Q & A - Keith R. A. DeCandido [18]
Kadohata gulped down most of her iced tea—the jambalaya was very spicy. “Why did Data do that?”
“He thought it would help B-4 evolve, become more like…it only confused B-4.”
La Forge chuckled. “Remember when Data grew the beard?”
Crusher frowned. “No.”
“It was when you were at Starfleet Medical,” La Forge said. “And he only showed it to me and Deanna. It was right after Will grew his, and I guess he wanted to experiment.”
“He didn’t only show it to you and Counselor Troi,” Miranda added.
Crusher shot her a glance. “You’re kidding.”
“He reported to the sensor room with it.” Kadohata shook her head. “It was a nightmare. Here we were, three junior-grade lieutenants. One was newly assigned, along with me and—I don’t remember her name.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, this is awful, we served together for three years—Rothman! Anyway, Data walked in with the beard, and we were stunned. It was awful. He was our superior officer, after all; we could hardly tell him he looked like a ferret grew on his chin. We couldn’t…it would’ve broken his heart.”
“Commander Data,” Worf said, “did not have a heart.”
“Yeah,” La Forge said, “but you still couldn’t laugh at him. It’d be like kicking a puppy.”
Again, Worf gave that small smile. “Speak for yourself.”
It took La Forge a moment to realize that the Klingon was pulling his leg. “Yeah, well, I would’ve liked to have seen you laugh at him.”
“I would never have done so to a superior officer,” Worf said archly. Then the smile returned. “In his presence.”
“That was our solution,” Kadohata said. “As soon as we’d all given our reports, he left, and we collapsed. I think we laughed for a full two minutes. I couldn’t breathe for the next hour.”
“I still remember when Q made him laugh,” La Forge said. “Well, okay, to be fair, he didn’t make him laugh. He let him laugh. I think it’s the one and only time Q did something nice.”
“That assumes that Q’s purpose was not to humiliate Data in much the same way laughing at his beard would have done,” Worf added sourly.
“Well, then, it didn’t work,” La Forge said with a shrug.
Picking up his prune juice, Worf said, “Q failing in his stated goals would not be…inconsistent.”
Crusher nodded. “For someone claiming to be omnipotent, he seemed to miss out on the basics.”
“Well, Data appreciated it,” La Forge said. “I can tell you that much. I’d say that’s the happiest he was before the emotion chip.”
They started telling Data stories. Kadohata shared a few from the perspective of someone who worked directly under the android. La Forge told some of his own: Data throwing a jazz funeral party for La Forge and another officer who were both believed killed; Data performing Henry V for the crew; Data and La Forge’s Sherlock Holmes program getting out of control. And so many more.
Doctor Crusher told them about teaching Data to dance in preparation for being the “father of the bride” at the Ishikawa-O’Brien wedding. (“You dance?” Kadohata said, sounding stunned. Crusher sighed resignedly and said, “Yes, I dance.”) Worf even had a Klingon tale, telling how Data helped him come to an important decision about the clone of Kahless.
By the time Jordan came to clear the plates, Worf had decided that Data should be remembered in song, “like the true warrior he was.” Kadohata was pressing the Klingon on who should write the song. Doctor Crusher and Commander La Forge looked horrified when Worf suggested, “Perhaps a Klingon opera.”
They were interrupted by raucous laughter as the doors opened. About a dozen people came in, all in the gold-trim uniforms of operations. La Forge recognized a few of them—Stolovitzky and Kapsis, both from security—but the one who stood out was Zelik Leybenzon. Thanks to his ocular implants, La Forge didn’t “see” people by face but rather by body chemistry.
Leybenzon was laughing, louder than any of them. La Forge would have bet all the gold-pressed latinum in