Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [106]
“Tell me what’s troubling you, Data.”
“I am concerned about my friends,” he began.
“They’ll be all right, Data. Darryl Adin has been in tight spots before.” She smiled reassuringly. “So has Pris, I’m certain.”
“It’s not just Pris-was Data began, harsher than he intended. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Deanna. It’s also these dreams I’ve been having.” “Why don’t you tell me about them,” Troi suggested. He shook his head. “They’re not that important,” he said, averting his eyes.
Troi leaned forward across the table separating them and covered his hand with hers.
“Oh, Data,” she said, “don’t be afraid of me. Or of what is troubling you. The only way to resolve it is to bring it out into the open.” He felt exposed, threatened. He wanted to run.
Only Starfleet discipline held him, pinned beneath her gaze. “There’s nothing to resolve,” he protested weakly. “But … I will tell you of my dreams anyway.” “They bring you pleasure,” she said after he’d finished. “Yet they also cause you pain. You yearn for something you cannot have.
Fantasizing about it may be pleasurable, but it also prevents you from enjoying what you can have.”
Data sat back in his chair, abruptly pulling his hand out from under hers. “I could have called that speech out of the computer files on elementary human psychology.”
“It would not be there if it were not true,” she pointed out. “It’s all right to fight me, Data. That way we’ll get at what you’re fighting for.” “There isn’t anything I’m fighting-was As he spoke, she leaned forward slightly in her chair, her huge dark eyes unfocused as she probed his 294 feelings. Then, “Oh!” she gasped. Her eyes suddenly focused on his. “Data, what you are suffering is something I have sensed before, but only once.
It is an obsession, but not a destructive one.
You are in love.”
“Counselor,” he protested, “how could I be in love without knowing with whom?”
“I think you do know. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you know who this woman is.”
Data frowned. Despite all he felt, “Could it be Pris, Counselor?” “No, Data.
If you had unrequited feelings for a woman on the ship, or for Pris, you would not hide that from me, or from yourself. What I sense from your dreams is something you can’t admit because you don’t want to face it and possibly lose it.” She frowned. “An obsession.”
Data frowned. “I can never see her face. But you are right: I know her, Deanna. We work together as if we had been colleagues for a long time, and at the end of the dream she always kisses me. So why can’t I see who she is?”
“DATA,” SAID CouationsEL-ORather TROI, “will you permit me to hypnotize you?” He nodded.
His hostility had disappeared-now he wanted only to know the truth. “Yes, if that’s possible.”
“There’s no reason it shouldn’t be. We will work together, and you will remember everything we discover.”
So Data lay down, and Troi spoke softly, intensely. He didn’t fall asleep. Rather, his dream came slowly to life. He started to tell about it, and then to live it, climbing, climbing ever upward, a woman at his side. It was the Quest he had undergone on Elysia, he recognized, but not accurate in detail. And he was human, not android. He and his companion overcame wild beasts. They scaled cliffs, swam rivers, encouraged each other through a burning desert.
Twilight fell.
Data and the woman prepared to rest, but still he could not see her. In the dream state, he didn’t care.
“Data,” she said. “Look at me, Data.”
For some reason, he could not.
“Data, look at me.”
Slowly, helplessly, he turned toward her.
“Thelia?”
He felt no surprise.
For a moment she was the dirt-smeared gamin of their struggle through Elysia’s sacred mountain, smiling as she did each time she overcame an obstacle.
Then she was as he had last seen her, a breathtaking vision in gold and white. She held out her arms, and he went joyfully into them. They kissed-And Data was wide awake, alone, on the couch in Counselor Troi’s office. Troi stood beside him, her face calm but concerned.
“Data,