Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [30]
“And now you have grown up, and are solving them yourself,” Data pointed out, wondering why this slight young woman had been chosen to Quest for all her people.
For once, he curbed his curiosity: Thelia needed to sleep, not tell stories. “I am not the doll your mother took from you,” he pointed out. “I am not covered with wool, nor am I a prince.”
As he had hoped, Thelia laughed, though wearily. Then she removed her cloak and draped it over his shoulders.
“I remember another ancient fable, but it was not one my mother told me. It was about a woodcarver who made a doll so lovely he wanted to marry her, and quested that the gods might bring her to life.”
Thelia took Data’s hand. “But you are not carved out of wood. You are living flesh over the strange machinery inside.”
“My skin is designed to feel like flesh,” he told her, “but it is not. Thelia, if the doll actually came to life in the story you know, then, in some ways, I am like her.”
“Ah, I hope not,” said Thelia, “for her story is very sad. It’s odd: when I was very young, I did not realize how sad it was that she got everything she desired, and yet never found happiness.”
As she talked, Data sat against the wall and took 83 Thelia on his lap, wrapping the cloak about them both. She took food from her pack, dried fruit and seeds and tough meat. Data drank some water to disreplenish the fluid he had lost. If this Quest lasted more than a day or two he would need sustenance, but that did not mean depriving Thelia of the food her organic system needed so much more.
There might be trace elements he could take directly from mineral formations, but with his tricorder nonfunctional he would be safer with organic nutrients. He had no need to taste the glowing lichen in order to analyze its constituents; he already knew that . the energy his system would use in filtering out fluorescent elements would outweigh any benefits he might gain from consuming such vegetation.
There was also the danger of some element his sensors could not detect, like the drug Lore had once used to render him unconscious, but that risk was minimal.
He wondered if the Elysian gods could tell from their study of him what few elements were a threat to his existence.
After a time, Thelia got up and went out of the cavern, back the way they had come. Data had lived too many years among organic beings to embarrass her by asking where she was going or what for; besides, her desire for privacy indicated that she regarded Data as a person rather than, as she perceived it, a toy.
The gods also respected Thelia’s privacy; nothing happened except that she returned a few minutes later and came into Data’s arms, shivering with renewed cold. For once wishing he were not built quite so compactly, he tried to keep as much of himself as possible between her and the cold stone, for even a 84 layer of warm woolen cloak was little protection against the warmth-leeching rock.
As she settled herself, Thelia asked, “Am I too heavy on you?” “No,” he replied. “My design even precludes your putting one of my limbs to sleep, as it were. Rest, Thelia.
There is no way you can harm me.” She turned her head to look sidewise at him, and with an odd smile said, “No, I don’t suppose there is.”
He expected her to fall off to sleep at once, but apparently she was too keyed up from the day’s events. Her breathing remained uneven. She sighed and shifted her weight. After a time, apparently realizing that sleep was going to elude her for the moment, she asked, “Data, what are you questing for?” “To meet the gods,” he replied.
“Yes-but what gift will you ask of them if your Quest is successful?” “Knowledge of great importance to me and the people I live among,” he replied. “What will you ask?” he continued, before she could ask him what that knowledge was.
“I have inherited the gift of my ancestor who quested before me-but it does my people no good unless the gods allow the lands of Atridia and Tosus to be joined,” she replied.
“As you said your people have long talked of.