be such a
thing." If I were a control freak, she fumed to herself, I'd never let you
treat me this way.
"Well, I have a different interpretation. I took you out of the
Counselor's Office. I didn't *speak* like a Counselor should have.
I didn't *behave* like a Counselor is supposed to. I dawdled. I took
my time. I was flippant. I asked you to play a game you have
little experience with. The less structured the environment...the
more upset it seemed to make you."
"Counselor..." Anne responded, laughing mirthlessly, "I'm a scientist! My
*job* is to explore unknown and unstructured situations."
"When it suits you to. I've read your biography, you know. You've written
quite a few articles. Mostly in the realm of speculative or theoretical
physics. Not that I know anything about physics, mind you, but it
shows a pattern that I see and that worries me.
Anne wondered how the articles had worried the Counselor, but she couldn't
allow herself to give her the satisfaction of showing any interest.
Stavay continued. "Furthermore, Mr. Murray, I've had some complaints from
your staff members."
"About what?"
"Well...about this habit you have of...*pushing the limit* of your emotional
relationships with them. In particular, sometimes you want to be a mentor...
and they don't want to *be* mentored."
Murray and Tats-Marush were face to face near a stream running through the
rough of the course. The Counselor's last comment brought tears to Anne's
eyes, and she looked away quickly, her voice a dangerous calm. She mustn't
let her see how much that statement had hurt her. She must never let her
guard down...
"I would *never* mentor anyone who didn't want to be mentored!" she said, her
voice tight. She ran through the entire science roster in her mind,
analyzing every contact she had had with her staff. "I would never force
myself on their personal lives," she added defensively. "I care about them
very much."
"Maybe too much. *You* see it as care. *They* see it as control. *They*
see it as an attempt to ingratiate yourself into their personal lives.
And they resent it."
Ingratiate? thought Anne. Is that what they think of me? I crack the whip,
I take control of an obviously immature and inexperienced bunch of students
and crew, and they call it *ingratiating*?
Anne was convinced that, if self-esteem made a sound falling down, the
holodeck would be filled with gigantic crashes just about now.
"Okay, Counselor...I'll ask one question. Actually, I think if I can get
a non-flippant answer to this question, it will simplify things between
us. What brought about this grand experiment of yours?"
"The BELLEROPHON. Why you left."
Murray stared down the Counselor. "That is between the staff of the
BELLEROPHON and myself. I asked to be transferred. The Captain approved
it. End of discussion."
"Oh, I see. You *ran*."
"I did *not* run, Counselor. There is *nothing* improper about a request
for a transfer, and I resent you saying otherwise."
"Maybe so. But I do know that the reason you left is because the Counselor
wanted to evaluate you for bridge duty. I can read between the lines.
You resented his interference, and you left the ship. You don't see
it as running, but *I* do.
"I might have to take you off the bridge someday, Lieutenant Murray. I
might have to declare you unfit for duty, or I might have to request, say,
two weeks of vacation after a traumatic incident. As the Chief
Science Officer aboard the CHESAPEAKE, you are in charge of vitally important
staff and projects. To put it bluntly, I can't have much confidence
in you psychologically if you decide to pack up and go every time things
don't go your way. You abandoned your post aboard the BELLEROPHON.
You won't abandon this one, officer."
Anne could feel her pulse racing. She couldn't believe that the Counselor
would think so little of her... but then again, counselors had been doing
that to her all her life.
Anne's eyes flashed, and she felt her cheeks flushing with barely controlled
rage.
"You can't be as good at reading between the lines as you think you are,
Counselor," she said sharply, "if you think that I left because things didn't
'go my way.' If you for *one moment* think that I *abandoned* my post..." She
turned away quickly. "What could I expect from you, anyway?" she added
angrily, as if to herself. "You're a Counselor. You'll take his side.
You'll never understand."
Stavay focused her eyes on a treetop and then brought them down to face
Anne's. "I'm sorry you feel that way. About me...and about counselors, in
general."
Pacing alongside the brook, Stavay continued. "I had the intense displeasure
of working with Commander Jaime Garcia, formerly of the USS SUFFOLK, one
of the most foul-tempered and hostile individuals you ever laid eyes on.
Surak of Vulcan would have hated the man. Garcia loved to make people feel
small, and from what I understood, there were *no* secret hidden glimpses
of a lovable First Officer off duty--he was as hateful off duty as he was
on duty.
"I wanted to quit that ship so bad. He was destroying morale. But I didn't
quit. I stuck it out. Because it was my *duty*. Because at the Academy,
they drilled the word, "duty" into my head over and over again. Were you
absent that day, Lieutenant? Or does "duty" just mean, "what's convenient
to me"?
"During the course of your career--*our* careers--we're going to be asked
to do a lot of disagreeable things. We're going to follow orders we don't
want to follow. We'll go places we don't want to go, and do things we'd never
ask to do in a million years.
"Frankly, Mr. Murray, I don't give a damn about your psychic equilibrium.
A year ago, I might have, but no more. I don't care if your feelings are
hurt. I don't ask you to like me. I'd like to be your friend, but if
I'm not, I won't be crying myself to sleep every night.
"There is only *one* thing I care about: *are you psychologically fit
to be the officer of a Starship?* There's no way you can control everything
out here. In space, mice nibble holes in iron, and those that aren't tough
enough, *die*. And Mr. Murray, when the alarms are going off all over
the ship, when five decks are blown out, and you can feel the air being
sucked out of your lungs, I need to know if you'll be where we need you to
be or if you'll take the first escape pod out and abandon ship--like you
did with the BELLEROPHON.
"Because this isn't psychometry. I don't do this for fun. Lives depend on
what I say. And if I'm wrong--people might die." There was no doubt
that Stavay was dead serious.
"I realize that I put you in a tough spot, Mr. Murray. You might hate me
for it. But all I really want you to do is think. And you don't need
a Counselor to do that. If you want to talk to me, I'll move heaven and
earth to do what I can for you. If you don't--that's okay, too. Solve
your own problems, Mr. Murray, or let me help you--but they have to be
solved, one way or another.
"Now, I'm worn out, and I have the feeling that you are too. At least,
you didn't go off the handle. You're provisionally approved for duty.
End session. Arch." The arch reappeared. "I'm done." Stavay walked
towards the arch. "I think the program has about 20 minutes left to run.
If you want to play, go ahead. The golf clubs and cart are where we've
left them." Stavay sighed. "I think you'd like golf, Mr. Murray. I
really do."
With a sudden movement, Anne overtook the Counselor and gripped her arm
fiercely, her sudden surge of emotion superceding her aversion to physical
contact. She was nearly beside herself with rage.
"Not so fast, *Counselor* Tats-Marush," she said, her voice trembling with
fury. "I don't care what you do to me. I don't even care that you find it
necessary to discredit my competency, and I certainly don't give a silver
nickel that you insist on broadcasting your lack of interest in my
psychological well-being." Her voice was filled with all the pain she had
suffered that day... and all the other injuries she had suffered over the
years, all the abuse, all the accusations. "But I will *not* have you
accusing me of shirking my duty." Her hold on the Counselor's arm tightened
unconsciously. "That science department meant more to me than you will ever
know. If the ship were in an emergency, I wouldn't have left when I did. If
you think I'm going to watch out for myself before I watch out for anyone
else..."
Suddenly, the memory that had haunted her the previous night, the image of
her primary teacher wasting precious seconds trying to get her to cooperate,
came back to her.
"That was eighteen years ago!" Anne shrieked at the Counselor. She let go of
her arm with a savage flick of the wrist. "I'd never..."
Tears choked her voice, and Anne strode past the Counselor, through the
hatch, and into the corridor.
"You'll never understand," Anne informed the holodeck door in a furious
whisper. "People in your profession never do!"
commented the computer.
Anne didn't bother to reply.
Stavay was left in the holodeck alone. She pulled up her left sleeve to reveal
three blue marks on her upper left arm. Anne had the advantage in
leverage...and
rage. *I suppose you could say she left a deep impression,* she thought.
Sitting on the ground, Stavay reclined, the soft grass pressing against her
back,
green on green. Frankly, it was tempting to cry herself. But after the SUFFOLK
fiasco, Stavay promised that things would change. That she would speak her
heart's piece, and damn the consequences. "Eighteen years ago...."
*You know, something? You really need to tell your heart to shut up.*
Swallowing
her emotion, Stavay would cancel her appointments for the rest of the day.
To hell with it. Go to bed. Forget it. "End program."
(Credits to follow)
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