Metamorphosis - Jean Lorrah [38]
Data was familiar with that lack. He understood friendship and caring, but he often felt set apart from that elusive emotion humans call love. “I know how she felt,” he replied. “Did she then Quest for a soul?” Thelia smiled. “You said you did not know the story.”
“If she were sentient, having been taught that that was the reason for her lack, she would undoubtedly attempt it.”
“Yes, Calatina did attempt it-and she succeeded. When she faced the gods in their sanctuary, she asked that she be made capable of loving, comt she might marry a living man and make him happy.
“The gods agreed-and she found herself back in her homeland, in the body of a flesh and blood woman.”
“Intriguing,” Data said. “She quested for a soul, but instead was given a body. It appears that like so many others, your people believe that only those of flesh and blood have souls.”
Thelia frowned. “I never thought of it that way.
All of the stories about inanimate beings brought to life are unhappy ones. In most, the creature is a monster who turns on the one who brought him life. Calatina is the only one depicted as a nice person, but even she is foolish.”
“It is no wonder you were afraid of me,” said Data. “Your culture says I should not exist.
In my … home, although there are indeed stories in which such creations turn on those who made them, there is a story similar to yours in which a woodcarver makes not a woman, but a little boy, Pinocchio.”
Data told Thelia the story, adding, “A friend introduced me to that story, and has reminded me of it since. Pinocchio first came to life because of an old man’s love, but became a flesh and blood persongained a soul, as I suppose you would put it-only after he had undergone many trials and adventures. But his story has a happy ending, Thelia: he was reunited with those who were family to him, able to be the son his human father wanted.”
Thelia smiled. “What a beautiful story. I wonder why it is not known in Atridia? I shall tell it when I get home.”
Oh, no, Data thought, what have 1 done? But could introducing a story so similar to those that the Elysians already knew break the Prime Directive any more than letting them know of the existence of androids? The Elysian gods, not Data, had forced Thelia to face that. Nor had they interrupted his telling of the story. So he said, “Tell me the rest of the tale of Calatina.” “It is different from your Pinocchio story. Both the woodcarver and the woman he created went on selfish quests, and each was granted precisely what he asked for. Calatina carne to life, but could not love him. Her quest made her capable of loving-but it was not the woodcarver she came to love. On her way home she met a handsome young man, and fell in love with him. However, he did not desire her.”
“A triangle,” Data observed.
“A tragic one. The man Calatina fell in love with did not love her. The woodcarver loved her, but she did not love him in return. She pined after the other man, while the woodcarver pined for her.
Calatinacd not accept that the man she loved did not want her, until he married another. On his wedding day she finally became free of his spell and returned to the woodcarver. But by that time he had grown so ill from unrequited yearning that he lay on his deathbed. “Calatina came to him in tears-the first tears she had ever shed-vowing her love.
He whispered his to her as he died. With one last sigh, her heart burst, and she fell dead upon him-but the story says they are together now, for in that one moment of love’s unity, their souls were at last joined.”
Data shook