Immortal Coil - Jeffrey Lang [80]
Rhea was rattling off statistics to someone—probably one of the exocomps—and Data felt the tides of his life’s energy ebb and flow with the count. Data wanted to talk to her, to tell her how much he appreciated her efforts, but that it was obviously too late; the damage was too extensive. She moved out of his field of vision and Data felt the cold sting of regret.
Vaslovik was there, not three meters away, glowering just outside the perimeter of the action. Rhea darted back into view carrying a tool, then disappeared again. He heard her call, “Dammit, Akharin, if you’re not going to help, then get …” but couldn’t make out what she said next. Something jostled the gurney and Data’s head tilted back so that he was looking toward the wall, at a portrait of a middle-aged man with a long, bushy beard and deep soulful eyes. Data recognized the face, though it was hard for him to say where he had seen it. Something about it was familiar, but oddly wrong.
His sight slipped into gray again, became grainy, and irised down to a narrow tunnel. The room seemed to grow dim and Data wondered where Rhea was. Then, the pinprick of vision he still retained was filled with the sight of Vaslovik. He was taking off his jacket, rolling up his sleeves, picking up an instrument. Something boomed, like the rumble of a rolling ocean, and Data suddenly heard the deep rumble of Vaslovik’s voice snapping off orders, calling for tools.
Vaslovik stepped away again and Data once again found himself staring up at the portrait. Perhaps Vaslovik had made some adjustment and his cataloging system had been temporarily brought back online. Perhaps it was simply that a memory that had been working its way through his system had finally made its way to his brain, but Data suddenly recognized the man in the portrait, recognized the style of the painting.
It was a self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci, that was indisputable. But it was not one he recognized. An unknown work? After nine hundred years?
Vaslovik stepped into his field of vision again and Data realized that this was the twin of the face in the portrait.
Then his vision began to fade once more. But in the seconds that remained before everything went black, Data initiated a search through his memory core, sifting through archived Starfleet records for a match to the dual images before his eyes. A file came up, was accessed, and as the information decoded, Data felt something akin to a key slipping into a lock and turning smoothly, tumblers clicking into place as he saw the word, the name, that would explain everything that had happened since the Enterprise had been called to Galor IV.
Flint.
Chapter Twenty-One
DATA WOKE UP, which was, in and of itself, something of a novelty. He could count on one hand the number of times he had opened his eyes and not known precisely where he was. He decided he didn’t like the sensation.
The room was dimly lit and felt cavernous. Tiny sounds echoed and then were swallowed up in the gloom. Before he had a chance to consider whether or not he could, Data sat up. Something slid off him and fluttered to the floor. The room sensors registered the movement and the lights rose.
He was on a couch. There was a frayed blue blanket lying in a ball on the floor. He waited unmoving to see what would happen next. Nothing did.
He smiled, and even as he did, Data recognized how miraculous it was that he could do it at all. Against all hope, Rhea and Vaslovik had repaired him. His system had been on the verge of cascade failure, yet somehow they had brought him back. He thought about running a system diagnosis, then decided not to bother. He felt fine, and