“Clues” is episode fourteen of season four of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
After finishing a mission ahead of time, Captain Picard has granted extra personal time to the crew for their tight schedule has prevented the normal leisure activities. He expects the journey past the Ngami nebula to be uneventful. Picard is using the time to fulfil a promise to a colleague. Which is Guinan, who enters the Dixon Hill program on the holodeck. Guinan, calling herself Gloria, has an appointment, though she’s a little late due to problems with the dress. She has problems getting past the receptionist, but heads through anyway, to find there’s a gunman in the office. Who gets gunned down when he steps in front of the window. Guinan asks if this is what the captain does for fun. Yes; it’s a mystery. Now they have to search for clues. Then the phone goes. Data is using it to contact the holodeck. There’s a T-Tauri system in the nebula with an M-class planet capable of supporting life. Procedure requires investigation and the captain orders the bridge crew be recalled.
They enter the system and detect energy fluctuations. There may be a wormhole and Riker suggests moving to a safer location when something appears in front of them. Everyone but Data is knocked unconscious.
Data says that they were stunned by the wormhole and were unconscious for about 30 seconds. Data’s positronic brain was unaffected. They’re about .54 parsecs from where they were. Overall, no-one seems to be too badly affected. The captain says there’s still the M-class planet; Data says the unpredictability of the wormhole makes it hazardous and recommends sending a probe instead of returning.
Dr Crusher is treating O’Brien in sickbay. She heads to get an instrument and notices a project she had been working on and says something is impossible.
The probe is approaching the planet, which is definitely not M-class. Data suggests that perhaps the sensors were affected by the wormhole. Riker thinks such a specific misreading is odd; Data suggests they could have picked up the image of a planet in another system through the wormhole. The captain considers the mystery solved.
However, Dr Crusher arrives at the captain’s ready room with her project, which the captain recognises as Diomedian scarlet moss. She started cultivating the spores just before they were knocked unconscious. They now show a full day’s growth, and each incubator had a different strain. Picard says everything indicates they were out for 30 seconds, including Data. But the doctor says that the moss has over 24 hours of growth.
At a meeting of the senior staff, Data suggests an explanation. The captain thinks that is an intriguing hypothesises, then asks Data to go and help someone with the sensors. After Data has gone, the captain asks Geordi if he believes Data’s explanation. No, and it’s so implausible Geordi is surprised he suggested it. Picard has never known Data to tell a lie; could the wormhole have affected him? They need to determine how much time did pass and, if something is wrong with Data, not make him suspicious.
Geordi heads to engineering and tells Data he’s needed on the bridge. Dr Crusher heads to the transporter room and talks to O’Brien to find out who was the last person to go through the transporter, so they can be checked out in sickbay. Then contacts the captain, who is on the way to engineering. The doctor confirms they were out for more than 30 seconds. In engineering, Geordi has good news and bad news. The good news is the clock was reset; the bad that Data and Geordi are the only ones capable of doing it.
Doubts continue to arise about Data, who, it seems, may well know what happened in the missing day but is refusing to tell anyone about it. So, what did happen, and why is Data lying about it?