"Captain, is this relevant?" Riker asked. "The Borg are not the androids. It's their fate we're here to decide. I don't see ..."

"Yes, Number One, it is relevant," Picard said. They hadn't planned on raising this issue, but Picard thought now it was important. "If the Borg are a race by our standards, I think it has bearing on the case. They are at least as unique as the Vemlans. If they were simply a machine that got out of control ..."

"Captain," Data said. "In my opinion the current definitions of race need to be reviewed and extended; they no longer meet our needs, as we encounter more life-forms who are clearly sentient."

"I see," Picard said. "I will take this matter under consideration. If there are no more objections to the application of membership ..." He looked around expectantly. Both Riker and Crusher were silent; they had found no further problems in their prehearing discussion, but others might. When no one spoke, though, Picard returned his attention to the pet.i.tion.

"Very well. Jared, you speak as an elected representative of the Vemlan androids-"

"I object to the use of the phrase Vemlan androids, Captain," Sawliru said, again taking interest. "The androids left our home in a shambles, and we have no current connection with them-until we put them on trial," he added.

Jared, surprisingly, agreed with his opponent. "Captain, my own objection to the phrase stems from the use of the term androids," he explained. "The term means, literally, 'a manlike object.' We wish to enter the Federation as free individual beings, on our own terms and merits, not simply as machines."

Picard nodded. "Very well, the words Vemlan androids are to be struck from the record and replaced with ... what do you want to call yourselves?"

Jared, Kurta and Data conversed heatedly for a few moments, accelerating the speed of their conversation to a near squeal. They stopped abruptly, and Jared turned back to Picard.

"Captain, we would like our race to be known henceforth as Spartacans, in honor of a man from your own world's history. Spartacus was-"

"I am aware of his historical significance," he interrupted, not wanting to clutter up the record with a history lecture. "Let the record be amended to replace the words Vemlan with Spartacan and androids with people. Will that be satisfactory?" he asked.

"Yes," the three androids said in unison.

"Now that that is settled, we can continue. I have at least one question regarding the future of your proposed membership in the Federation, Jared. There is the matter of the lack of a planet. Though not absolutely central to the issue at hand, I would like to know, for the record, what the Spartacans plan on doing, should their application be accepted. What contributions to Federation society and culture can you make? Do you intend to be itinerant for your entire existence?"

"My people wish to colonize an uninhabited system, somewhere inside the Federation. The exact location we leave up to the Federation."

"What are your planetary needs? Atmosphere, radiation tolerance, that sort of thing?"

Jared considered. "Our needs are very small, Captain. Think of the resources I have at my disposal. I have four hundred eager, willing, tireless workers who will toil ceaselessly to create the homeland that they have dreamt of for so long. If you have no prosperous planet to give us, Captain, give us your most vile ball of muddy rock and in one generation-one of yours, that is-we will build a sterling example of what our race, living at its fullest potential, can do. We will build a city, and a garden around it, and our art and our culture shall be known throughout the civilized galaxy. Just give us a place to work and we will build magnificently!" he said, with a flourish of his hands.

"But will you build wisely?" Sawliru asked. Jared turned to face the Force Commander, who stood, an expression of overpowering intensity on his face. He emerged from behind the confining table and stood next to his opponent, fixing Jared with a steely glare.

"You are, by your own admission, living, thinking, feeling beings," Sawliru said, emphasizing each word precisely. "I have my doubts about some of those claims, and I have had enough personal experience to know the falseness of others. You are, I will admit, incredible creations, capable of building even more incredible creations." The commander's voice became more personal, more direct. He was not debating now, Picard knew; he was speaking his own mind.

"You can do anything," Sawliru declared, hands raised in mock salute. "Each and every one of you has the potential to build an entire civilization on your own. We built that capability into you. You can do a hundred different complex things at once, and write great poetry on the side. And you wish to go off and build this beautiful homeworld, this wonder of the galaxy," he said, envisioning the place and its professed wonder. Then he turned his eyes back to Jared. "Well, I cannot fault you for that.

"But I want to know something," he said, including Data and Kurta in his question with a gesture. "I want to know what makes you think that you're going to be all that successful? Yes, we built you, with help from our Saren friends, and we built you well, but what makes you think that you will be able to do any better than we did?" Data and Jared returned blank stares to the commander. Kurta did not look up at him, as if this thought had occurred to her, too.

"You lack the one thing that not all the programming, not all the learning, not all the data core dumps in the universe can give you-experience. Your race, as you call it, has only been around a few pitiful centuries. Your ancestors, mere computers and adding machines, are only a few centuries older. My race had to climb out of the mud," Sawliru declared, "from one tiny little cell in some puddle of muck, and fight and survive and wait several million years before we earned the right to think. There are things I know that you will never know. Things that you can never know," he said in a low, emphatic voice.

Sawliru turned suddenly to face the panel with an intent glow in his eyes. The sweat of exertion was on his brow, and he took a breath before he continued. "Captain, you may well decide to accept the androids in your precious Federation. I really don't care. But despite his pretty words and his fast talking, the conglomeration of metal and plastic standing next to me is of infinitesimal value when compared to the wealth of experience the smallest rodent has." Sawliru circled Jared, who stood stock still, and directed questions at him as if the android were a museum exhibit.

"When will he act by instinct?" he asked, his hands held out questioningly, as if they were groping for some hidden answer. "When will he have a gut feeling, or a sense of honor? Or duty? When he sees a thousand men die for no reason, will he know that it has to stop? Or will he decide that he can always make more? When will he see a moon and feel its mystical power, rather than reflect on its...o...b..tal trajectory and specific gravity?" He waited a moment, his eyes wide, as the crowd drank in his words.

"Never," he answered himself, with a tone of finality. "Not in a million years. He hasn't the experience, either personally or biologically." Sawliru took a moment, caught his breath. He gave one last look at Jared, then turned to look at Data and Kurta, who were still seated. Data's face was impa.s.sive. Kurta stared at the floor. Sawliru looked vaguely satisfied and at the same time, strangely enough, vaguely saddened. The commander focused his attention back on Picard and the panel.

"I tell you now, Captain, disregarding his crimes, which are heinous, his treachery, which is infamous, and his lack of respect for true life, which should be apparent to us all, this 'living being' can never truly be alive." He glanced back once more over his shoulder at Jared. "He can merely pretend to be.

"But he got that from us, as well," Sawliru reflected quietly, and returned slowly to his seat. He did not so much as glance at Alkirg as he sat down.

Jared had listened intently to the speech, and as Sawliru sat, he traded looks with Kurta and went to the center of the floor, in front of the panel. He then began clapping, slowly and intently, the painful sarcasm of his applause escaping no one.

"Very good, Force Commander," he said, his low voice openly scornful. "An excellent performance, if I do say so myself. Had you foregone your military career, no doubt there would be a bright spot for you on a stage someplace. Yet, despite your eloquent soliloquy, there is more to this life than experience."

He turned to the crowd, his back to the panel, and spoke to them. He didn't have the same flair for words as Sawliru, but his pa.s.sion, programmed or not, was every bit as intense. "What experience has a baby at birth? None. A baby has no intuition, gut feelings, or sense of honor, or duty."

He began to pace in front of the audience. Data seemed even more interested than before, and the others followed Jared hypnotically. Only Sawliru paid no attention, his thoughts his own. Alkirg, Picard noted, was openly glaring at the android. "Yet do you condemn a babe to death because of what it is? Your son, perhaps? Would you allow him to die, cursing him for idiocy, because he didn't have the capacity for all those grand and glorious sensations the day he was born?" he said, and turned. "Or would you cherish him for his potential?"

He turned again, as he stood in front of the Sawliru's table, and faced the panel. "My fellow-Spartacans-and I are as that babe, Captain, Doctor, First Officer. We have just emerged from the womb. It's true, we may know nothing of these 'living' things. But we cannot learn them if we are put to death," he warned. "What we lack in experience, we make up for in potential. I've read your histories, Captain Picard. Your Federation prides itself on encouraging the potential it sees in other races. Its worst enemies have gone on to become close friends and allies. Don't let our potential die here, in the void, Captain." Jared was actually pleading-something, Picard guessed, that did not come easy to him. "Give us a place to stand and fight for ourselves, and the experience will come, as it does to every race, in time." There was a long pause as his words sank in.

Suddenly, Picard felt a thousand years old. He realized that he had a long way to go to make up his mind.

"Are there any others who would speak on the matter? Anything else the pet.i.tioners wish to add?" he asked.

"Nothing," Jared said, quietly, nervously fingering his right hand with his left. He looked beaten. But then, Picard noted, so did Sawliru.

"If there are no further statements," he said, "I will consult with my fellow officers and attempt to make a decision. It is possible we will have more questions for everyone. We will reconvene in one hour," he said to the audience and the recording computer. "Number One, Doctor, I wish to see you in my quarters, please."

As the panel officers filed out of the room, Alkirg turned to Sawliru.

"Check on the fleet, get them ready. We may need to attack the Enterprise or the Conquest very shortly." She smiled. "I just haven't decided which one, yet."

"But, Mission Commander-"

"Did I ask for an opinion?" she said in an acid tone, her eyes savagely boring into her subordinate's. "I didn't think so. Watch yourself, or it will go badly for you when we return to Vemla. Now be on your way, and let me think," she said over her shoulder as she exited out into the corridor: Sawliru choked back a bitter, caustic reply, and tried to calm himself. Either course of action at this point had no foreseeable conclusion save the death and destruction of his fleet. There was no wisdom in what she said, only folly. How would the historians rate him in this crisis, he wondered idly-if there were any survivors to take word back to Vemla at all, that was. He shook his head, deciding that it didn't matter. He had enough to worry about; the flow of events would have to go on heedless of what he thought about posterity. He had better check on the fleet as soon as possible, though it was the first step into destruction. He didn't need "insubordination in the face of the enemy" added to the list of charges at his posthumous court-martial.

He was about to contact his ship when he realized someone had come up silently behind him. Sawliru spun-and found himself staring at the Enterprise's android officer, Commander Data.

"What do you want?" he challenged.

"I thought I might take the opportunity of the recess to offer you a drink, Commander," Data said.

The invitation caught Sawliru completely off guard. He was about to spit out a bitter, derisive reply, but stopped. He was angrier with Alkirg than with the androids right now, and he knew that one way to get back at her for her abuse was to spurn her company for that of an android. Especially an alien android.

"Why, thank you, I would be delighted," he said, tight-lipped but respectfully. "I could use a drink about now."

"Excellent," Data said as the door hissed open. "I know the perfect place."

The three Starfleet officers rea.s.sembled in Picard's private quarters, around the mahogany tea table the captain used for social occasions. A silver teapot, specially ordered from the galley, sat in the center, and the three sipped as they talked.

"What troubles me most about the androids is their att.i.tude, Number One," Picard said, as he poured more tea. "I must admit that their flawlessness makes me uncomfortable, and their pride, their ... hubris, could very well get them into trouble, some day."

"Hasn't it already?" Riker asked, wryly. Picard nodded, conceding the point.

"What about Data?" asked Beverly. "Does his flawlessness make you uncomfortable, too?"

Picard seriously considered the question. No, Data was a valuable officer, and his misunderstanding of human values and customs even made him the endearing source of comic relief when he wasn't being annoying. "No. Perhaps it's the fact that they look and act nearly identical to human beings. I could pa.s.s one in the corridor and never know the difference. Data's physical structure makes him-less human, less threatening," he said, thoughtfully. "Dr. Soong planned it that way, apparently. It would have been easy enough to make him more human-like, in skin tone and eye color, if nothing else."

"I think the point was that Dr. Soong didn't intend for Data to replace man, but to complement him," Riker said, quietly. "In all of his notes on the subject, he makes it clear that he was not looking to create the ultimate machine, but an amalgam of the best organic and mechanical quality."

"Whereas the Vemlans had no such policy in their creation. Perhaps if they had, they would have also had a little foresight. But their whole intention was to replace man, at least in the drab and vital functions of a society."

"I still haven't been convinced that allowing the andr-Spartacans-to enter the Federation is a wise idea," Riker said, frankly. "They are a very dangerous race, potentially."

"If they are a race at all," Picard countered. "I was deadly serious about the question of the Borg, Number One."

"The Borg had biological components, at least; that makes it easier to place them in the race category," Riker pointed out.

"Ah, but we've admitted that they are alive, Will," Beverly said, as the food materialized in the slot. "Data's sentience is a matter of record. But it takes more than life to make a race."

"Does it?" Riker asked. "I still don't see how the Borg are relevant."

"The biological components of the Borg-some of them our former comrades-are mere arms and legs and synapses for the Borg gestalt. They possess little or no individuality," Picard said as Beverly placed the tray on the table. "The Vemlans, at least, have that in their favor. They are individuals-Jared has more character than some humans I know. The driving program of the Borg is computer-generated, however. The biological components are locked into a machine-made program. What little will they have is dominated by the central gestalt. That I know for certain," he said, with a certain amount of pain in his eyes.

"But is the program itself alive, and can the entire Borg complex be considered a race, or merely a machine that got out of control?" Beverly asked. "As Data pointed out, we really don't have enough information to decide. The Borg attacked a little too quickly and savagely for us to trade histories."

"And by the same token, are the androids motivated out of a sense of racial unity or are they merely using those terms to mask a programmed response? How can we know?" Riker asked.

"By observation, perhaps," Picard said, sipping his tea. "Up to now, we have treated the Borg as a race because that is how they manifested themselves to us-as invaders. Not as some mindless doomsday machine. That is how we treat every race that communicates with us-even the Spartacans, until we learned of their origin. Yet can we honestly exclude them?"

"Can we honestly include them, Captain?" Riker said. "I am all for fairness in this matter, but we didn't try to invite the Borg to join the Federation when they attacked-or a hundred other races we have encountered. They are just too different from us for the benefits of the Federation to mean anything."

"I think," Beverly commented as she poured more tea, "that Data was correct in one thing. In the cases of both the Borg and the Vemlans, we must reexamine our definitions and preconceptions of what we consider a race. There is just too much that is strange to us, and therefore doesn't fit into any convenient category. Whether we include them or exclude them, we must decide on what basis we do these things."

"But can a race come off an a.s.sembly line?" Riker argued.

"Why not?" Beverly countered. "It's at least a form of production I understand."

"I think," Picard said, slowly, "that we have been too conservative in definitions-depending too much on tradition. 'There are more things in heaven and earth' than are dreamt of in any of our philosophies. We cannot depend on our own narrow histories and viewpoints to judge the rest of the universe. As for the Borg and the Vemlans, I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I cannot, in good conscience, do otherwise."

"That still doesn't answer the question of whether or not they should be granted admission," Riker said. "They are dangerous-immature, as Sawliru pointed out. And dangerous. By their own admission, they could take any worthless asteroid or planet and turn it into a paradise. And they are also adept at war, the worst kinds of war. They could also build weapons, expand, become deadly enemies. If we thought the Klingons or Romulans were bad, how could we beat a race that came from factories, fully grown, ready to fight? On the other hand ... perhaps it would be better to have them on our side. After all-"

"That's an att.i.tude I'd expect Worf to voice, Number One, not you. They do make formidable opponents, from what Commander Sawliru has said-and by their own admission. Yet even in our midst, with high technology at their disposal, they could become dangerous in other ways. The safest way to deal with them would be the answer the Vemlans have pursued-destruction."

"You would have them destroyed?" asked Riker, his face blank. He had not sanctioned that in his own mind.

"Beverly has convinced me that they are, indeed, living, sentient creatures. To destroy them would be genocide, and I will not make a decision at that level if I can humanly avoid it," he said, his face heavy with worry. "No, I said it was the safest thing; it will not be our course of action."

"We've dealt with dangerous aliens before," Beverly said. "Some of them, as Jared pointed out, are living in peace with us now. I don't think these androids are a threat in that way. I think they pose a more insidious problem."

"What?" asked Picard, pouring tea.

"What happens if they want to join Starfleet?" she asked, eyes wide at the prospect. "What happens when you have to compete with one of these wonder machines, these supermen, for a chance to command, Jean-Luc? There's no way you could win."

"I think you underestimate my abilities, Doctor," Picard said with a trace of pique.

"I think you underestimate theirs, Captain," she insisted. "As much as I detest the military mind, Sawliru had some very good points out there. The only advantage we have over them is experience, and it won't be long before they have that, too. Would the Neanderthals," she thought, fancifully, "have let the Cro-Magnons hang around if they knew what was in store for them? I wonder ..."

"Our race and culture will be tried by many things, Dr. Crusher. We shouldn't try to eliminate the compet.i.tion unfairly. If we fail, then we shall fail fairly."

"What concerns me the most is their criminal past," Riker said. "Here is this ship full of terrorists who want to join the Federation. How do we explain that to Starfleet Command?"

"Terrorism is a relative thing, Will," Picard said smoothly. "They were fighting for their freedom and were, in their own eyes, justified. I am not equipped to judge them in that. We've had criminals in our past. Half of the Jenisha in the Federation are descended from families who made their fortunes preying on Federation ships at the height of their pirate era. The Federation exists to bring disparate groups together peacefully, not to serve as a high moral ground."

"And the matter of species survival is also important," Beverly said. "The Spartacans are the last of their race. Even though they have committed crimes-and even atrocities-as individuals, what right do we have to condemn their race to extinction? Would you want our own race to be judged like that?"

"I don't think that humanity would ever come to that, Doctor," Riker said, a trifle forcefully.

"Oh, really?" Crusher said, accusingly. "Remember your history, Will. During the Eugenics Wars, on Earth, humanity very well could have been wiped out. In fact it was a miracle that it wasn't. Every man, woman, and child in the race would have been gone. Except for a few ships that got away."

"The prison ships, you mean," Picard said. "They contained-"

"They contained hundreds of desperate, violent criminals, pathological murderers, and genetically altered, psychotic terrorists, considered war criminals by the rest of the world," Riker finished.

"Yes, and they were mostly justified in their imprisonment. Those ships were filled with the dregs of humanity, people whose crimes earned them a deathless imprisonment, until they were lost. Tell me, Jean-Luc, if these violent, psychotic terrorists were the only survivors of Earth, would you put them on trial, condemn and execute them for their war crimes? Thus exterminating the human race?"

Picard frowned and closed his eyes. "I am an explorer, not a judge, Beverly."

"Not today, Jean-Luc." She leaned back in her chair and looked straight at him. "Today, you have a decision to make."

Picard sighed. He did, indeed.

Chapter Eleven.

SAWLIRU NODDED IN appreciation as a filled gla.s.s materialized in the tiny chamber in front of Data. The technology of the Federation was nearly magical to him. With such machines, it was no wonder that these people had achieved so much.

Abruptly, he caught himself. Here I stand, in the presence of one of those machines, and gawk and stare like some uncivilized barbarian. He strengthened his resolve to behave with more care and dignity. Data, who didn't seem to notice, handed him the drink and turned to program his own beverage.

The drink was pleasantly chilled and had a sweet odor and a tangy, refreshing taste. He would be hard-pressed to find one as expertly mixed in his own officer's lounge on his own ship. Not, at least, since it no longer employed an android. Somehow the realization angered him.

"The Enterprise has many highly interesting technologies incorporated into her design," the pale android was saying. "I thought that it might be of interest to demonstrate one for you."

"This food dispenser?" Sawliru asked. "Yes, it is quite an achievement. A combination of that transporter beam and a computer, is it not? Had we the transporter technology, doubtless we could find such a device useful."

"The food slots are, indeed, of special interest to visitors," the machine said, sipping its drink in gross parody of a real man. "Yet I was speaking of something else entirely."

He turned toward a blank wall panel and placed an inhuman, ghostly white hand upon it. "Computer: Activate holodeck three."

"Program?" the female voice of the computer inquired.

"Theta four six, authorization code-Commander Data."