Mosaic - Jeri Taylor [21]
"I assure you I am quite real. However, I lack any true biological component. I was constructed and then programmed." And, to demonstrate, he snapped open a portion of his wrist.
Kathryn almost jumped. Revealed under his skinskin?-was a mass of circuitry, a complex web of optical fibers and blinking lights. She looked up at him, amazed, and dozens of questions began flooding her mind. "Who made you? And programmed you? Where did it happen? How did you get into Starfleet Academy-was Suddenly she stopped and covered her mouth. "I'm sorry. I'm being too curious. Mommy says I have to be careful or I might hurt people's feelings."
"I have no emotions which might be wounded, so you may feel free to ask me any question you like. I shall be happy to respond."
And as they toured Mars Colony, Data began to tell her about his unique origins. Within minutes, Kathryn had lost her anxieties, and found that she was in fact comfortable asking him anything and everything, for he seemed to know more than anyone she'd ever met, even Daddy. "Terraforming Mars was a viable concept by the end of the twentieth century," he told her. "But all the theorizing was done envisioning only the technology that existed at the time. No one ever imagined making contact with the Vulcans, or what a technological breakthrough they would help us establish."
They were walking outside in a Martian atmosphere that no longer required spacesuits or even 02 concentrators to breathe. Before them swept a vast plain studded with oak trees-genetically engineered, to be sure, but recognizable just the same-that grew to towering heights because of the low Martian gravitational pull. Beyond that lay the deceptively gentle slope that led to the top of Olympus Mons, the highest point on Mars (and three times as high as Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth); it, too, was covered with trees, though pines predominated at the upper elevations. "Warming the planet was accomplished in a fraction of the time twenty-first-century scientists had predicted. Water and oxygen were liberated from the subterranean permafrost and genetically engineered bacteria were introduced into the terrain. This began the terraforming pro- cess. There were colonists living on Mars as early as 2103, but they needed atmospheric suits in order to breathe outside a biosphere. Not quite one hundred years after that, Mars possessed a breathable atmosphere." They had approached a huge, man-made quarry that, Kathryn noted, contained water. "These are quarries left by the first mining projects on Mars," explained Data. "The earliest colonists utilized local resources, mining the elements to build habitable structures."
Some of Kathryn's history lesson came back to her. "They mined something that helped them make concrete...."
"This is correct. Basaltic regolith exists in large quantities on this planet. Refined and mixed with water, it forms a crude concrete. This process was far more efficient than trying to bring building materials from Earth."
"Why is there water in the quarry now?"
"When the quarries were abandoned, they filled with water from the underlying cave systems. Mars had quite a wet beginning, you see; rivers, streams, and lava flows carved caves just as they did on Earth." The pale being stared down into the clear water of the quarries. "In summer these quarries are quite popular as swimming sites." He glanced down at his small charge. "Although I am told that adults frown on children utilizing them in that way, since they are not serviced by lifeguards."
Kathryn smiled to herself. This fascinating person said things that were funny, yet she was sure he didn't intend them that way, or even realize that's how they came out.
But her mind had filed away an interesting piece of information: children weren't supposed to swim in the quarries. Why that seemed interesting, she wasn't sure, but it did.
CHAPTER 5
HARRY KIM WAS