Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [44]
Suddenly, Beverly Crusher felt much more alert … and strangely on edge.
But then she realized that Data wasn’t thinking about the birds and the bees; she could see it in his eyes. He was thinking about other fundamentals. “It occurred to me recently,” he said, “that there is no one in my circle of … friends …” He paused for a moment to give her a chance, she realized, to react to the use of the word “friend.” Data was much closer to the other members of the senior staff, mostly because he worked more closely with them, but also because he had no particular need for her services. When Data had a “medical” problem, he usually went to see Geordi, not her. In any case, Crusher kept her face neutral and nodded for him to continue. “… who has had so much experience with death as you.” He paused again, watching Crusher’s face carefully, perhaps to gauge her reaction.
Crusher didn’t find it difficult to keep her expression neutral. She was the chief medical officer of Starfleet’s flagship and had served a term as the head of Starfleet Medical. It took a lot for her to display shock. That was not to say she wasn’t a bit surprised with the turn the conversation had taken. She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and nodded. “I suppose that’s true, Data. I mean, as a physician, I’ve seen my share of death … though not too much, I hope. That’s not one of the things you want to hang on your shingle …”
Data looked at her quizzically. She shook her head. “Never mind, Data. It was a silly comment. Perhaps if you told me why you want to talk about this …”
“Because, Doctor,” Data said, “I have been experiencing emotional fallout from the knowledge that I may live a great deal longer than, speaking frankly, everyone I know. According to the projections I have been calculating, without modifications of any sort to my neural net or positronic brain, I will probably live for a minimum of—”
“Stop right there, Data,” Crusher said, feeling slightly peeved, but unable to say precisely why. “I get the idea—a long time. Please explain why you feel the need to discuss this with me.”
Data’s brow knotted, aware that he had upset her in some manner that he couldn’t define, then began to stand, saying, “My apologies, Doctor. I have offended you. I will go.” Before he could stand straight, however, Crusher was waving him back into his seat.
“No, no, Data. I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just a little out of sorts. Let me guess: you’re wondering what it’s like to have patients die, how I feel when it happens.”
Data nodded. “Yes,” he said, “and also how you feel knowing that some of the people you might be treating when that happens are your friends. How do you cope with knowing that you might be … left behind.”
Crusher almost smiled despite herself, so suddenly came the understanding for why she had been feeling so put out with Data. This was, she realized, precisely the tone of the conversations she used to have with Wesley when he had been eleven or twelve years old, just on the cusp of adolescence and wrestling with the weighty moral and ethical concerns of a young man discovering his place in a larger universe. Data was reminding her of her son and it was not sitting well with her.
Crusher and Troi had spent many long evenings discussing her son’s fate—his journey of self-discovery accompanying the mysterious Traveler on an intergalactic quest—but no matter how Deanna sliced it, the story amounted to the same thing. Wesley was, for now at least, lost to her and she missed him terribly. She understood that he might return someday, possibly grown into a man, possibly unchanged by the years that were beginning to weigh on her, but the uncertainty was galling and she feared the passage of time might make her bitter.
And now, here was Data, who had been one of Wes’s closest friends, making her think of the one person whose memory caused her the greatest pain. No wonder she was feeling edgy. Data didn’t understand the emotional minefield he was stumbling through and it would be unfair to punish him. He was struggling