Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [35]
The sensors on Data’s palms and fingers, protected by his hold on Thelia; had come through unharmed, 96 and his systems were slowly adjusting to compensate for lost function. Thelia stirred, coughed, and opened her eyes. She sat up, wincing as she put one hand over the back of the other. Data recalled that the pain of burns was the most severe that humanoid beings could suffer. But although she frowned as she flexed her hands, she quickly said, “I’ll be all right.” Her voice was husky, and she coughed again. Then she looked at Data and her eyes widened in concern. “Oh-you are badly hurt!” “All my damage can be repaired.” It was not just a reassuring lie; replacements for his surface sensors were readily available aboard the Enterprise, and after he and Geordi were satisfied that everything was once again functioning properly, Dr. Pulaski would replace his full synthoskin if necessary. A few hours of work, and there would be no evidence that he had ever been damaged.
Thelia coughed again, but Data recognized throat irritation, not the lung damage he had feared. He found the water bag-dripping the last dregs of their supply.
Thelia stared. “How could that be damaged? It is not burnt.” Data examined it. “The extreme heat turned the water to steam and burst the bag.
So we are without a way to carry water. We had best assess the rest of the damage,” he added, handing her her pack.
Data had wrapped the cloak about Thelia, not giving a thought to the pack or water bag. The pack had protected a section of his left hip and back, but it was thoroughly scorched, and so were its contents. 97 Thelia’s food supply was a blackened mess, as were what had apparently been spare garments.
Only the leather sling did not crumble when Thelia picked it out of the ashes. She brushed it as clean as she could, looped it over her belt beside her knife, then looked up at Data and said, “The gods will supply our needs. Let me see how badly you are hurt, Data. Perhaps there is something I can . .
. repair.”
“We have no tools or replacement parts,” he said. “Please do not be concerned, Thelia. The damage is superficial and will be quickly repaired when I get … home.”
But Thelia insisted on examining him. She confirmed what his sensors-or lack thereof in some areas-told him. On much of his back, the sides of his legs, and the backs of his arms, the synthetic material of his uniform and skin had melted and fused together. His hair had melted, too, but had done its job of protecting the delicate sensory components housed in his head. Subdermal sensors were out in the fused areas, but other than the damaged circuit that . restricted his vision, his other sensory apparatus seemed to work now that it had cooled to its range of function. He could not see his face, but could feel that the skin of his forehead had bubbled. It probably looked like that on the back of his left hand: like organic skin horribly scarred.
The rest of his face had been pressed against Thelia’s cloak for the leap across the chasm; it had suffered little or no damage. The previously damaged skin of the back of his right hand had burned away entirely, though, leaving the skeletal structure and neural net exposed. After much argument, he was able to persuade Thelia that he could go on, and they continued their climb onward. “The gods temper the wind to the shorn seja,” observed Thelia, and Data realized that the temperature was within a normal range for humanoid comfort for the first time since the rockfall.
He almost began to answer her quote by telling her that his people said the same thing about shorn lambs, but remembered the unspoken agreement with Elysia’s gods not to inform their people of other worlds. Then he began to wonder whether his strangeness was being repeatedly demonstrated to Thelia to determine whether her people were ready to be introduced to that very concept.
The trail continued upward, until Data judged that they were more than two-thirds of