Eye of Newt and Toe of Frog

     “Excuse me, Commander Marek.  Permission to speak freely?”
     One doesn’t usually hear such a request off duty, and I was sitting with a group of USS Crazy Horse officers in Roddenberry's, our 10-Forward lounge.  We’d actually been having quite a jolly time talking, of all things, about past holodeck malfunctions we’d each experienced.  I hasten to add that on the Crazy Horse we have never had even one holodeck malfunction.  Our artificial intelligence Second Officer, Commander Moira, resides in the ship’s main computers and intercepts all computer malfunctions before they can become a problem.  It turns out, though, that we’d all run into holodeck problems at some time on other ships.
     I’d just finished telling the hilarious story about a problem that cropped up on the Renegade during the Cardassian war – the first Cardassian war, that is.  The interruption came from the next table where I had vaguely noticed an officer was sitting by himself.  It was Lieutenant Robert Roy, of the Computer Services Department.  I’d always considered Roy to be somewhat of a curmudgeon, although for complicated reasons he was in an assignment that didn’t come close to using his full capabilities.
     “Permission granted, Lieutenant,” I responded, as the First Officer of a starship should.
     “With all due respect, Sir...” (I’ve always wondered how much respect he really held for me.)  “...the lot of you has become way too dependent on Commander Moira.  She handles any computer problem you could possibly come up against.  If something happened and she couldn’t help, you’d all be in big, big trouble.”
     The companions at my table erupted, although I must admit that there were a few comments in the Lieutenant’s favor.  Having a self-aware computer is a luxury.
     My wife Charlotte, an accomplished computer programmer herself, harrumphed.  Lieutenant Commander Marina Lemar said, “Well, now, you have to admit....” while her best friend, Lieutenant Commander Samantha Neal said, “there hasn’t been a holodeck malfunction our crew couldn’t handle.”  Moira herself smirked and said, “It would be an interesting experiment, wouldn’t it?”
     “How about it, Sir?” asked Roy, picking up on Moira’s comment.  “Are you game for a real test of your abilities?”
     “What do you have in mind, Lieutenant,” I asked.
     “A simple test.  Take the people at your table into the holodeck as your test team.  I will generate a holodeck malfunction that you have to deal with.”  He thought for a moment.  “The safety protocols will remain on-line, but you’ll have a thorny problem to cope with – a single problem that I will create.   You have six hours from the time you notice the malfunction to solve the problem.” 
     “But Moira’s at our table,” pointed out Samantha.  “She’d be on our team and she could solve your problem in microseconds.”
     “If there’s a test, I’m going,” chimed in Moira.  “I’ll program my simulacrum to be unable to access the holodeck controls.  My other self will remain outside and monitor Doctor Roy’s adjustments for fairness.”
     “Condition accepted,” said Roy immediately.
     “Wait a minute,” I said, holding up a hand.  “Who says we’re going to do this?”
     Roy shrugged and spread his hands to encompass Roddenberry’s.  “This isn’t an official setting, of course, but I am officially advising you that the crew is under-trained in the field of computer troubleshooting under emergency conditions.  The five of you represent a fair test group.  If three senior officers and...” he scowled at Samantha and Marina “...your associates can’t resolve the problem, imagine the problems the crew at large would have.”
     “Actually, Mike,” said Charlotte.  “It sounds kind of fun – as long as the safety protocols aren’t disengaged.”
     “Ok, ok,” I surrendered, looking one by one at the others at our table.  “Charlotte and I were planning to spend a couple of leave days in the holodeck this coming week anyway.  Would you ladies care to join us?”
     All answered immediately in the affirmative.
     “Lieutenant Roy, would two days preparation be enough for you?”
     “Certainly. Oh, uh...one more thing?”
     “Yes?” I asked, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
     “If it turns out that I’m right, will you agree to recommend me for transfer to another assignment – one that suits my professional qualifications?”  The Lieutenant had been grumbling for years that his “computer services” duties were technician-level chores, whereas he was qualified for a senior-level computer science position.  He was actually right.  Moreover, the complicated reasons for his lower level assignment were passe in the wake of the Dominion War.
     “Agreed,” I nodded.  “Let’s meet at holodeck 42 at 1700 hours day after tomorrow.  We’ll send some clothing suggestions to your replicator consoles.  Moira, would you please backup holodeck program M-Marek One, in case he destroys it?”
     “I’ll make sure it’s a fair test,” Moira smiled, sweetly.

     The Crazy Horse was orbiting Eseltra IV and a large percentage of the crew was taking shore leave.  I’d been on the planet before and found myself highly allergic to some of the local pollen – an allergy the medical staff had been unsuccessful in treating.  That’s why Charlotte and I had elected to spend our leave in the holodeck.
     The program is one I first wrote at the Academy, but have upgraded and expanded several times since then.   It is a re-creation of the village where my family home sits, but in an earlier era – in the early 21^st century.  At that time a much smaller building, more of a cabin really, was on the property.  The community was, by all reports, the same friendly environment it still is.  It is a place for simple pleasures – hiking, swimming in a lake, what they used to call “yard work,” and evenings by the fireplace.  Charlotte gave the program a woman’s touch after we got married, including replicators disguised as more primitive kitchen appliances.  When she first visited the program she vowed, “I’m not washing dishes.”
     As always, we entered the program at a bridge crossing the stream that flows not far from the cabin.  It was maybe a half-hour before what was sure to become a spectacular sunset.  The shadows were growing long.  The season was autumn.  Several neighbor children played nearby, shouting their boisterous greetings.  A chubby beagle named Barney waddled up to be petted, then escorted us the rest of the way to the path leading to our door.  I wrote the program to initialize at the bridge because the short walk home serves to orient me and brush off the minutia of my job on the Crazy Horse. 
     Moira had visited the program a couple of times before.  “You’ve added on to the building,” she observed, as we climbed the steps to the big front deck.
     “Optional guest rooms,” replied Charlotte as we stepped through the doorway. “They go away when we don’t need them.”
     “Welcome,” I said to our visitors.  “This is the main room.  The bath is over there.  Moira, you’ll be in this room.  Sam and Marina, I trust you can bunk together?”  I pointed to a room at the back of the building.  The two new Lieutenant Commanders had been roommates for much of the past decade, since their Academy years, so I knew that sharing quarters wouldn’t be a problem.
     Marina was looking around suspiciously.  “I don’t SEE anything wrong,” she said, slowly. 
     “Silly, ‘Rina,” responded Sam, jokingly.  “He wouldn’t make the problem happen as soon as we get here.  He’ll have it sneak up on us.”
     “We should just relax and have a good time,” suggested Moira, settling gracefully into a comfortable chair.  “Whatever the problem is will crop up soon enough.”
     So we relaxed.  I built a fire in the fireplace.  Charlotte broke out various beverages, as suited the tastes of our guests.  Our two holographic cats, Trixie and The Redhead (the latter so named for obvious reasons) appeared and, after a brief probationary period, approved of Sam and Marina.  Both cats adore Moira, of course.  The felines managed to sit on all five of our laps at once. 
     We stayed up late, talking and laughing.  It was far past midnight when we retired to our respective rooms for the night. I believe that our guests felt welcome.
     I rose early the next morning – 0730 is early, given the time we went to bed.  I enjoy the cool, crisp morning air of the mountains and make it a habit to drink a cup of morning coffee each day on the big wooden deck at the front of the building. 
     I was surprised, upon entering the living room, to see that there were still flames in the fireplace.  Usually the fire goes out during the night and has to be made fresh again each morning.  I tossed a couple of additional logs onto the fire and proceeded to the kitchen to get my mug of Orion Blend.  It was surprisingly warm outside when I stepped onto the deck, so I took off the jacket I had just put on and lay it on the rail of the deck.
     It was only slightly past dawn – the sun rises late at the time of year I had selected for our visit. Some stars were even still visible in the sky as I looked up between the ponderosa pine trees surrounding the cabin.  Across the street and a couple of doors down, one of the neighbors was out, puttering around a shed.  He gave me a wave, which I returned.  In a nearby tree a squirrel complained at me for existing.  A few fragile pasque flowers were blooming in the front yard.  It was a perfect morning, the kind I look forward to. 
     Presently I heard a noise behind me.  It was Samantha.  She was wearing shorts but a long-sleeved flannel shirt.  Her reddish brown hair, which she usually wore up when on duty, fell around her shoulders.  She wore a type of shoe once known as “sneakers.”
     “You’re up early,” I said.
     “Well, I don’t usually need much sleep, Sir,” she said.  “Plus I can’t wait to find out what our holodeck problem is going to be.”
     “Look,” I said, allowing a measured amount of sternness to be heard in my voice.  “We are now one grade of rank difference, plus we are not on duty.  Lay off the ‘Sir’ stuff.”
     She smiled.  “I’ve been calling you that for a long time.  It’s going to take some getting used to.”
     “Time to get with the program, Lieutenant Commander,” I said, smiling now.  “My best friends call me ‘Michael.’  I’ll expect that from you –- and Marina, too I might add -- whenever we aren’t on duty or in front of the ensigns and lieutenants.  Pass the word, if you please.”
     “Got it -- Michael,” she answered.  “So, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary, so far?”
     “Nothing jumps out and grabs me,” I replied, looking around.  “But there’s something I just can’t put my finger on...”
     “This is going to sound weird,” said Sam after pausing for several seconds, “but I noticed something strange.”
     She stopped talking and I had to prompt her. “Well?”
     “It’s complicated,” she said.  “But sleeping on a pillow always gives me ‘bed head.’  In the morning, I always have to use the hair gadget in the bathroom to make my hair look good.”  My face must have displayed a lack of understanding, because she went on, pointing at her head.  “When I sleep, the pillow sort of flattens down my hair and makes it look terrible.  If I’m wearing my hair down, like I do when I’m off duty, the pillow flattens down the side I sleep on and I have to fuss with the hair gadget to make it look good again.”
     I looked at her tresses.  Her hair was dark with red highlights.  “Samantha, your hair looks fine,” I observed.
     “That’s just it, Sss...Michael,” she continued.  “You don’t have a hair gadget in your bathroom.  The pillow in your guestroom should have made my hair a mess, but I woke up with it looking perfect.  That shouldn’t have happened.”
     “And you think that’s a holodeck malfunction?” I asked, bemusedly.
     “It shouldn’t have happened,” she repeated, shrugging.  “I don’t know why.  It’s like the holograms that made up the pillow weren’t working right.”
     After a pause I shrugged and responded.  “I guess we’ll have to keep our eyes open and see if there are other things that don’t seem to be working right.”
     Charlotte was the next one to awake.  “It didn’t get cold last night,” she observed.  “It’s always cold overnight and I have to have to pull extra blankets over me, but last night just the one was enough.”  I told her that I hadn’t noticed an unusual temperature during the night and she made a remark that I won’t repeat. 
     Marina complained that when she first went to bed, her mattress had kept changing from too soft to too firm.  Moira added her observation that the moon had risen twice during the night.  The first time it had been a full moon and later a crescent moon appeared, giving her a much better view of the heavens.  She had noticed immediately, of course, but since nothing seemed dangerous about it she had waited until morning to tell us.  (I don’t actually know if Moira sleeps.  Her software does not need sleep, of course.  Her simulacrum body may.  What she does may be more like meditation than actual sleep.)
     These reports made me realize that I had also noticed several odd things myself.  In spite of my statement to Charlotte, it was unusually warm outside that morning.  I had never before awoken in the morning to find the fire still burning in the fireplace.  It was also very late in the year for pasque flowers to be blooming. 
     “So what is the common thread among these…incidents?” I asked, not knowing exactly what to call our observations.  We had gathered on the deck for breakfast and took the opportunity to talk over what we’d noticed.
     “Wishful thinking?” Charlotte answered tentatively.  “Pretty much everything we’ve noticed may have reflected something our inner selves wanted to happen.”
     “Could the software be reading our minds?” I asked.  The question was directed to Moira, of course, our resident computer expert.
     “It is technologically possible,” she said, “The Universal Translator essentially reads minds, in a crude sense, to determine meaning in the translation process.  If the holodeck program were really reading minds, though, we wouldn’t have had to program the replicators for breakfast.  Our selections would have just appeared.”
     “Sir,” injected Marina.  “That bird over there is flying backwards.”
     Sure enough, a woodpecker was flitting along, perfectly in reverse.  It stopped at a tree, hammered the bark with its beak, listened a bit, then flew off, tail first. 
     “I saw a pinecone fall upward a minute ago, too,” added Marina.  “It started on the ground and zoomed up into the tree and attached itself.  They’re not supposed to do that, are they?”
     “I think that we now know what Dr. Roy changed in the holodeck program,” announced Moira, with a smile. 
     “Entropy?” ventured Charlotte.
     “Close,” answered Moira.  “Causality.”
     There was a pregnant pause.
     “As I recall, causality is the concept that things do not happen at random – there is a definite cause and effect for everything,” I mused.
     “It’s what makes the universe predictable,” added Charlotte.  “Pine cones have to fall from the tree to the ground because gravity causes them to move toward the mass of the Earth, not away.”
     “Exactly,” said Moira.  “Every anomaly that we have noticed violates some established principal of physics or science in general.  Some are subtle, like the complex chain of interactions that causes a mountain valley to cool off at night.  Some are fairly simple principals, such as the aerodynamic impossibility of a bird flying backwards.”
     “How easy would it be for Dr. Roy to disable the laws of causality on the holodeck?” I asked.
     “Probably not hard at all, given his experience,” speculated Charlotte.  “The holodeck computer systems have libraries of standard data used to govern the laws of physics and such things.  When you write a program, you don’t have to construct the laws of physics from scratch.  You just have the program call the appropriate subroutines.  Especially for somebody with advanced programming skill, it wouldn’t be hard to cause a selective corruption in those standard libraries.”
     “Certainly,” agreed Moira.  “We can assume, for the sake of argument, that my other self has ensured that any change made in those files is reversible.”
     “It is also affecting us intermittently,” observed Charlotte.  “If causality were not working at all, we probably couldn’t even be sitting here.  We’d slide through the wood of the deck, or not be able to breath or something.”
     “So what do we do now?” asked Samantha.
     “The obvious answer would be to end the program,” I said.  The others shrugged or nodded their agreement.  “Computer, end program,” I said, speaking into the air.  
     Nothing happened.
     Moira tried next, in effect talking to a different incarnation of herself.  “Sister, dear.  End program.” 
Again nothing happened.  Each of us tried, both to end the program and to call up the “arch” access controls, but the computer was obviously not hearing us.  We tried again with our combadges, but they also got no response.
     “There’s a control panel embedded in the fireplace mantle,” I said, and we all trouped inside.  I touched the hidden control that deactivated several square inches of hologram to reveal the panel.  Actually, the panel was also a hologram, but designed into the program to provide a hardware interface to the computer, if needed.  I entered the commands to shut down the program and tapped the execute contact.
     The program dissolved around us, leaving the bare wall of the holodeck.
     “That was too easy…” Samantha started to say, but before she could say more, a new program activated.

     We were standing on what appeared to be the drawbridge of a remarkable castle.  At least those are the best words I can use to describe it.  The structure was huge and ornate with more towers and spires than I could count.  Unlike the typical old castles of Europe, however, this was made of what appeared to be greenish-tinged marble that almost glowed from within.  The drawbridge itself was a crystalline substance as clear as glass, aside from the ornate and highly polished silver fittings for the sparkling golden ropes. 
     We were standing in some sort of queue, in a long line of beings apparently waiting to enter the castle.  There were some humans in the line.  The others were as odd a collection as one might ever see at the Federation Council, except that none of them were from any planet I knew.
      “Next,” called a high-pitched voice from the entryway.  The speaker was slight – several inches shorter than me and very slender.  He had a triangular face with ears reminiscent of a Vulcan, but with long shining white hair.  It was immediately clear to me, however, that this was not an elderly person.  Rather he seemed to be quite youthful.  Maybe “ageless” is a better description of how he looked.
     “Next,” he repeated in his high but well modulated voice.  “The Queen waits for no man – especially a human male,” he added at the sight of me, apparently thinking himself droll.  “Oh, Lady Marina,” he added with surprise.  “Welcome back.”
     “Thank you, Teffin,” Marina said and turned to extend a hand toward the rest of us.  “These are my guests.”
     “If you vouch for them, I’m sure the Queen will be pleased to make their acquaintance,” the little man said, expansively, and stood aside to usher us into a long, elegant hallway.  Behind us I could hear him call out “next” again. 
     “Lieutenant Commander,” I said to Marina when we were out of hearing range, “an explanation, if you please.”
     “This is MY holodeck program, Michael.  I wrote it several years ago,” she replied.
     “Was that en elf?” asked Charlotte.
     “Yes, Teffin.  He’s really nice, when he’s not on duty.”
     “Care to fill us in about what’s going on?” I asked.
     “Well, this is the court of Queen Ariel.  She is Queen of the Fairies, successor to Oberon and Titania, but she is actually half-human, half-elven.  Uh, they party a lot here,” she added, looking back and forth, up and down the corridor.  Sure enough, from the far end of the corridor we could hear music and voices.
     “Let’s find a control panel,” I prompted.  I wanted to solve the holodeck problem well before our six hours was up.
     Marina led us down the hall to the double doorway opening on the chamber where a feast was in progress.  A hundred or more people were seated at tables, set in a rectangle in the middle of the room.  I estimated that the tables could seat twice that many, the future occupants of which were presumably the people standing around the outside of the room.  A couple of dozen serving girls scurried back and forth to what appeared to be the kitchen, carrying forth platters of food and goblets of wine and other beverages.  To one side of the hall, minstrels performed a merry tune to which a few couples were dancing.   Here and there jugglers, gymnasts and mimes were entertaining groups of revelers. 
     How can I describe the people?  Those we had seen in the queue outside paled to the guests already in the hall.  They were all lavishly clothed, although in no single style that I could identify.  Some of the women’s gowns looked vaguely like they were from the middle ages while others seemed to be made from some shimmering translucent fabric of no distinct color.  Most were richly bedecked with jewels.  The men wore similarly diverse and opulent garb.  Some were in tights.  Others wore vaguely military uniforms with dozens of medals.  One wore nothing but a loincloth and knife.  As I adjusted to Marina’s holoprogram, I tentatively identified the occupants of these clothes as humans, elves, dwarfs, and other creatures of folklore.
     As I watched, one of the male partygoers took the arm of a serving girl and swept her into an amorous embrace.  The girl seemed cooperate enthusiastically, yet the pitcher she carried spilled not a drop.  The overall impression I got was one of marginally controlled pandemonium.
     On closer inspection, however, I saw what appeared to be causality problems.  Wine was flowing upward from goblets into a carafe carried from person to person by one serving girl.  I decided I didn’t want to know how the wine got into the goblets in the first place and looked away.
     “I think we might be a bit under-dressed,” observed Charlotte, indicating the casual clothes we had each selected for a mountain cabin. 
     “Oh, don’t worry,” answered Marina.  “Nobody would think of wearing anything but their formal best to Queen Ariel’s.  They’ll assume that what we are wearing is the height of fashion among our kind.”  As she talked, her eyes were sweeping the room.  Then she turned to us, a slight frown indicating that she had not found what she was looking for.
     “What’s the matter, Marina?” asked Moira. 
     “I’m looking for my assistant,” she said.
     “Your assistant?” asked Charlotte.
     “Yes,” Marina explained.  “I’m sort of the librarian or archivist here.”
     “You’re the Archivist…for the Queen of the Fairies?” I asked, a bit bemused.  Personal holodeck programs can provide surprising insight into the minds of the people who design them.
     “Uh huh,” Marina replied, with a happy smile.   “There is a holodeck control panel in the library,” she added.  “We’d better sneak around the edges of the room.  If I have to introduce you to Ariel we’ll end up being here for centuries.”
     She hustled us toward a side passageway, weaving us in and out among the various clumps of guests.   We weren’t completely unobtrusive; once I heard somebody comment, “look at the redheads.”  Eventually we made our way back out of the chamber and into another hallway.  All the branching halls, staircases and rooms we passed through soon disoriented me.  I couldn’t have gotten us back to the main hall if I had to, but Marina proceeded with assurance. 
     Eventually we came to a set of double doors, inset with frosted glass panes.  “Here we are,” exclaimed Marina.  The doors swung open of their own accord as she neared them.  It was clearly a library with book-covered shelves lining the walls.  The ceilings were high and ladders descended from rails along each wall.  The furnishings of the room were ornate – highly polished brass and gold with shining walnut woodwork.  The counter of what was clearly the circulation desk was inset with white marble.
     On the counter reclined the largest housecat I have ever seen, pure white except for a dark patch of fur across his face.  So help me, the cat appeared to be reading a book.   The book sat propped open against a stack of other volumes about a foot away from the tomcat.  At a flick of his tail, the page turned by itself.
     “There you are,” said Marina, at which the cat turned a placid gaze upon her.  “This is my assistant, Bandit,” she told us. 
     “That is not my name,” a well-modulated baritone voice said in my head.  “But you don’t need to know my real name.  It’s about time you got back, wench,” Bandit said.  In spite of the note of hostility in his words, he got up, stretching leisurely, and walked to the edge of the counter to meet Marina.  She began to gently scratch his ears, but then he saw Moira. 
     “Bye,” he said to Marina, jumped down to the floor and began rubbing Moira’s legs.  “Where have you been all my life, beautiful?” he asked her.
     “Waiting for you, dear,” she replied.  Moira picked up the tomcat.  He closed his eyes, began to emit a deep rumbling purr and paid no more attention to us.
     Marina, meanwhile, had gone to a desk and was absently shuffling through a tall stack of papers. 
      “Excuse me, Marina,” I said, feeling pressed for time.  “The computer console?”
     “Oh, yes,” she replied and moved to a large cabinet nearby.  The cupboard doors opened of their own accord as she approached, and inside was an elaborate computer panel.
     “So, do we try a simple program deactivation again?” I asked.  “What are our options?”
     “If we try it again and it doesn’t work, we’ll probably end up in another program,” speculated Charlotte. 
     “Moira,” I asked.
     “Sorry, Michael,” she responded.  “I’m fresh out of ideas on the subject.  My other self seems to be regulating how much I can help solve the problem.”
     “Either the console in your program was gimmicked,” said Sam, “or all the consoles in every program are gimmicked.   There’s only one way….”
     Samantha was interrupted by a dozen burly, semi-human guards who burst into the library.  (Well, they would have burst, except that the doors opened by themselves a few seconds before they entered.)
     “What is the meaning of this, Grugg?” asked Marina regally.
     “These others are not from the Queen’s realm,” spat the leader.  “The Dark Lord covets the information on these shelves.  It would go ill for us, should HE infiltrate agents into our midst.”
     “These are my friends,” stated Marina.  “They are not minions of the Dark One.”
     “So you say,” he grunted back.  “But you have been absent much these recent centuries and none know where you go when you disappear.”
     “Computer, freeze program,” I said, trying an alternative command to the one that hadn’t worked earlier.  Grugg seemed to jerk for a couple of moments, as if the program was fluttering, but then everything continued as before. 
     “Even now, he speaks of the land of ice, where Evil dwells,” accused Grugg, lowering a spear and stepping toward me.
     Charlotte stepped quickly to the holodeck console.  “This is getting us nowhere,” she said, and entered the End Program command.  The library dissolved around us and we saw holo-emitters for a moment, but a new program quickly built up around us.

     After the bright lights of the library it took our eyes a moment to adjust.  All around us there was rumbling and hissing, overlaid with whirring and clicking from figures nearby.   Maybe I imagined it, but there seemed to be a trickle of water nearby.
     “Oh, no,” I murmured to myself.  “A Borg ship.”
     “This is my program, Michael,” said Moira, quietly.  “I often rerun past unsuccessful missions in simulation, trying to calculate improved resolutions.”
     All of us except Marina had been on a Borg ship together some years earlier, trapped when our runabout was assimilated.  We spent a few days in survival mode, escaping assimilation ourselves as the result of the Borg’s curious habit of not molesting boarding parties.  We eventually found a way to escape, blowing up the cube ship in the process.
     “I thought this mission ended pretty darn successfully,” I retorted. 
     “The drones died,” Moira answered, pithily.  “FDSN.”
     “Yah, well,” I said, looking around at my companions.  “Suggestions on how we proceed?”
     “Can you get us to the Central Node, Moira?” asked Charlotte.
     “Yes,” said Moira.  “I have a general layout of the ship in memory.”
“WE didn't know about the Central Node last time we were here.  It may be possible to hack into the ship’s systems there and gain indirect access to the holodeck controls,” continued Charlotte.  “Maybe we can bypass the regular holodeck interface and access the controls directly using the Borg circuitry.”
     “I can’t evaluate odds for the success of that strategy,” Moira responded.  “I’m fresh out of ideas on the subject.”
     “I agree,” chimed in Samantha.  “That’s the core of the Borg systems.  Our odds are better there than anywhere else, at least.”
     “OK,” I said.  “Let’s go.  Defensive formation, everybody.”
     It took us at least an hour to reach the chamber housing the node.  I’ve been on two different real Borg ships, and I dislike the experience in the extreme.  It was not made better by the spotty causality.  In addition to the Borg moving through the corridors and catwalks in their odd stumbling gait, I saw some walking on thin air in some of the huge open areas we skirted. 
     Presently, we arrived at our destination, the force field shielded cybernetic core of the ship.
     “What have we here?” asked a woman’s voice, dripping with sarcasm.  We turned, and there, stepping out of the shadows, was something we had all been briefed on, but none of us had seen – a Borg Queen.  “A delegation of humans, here to request assimilation?”
I’ve never really figured out this Borg Queen stuff.  There is supposedly only one, but this single Queen has been encountered on ships at distant ends of the galaxy.  (The Borg contact reports filed ultra-long-distance by the plucky little science ship Voyager, making its way home after being stranded at the far end of the Delta Quadrant, made fascinating reading.) 
     My best guess?  There really is a single Borg mentality, somehow made up of all the billions of minds assimilated by the Collective.  I think that this single consciousness sometimes manifests itself through the body of a drone.  Which one doesn’t matter much, according to my theory, but the consciousness appears to prefer the females of one particular species. 
     “Resistance is futile,” the Queen said, with a motherly smile, as a dozen nearby drones turned and focused their attention on us.   I anticipated that soon tendrils from their knuckles would be seeking our necks to inject us with Borg nanites.
     “Ppppptttthhhhh!” Moira gave the Borg Queen a royal raspberry.  “Resistance is far from futile.  You give cybernetic organisms a bad name.”
     Moira moved like lightning, slamming a powerful straight arm into the Queen’s face.  The Queen went down, unconscious.  The blow would have knocked out any humanoid, regardless of Borg implants.    Moira was on top of her in an instant, manipulating the implants that dotted the Queen’s body.  Her fingers flew here and there, touching a dozen contacts a second.
     “There,” she said, after a period of intense work.  The nearby drones staggered.  Several fell to the ground or emitted ragged moans. 
     “You have freed us,” said the nearest drone, thickly, rising awkwardly to his feet.  “The Queen is gone.  The Collective is ended.”
     “Yes, the Collective is ended,” agreed Moira.  “But we have other urgent business to conduct.  Can you help us deactivate the force fields?”
     “Of course,” he said, and rapidly tapped out commands on a nearby panel.  The field shimmered and disappeared, and we moved into the chamber. 
     “Make your way to Davidia VI.  You will find a colony of former drones living there.  Ask for their leader, Hugh.  Tell him Moira sends her love.”
In the chamber a few seconds later, Moira was back to being “fresh out of ideas” about how to proceed on the causality problem.  Charlotte and Samantha conferred and soon hatched a plan.
     “If we are successful,” explained Charlotte, “we’ll be able to redirect the hologram program to an uncorrupted backup file of causality data.  It’s in a special locked data file I created a few months ago.   I’m sure Dr. Roy can’t break through my encrypted authorization codes."
     When they began to reprogram the Borg devices, however, Sam quickly uttered a string of impolite words.
     “I’m sorry,” she apologized, “but somehow he guessed that we’d be in this program.   Every time we press a contact, it sends a random command into the system.  There is no way we can…” The Borg ship around us disappeared, and for a moment we could see the familiar holodeck hardware. “…reprogram it,” Samantha concluded lamely.  “I guess one of the random commands translated into ‘end program.’”

     “Moira,” I said a few moments later into the darkness that surrounded us.  “Time elapsed?”
     “We are two hours, four minutes into the exercise.  Three hours, fifty-six minutes remaining,” she answered.
     “So where are we this time?” I asked, trying to see something through the darkness.  As my eyes adjusted I saw that we were in a field in the country.  A noisy river churned to our left.  The only lights were several campfires to our right, set amongst several tents that appeared to be made of leather in some traditional style.  A few people carrying flaming torches moved here and there.  In the distance there were sounds that I tentatively attributed to some sort of animals grunting.
     “Who goes there?” came a challenge from behind us.
     “We are travelers,” I answered, attempting to sound non-threatening.  “Strangers here.”
     “It is not a good time nor place to be strangers,” the man replied.  “Step into the light so we can determine if you are friend of foe.”
     Several other people, probably guards, were moving our way.  We stepped forward and got our first good look at the residents of the camp.  They were both men and women, dressed in heavy garb of fur and leather.  Most, both men and women, carried weapons.  There was no hint of firearms but they held a wide variety of edged weapons.  As I looked around, I heard Samantha suck in her breath.  Loudly.
     “Let me guess, Sam,” I ventured.  “Your holodeck program?”
     “Uh, yes, Michael,” she answered, hesitantly.
     “Anything we need to know about this program?” I asked.
     “Dragons,” she said.
     “Dragons, as in fought by knights in shining armor?” Charlotte asked, with interest.
     “Dragons, as in ‘let’s go flying,’” Sam said, and at the same moment, one of the animals I had heard in the distance bugled a deep screeching cry and a bolt of flame shot upwards.  In its brief light I saw a giant creature, standing on two huge rear legs, with shorter forelegs pawing the air, and broad leathery wings spread wide.
     “Oh, good,” chimed in Moira.
     “S’Mantha,” shouted a deep voice from the flap of a nearby tent.  “It’s good of you to come.  We’ll need all of our effectives at dawn.  Report to the Wing Master by moonset for more suitable flying gear.”
     In another instant the man, apparently the commander of the encampment, had disappeared back into the tent.  Several of the others, now recognizing Sam, greeted her with arm grasps, and not a few hugs.  She was apparently enormously popular here, especially with the young men.  Presently she tore herself away from their attentions and came up to us, a bit breathless.
     “There’s a field kitchen in the last big tent,” she reported, reminding us that we hadn't had breakfast.  “We can get some food and plan our next step there.”
     She led us to the tent.  She tried to hurry, but she was forced to greet every second or third person she passed.  Although there was apparently a battle expected at dawn, the cooks were dishing up hearty meals.  A brief pause for nourishment seemed reasonable, I thought to myself, as long as it remained brief.  We each got a thick slice from a roast, a spoon full of potatoes, some greens and a generous hunk of bread.  It was an odd breakfast, but delicious.  Samantha showed us how to dip up big mugs of some sort of grog from a barrel.   When we got settled down to eat, she briefed us on the details of the program.
     “These people fly dragons,” she said.  “An enemy force of 300 dragons is expected to attack at dawn.  They’re trying to capture this valley because the river produces a lot of gold.  These are the good guys.  They protect the weak and stand up for what’s right.”
     “We need to figure out our next step on the causality problem,” I said.
     “I know what I want to try next,” said Charlotte.  “If we can get a console to work, that is.”
     “There’s a console in this program,” Samantha said.  “But it’s in my quarters at the Aerie, the home base of this fighting dragon wing.”
     Marina spoke up for the first time in a while.  “Sam, don’t you have your own dragon in this program?”
     “Yes, Drelimai,” Sam replied, proudly.  “He’s one of the young males.”
     “Can he fly us to the Aerie?” asked Charlotte.
     Samantha cocked her head in thought for a moment.  “Five people is a big load.  He can carry us all, no problem, but it will reduce his maneuverability.  Remember, we’ve got bad guys coming in at dawn.”
     “Then maybe we should get a move on,” I suggested.  “You know, put some distance between us and the front?”
     We had all finished our meals and Samantha led us to the field where the dragons were.  Many were sleeping, curled up like dogs, often in groups of three or four beasts twined together.  In the glow of torches, we got a fairly good look at representative samples.  They had broad, bat-like wings attached to heavy, exaggerated shoulders and long craning necks and tails.  One of them in particular looked our way with what I took to be a dragon’s look of anticipation.  I took it that he was Sam’s dragon.
     I’ve been told that I can be too pragmatic.  What I saw was a hologram that Samantha had created to look a bit like the legends.   It was nicely done, but still a work of art, not a real animal.  The others in our party reacted a bit more strongly.
     “Wow,” murmured Charlotte, adding a happy little sound.  “They’re wonderful.  They’re awesome.”
     “Magnificent,” added Moira.
     Marina had apparently visited the program before told us, “He takes my breath away every time I see him, but you’ll like him. He’s a sweetheart.”
     The big fellow Sam stopped us near was sitting not unlike a cat, but with a long neck that towered over us.  Even with his belly on the ground, his back must have been three stories high.
     The creature was obviously expecting her.  He gave a low creen and lowered his head to meet her.  Sam scratched him under his chin, which caused him to close his eyes in pleasure.  She talked to him as people do to favorite pets, then she called us over.
     “Oh, that’s a good boy, Drellie.  Do you want to go flying? Yes?  Would you like that?”
     The beast seemed enthusiastic about the idea, if I have any clue about dragon body language.
     “This is Drelimai,” Sam said, finally turning her attention back to us and motioning us over. “Drelimai, these are my best friends – best human friends, that is.”
     The gentle beast gave each of us a sniff, apparently to sample our scents.  He then returned his attention to Samantha, whereupon his tongue slurped out and gave a large part of one side of her body an affectionate lick.
     “We call that 'a dragon man’s field shower,'” Sam said, pausing to wipe off the excess dragon spit.  “We don’t have time for fun, Drelimai.  Are you ready to go?”
     Drelimai quickly lurched to his feet, raising his rear quarters first.
     “I take it that means ‘yes,’” I quipped.
     “Yes,” confirmed Samantha, “but we’ve got to get some warmer clothes.  At the height we’ll be flying it gets really cold.”
     Our intrepid pilot lead us back to the Wing Master’s tent.  Drelimai plodded along in our wake.  Samantha procured leather leggings that could go over our clothes as well as heavy leather and fur jackets and leather gloves.  She also brought several leather straps, the use of which I didn’t understand at first.  It turns out that Drelimai was already wearing a heavy harness.  In what appeared to be a launch prep area beside the tent, Sam rigged the straps and showed us how to climb up the dragon’s arm and situate ourselves straddling his neck, near where his neck met his body.  We used the leather straps to fasten ourselves to Drelimai’s harness.  As pilot, Sam got the front seat, followed by Marina, Charlotte, myself and Moira, in that order.  We were sandwiched tightly together, each with our arms around the person in front of us.
     “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” cried Charlotte suddenly.
     “What?” several of us asked.  She turned and looked at me over her shoulder.
     “Why does Moira get to put her arms around you,” she asked, with daggers in her eyes.
     I sighed.  “We’re going into danger and I wanted to put my arms around my wife,” I answered, trying in vain to keep everyone from hearing me.
     “Don’t worry, Charlotte,” Moira chimed in, loudly.  “He’s not my type.”
     “Can we go now?” I asked, knowing that with those two, I wouldn’t win. 
     Charlotte grudgingly agreed, and at a word from Samantha, Drelimai flung himself into the air, emitting a raucous call as he jumped.  It was an exhilarating flight.  We could feel the dragon’s muscles rippling as he swept his huge wings up and down to gain altitude.  His head bobbed up and down, in counterpoint to the movements of his torso. 
     We circled twice as we climbed, then set off across the river and toward the mountains where Sam had indicated the Aerie was.  Sam shouted that altitude was an advantage for fighting dragons and that if we met the enemy we didn’t want to have to be climbing from below.  In addition, the mountaintop that was our destination was surrounded by rough terrain; it was better to climb over the open country.  As Drelimai headed out cross-country, he was able to glide for significant distances between episodes of pumping his wings to maintain altitude. 
     In Starfleet, we don’t fly in the open air much.  We also don’t fly holding onto other people.  I must confess that my strongest memory of that flight was neither the dragon back experience nor the scenery.  It was this:  all four of the women I was with wear long hair.  A couple of them wear it very long.  For our leisurely visit to the cabin, each was also wearing her hair loose.  With each upstroke of the dragon’s wings and the resulting downward motion of his body, a fog of female hair surrounded me, in multiple shades.  When the dragon’s wings swept down and his body up, the locks of hair snapped downward like whips.
     At the altitude we flew, dawn came sooner than for those on the ground.   We’d been en-route for around a half hour, three hours, 22 minutes into the exercise, when I saw something, far down below us.  It was a V-shaped squadron of dragons flying far out in front of us on a course that would slowly merge with ours.  The wind from Drelimai’s flapping wings was too loud for conversation, but I shouted into Charlotte’s ear, and she passed the word forward to Samantha via a Marina. 
     “Sam says it’s the enemy,” relayed Charlotte back from Samantha.  “She thinks they’re on their way to attack the Aerie while the main force of the good guys is back at the camp, protecting the valley.” 
     My main concern was getting to the control panel ASAP.  I sent the question forward, “Will we beat them?”
     “Maybe not,” the answer came back.  “They have to climb, but they’re way ahead of us.  With all this weight, Drelimai doesn’t have the speed.  Maybe we should have skipped breakfast.  Sam’s worried that if they wreck the castle at the Aerie, we might not be able to get to the control panel.”
     “Why me?” I thought.
     “Moira,” I called backwards.  Because of the wind, Moira didn’t know what we’d been discussing back and forth.
     “Nice view, huh?” she asked, happily.
     “The holodeck safety protocols ARE still engaged, aren’t they?” I shouted back to her.”
     She nodded her head in the affirmative.  “Don’t worry, Michael.  We’re strapped in tight.  We won’t fall.”
     “Yes, we will,” I called back.  My plan was this – we needed to lighten the load so Drelimai could beat the squadron to the Aerie, and so Charlotte could try her plan on the control panel.  Sam also had to stay to pilot the dragon.  The rest of us were just slowing him down. 
     It took me several shouted exchanges to get my plan across.  Finally, though, Moira, Marina and I had our straps free.  Samantha got Drelimai to stop pumping his wings for a few seconds.  I gave Charlotte a quick kiss, then the three of us jumped, quickly falling below and behind the dragon who resumed his powerful wing stroke as soon as we were clear.  The three of us held hands as we fell.  I’ve seen picturesque images of orbital skydivers doing the same thing, but none of us had the flying boots skydivers use to check their falls.
     It was really great – while it lasted.  The rosy dawn threw a golden light on the plain below us and making a river, far below, look like a strip of quicksilver.
     I was beginning to wonder if I had guessed wrong when the feel of our fall changed.  Our speed slowed as the safety protocols finally kicked in to prevent us from crashing into the ground.  Soon we were merely gliding downward – right into the middle of the river.
     “I can’t swimmmmmm….” cried out Marina as we splashed down.
     Moira and I were just getting Marina to shore, crawling out of the water onto the bank, when the river valley dissolved around us.  Charlotte and Sam were across the holodeck from us.   Yet another holodeck program appeared around us.

     Charlotte and Sam ran up as the three of us were getting to our feet.  Charlotte seemed very happy as she gave me a hug, but backed off abruptly as water squished out of my clothes.
     “We fell in the river,” Marina explained.  “And when a holodeck needs water, it materializes real water….”
     “That’s OK,” gushed Charlotte, the opinion of someone who had escaped a soaking.  “All our problems are solved.  This is going to be so cool…”
     “Would this happen to be your program, dear?” I asked.
     “Yes.  I still wasn’t able to deactivate the holodeck, but I was able to control which program it took us to next.  Come on,” she concluded, and trotted up the hill.
     We were in another broad valley with a little stream nearby.  Far down the valley I saw a hut with a thatched roof.  A peasant girl was tending a flock of sheep.  Charlotte, however, led us away from the hut along a wagon track that worked up the sloping hillside.
     Part-way up the hill was a prominent rock outcropping with what appeared to be a cave opening.  It may have been natural or it may have been artificial, but the opening was sheltered, as if the cave had a porch or a veranda. 
     It appeared that the cave was occupied.  A fur flap that covered the mouth of the cave was rolled up out of the way, making it clear that this was a doorway, not just an opening.  A little spring near the mouth was watched over by a small statue, apparently a shrine to some minor deity.   There were wooden buckets, a couple of rough-cut benches and some other odds and ends scattered around.  There was also a fire pit near the mouth of the cave.  It was not burning, but fresh wood was set in place and a wrought iron tripod stood in place over the pit, presumably to support cooking pots.
     Charlotte stepped to the entryway and called, “Teacher, I have returned.”
     “Cairmaid, I’ve been expecting you,” answered a wizened voice from inside the cave.  “You and your friends.”
     Out stepped a little old man.  He was dressed in a simple coarse-woven robe, gathered in at the waist with a leather belt.  His hair was white and long and he wore a full beard that was shaggy but well kept. 
     “Teacher, this is my husband, Michael…”
     “A good Celtic name,” the old man remarked.
     “…and our very good friends Moira, Samantha and Marina.”
     “I don’t believe that you ever mentioned being married, Cairmaid,” the man said with reproach in his voice.  “I knew, of course.”
     “If you knew, I didn’t have to mention it,” Charlotte answered, a twinkle in her eye.  She turned to us and continued the introduction.  “This is Merlin, advisor to King Arthur, wizard to the court at Camelot.  I am his apprentice.”
     “Would you like some tea?” asked Merlin.  “It is a pleasure to finally be introduced to Cairmaid’s loved ones.”
     “Tea would be nice,” answered Charlotte.
     “Good,” approved Merlin.  “You know where the pot is, Cairmaid.”
     With an embarrassed look, Charlotte excused herself and ducked into the cave, returning almost immediately with an iron kettle, which she dipped into the spring.  She poured a bit of water from the pot back on the ground near the spring, apparently some ritual, then carried the pot to the fire and hung it from the iron framework.  Merlin, meanwhile, stepped a few feet away from the cave mouth and settled himself to the ground, ignoring the benches.  In spite of his apparent age, he sat comfortably.  The rest of us joined him.
     “Teacher?” Charlotte said, when the kettle was in place, but Merlin just waved his hand absently.  Charlotte turned to face the fire, stretched out her hands and closed her eyes.  After several moments of concentration, flames erupted around the fresh wood and she came over to join us, smiling.
     “Cairmaid is a talented wizard,” observed Merlin.  “I believe that in your world, magic is different and harder to perform.”
     “That’s why we’re here, Teacher,” said Charlotte.  “We need your help to, uh, perform some magic so we can get home.”
     “Yes, I know,” said Merlin, gazing off into the distance.  “A wizard has trapped you…and you need a portal.  But I do not sense that this wizard’s intentions are evil.”
     “Dr. Roy is not evil,” I spoke up.  “He’s just – competitive, and feels a bit under-appreciated.  You might say that it’s a test of his magic against ours.”
     “‘Beware of wizards.  They are subtle and quick to anger,’” quoted Merlin.   He paused for a moment, as if making a decision.  “I don’t believe that I can help you,” he concluded.
     “Teacher…..” Charlotte began, but Merlin held up his hand to silence her.
     “Cairmaid,” he said, sounding for all the world like a Starfleet Academy professor lecturing a cadet. “You are well aware that we wizards accord each other professional courtesy.  You might even call it a policy of noninterference.  The wizard Roy has not challenged me nor interfered in my affairs.  Yes, as guests in my home you are under my protection, but you can hardly say that you are threatened in being here.”
     Charlotte had a crestfallen expression on her face.  “I was sure that if I could just make the holodeck interface bring us to this program, Merlin would help us end the program.”
     “How could Merlin help? I asked.
     “Merlin is a wizard.  When I wrote his program, I created special causality utilities.  He doesn’t use the standard ones – the ones that are corrupted.”
     “Time Moira?” I asked.
     “We are three hours, 47 minutes into the malfunction.  Two hours and thirteen minutes remaining,” she replied.
     “Rats,” I said to myself.
     Marina spoke up. 
     “Charlotte,” she said.  “In this world, aren’t you a wizard, too?”
     “That’s obvious, ’Rina,” chimed in Samantha.  “Charlotte will open the portal for us.”
     I saw my wife gulp.
     “I’ve never done anywhere near that level of magic in this program,” she said, dejectedly.  “I wouldn’t know where to start.”
     “Of course,” said Merlin, dropping a big hint to his student, “as my apprentice you are welcome to study my books of lore.”
     Charlotte’s eyes grew wide.  “I think I’ll go do that,” she said, jumping to her feet and heading toward the cave mouth.”
     I nudged Moira and whispered, “Imagine, Charlotte not remembering to check the Help files.”
     I ended up being the one to make the herbal tea when the water came to a boil.  Samantha and Marina wandered around picking flowers and sticking them in each other’s hair.  Moira and Merlin chatted in Gaelic.  She seemed to find him quite entertaining.
     It wasn’t long before Charlotte was back.  We all gathered around.
     “I have to make a potion,” she briefed us.  “Once it’s ready, I chant a spell.  If everything works right, I can select the world the portal opens to.  In effect, I’ll be able to open the holodeck doors and get us out of the program.”
     “So what’s the first step?” I asked.
     “We have to collect the ingredients for the potion,” she said.  “I'm not allowed to use Merlin’s pharmacopoeia but luckily I have most of the ingredients in my own stock in the cave.  There are just a couple of things we don’t have.”
     She held up a bottle and a small covered bowl, both made of pottery.
     “We need this flask at least half full of mare’s sweat,” she said.  “And we need at least a cup of grass flowers.  You four will have to find those ingredients.  I need time to prepare the incantation.  Be back in two hours, no more.”
     “Mare’s sweat?” I mouthed at my wife.  She handed me the pottery, shrugged and turned back to the cave.  Time to play commander, I realized.
     “Samantha and Marina,” I said, handing over the bottle.  “You take the mare’s sweat project.  I think I saw some horses down by the cottage.  Moira, you and I will tackle the grass flower assignment.”
     “Ooooh…yuck,” complained Samantha, mostly to herself.  “How do we get sweat off a mare?”
     “You’re Lieutenant Commanders now,” observed Moira, with a smile.  “The missions get tougher when you get promoted.”
     “I like horses, Sam,” Marina was saying as they walked off.
     “Thank you for assigning that one to the junior officers,” Moira said when the two were out of earshot.
     “It’s good experience for them,” I answered, with a quick grin.  “What do you know about grass flowers?”
     “Certain varieties of grass occasionally flower with very tiny yellow blossoms,” Moira replied.  Although she couldn’t directly help us with the holodeck controls, her horticultural databases were apparently still available.
     “I know,” I said.  “I’ve seen them often in the Black Hills, but that’s in an American short grass prairie ecosystem.  There’s nothing like those grass species around here.  Where are our best odds of finding flowering grass?”
     Moira pulled up more data, integrated it and we set off up the hill, looking for just the right species of grass at just the right time in its cycle to bloom.
     In two hours we were all back.   The bowl was full of fragile little grass flowers and the flask sloshed with a viscous fluid that one sniff confirmed was equine in origin.  I’ve never asked the details of how Sam and Marina collected such an impressive volume of horse perspiration but I’m sure that had it been a real mission and not a holodeck program, they’d have received medals.
     Charlotte had a concoction boiling in a pot on a fire.  It was a different pot from the one we had used for tea and this time she used a brazier rather than the regular fire.  She was wearing a set of robes of her own, with a floppy hat on her head, and holding an ornately carved wooden rod, which I took to be a wizard’s wand.
     “Wish me luck,” she said, to which we all responded positively, then she turned to the brew and began adding the final ingredients and chanting.
     The steam coming off the boiling pot grew bolder and was soon emitting a regular fog that billowed and swirled.  I won’t try to reproduce Charlotte’s incantation; it certainly wasn’t English.  I’m not convinced that it was Celtic, either.  It seemed to rhyme, but with a rhythm that kept changing.  She continued at length.
     Presently, sparks began jumping from the pot and the sky darkened.  Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled.  The wind picked up and soon Charlotte was shouting her words in order to be heard, although I’m not sure who was supposed to be listening.
     Suddenly, a series of lightning bolts began striking a single spot on the ground about 100 feet in front of us.  Everyone but Charlotte, and Merlin, of course, ducked for cover.  As Charlotte concluded her incantation, she flashed her wand at the lightning bolts as if she were cracking a whip.  In spite of the noise of the thunder and wind, I heard a distinctive whoosh, and the holodeck doors appeared and opened. 
     “Come on,” Charlotte yelled.  “We’ve got about 30 seconds before the portal closes again.” 
     She gave Merlin a hug.  “Don’t wait so long for your next visit,” he admonished her. 
     Then we were all running toward the arch.
     Dr. Roy and Moira’s hologram were waiting for us in the corridor outside the holodeck.
     “It was an…unexpected solution to the problem,” Roy said, “but accessing Merlin’s program wasn’t really fair.  You were supposed to figure out the problem with the technology and get out of the program on your own, not use smoke and mirrors.”  
     “What’s unfair about it?” asked Charlotte, still breathing hard from the run.  “Merlin is really just a sophisticated computer interface.  Besides, ‘any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’”