The Eyes of the Beholders - A. C. Crispin [69]
They had drawn back into a tight, defensive cluster, and Data noted that they all had their hands on the butts of weapons that his memory identified as “phasers.” His eyes took in their suddenly paled features and wide eyes.
“Ah!” he said. “A typical human fear reaction! Please be assured that I mean you no harm. Would you please identify yourselves?”
The first man swallowed. Data watched, fascinated, as his Adam’s apple moved, and his throat muscles rippled. (I must try that! What would it feel like?) “We’re from the Starfleet vessel Tripoli,” the light-skinned man said in a voice rather higher-pitched than he had used before. “I’m Lieutenant Adams, this is Ensign Sait.” He indicated the dark-skinned woman. “And this is Lieutenant Maginde.” He nodded at the other man, who had the darkest skin color of all.
“It is an honor to meet you,” Data said as his memory banks supplied an appropriately polite response.
“How did you get here, uh … Data?” asked the woman.
The android gazed around him again. For some reason, his eyes were drawn to the rocky wall to his left, but he did not know why, and memory supplied no answer. “I do not know,” he said slowly. “I sense that I was programmed to awaken here, in this manner, when I was discovered by sentient beings such as yourselves … but I do not know why.”
“Are there any people living on this world?” Maginde asked. “We thought there was supposed to be a colony, but we can’t find any traces of it.”
Again Data glanced at the rocky wall, but no memory awoke. “I do not know that, either. I must have been placed here by someone, but whether that party is or was indigenous to this planet, I cannot say. It is equally possible, I suppose, that I was brought here from somewhere else.”
The humans glanced at each other.
“Listen, Data,” Adams said, “we’re going to beam back up to our ship now and report to our captain … our superior officer. She’ll decide what to do with you.”
“Will you return?” asked Data, suddenly wishing that they would not leave.
There must have been something in his voice that revealed his concern, because the woman smiled suddenly. “Don’t worry, Data, I promise you that someone will come back.”
Moments later, the three disappeared by means of what the android’s memory banks identified as a standard Federation transporter beam.
Data inched his way over to the edge of the rock slab and sat so his legs dangled down it. He gazed down upon himself appraisingly. He was clothed in a plain gold coverall. Curiously, he unsealed it and regarded the fleshlike substance that covered his chest. Abnormally pale, it seemed to have a faintly golden, opalescent sheen. He touched his head, discovered hair, and wondered what color it was. He unsealed his jumpsuit further and discovered, as something in his programming had told him he would, that he possessed all the equipment necessary to perfectly simulate a human male.
His programming also told him that he was fully functional as a human sexual partner. His memory core contained extensive information on the subject.
Data resealed his coverall and slowly, tentatively, stood up. He took a step, wondering whether it was his first. Beneath his feet the ground was hard and slightly uneven. Cautiously, the android walked a few paces until he was outside the rock-walled niche where he had awakened. He gazed at the flight of stone steps.
Who made me? he wondered. And why? I have a consciousness … but it is an artificially generated one. I am not human. He thought of Adams and Sait and Maginde. They regarded me as an “it,” a “thing.” They did not see me as human, no matter how nearly I may resemble one.
Slowly the android climbed the rock steps, until he was up on level ground. Effortlessly his memory provided names for what his eyes took in: trees, grass, bushes, fields, sky … until his view was halted by the mountains in the far distance. Data stepped onto the grass at the top of the stairs and walked until he reached a