The leader of the Federation scientific outpost on Ventax II, whose distress call brings the Enterprise to a planet convinced that the devil Ardra has returned to collect.
Dr Howard Clark is a Federation scientist who appears in the fourth-season episode Devil's Due, set in 2367. He is played by Paul Lambert.
Clark runs a science station on Ventax II, a peaceful agrarian world whose people believe that a thousand years ago they sold themselves to a being called Ardra in exchange for a millennium of prosperity. As the contract falls due, tremors and apparitions cause panic, and a mob takes the station's staff hostage. Clark is beamed out and explains the legend to Picard.
He remains aboard while a woman claiming to be Ardra appears and lays claim to the planet and to the Enterprise. Clark's account of Ventaxian history gives Picard the background he needs to challenge her in an arbitration and expose her as a fraud.