"Cruise Control" - Ready Room Pow-wow

[Sean Michael Curtin]

Captain Curtin had just dismissed the counsellor, and leaned back in his chair collecting his thoughts, when the chime rang.

"Enter!"

As if by a miracle, Eldridge, Dawson, and Fitchner had arrived at once.

"Gentlemen, Miss Dawson, tell me; do any of you play poker?" Curtin made the same gesture the counselor had, miming a checked hand.

At their nod, he picked up a sheet of paper and his pen. As he wrote, he spoke aloud. "Miss Hamilton thinks we may need to optimize certain ship's systems. Especially the empathy, and intuition subroutines of the computer. Oh, and the logic circuits as well, probably."

On his, he wrote:

This way, the computer can't hear us. It may be able to read these, so keep them somewhat hidden. And keep talking about optimizing ship's systems!

We have to shut down the computer's empathy and intuition sub-routines, completely. The logic circuits might not be a bad thing to kill either. How can we do this without letting it know what we're doing?". He passed the note to Eldridge.