Fortune's Light - Michael Jan Friedman [78]
He was halfway inside the cabin before he noticed the captain wasn’t alone.
“Oops,” blurted Geordi. “Sorry, sir. I didn’t know you had company.”
“That is all right, Commander. Actually I was going to call you as soon as Worf and I were finished. You might as well pull up a chair and join us.”
Geordi glanced at the Klingon, shrugged. “If I’m not interrupting, sure.” And with that, he slipped agreeably into the chair next to Worf’s.
“We were talking about Mr. Data,” remarked Picard. “And his fascination with that holodeck program.” He indicated his security chief. “I just sent Worf to visit him in the holodeck—to alert him to the possibility that he may be needed on an away team.”
“In support of Commander Riker,” supplied Geordi.
“Precisely. Of course, I could have sent the order via ship’s intercom …”
The engineering officer nodded. “But you wondered what Data was up to.”
The captain made a steeple of his fingers, taking the time to choose his words carefully. “I am not a busybody,” he said finally. “Normally, what people do in their off-duty hours is their own business. However, the last time Mr. Data spent so much time in a holodeck, he was helping his android prodigy to select a species and a gender. I do not want something like that happening again without my knowing it.”
Geordi waved away even the suggestion of it. “Not to worry,” he said. “First of all, this program wasn’t even Data’s idea.”
Picard looked at him. “Then whose idea was it?”
“Commander Riker’s. It’s a baseball game he plucked out of the history books. Data just adopted it—with permission, of course.”
The captain smiled. “Baseball, eh?”
Geordi tilted his head. “You’re familiar with the sport, sir?”
“I have a nodding acquaintance with it,” Picard said. He thought for a moment. “But why has Data become so absorbed in it?”
“You know,” replied Geordi, “I asked him the same question, more or less. He said he’d thought about it a lot, but didn’t have an answer.”
Picard grunted. “Care to venture a guess—either of you?”
Worf just scowled. Apparently, the experience had been a bit too alien for him.
Geordi was somewhat more daring. “This is only a guess,” he warned, “but I think Data feels … well, a kinship with the characters in the program.”
“Kinship?” echoed the captain. “How so?”
Geordi’s brow wrinkled. Obviously he hadn’t thought this all the way through yet. But he went on anyway, groping for the logical conclusion. “Because they’re man-made,” he said at last. “Because they’re like him.”
Picard shook his head. “Only on the surface, Commander. Mr. Data is an autonomous life-form. He is not dependent on some external mechanism for his existence.”
“Isn’t he?” Geordi wondered out loud. “In fact, aren’t we all? Let’s say the ship suddenly vanished out from under us. How long would we last in the vacuum of space? Of all of us, Data would be the only survivor. And even he would succumb eventually—if not to cold and radiation, then to the inexorable tug of Imprima’s gravity.”
The captain drew a breath, let it out. “I see what you mean, Commander. And your point is well taken.”
Picard was touched by a feeling of déjŕ vu. Hadn’t he had this conversation with someone once before?
Or was it a conversation he’d had with himself—sometime during the many hours he’d spent trying to define intelligent life, if not for the Federation, then at least for Jean-Luc Picard? Since the day he entered space, his most heartfelt beliefs on that subject had been turned on their ear more than once. And Data had done much of the turning.
Worf was looking at Geordi with narrowed eyes. “Commander, are you suggesting that Data’s loyalty may be divided?” Naturally, that would be of concern to the head of security, whether he believed it or not.
“Not at all,” said Geordi. “I’m just saying that Data feels a responsibility to these characters. He doesn’t want to let them down, any more than he would want to let us down.”
“In what way