Synthesis - James Swallow [150]
“It’s not her.” Xin got up and walked over to the woman in the sparkling dress. “Do you understand? It’s not her.”
Melora studied the image, looking for some inkling of the bright, questioning intelligence she had encountered over the past few days—and she did not find it.
Xin turned to her, his expression conflicted. “I had hoped… but no.”
“Why are you doing this? If you know that the avatar purged herself from the system, then why—”
“Because I felt something for her!” he snapped. “A sense that was new to me, not like the other women I’ve known. Not the same thing I feel… for you. Different.” He sat heavily on the chair once again. “And now she’s not here, and the loss is profound.”
Melora gave a slow nod, understanding. “You were her father, in a very real way.”
“Did I do the right thing?” he asked suddenly, an ache in his words. “Should I have let Riker stop her?” He looked at the wooden floor. “She wasn’t just software, ’Lora. She was too complex for that. We could never recreate the exact confluence of events that made her, don’t you see? Random chance made her unique, just like—”
“Like a child.”
“Yes.” Xin glanced up at the hologram. “And this is just the shell. The image. It’s not her. It never will be.”
Melora reached out to him and touched his hand. “Xin…”
He didn’t look at her. “Computer, memory access override. Delete holographic program Minuet Alpha and all backups from database. Full erasure.”
Melora watched the woman shimmer and fade away to nothing.
Zurin looked up and raised an eye ridge as the mess-hall doors opened. Chaka entered the room and hesitated on the threshold, her mouth tentacles flailing at the air. Her glittering eyes darted about and found him, and she scuttled forward toward the table where he and Lieutenant Sethe were seated.
The Cygnian’s tail flicked as the Pak’shree pressed her bulky arthropod body into the alcove. “Specialist,” he said by way of a greeting. “We don’t often see you here.”
“It all depends on my mood,” she offered, her mouth parts clicking. “Ensign Dakal, I wanted to see how you were doing. I visited sickbay, but Doctor Onnta told me you had already been discharged.”
Zurin held up his injured hand, which was still shrouded in the plastiform of a biosupport sheath. “I’m healing. Beaming back to the Titan seemed to iron out some of the misalignments of the crash transport down to the surface of the machine moon.”
Chaka gave a full-body nod. “I am pleased. You’re an excellent superior, Ensign, and I was worried that your injury might have forced you into convalescence off-ship.”
“Thank you,” he replied, a little surprised at the warmth of the Pak’shree’s inquiry.
“I understand that this situation might not have been resolved if not for the actions of you and the rest of the Holiday crew.”
Zurin colored slightly. “Commander Tuvok should take the credit for that,” he began, but Chaka kept talking.
“If you ever consider shifting departments again,” she went on, “I think you would be an ideal fit with us in operations. I found working with you to be most refreshing.”
Sethe’s lips pursed. “Even though he’s a male?”
“Yes, even though,” Chaka said brightly, apparently missing the waspish tone of the lieutenant’s voice.
“I thought you considered nonfemales to be, shall we say, less worthy than the female sex?” Sethe glowered at the computer specialist, who remained oblivious to his building irritation.
Chaka seemed to consider the question for a moment. “If the ensign is a representative sample, then it may be that my views don’t apply to the Cardassian species. As for some other races…” She extended a foreleg and patted Sethe on the shoulder. “Well, do your best, sir.” Before the Cygnian could respond, the specialist was ambling away.
“I think she likes me,” Zurin opined, slightly nonplussed by the whole interchange.
Sethe glared at him over his mug of replicated raktajino. “You know her species eats its males, right?”
“That’s arachnids. She’s a crustacean.”
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