Reborn to Die

Deanna:

I’d been on the planet’s surface for seven and a half hours. The Quauxe are ridiculously particular about parliamentary procedure, especially regarding inter-planet affairs. The captain had asked me to attend as a precautionary step; I’d be able to spot tension before anyone else. It had all taken place in this tiny broom shed of a room located in the only building on the planet that was supplied with oxygen. The Quauxe don’t need oxygen to survive, so we were actually lucky they didn’t just make us bring oxygen masks for ourselves. All in all, they’re a kind race, they just tend to be a bit on the strict side when in comes to their government. 

Anyway, all this had been going on for almost eight hours, and I could see even Data starting to lose interest. And, mind you, I’d worked with Data for almost 9 years, and I’d never seen him lose interest in anything. He’d started listening while looking above the speaker’s head. That was always a sign he wasn’t making any effort to appear human. Otherwise he wouldn’t take his eyes off them. 

The rest of the team’s signal’s were a bit less subtle. Picard had been shaking his foot for the past hour, and every once in a while he twisted his shoulders around, or repositioned his notes in front of him. And Will was tapping his foot to some piece of music I couldn’t make out. Of course, this was all just intuition. Mentally, their sheer boredom was much louder. And I mean that literally. It was like they were screaming “LET ME OUT!”. If I wasn’t so bored myself, it would’ve been almost funny. Sadly, that was not the case. My eyelids were beginning to feel like they were being held down with paper weights. 

Just as I began to think I could take it no longer, the meeting came to an end. The leader of the Quauxe stood, cleared his throat, and bowed deeply to us. We returned the bow solemnly and turned away, allowing them to leave unnoticed, as was the custom in the Quauxe culture. There was no speaking upon departure. Just a bow and the courtesy of no one watching the other’s back turn. It was considered impolite to even witness someone at so vulnerable an angle. So, it was not until we heard the door close behind the group of dignitaries that we signaled the Enterprise to beam us back aboard.

It was, as always, a safe travel back. At that point, it was 2:00AM Earth time, so we were all exhausted, save Data, who of course did not require rest. We went our separate ways, all much too tired or too caught up in our own thoughts to even manage much more than a simple “g’night”. Looking back, I feel like that night should have been so much more exciting. I feel like it should have been important somehow; like history should have taken place, or human principle challenged. But it wasn’t special, it wasn’t fantastic. It was a long, somewhat boring day. We were tired, and that was it. It wasn’t until three hours later, when I woke up to my brain splitting in two, that anything interesting really happened. I guess I would have been okay with the boring.