“This is not necessary,” Data said, speaking softly while complying with Alice’s request. “I am prepared to take you anywhere you would like to go.”
“I know you are. And I’m sorry about this, but I can’t take any chances. The Archeus is about the fastest thing I could want and I need speed right now. And, honestly, wouldn’t you try to talk sense into me if I let you?”
“I would. And I have hopes you would respond.”
“No sense, boss.” Alice tapped the side of her head with her weapon. “Sorry. I’m just an Alice, after all.”
“You are our friend, Alice,” Data said.
“I was your nanny, Data. Let’s not confuse matters.” She repositioned her feet and slowly stood, holding Lal’s still-limp form in front of her like a shield. “Tell Shakti to beam us up. And tell her to behave. If Lal isn’t in my arms when I materialize, I’m blowing a hole through the central core. I don’t care whether she’s backed up at home. It’ll make me happy just to smack her in her smug . . .”
Alice moved carefully, always keeping Lal between her and Data. La Forge mentally cataloged the items in his pockets, but he couldn’t think of anything that might be useful.
Speaking in a conversational tone, Data said, “You could just leave Lal here. Shakti will take you anywhere you wish. I promise.”
“Sorry, boss,” Alice shouted in reply, “can’t risk it. I have to confess I’m not completely sure what’s going on here.” She risked a quick glance at the Exo III device and then back over her shoulder where the slug lay on its anti-gravity gurney. “But if this is what I think it is and you got it where I think you got it, I really need to get the hell out of here just as fast as I can. I’ll make you a promise, though: When I get to wherever I’m going, I’ll leave Lal in a safe place. Don’t worry about her so much. She’s tougher than you think.”
“Thank you,” Data said, taking a step closer, but no sooner did he move than the tip of Alice’s energy weapon began to glow. “But, please, for all our sakes . . .”
“Stay where you are! Hands up!”
Data lifted his hands so they were in plain sight and then froze. “Apologies.”
“Shakti!” Alice cried. “Beam us up!”
“You won’t reconsider?” Data asked.
“I can’t!”
“Then,” Data said softly, “I am so very sorry.”
“What do you mean? Why . . . ?”
Harry Mudd’s voice was muffled by the wrappings on the slug, but his delighted drawl was unmistakable. “Hello, Alice,” he said. “How’re tricks?”
Alice’s face went slack in abject horror, her mouth a perfect oval of despair. Lal dropped to the ground as Alice lifted her hand and placed the weapon to the side of her own head, but before she could discharge it, Mudd had tugged the wrappings off his face and was able to deny her. “Freeze, my dearest. None of that.”
As she was commanded, Alice froze. The weapon sputtered and glowed, then faded. She was completely motionless except, Data saw, for her eyes, which twitched and scanned the room, looking for something, anything, that could come to her rescue. La Forge went to help Mudd, who was so pleased with himself that he was in danger of toppling off the gurney.
Data held Lal in his arms, staring at her in quiet wonder and gratitude. In an unpracticed paternal gesture, he brushed the hair off the side of the young woman’s face and smiled when she flinched at the tickle. Lal opened her eyes and stared up at him blankly, then yawned. “Hello, Father,” she said. “I have been taking a nap.”
“I see,” Data said.
“Apparently, naps are good for me.”
“I did not know that.”
“Grandfather said I should tell you that, and that you’re a bit of a dolt for not knowing.”
Data’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “I see” was all he could say.
“But he forgives you for not knowing since you were very young back when you were napping every day.”
“Ah,” Data said. “Also, he wiped my memory. I imagine he did not mention that.”
Lal frowned. “No, I do not think so.” Brightening, she asked, “Have you met the Countess? She is my friend. She took care of me.”
“Yes,” Data said, “but only briefly. We have some things to sort out here, and then I can thank her properly.”
Lal sighed and smiled sleepily. “That would be fine, Father. I think I’m going to go back to sleep now. Come find me when you’re ready.” And, with that, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and began to snore softly.
Data chuckled and carefully laid his daughter down on the floor. Shrugging out of his jacket, he crunched it into a ball and slipped it under her head.
21
Most of the androids Moriarty had imprisoned were appropriately appreciative, but calm—even cool—when Data and La Forge released them. “It’s like this sort of thing happens all the time,” La Forge commented.
“Perhaps it does,” Data said. “Perhaps I should ask.”
Data approached the last captive to be released, the most human in appearance, as he was preparing to beam up to the private transport Data had arranged. “A question, sir,” Data proposed.
“Of course,” the captive replied, bowing deeply at the waist. He was small of stature, with Asian features, and he introduced himself as Jiro. “The least I can do for our rescuer is answer a polite inquiry.”
“My friend observed, and I must agree, that most of your fellow prisoners did not seem particularly angry about your captivity. I am compelled to ask why.”
Jiro shrugged. “As jailers go, Moriarty was not unkind. We all understood his motivations and knew he was unlikely to injure anyone. He was looking for a solution to a problem.”
“But he was willing to supplant an android’s mind for his own,” La Forge exclaimed. “Isn’t that a bit of an extreme solution?”
Jiro said, “I cannot argue the point; however, he did not attempt to do any such thing to me, nor did it seem likely that he would after he determined my system was incompatible with his needs.”
“So, ‘not my problem’?” La Forge asked.
“In summary,” Jiro agreed, “yes.”
“That’s a little self-interested, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” Jiro replied, bowing one last time. “But may I ask, Mister Data—you have not been active for a very long time, have you? That is to say—you are young, are you not?”
“It depends on what you mean by young,” Data began.
“I have been active in this form for three hundred and fifty-three Terran cycles and have existed in a more stationary form—a computer, you would say—for the previous one hundred and five.”
“Ah,” Data said, taken aback. “Then, by those standards, yes, I am very young.”
“As I suspected. The same for you, Mister La Forge, yes? Then, may I just offer the following: I was not acquainted with all of the other captives, but I have crossed paths with some of them in my time, sometimes in similar circumstances. We have a tendency to be brought together from time to time in this fashion.” He laughed. “Sometimes one is the jailer, sometimes the jailed. We who live so long, we tend to wander in and out of shadow. We are heroes and villains both, depending on the circumstances. If you live as long as we, Mister Data, who knows where you might go and for what reason?” He must have signaled for beam-out, because he was gone in a swirl of sparkling atoms.
“How dramatic,” Data observed.
* * *
Data waited for Lal to make a full recovery—to wake up, in other words—before making any decisions about what to do with the Professor and the Countess.
“Can’t we send them with Alice and her friend back to Alice’s planet?” Lal asked, folding the blanket down over her lap. She was propped up in the restored bed, where she had spent most of the previous twelve hours, alternately snoozing and chatting with Data. “Won’t her people be able to load them into android bodies?”
“We do not know if Alice?
??s people have survived,” Data said. “She left her world a long time ago. Also, I do not think you should consider Alice and Harry Mudd to be friends with each other.”
“Well, they were friends once,” Lal said, “and might be again. Perhaps things won’t be quite so horrible as she was expecting when she gets back home. Perhaps they’ll be happy to see her.” She smiled sweetly. “Perhaps they’ve changed.”
Data smiled, too, delighted, though a little confused, by his daughter’s sunny disposition. “I should have made you take a nap a long time ago.”
“You couldn’t make me take a nap, Father. You could only suggest it might be a good idea. Or put a blanket over me. Or make me some hot cocoa. I understand that helps.”
“I will make you hot cocoa when we’re home.”
“I look forward to it,” Lal said. “Though I’ll miss Alice. A little.”
“You will make new friends.”
“Of course I will,” Lal said, then added, “and maybe Regina can come visit.”
* * *
In the end, Data agreed to send Professor Moriarty and the Countess Regina Bartholomew along with Alice and Harry Mudd to Alice’s homeworld on a ship he had delivered for their use. Naturally, it was equipped with every manner of tracking device and monitor Shakti could configure, though Data doubted it would take Alice very long to find and disable all of them. It was worth a try, though. His only requirement was that Moriarty and the Countess not be permitted to manifest outside their storage unit before the vessel landed wherever it was going. He was able to configure the storage unit with sensors to ensure this, though, again, Data had to assume Alice could undo his labors should she desire. He had the distinct impression, however, that Alice and the Countess did not really care for each other, so maybe it wouldn’t be a problem.
* * *
“He appreciates what you’re doing,” the Countess had told Data during her visit, before their departure. “Though he insisted on my relaying that he regrets nothing.”
“Please tell the Professor that I feel the same,” Data replied. “We may have been able to solve the problem without any conflict if he had come to me openly.”
“Perhaps.”
“I assure you, if anything can be done . . .”
The Countess lifted her hand, a sign for Data to cease. “Make no promises, Mister Data. I need to complete my mourning; my husband needs to begin his. I believe you understand what it means to lose a child, even, if by some miracle, she is later restored.”
“I do, though I believe I am only beginning to understand the impact such a loss can make. A kind of madness follows.”
“Or the loss of a parent,” Lal inserted, speaking softly. “Or a lover.”
Data looked at his daughter without replying, surprised by how her words stung, but even more by how he had been unaware of the wounds until she spoke of them.
The Countess rose from the chair beside Lal’s bed and released her hand. In a confiding tone, the Countess said, “Though our previous encounter was brief, I have the idea that your father has changed since last I saw him.”
“He has me now,” Lal replied, nodding. “That would change anyone.”
The Countess beamed. “It would, wouldn’t it?” She leaned down and kissed the girl on the forehead and then the cheek. “I will miss you, young lady.”
“Come visit me when you have a new body, or even if you don’t.”
“I will make every effort.” And then she was gone, though, for good measure, the Countess added a small “poof” and a cloud of tiny, shimmering stars.
* * *
The memory storage unit was beamed aboard along with a blank-faced Alice and a smiling Harry Mudd. Alice never spoke another word. Mudd only stopped chattering when his energy flagged or his nursing program put him under. Though they only spent a couple days around each other, by the end of their time together, La Forge had serious doubts about the deal they had made. “Are you sure you want that man to have an android body that could last for half a million years?” he asked Data.
“There is no guarantee that the androids would give him such a body,” Data commented. “Even assuming they are still where he and Alice left them.”
“I suppose,” La Forge said. “Or that they let him leave. I gather that’s also a question.”
“Indeed.”
“But, still, we’re leaving a lot of loose ends, Data,” La Forge said, scowling. “I don’t like it.”
“Since leaving the Enterprise,” Data replied, “I have come to find the rest of the universe is less tidy than a starship. I am not sure that I entirely like it, either.”
“And yet,” La Forge said, an edge in his voice, “you’ve made some questionable decisions over the past few days. Moriarty was shocked that you didn’t act like the Starfleet officer that he remembered, but if he had seen some of the things I’ve seen you do over the past couple days, I don’t think you could have tricked him so easily.”
“He was desperate,” Data said. “Desperate men are easy to deceive.”
“How do you know that? How do you say that like it’s the oldest adage in the universe? The Data I remember—the one who was my friend—I’m not so sure he would have understood that or even necessarily believed it was true. How much of you is you and how much is Soong? And is there even a way you could know?”
Data shook his head, and his lips moved as if he was trying to speak but couldn’t find the right words. Finally, he lowered his head and looked at a spot on the floor equidistant between him and La Forge. “I do not know,” he said, sounding genuinely regretful. “I have struggled . . . I have had questions, but I have been preoccupied with Lal . . . and . . .” The words trailed off and he lifted his hand and flexed his fingers in the timeless “What else is there to say?” gesture.
La Forge’s outrage mellowed into concern. “Are you worried?”
Data lifted an eyebrow and half-smiled. “Why do you think I asked you to come with me?”
“I considered walking away. More than once.”
“Why did you stay?”
“You’re my friend, Data. You’re my best friend. Or, at least, the guy I used to know was. I’m still getting used to this Data.”
“So am I,” Data said, and then, again, wistfully, “so am I.”
* * *
The flight back to Earth was quieter than Data would have expected. Both La Forge and Lal slept through much of the trip; La Forge because he was exhausted and Lal because, as she said, “Sleeping is fun. I am getting quite good at it.” Data checked the messages Shakti had been collecting for him and responded to the most crucial and pushed the rest back to Shakti for her to sort out. Whatever lingering interest he had maintained in the business his father had built had almost completely waned. Data wondered how complicated it would be to divest himself of it entirely, but he concluded it would be rash to make any decisions before returning home. And, after all, Shakti seemed to enjoy running an empire. It would be cruel to deny her the opportunity.
La Forge asked if he and Lal wanted to beam down to San Francisco and see Leah Brahms, but the android was astute enough to recognize La Forge didn’t really want them to accompany him. Their good-byes were muted and unsatisfying, with neither of them seeming to know what they wanted to say to the other except, “See you sometime soon. . . .” Data did not know if he believed this to be true, and he had no way of knowing what La Forge thought.
Fortunately, at least, Lal seemed happy. Data had been worried that the loss of Alice would plague her, but she chattered as merrily as a magpie about everything and anything. She enjoyed describing her dreams and attributing interpretations to them. She listened intently to Data’s tale of his travels to find her, and she decided to retrace his steps, to meet some of the individuals he described. She was intensely interested in Albert Lee, and she and Shakti had a long, giggly private conversation later where his name was mentioned many times. She listened to Vic Fontaine’s music and proclaimed it “good.?
??
And when, finally, Shakti beamed them down to their little house, Lal was very pleased to find it was early evening. She went out onto the porch and, as was her habit and with great pleasure, watched the neighbors stroll past, calling hello to some and merely waving to others. When one of them asked where they had been for the past few days, all Lal said was “I was kidnapped. Father came and got me back.” The neighbors smiled uncertainly, confused by the odd human girl’s idea of humor.
Data sat beside her in the more shadowed corner, watching the world, watching his daughter, content with the moment, but aware of the mild anxiety that stirred in his center. As the long evening turned into night, Lal turned to him, patted his hand, and asked, “What’s wrong, Father?”
Data considered dissembling, but decided there would be no point. His daughter knew him too well. “I have been thinking about a conversation I had with Geordi,” he explained. “And another I had with Jiro. Did you make his acquaintance before he left?”
“Only briefly. What did he say to you?”
“He noted that my life—our lives—may be very long and that we who live so long may play many parts, that we might wander into shadow.”
“How dramatic,” Lal said, and giggled. “Now I’m sorry I didn’t spend more time with him. He may be right, Father. You’ve only been a few things so far: Starfleet officer, businessman, gardener, cook . . .”
“You think I should try more?”
“Oh, Father, I think you should try everything. I know I intend to.”
Data patted her hand and said, “And I shall be there to watch you.” He thought his daughter would enjoy the sentiment, and so he was surprised when she brushed away his hand.