Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge strode quickly out of his temporary quarters aboard the Klingon scoutship Strange Legendary Klingon Fish That Hides in Rocks and Spies on Enemies of the Warrior Gods -- Geordi could not pronounce the actual Klingon name.

As he rounded a corner into the main, peak-roofed corridor, heading toward the bridge, a meaty hand clamped on his shoulder: It was Lieutenant Worf. The pair were temporarily assigned to the Klingon ship, commanded by Worf's brother Kurn, until they finished retrofiting the Hiding Fish's sensor to detect the subspace damage done by traveling faster than warp five.

"Commander," said the Klingon in his best approximation of a sympathetic tone of voice, "I sorrow for your loss. I know what it is like to lose a comrade. It is sad that he could not have died in battle as a true warrior."

Geordi stared. "Worf, what are you talking about?"

Now the Klingon was puzzled. "Did you not read the message traffic from Starfleet this morning?"

"Whoops. No, I was running late and I skipped it. Did somebody die?"

Worf took a deep, sympathetic breath. "Yes, sir, your mentor from the Starfleet Academy has died. I sorrow for your loss. I understand that humans consider death a great tragedy. I know what it is like to lose--"

La Forge massaged his temples; his visor hurt even more than usual this day. "Worf, I didn't have any mentor at the Academy. Whom are you talking about?"

"Why, Doctor Zorka, of course. He died two days ago, but nobody discovered the body until yesterday."

Geordi shrugged. "Thanks for the concern, but I barely knew Doctor Zorka. I took a couple of classes from him, but that's about it."

Worf nodded. "I, too, have suffered the pain of seeing one of my instructors from the Academy die in bed like a shopkeeper. I understand how you must feel."

Helplessly, Geordi tried to clarify. "Worf, believe me; I didn't care one way or the other about the guy. He was a crank at the Academy, and he's even more of a crank now -- well, was a crank. Come on, we're supposed to meet Captain Kurn on the bridge."

They marched into the lift, and Worf called out "bridge" in Klingon. As they passed deck after deck, then headed out the long neck of the scoutship toward the bubble section, Geordi could actually feel the waves of sympathy emanating from Worf, discomfiting the young lieutenant commander.

The doors slid open with a whoosh. Kurn lounged in his command chair, legs crossed, staring at a tactical display of the historical battle of Gamma Amar IV, in which the Klingons soundly routed the Federation forces seventy-five years before.

"Captain," said Geordi, "we're a few hours ahead of schedule on the retrofit. So far, we've synched the Doppler on your sensors to the tachyon emission belt frequencies of the new cloaking field; but we still need to modulate your shield and disruptor projection points to match the hole in the spectral..." La Forge paused, noticing that Kurn stared blankly, not understanding a word Geordi had said.

"You said you are ahead of schedule, human?"

"Yes. Three hours."

"Fine. That is your report. Now leave me alone; I have important duties to attend."

Worf leaned close to Geordi and whispered, "Kurn has a commodore examination to take in a few days. He will not be disposed to listen to details about anything."

The executive officer of the Hiding Fish, Commander Kurak, cleared her throat. When Kurn did not respond, she did so again.

"Oh, yes," Kurn said at last, "the Enterprise first officer is waiting to speak to you."

"Shall I put it on screen?" suggested Kurak. Kurn glared furiously at her, then savagely gestured at the viewport. The tactical map vanished, replaced by a view of the Enterprise bridge.

Geordi felt peculiar, standing on the deck of a strange Klingon ship, watching a communication from the Enterprise; he had so often seen the reverse.

Commander Will Riker, first officer of the Enterprise, sat in the command chair; Dr. Beverly Crusher stood behind, leaning on the rail. Commander Data noticed the transmission and turned back toward Riker.

"Sir, Commander La Forge has reached the bridge on the tlhIngan bIQDepHey Huj So'bogh naghmey 'ej veS qa"a' jaghpu' ghoqbogh 'oH." Geordi was absurdly annoyed that Data, programmed with every known language, pronounced the Klingon name perfectly.

Riker looked up. "Geordi, have you heard the news yet?"

"Which news?"

"The news about Doctor Zorka."

"Oh. Yes, sir. Would you like a report on our progress so far?"

Riker raised his brows, somewhat surprised. "No, that's all right. If you need some time off to deal with the loss, just let us know. The captain is resting right now, but he said if you needed to talk to someone..."

"No, sir," said Geordi, trying not to look annoyed. "It's really all right. I barely even knew--"

Beverly interrupted, looking into the viewscreen with a face that would have broken the Devil's heart. "Geordi, I... I lost my residency advisor just a year ago. I know how much it hurts."

"It doesn't hurt, Commander. Really. I only took three classes from Zorka, and he even gave me a B in one of them."

On the screen, Data did his best to make his face show concern. "Geordi, you said much the same things when your mother vanished. Most therapists agree that it helps ease the pain to talk about it. I do not think it a good idea to hold your grief inside."

"This time I'm not holding anything in!" exclaimed Geordi, becoming seriously annoyed. Why does everyone keep offering me tea and sympathy? Captain Kurn and Commander Kurak snickered, and La Forge felt his face flush. "I really don't care whether Doctor Zorka died. I didn't wish him ill -- well, maybe when I saw that B -- but he was not my mentor! He was a lunatic."

"But..." began Riker, "but you always said you hated him."

Embarrassed, Geordi realized the commander was right. "All right, I did say I hated him."

"You mean you really didn't like him?" Riker turned to Beverly as if to ask how could this be?

"Yes!" admitted Geordi, exasperated into the honest truth. "I confess! I hated everything about him, the old fraud. I hated having to rewrite papers to support his idiotic obsessions, and I hated answering questions wrong just to get a good grade on his tests. If it hadn't been for tenure, the real engineers at Starfleet would have fired him before I even arrived!"

Beverly answered, confused. "I thought... well, you joked about him so much, about how crazy he was, that we all thought you really loved him."

Data cocked his head quizzically. "Were you not being gruffly humorous when you spoke of Doctor Zorka's mental imbalances?"

"No, Data, I was not being gruffly humorous. I would have been perfectly happy if he had, well, retired or something years ago. I didn't want him to die, but he had no business instructing at the Academy or receiving Federation grants.

"He was always in the news, each time with some grand new invention he was supposedly perfecting that he never quite finished, of course. I kept asking, 'Why does the Federation keep funding this doddering, old mental patient?'

"But that wasn't my subtle way of saying, 'Gee, I sure wish I were back in his Engines 313 class, slaving away over a hot warp coil and pulling Bs again!' "

Kurn interrupted. "The Klingon Empire does not have time to waste on such frivolous banter!"

"But you chose him as your dissertation advisor," countered Data.

"No -- he chose me! I wanted Crystal Estes. I worked my whole senior year at the Academy on that dissertation, and Zorka rejected it! I didn't take into account his new theory on mystical subspace nonsense. He made me rewrite it over the next five months."

Kurn leapt to his feet. "Enough! I have important tactics to consider for the exam -- for the greater good of the Klingon battle fleet! I shall not tolerate this foolishness any further!"

"Guys, please," said Geordi, "I'm not fooling. I'm not broken up; I'm not hiding any pain; I don't care! His papers were garbage, his discoveries nonexistent, and he was an irritating son of a... son of a bachelor. Now will you please let me get back to work on the retrofit?"

Riker looked at Beverly, then Data; Dr. Crusher pursed her lips; and Data deliberately raised both eyebrows. "Sorry, Geordi," said Commander Riker, sounding distinctly miffed.

"I'm sorry, sir; I didn't mean it that way. It was really nice of you all to worry about me... but I'm fine. Really."

"Yes, right, fine!" snarled Kurn. "Good-bye, good-bye; Commander, terminate communication." The screen went blank; after a moment, it was replaced by the tactical map again. "Now get off the bridge, human, and take that... take my brother with you back to the engine room. Get busy with that cloak detector!" Kurn turned back to the map, staring at it with such intensity that Geordi would not have been surprised to see it burst into flames.

"Um, maybe we'd better head back down to the engineering section, Worf."

"I think that is a good plan."

As soon as the doors closed behind them and they started back along the neck of the Hiding Fish, Worf added, "After all, we would not want to cause my brother's second attempt at the examination to go as badly as his first."

When they arrived back in the beehivelike catacombs of the Klingon engineering "department," Lieutenant Dakvas pointed at a small screen. "Message for Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge from the Enterprise."

"Again?" Frustrated, Geordi jabbed the comm link button, activating the screen.

Commander Deanna Troi, the ship's counselor, stared at him from the viewscreen, her face dripping concern and understanding. "Geordi," she said, "I understand how you feel. I can sense your stress. We all feel stress and apprehension when someone near and dear to us passes on. Would you like to talk to someone about it?"