Fantasy for Organ, in E flat Major

[collector]

[There is cake on the kitchen table. Everything else is irrelevant, because there is a table, and it has delicious cake on it.]

[But if one must notice the peripheral details, Irving Braxiatel is leaning on the counter by the oven. A fresh sheet of croissants are on top of the stove, and Braxiatel is looking over a paper on Shakespearean performances in non-human cultures. He is also fixing an odd bit of technology that might be recognized as part of a time ship's temporal stabilizer. The devil, after all, always finds work for idle hands. He seems perfectly at ease.]

[There is also an extra cake on the table, as if to ward off vultures from the main prize.]

Comments

[collector]

[Brax's amusement increases considerably.] I'll give you a moment before asking my question, but I'm glad he could be of assistance. There are, oh, six odd of my kind around here, and all of us have inherited a gift for verbosity to various degrees, so you'll likely come across us on occasion.

So. Now that we've outlined what I am, might I ask your kind? I'm not sure I'm quite familiar.

[empirical_data]

[Some shifty eyeing. Some chewing. A bit of a wince before he manages to swallow as Brax finishes. Ah, there.]

I am an android. [As always, there's a bit of trepidation with the admission. Even when he had no emotions, internally he had to prepare himself for the possibility he might have to defend his right to exist. It was such a common thought process that he didn't even question its necessity anymore.] And I am not opposed to extensive conversation. I have been told to refrain from speaking on numerous occasions.

[collector]

[There is no judgement from Brax. He is bound to his ship, in contact with the People, and a friend to the Oracle of the Lost. There's just that slight nod of confirmation, and then another smile.] Well, I'm unlikely to tell you that. It would be hypocritical, and I do my best to avoid that.

Your uniform. Are you Starfleet?

[empirical_data]

[That pleases him to know, thought being ceaselessly inquisitive might be troublesome for Time Lords.] I am. From the year 2379. I'm the Lt. Commander of the starship Enterprise. [Which he supposes he's familiar with if he knows he's starfleet.] You have met Nurse Chapel and Captain Kirk?

[collector]

I've met Christine. Lovely lady. But I don't believe that's the year she gave me.

[Knowing something for an android is less useful than knowing a thing's biological species, though the human model does at least help. Braxiatel thus quiet logs in details of Data's behaviour at the back of his head for assessment. Over his cup of tea, of course.]

[empirical_data]

She is from the NCC-1701. I am from the NCC-1701 E. [His eyes dart as he follows content of files that scroll before his eyes, obviously unseen by anyone else but him (unlike poor Box)] I've been in Starfleet for thirty-nine years. [Everyone was still in red uniforms when he joined.

He recalls an earlier part of the conversation.] Do you and Omega vary widely in time in a linear sense? [It's difficult to tell with time travellers]

[collector]

[Braxiatel smiles, as if in polite acknowledgement of the question's complexity.] Omega is one of those who founded our people. In many ways, he was the first of our Lords of Time. His time is so long ago that it is shrouded in myth and contradiction—and this for a species that prides itself on observing and recording events.

But through the circumstances of his life, and I'll leave them to him to tell, he is actually quite close to my relative point in time. He can't be, oh, more than a few centuries behind me, really. Judging from his place in the Doctor's timeline.

[Braxiatel's own timeline is so twisted that this is a gross simplification. But admitting to one's species is no reason to confess to having broken one's own people's laws.]

[And besides that, Brax is allergic to direct honesty.]