Chapter Eleven

Silarra input the final codes, then stood and moved to the back of her small vessel, where there was more space to move around.

"One blink male, two blinks female, move eyes to the left or right to select holo-guise," she muttered to herself, just to make sure she had it straight. Taking a deep breath, she swung her arms to loosen up her back and shoulders, then blinked once, very deliberately moved her eyes to the right three times, and waited for the tickly static tingle as the hard-light holo-image coalesced around her.

"Why, hello Mr. Data," she said to the image looking back at her from the mirror, and stepped forward for a closer inspection. "Hmm…hard to tell he's a machine, even with those eyes… Computer, activate vocal modulator and synch with images."

The computer gave an acknowledging chirp, and Silarra spoke in Data's voice, the computer program ensuring every vocal intonation was an exact match with the recordings she'd made in the compound.

"Round the rugged rocks the ragged rascals ran," she pronounced, and smiled. "Perfect."

A few more eye flicks, another staticky tingle, and Picard had taken the android's place in the mirror.

"What a to-do to die today, at a minute or two to two," she said in the Starfleet captain's richly rounded tones. "A thing distinctly hard to say, but harder still to do. For they'll beat a tattoo, at twenty to two, a rat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tattoo. And a dragon will come when he hears the drum, at a minute or two to two today, at a minute or two to two."

"What the hell is that nonsense?" a voice called out from the front of the ship. "Silarra! Silarra, I want to talk with you!"

The Suliban hissed angrily, made a quick gesture with her fingers, and the holo-guise dropped away, exposing her own stony features.

"What are you doing, calling me here," she demanded irritably, glaring at her caller's face on the main viewscreen. "I told you, Boss-man, you'll get my next report when I give it."

The white-clad figure on the screen was uncomfortably back-lit, making it impossible to clearly distinguish his features or much of anything about his hat and clothes apart from their (lack of) color. Silarra scowled and squinted against the light, knowing full well he did that on purpose – a tactic to disorient both 'friend' and 'foe.'

"Given the amount I'm paying for this job, I don't think these updates are an unreasonable demand," the Boss-man hissed, "especially when I find you in a ship, in orbit, practicing tongue twisters in some ridiculous accent!"

"I know it's hard, Boss, but if you can dredge up a little patience I'll give you an explanation for that," Silarra said. "Shut up and watch this."

With subtle, deftly coordinated movements of her eyes, eyelids, tongue, and hands, the expert chameleon ran through her newly programmed gallery of guises: the Starfleet officers, the archaeologists, the newly arrived Starfleet doctor, her pilot and nurse, and even the three children.

Before she'd made it half-way through her demonstration, the Boss-man was laughing and clapping like a child at a puppet show.

"Wonderful, wonderful!" he cheered. "Next, you'll be passing yourself off as one of their horses." His overlit shadow leaned closer to the screen, and his voice grew cold. "Oh, you do take your time Silarra. But this trick of yours had better pay off. I want the information I sent you for."

Angry frustration twisted inside her, and she snapped, "What the hell do you think I'm doing with these guises? Playing dress-up? I've gone to a lot of trouble to get these recordings! The equipment I use ain't exactly cheap, Boss, and it's hardly basic user interface. It's an art, doing what I do. An art, and a skill. Especially considering they've got that damn android."

"Don't vent your troubles to me," the Boss-man snarled. "Just get me what I want. The sooner the better. The market doesn't run on patience, my dear – and you are hardly my only asset in this matter."

"That a threat, Boss-man?"

"Just a fact," the Boss-man said coyly. "One of those hard, cold facets of life. I will have what's mine with or without you. It's only to your benefit to deliver…on my terms."

Silarra bared her teeth, her pebbly skin turning a vivid, angry green.

"Until our next communication, my dear chameleon," the Boss-man said, his oily voice dripping with menace. "Don't disappoint me."

The screen darkened, and Silarra slammed her fists against the arms of her chair.

"…washed out, back-lit bastard..." she snarled with bitter anger. "I tell him: contact me only through my personal comm unit. So he hacks my ship, like some stupid, schoolyard power play! Computer!" she snapped. "Run another spybug scan, as deep and thorough as possible. Search for bug programs and physical tracers, old and new, starting with the comm system. Encrypt the results under Code Sil1355 - you know the rest. I'll deal with the findings when I get back."

"Acknowledged," the computer chirped, and Silarra stalked to the transporter touch pad at the back of her little craft. She rechecked her emergency failsafes and procedures, then tapped in the planetary coordinates for the Starfleet runabout just outside the archaeologists' compound.

"One last detail…" she said, enduring the static tickle of a guise shift, "and energize!"

The runabout's sickbay was even smaller and more compact than the clinic, but the scanning equipment was light-years ahead of the basic, collapsible emergency kit that came standard with the archaeologists' temporary, prefab structure.

Dr. Crusher stood before the wall display, her expression somber as she studied images of Mikey's chromosomal DNA and several screens of cancer cell samples she and her head nurse, Lt. Alyssa Ogawa, had collected from the boy. Beside that, a full-body scan highlighted the masses of tumors spread throughout the boy's little body in shades of red, orange, and yellow.

"I haven't seen anything like this since I took that course on Earth's Post-Atomic Horror at the academy," Ogawa said, her forehead wrinkled with compassion. "I remember my reaction when I first saw the images of the mutations and tumors caused by exposure to that much harmful radiation – especially the infants and small children whose bones and organs were still growing, still developing…" She shook her head, as if to clear it. "It's hard to believe such things still go on in this supposedly 'enlightened' age."

"I won't argue," Dr. Crusher said, her anger clear in her voice and posture. "From what I can tell, this boy's been surviving on sheer spit and guile. I've never seen a case so advanced. And, there is no reason for it to have gotten this bad. If this child had been brought to a hospital – any hospital – when he was first diagnosed, a single injection could have cured him! Now…"

"Mikey's condition was left untreated by his captors because he was viewed, not as a being, but as a damaged commodity," Data spoke from Mikey's bedside. "My question to you, Doctor, is can you repair the damage?"

Crusher turned to face him, and her hard expression softened. Even unconscious, Mikey held on to the android's hand – a connection Data seemed unwilling to break even to cross the small distance to the display panel.

The scene reminded the doctor of another boy Data had rescued, years ago. Timothy Harris. Data had pulled the boy from the ruins of the SS Vico after his parents and the rest of the crew were killed in a terrible accident, and the two had quickly formed a strong connection. Impressed by the android's strength and abilities, Timothy had claimed he was an android too, imitating Data's mannerisms, the way he talked, and even his swept-back hairstyle.

Watching them together, Crusher had been amused, but also touched by how naturally Data had carried out his role as the boy's mentor. She remembered how Data had come to her for parenting advice when he created Lal; how concerned he had been that his perceived 'lack' of emotion would impede him from providing his daughter with the love and support he so wished to give.

Now, she was seeing those very emotions in full force on Data's newly 'upgraded' features…anxieties that, as a parent, she knew all too well…

And, it made her heart sink in her chest.

"I wish I could help him, Data," she said. "I truly do. But, the truth is…" She glanced back at the scan. "It doesn't look good. Enlarged liver and spleen, a rapidly failing immune system…tumors on the kidneys, the lungs…another here, near the heart…"

She shook her head, her expression sharpening with frustration.

"I'm afraid the cancer has metastasized too far. Even if I did attempt treatment, at this stage I don't think his system is strong enough to handle the trauma."

"What is the treatment?" Data asked.

"Well, genetic therapy for starters," Crusher said. "That would correct for the genetic mutation that triggered his condition, but it wouldn't be enough to handle all the existing tumors. Unfortunately, when a cancer is this advanced, excising the tumor can too often harm the affected organ more than the tumor itself…"

She raked a hand through her coppery hair and sighed sharply through her nose.

"At this point, I'd say his only hope would be cloned transplants," she said grimly. "And that hope is pretty slim, Data."

Data knit his dark eyebrows and glanced around the compact sickbay, his amber eyes seeming to catalog and analyze everything they saw.

"This facility is equipped for such a procedure," he said. "There is a small adjoining lab, where the required organs and tissues can easily be grown from Mikey's existing stem cells, and the operating theater, though quite compact, does feature the latest—"

"That requires time, Data," Crusher told him. "Time this boy doesn't have. Even if he did survive the transplant procedure, the strain would be too much for his body to handle. The recovery could kill him. I'm afraid I can't recommend it."

"That is unacceptable," Data stated, tightening his hold on Mikey's hand.

"That may be," she said, her brows quirked in angry challenge. "But, given the situation, it's all I've got. You're welcome to come up with something better."

Data's eyes grew fixed and focused, then began to move rapidly back and forth, as if reading text only he could see.

"Doctor," he said, his head snapping up. "You say that Mikey needs time. Time for you to prepare the required materials, and time for his body to recover and adapt to the necessary transplants. What if there was a way to provide him that time?"

"What are you suggesting, Data?" Crusher asked warily.

"I am suggesting we place Mikey in temporary stasis, Doctor," Data said.

"Stasis?" Ogawa repeated. "But, we don't have a stasis chamber. And, even if we did, how could we operate through it? Isn't the point of a stasis chamber to place a patient in suspended animation?"

"Yes. But," Data said, his enthusiasm building as the project coalesced in his mind, "I am proposing, not to construct a stasis chamber, but a stasis field – rather along the lines of a standard, adjustable energy field that can be penetrated by surgical lasers set to a specific frequency. The idea would not be to freeze Mikey's systems in time, merely to slow them enough to mitigate the trauma of the surgery as much as possible."

"You can do that?" Ogawa said, her eyes wide.

"I am certain that I could," Data said, and stared straight at Crusher. "With your permission, Doctor."

Crusher regarded him, her own mind beginning to churn over the possibilities until, slowly, she began to nod.

"I see," she said musingly. "What you're suggesting is not dissimilar to a procedure used during the twentieth century to keep stroke or heart attack victims from suffering brain damage due to a lack of oxygen. They would pack the patient in ice to induce hypothermia, lowering the patient's body temperature in an attempt to slow the metabolism as much as possible."

"Only, instead of ice, we'll be using this stasis field," Ogawa said.

"Exactly," Data said. "In theory, we should be able to use the field to control Mikey's metabolism rate during the surgery, monitor his healing process, and adjust as needed to ease the stress to his system while he recovers."

"How long would you need to create this field, Data?" Crusher asked.

"No more than six hours, Doctor," Data told her confidently. "Most of what I require is readily available, but I will have to replicate some tools and supplementary materials. And, I am sure Howard would be willing lend a hand, should I require assistance."

"I am here to serve," the silvery-green robot asserted in his cheery way. Shortly after Kurak left the clinic (despite Dr. Crusher's suggestion that she stay another night), Howard had followed Data to the runabout's sickbay, where he'd been efficiently making himself useful carrying and setting out equipment.

Crusher gave the robot a little smile, then looked back at her eager friend.

"All right, Data," she said. "We'll give your idea a try. Alyssa, prepare the lab. If we start now, we should have the transplants ready to use by tomorrow."

"Yes, Doctor," Ogawa said, and strode off to carry out her orders.

Crusher looked to Data.

"That should give you more than enough time to construct and test your stasis field."

"Indeed, it will," Data said, his face breaking into a broad smile as he released Mikey's hand to take hers.

Crusher blinked, surprised both by the gesture, and by how warm – how human – his new skin felt. The detail was incredible…faint blue veins, small freckles, dark hairs at his wrists and knuckles…

She turned her gaze to his warm, amber eyes, the faint shadow of beard bordering his smile…and was struck by a very peculiar twinge. It was unsettlingly similar to the odd feeling she'd had the first time she'd walked in on her son, Wesley, shaving in front of the bathroom mirror: the sudden jolt of understanding that he wasn't her little boy anymore, but a real, separate, grown-up person...

"Thank you, Beverly," Data was saying when she tuned back in. "I understand that this is a long shot, but I want you to know how much I appreciate your efforts, and the positive example you have set for the children just by coming here."

"Why, thank you Data," she said, caught rather off balance by such sincerely spoken compliments…as well as his use of her first name. As far as she could remember, he had only ever called her 'Doctor.' "I just hope you'll feel the same way after tomorrow's operation."

"I have full confidence in your abilities, Doctor," he said, and she knew it wasn't a platitude. "If you will excuse me, I should like to make use of the cafeteria replicator before supper."

Crusher watched as he cast a glance at Mikey, then headed through the sickbay's sliding doors, deeply rattled by what she'd just experienced and resolving to discuss Data's sudden 'upgrade' with Troi, Picard, and Riker as soon as she had the chance. If the changes she'd observed in their android friend had left her reeling, she had to wonder how the others were taking this 'new' Data…and whether his surprising decision to alter his appearance was as impulsive as it seemed.

To Be Continued…

References include - TNG: Hero Worship; The Offspring; The Game; Journey's End; Encounter At Farpoint.