Ghost Ship - Diane Carey [58]
“Part of being human,” Riker attempted, latching on to a tiny hope, “is accepting your talents as well as your faults. That’s one equation no machine can compute.”
“Please, sir,” the android said, looking up now, a move that went through Riker like a wooden stake. “If indeed I am nothing but a machine, then I cannot have a sense of self and consciousness, but only programming that includes an illusion of self. Those are facts I may have to accept. I have been soundly reminded by my contact with the alien mechanism that I am … a fake.”
Riker winced. This was a sample of what Captain Picard must already know. Riker had noticed the captain holding back from comments that might have been bold, rude, or comforting on several occasions, and he’d often wondered about the captain’s choice of silence in those moments. But perhaps Picard had learned the hard way: keep your outbursts in check. A senior officer gets listened to, and everything he says gets remembered. Nothing can be casual, nothing can be emotional without the risk of hurt. It was the price of high rank. And it wasn’t going to go away. When it came right down to it, he didn’t know if Data was alive or not and he shouldn’t have opened his big mouth. He never really thought Data would take his comments so much to heart-but perhaps that was the android in him too.
He saw in Data’s eyes, in his expression, an intense need to define himself and discover his true nature. And here I am, at the heart of his struggle. Part of that struggle may be to admit a truth that isn’t very pleasant.
“I don’t know what you are, I admit that,” he told Data with a vocal shrug. “I’m not qualified to say. But Starfleet checked you out and you tested out alive. That’s good enough for-“
“By machines, sir,” Data reminded painfully. “Machines will report whatever they are told to report. No human looks at me and thinks I am human too. And you, more than anyone, still treat me like a machine.”
Until his chest started hurting, Riker didn’t even inhale. What had he been thinking about, admitting the truth? What happens when it slams you across the face and insists you look?
“Sir,” Data began, solemn again, “if I may go now … “
Sadly Riker leaned on the command chair and nodded.
“Dismissed.”
From behind him-he didn’t watch-he heard the hiss of the turbolift door and the soft sucking noise behind the wall as the lift shot away through the ship. Riker found himself staring at the spot where Data’s boots had left a faint impression on the carpet. Now he breathed deeply, though it gave him no comfort, and listened to the thickness of his own voice.
“The tin man wants a heart.”
“You wanted privacy. You have it. All I ask is that you make good use of it, Counselor.”
Her delicate white hands were trembling, and nothing, nothing would make them stop. She didn’t blame herself for the lack of control-in fact she didn’t even do much to stop it. Burying what she was feeling and experiencing would only do her damage. But the captain was here and he was ready to listen to a confession, a confession that would take a single trouble and multiply it. She had thought having the answers would help her, ease her burden, but no. She knew many more things than she had an hour ago, and nothing was easier. Clarity in this case was more painful than obscurity.
Her head and neck ached as though someone had been sitting on her shoulders and twisting her skull.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this before, Captain,” she said, easing into it. “I’ve had to block thoughts before, but these simply crash through my barriers. These people are so desperate that they’re forcing their way into my mind, no matter how I try to close them off. I don’t understand the science, but there are definitely living, conscious life essences inside the phenomenon. Not memories, not residues, but the actual living essences of individuals. Somehow this thing preserves the consciousness and discards