Mr. Homn's Final Answer
by Sandra McDonald"Mr. Homn," Captain Elizabeth Shelby said, "if you could tell us exactly what happened, we might be able to rescue Ambassador Troi all the sooner."
He couldn't answer. Especially since she'd used that word 'exactly'. Homn sat before Shelby's desk, gazing out the viewport at the array of starships, shuttlecraft and maintenance pods in orbit around Starbase 74.
Shelby's executive officer leaned toward Homn. Homn allowed himself three adjectives - 'humanoid,' 'swarthy' and 'suspicious.' Shelby he'd already judged as 'intense,' 'confident' and 'unhappy.' The starbase had been earmarked as 'immense,' 'clean' and 'crowded.' He didn't use the qualifiers aloud, of course, but kept them properly confined to his thoughts. Later, after they returned to Betazed, he'd go on a mental fast to purge his system.
"We're interviewing all the other witnesses," Commander Julliper said, his eyebrows drawn together in one dark line. "You were closest to the Ambassador when she was abducted. What did you see?"
Witnesses. Abducted. Although only twenty-two minutes had passed since the events at the Holprup Reception, the Starfleet officers had apparently already formulated a hypothesis that implied hostility and criminal behavior. True, lasers rifles had been waved in the air. Threats to the safety and continued existence of seventy guests had been verbalized. Lwaxana Troi, resplendent in the feathered gown Homn had so carefully pressed that morning, had been taken away by a masked human male. Homn, however, wouldn't go as far to say his employer had been 'abducted.'
Julliper turned to Shelby. "This is useless. He's not going to talk to us."
Shelby tried again. "Anything you can remember might help the ambassador."
She apparently assumed he wanted to be of assistance, which he did, and that he could be of assistance, which Homn doubted. She probably wanted him to spurt out descriptions, opinions or hypotheses that would be of use in their investigation. But he had never spurted anything. He imagined himself opening his mouth and issuing forth a stream of Betazed butterflies, their wings shimmering and iridescent in the artificial illumination of Shelby's office.
Julliper folded his arms and glared at Homn. "Maybe he's in on it. Lwaxana Troi's part of the Betazed aristocracy, after all. Daughter of the Fifth House, Holder of the Sacred Cup - that's got to be worth something."
Homn would have been affronted by the accusation, but he understood that Julliper was communicating from a position of fear and anger. He would have corrected the Starfleet officer's misstatement - Lwaxana was holder of a scared chalice, not a sacred cup - but Julliper had the same right to misspeak as anyone else. Besides, for all Homn knew, Lwaxana's title might have changed in the five days since they'd left Betazed, and Starbase 74's executive officer was the only one who'd been informed.
A gleam entered Shelby's eyes. "It cetainly makes him appear suspicious."
The door chimed and the station counselor entered. They hadn't been formally introduced, but Homn recognized her from a dinner Shelby had hosted just two nights earlier. The woman's physical features reminded him of Deanna Troi, but as an exercise in self-discipline he refused to elaborate exactly how.
"Reporting as ordered, captain." The counselor clasped her hands behind her back and rocked on the heels of her boots.
Shelby eased back in her chair. "Lieutenant Rae, I want you to persuade Mr. Homn to tell us what he knows about Ambassador Troi's abduction. I've got a dozen ships waiting to depart, and no legal cause to search any of them. For all I know, she could be prisoner in a Ferengi cargo hold or in the galley of the Orion flagship."
Rae shook her head. Dark hair swished against the sides of her face. "I don't think Mr. Homn can help us, commander."
Shelby's complexion pinkened. "Why not?"
"Because he's in on it," Julliper insisted.
Rae turned to Horm, folded her hands in a lotus position and gave a polite bow. "Is it possible some might consider you an Yclept, Mr. Homn?"
Pleased at both her guess and the direct address, Homn offered a tiny nod.
"Yclept?" Julliper's fingers skimmed across the nearest PADD. He blew out a noisy breath. "There's nothing like that on his security clearance. Is that a species or race?"
"Neither, sir." Rae smiled broadly. She dropped her hands to the back of the nearest chair and made it rotate back and forth. "It's a monastic order on Betazed. I participated in one of their retreats during my junior year at the academy. Simply amazing. They have this temple on the edge of the Guranzi Gorge - "
Julliper waved his hand to cut her off. "He's a monk who's taken a vow of silence?"
Rae dropped into the chair and leaned forward with her elbows on her knees. "Well, Mr. Homn? Did you take a vow of silence?"
He considered the question. He didn't remember making an explicit vow, oath, covenant, pledge or plight. But memory was a tricky thing. He might have sworn himself to silence and then forgotten it. Or, in those reckless days when words spilled out of his mouth faster than water flowing over a dam, he might have said something that others had interpreted as a vow. Hard to say. No pun intended.
Rae swiveled in her chair. "You see, to us, that was a simple and direct question. To the Yclept, it can be interpreted and re-interpreted in a dozen different ways. What do I mean by 'vow'? Definitions vary. What do I mean by 'did'? For some races, the past, present and future are intertwined."
Julliper and Shelby exchanged glancess.
"Narrow down the question," Julliper said. "Don't give him any room to wriggle out of an answer."
Homn liked that word, 'wriggle.' He liked its energy, its twisting and turning. He envisioned worms wriggling through a field of dirt and reality trying to wriggle through a field of words.
Rae's expression fell. "I can't, sir. It's impossible to construct a question that resolves every possible nuance."
Julliper smiled tightly as he slapped Shelby's desk. "Here's one: Is this a desk?"
"It might be." Rae ran her hands over its smooth surface. "It might be a chair for someone with a different anatomy than ours. It might be an emergency shelter if the bulkhead were to suddenly collapse. You could ask, "Was this object designed to function as a desk?" Who can say what was in the mind of the designer? Perhaps he intended it to be a piece of artwork, and the captain's been misusing it."
Shelby said, "You got him to answer you before. You asked him if he was an Yclept, and he nodded."
"I asked him if it was possible he was an Yclept," Rae corrected. "It's an easy question to answer. After all, anything's possible."
The captain leaned forward. "Is it possible, Mr. Homn, that you know something that could aide us in finding Ambassador Troi?"
Homn nodded.
"Is it possible you don't know anything at all that could aide us?" Rae asked.
Homn nodded again.
Silence but for the pervasive hum of the station itself, the low undercurrent of machinery and equipment. Homn wondered why Starfleet insisted on muted colors in their decorating schemes. On Betazed, the somber hues of Shelby's office would be indicative of a disturbed personality.
Shelby said, "This is ridiculous."
Rae said, "He probably knows many things that might help us. Which ones would be most useful? Which ones are we most likely to not misinterpret? How to decide?"
Shelby's lips grew thin. "Given the impossibility of perfect communication in an imperfect universe, is Mr. Homn capable of saying anything at all?"
The counselor blinked. "Yes, of course. He speaks. At your party the other night, I overheard him tell the steward we had great uttaberry cocktails."
Homn flushed. It was true. He had allowed his passion for uttaberries to translate into a compliment that imposed his own values, experience and judgment on the steward's consciousness. He would have to find some way to make amends.
"If you knew he hasn't taken a vow of silence," Julliper said, his voice rising, "why did you bother to ask him?"
"To show you the wrong way to ask an Yclept a question." Rae paced back and forth in front of the viewport. "The Yclept don't refrain from speech just because of the impossibility of perfect communication. They believe observing the universe influences our experience of it."
A muscle in Shelby's jaw twitched. "Ambassador Troi has been missing for over thirty minutes. She might be dead. Now is not the time to discuss Shroedinger's Cat."
Homn stiffened.
Rae cleared her throat. "With all due respect, captain, the Yclept don't believe in theoretical cruelty to animals."
"Security to Captain Shelby," a voice said over the comm system.
"Shelby here."
"Status report, captain. Still no leads on Ambassador Troi's whereabouts."
"Understood," Shelby said, her gaze locked on Homn. "Keep me informed. Shelby out."
Julliper read something on the PADD. "We've received three demands for departure clearance from the Ferengi ship. Maybe there's a reason they're in such a damn hurry to leave orbit."
"Contact Betazed and check the Starfleet logs," Shelby ordered. "See if there's any reason the Ferengi might be interested in the ambassador. Any bad history between them."
Halfway to the door, Julliper stopped to say, "I'll contact Commander Troi. She'll want to know what's going on. "
"No. There's no need to worry her. I'm going to find her mother." Shelby waited until the doors closed before shifting her gaze to Rae. "Tell me why the cat has nothing to do with this."
"Shroedinger's paradox links the death of a cat to the decay of an atom. According to quantum physics, the cat is in flux - simultaneously alive and dead - until someone observes whether or not the atom decayed. The act of observing affects the universe. The Yclept believe the opposite. They would say - if they spoke - that the act of observing affects the observer, not the universe."
"And words are observations," Shelby said slowly.
"Yes!" Rae's face lit up. "They shape our beliefs, constrict our thoughts, interfere with our experience of the world around us and directly impact our relationships with other people. They're also inaccurate, inexact, ambiguous, weighted with value judgments and prone to misinterpretation. Thus they must be used sparingly, with extreme care."
Shelby took in a deep breath. "Fine. I'll accept that communication is imperfect. I'll think about how saying 'This is my desk' changes my perception of the universe and my relationship with you or Mr. Homn. But what I don't understand, lieutenant, is how the beliefs of the Yclept allow Mr. Homm to compliment uttaberry cocktails but don't permit him to tell us walked off with Lwaxana Troi!"
"Caren Fordray," Homn said.
Shelby gaped for a split-second. Even Rae appeared surprised. Homn gazed serenely at both of them.
"Fordray? That lousy, rotten - " Shelby slapped her comm unit. "Starbase 84 to the Bachannalia. Put me through to Captain Fordray."
Fordray appeared on the viewscreen. His blue eyes shone like little stars, his nose resembled a red apple wedged between two mounds of mashed potatoes and small fires appeared to be burning in his voluminous beard. Music, laughter and clinking glasses swirled out of the large celebration behind him. "Captain Shelby, my dear girl! How are you?"
Shelby folded her arms and lifted her chin. "What do you know about Ambassador Troi's disappearance?"
"Disappeared?" Fordray bellowed. "Lwaxana disappeared? That's ridiculous! She was just here a moment ago."
"You listen to me, Cordray. I want you in my office in five minutes with Ambassador Troi at your side, or so help me I'll see you never get clearance to dock at another Starbase again."
After the captain switched off, "Why did that work? Why did he answer?"
Rae scratched her chin. "I think because you asked who 'walked off' with the ambassador, not who 'kidnapped' her. You gave him enough leeway to answer."
Shelby glowered. "I wish I'd given him enough leeway a half hour ago, so we could have avoided this whole debate."
Ten minutes later, Fordray strode into Shelby's office with Commander Julliper on one side and a laughing Lwaxana Troi on the other. Lwaxana's gown had collected a number of mild stains, her headress had lost several feathers and the heel of her right shoe appeared broken, but Homn was relieved to see no other damage to her wardrobe. Both the captain and the ambassador appeared to be in exceptionally high spirits.
"Captain Shelby!" Lwaxana raisied a glass of blue liquid in honor of the Starfleet captain. "So good of you to track me down."
"Track you down?" Shelby rounded her desk with arms folded. "This man had you kidnapped in the middle of a reception! I've had all my Security people out searching for you - "
Lwaxana raised her hand. "'Kidnapped' is such a harsh word."
"I merely borrowed her," Fordray protested. The red jewels in his beard sparkled and hissed. "On my planet, it's a time-honored tradition to liberate an honored friend from boring social engagements and throw a party!"
"You don't have a planet," Shelby said. Homn imagined ice crystals floating out of her mouth. "You were born and raised on a pirate barge."
Fordray's delight didn't diminish in the slightest. "Mere semantics, captain. Here's your ambassador for you." He kissed Lwaxana's hand. "Having so generously graced our presence, she now returns to you and the tiresome attention of the Holprup, whose idea of a good time is watching paint dry on bulkheads. We will miss her terribly."
Lwaxana tossed her head back gaily. "Thank you again for such a lovely time."
Julliper blocked Fordray's grand exit. "Not so fast. How about a nice trip down to Security?"
Lwaxana's smile lost some of its warmth. "Captain Shelby, surely you're not going to make a fuss? I assure you, my dear friend had no malicious intent. If you like, you can tell everyone I arranged the whole thing for entertainment."
Shelby pursed her lips. Homn pictured her weighing the consequences, a silver scale balancing justice against expedience, embarassment against dipolmacy.
"That won't be necessary, ambassador," Shelby said. She looked pointedly at Fordray. "But if you ever hope to dock at a starbase again, you better go make an apology to the Holprup."
Fordray sketched a bow. "Of course. I'll even bring them some paint."
The captain left. Julliper followed. Homn stood as Lwaxana shook off her damaged headress and handed him the broken shoe.
"Next time I dance on a table, I should do it barefoot," she said. "Well, Homn, what have you been doing while I was gone? I hope you weren't bothering Captain Shelby."
Rae scooped up a feather that had drifted to the floor. "Actually, we all learned a lot about Mr. Homn's Ycleptic beliefs."
Lwaxana laughed. "Homn's not Yclept! What a ridiculous idea."
Shelby gave Rae an accusing look.
The counselor flushed. "But he acts like one - he rarely speaks, he doesn't answer direct questions, he wouldn't say anything about the circumstances of your disappearance - "
"Nonsense," Lwaxana said. "He's just shy. And he knows Caren Fordray and I go back many years together. Believe you me, if Homn thought I was in any genuine danger, he'd be the first to raise the alarm. You wouldn't be able to shut him up. He'd shout out from the rooftops until I was rescued."
The three women looked at Homn.
"Wouldn't you?" Lwaxana asked confidently.
He said nothing.
THE END