******************
FRANKENSTEIN'S DAUGHTER
"Frightful must it be, for supremely frightful would be the effect of any human
endeavor to mock the stupendous mechanism of the Creator of the world."
~Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
******************
"Not a word," said Amata. Hoshi's eyes whirled around in panic, and her chest heaved, threatening to hyperventilate. The words killing machine kept echoing in her head in a voice very like that of Captain Archer's. "Can you stay quiet?"
Hoshi nodded and Amata took her hand away from the ensign's mouth. "You're speaking much better," Hoshi said and cringed at how utterly stupid she sounded. Talk down to someone who's got you cornered, why don't you, she thought.
"I know the words now," said Amata, looking at her quizzically. "I can take them right from your mind. I don't need to learn any more."
Hoshi shook her head. She cast a quick look at Malcolm; his chest was rising and falling slowly, as if he were asleep.
"Yes, he is asleep," said Amata. "The doctor gave him medicine to make him sleep."
"Then what are you doing here?" asked Hoshi. She ignored the fact that Amata was plucking thoughts right out of her head as easily as a human would pick a flower from its stem.
"He is very close by," said Amata. She let go of Hoshi and motioned to Malcolm's chair. "I have to go and find Him."
"You mean the doctor whatshisname that created you?"
"Yes. You are my friends. You will help me."
"But-" All of a sudden Hoshi's mind went completely blank except for an overwhelming urge to curl and go to sleep. She blinked at Amata and tried to protest, but it was too late. Amata, face determined, put the lieutenant over one strong shoulder and the ensign over the other, and set off in the direction of the shuttlebay.
******************
A groan issued from Malcolm's lips as his eyes fluttered open. Everything seemed a little too bright for his quarters; even the bed beneath him felt much too hard. It took him a moment to realize that he was not in a bed at all, and a moment more to figure out that he was in a shuttlepod, with Hoshi laying beside him.
It also took him a moment to figure out that his hands were tied behind his back.
Someone sat in the pilot's chair, tapping at the keys.
"Hello?" he asked, his voice coming out like raspy sandpaper. His head ached; something was keeping up a persistant, annoying tickle right over his eyebrows.
"Go back to sleep, Malcolm," said a voice, tinged with a slight accent.
"Amata?" He tried to sit up and failed. The tickle increased, and the computer said flatly, Autopilot engaged.
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked softly.
What the hell is going on? "Amata, what are you doing?"
"I know what I need to do," she said. "What the hell is going on is that I must go and find Him. He is close by; I can feel him. You are my friends. I need your help. But I could not risk that you would try to stop me."
"What?" Did she just read my mind?
Amata's eyes blinked sadly as she tipped a bottle of water to his lips. "In the last few days, Malcolm, I have come alive." Carefully she wiped a trickle from his chin. "I was little more than a baby when you found me. I did not know how to speak or do anything for myself. But I was never a child."
"I know. He put you together and did nothing to help you."
"But I remember everything. And you and Hoshi gave me the tools to understand it." Her fists clenched. "I could not explain anything to you. And it frustrated me. Something inside me spilled open and I could see all the words inside the people on the ship." Her voice took on a pleading tone. "I gained words from their minds."
"You are telepathic."
"Is that what it is called? It scared me. Malcolm, you came in and I could see all of you and you were angry inside. Outside you laughed but inside you hated that you did not know me."
"No, Amata, no. I was angry at the Captain because he knew what you were. And he didn't tell me. I was not angry at you, not at all."
"You came too close and I could see everything. I was frightened and frustrated. So I ran away. I didn't mean to hurt anyone. They just kept coming at me."
He saw her fists clench, though, and wondered if that was true. She caught his eye, and he knew that she had heard the thought. Her face hardened. "Now you do not trust me."
He didn't even have to respond to that; she bared her teeth at him and pushed him away. "Malcolm!"
"Why are we out here, Amata?" he asked.
"We are out here because I know what He did to us. I remember everything, Malcolm, I remember that I was the last one. I remember that he knew he was being chased. I remember that he let us go even though we were his creations. And I know that all of the others like me are dead." Malcolm, shocked at the change in her face, carefully shifted to get in front of Hoshi. He didn't know how much good he would do if Amata became dangerous in the small shuttle, though.
She knew exactly what he was doing. Amata's face crumpled.
"What do you need revenge for?" asked Malcolm, quietly.
"He made me suffer. I want to make him suffer. He made me! He is my father! He should have taken care of me." The unspoken implication: I wasn't good enough for him. He didn't want me.
"We all want that from our fathers," Malcolm replied, and his sympathy was real this time. He went on in a quiet voice, knowing that she could feel his thoughts as well, and hoped she understood. "A father is someone who should be proud of his creations... his children... But you can get past that." Stuart Reed's face came to mind, eternally disappointed, and he cringed. "It isn't easy, but you can get past it."
"He was afraid," she said. "He was afraid that someone would catch him." She stared outside at the stars. "Why wouldn't they want him to have us?"
War machines, thought Malcolm's mind. But the increasingly familiar tickle had stopped, and Amata did not react to the phrase. Could it be that she didn't know? She didn't know what the fugitive doctor had really been doing?
"How on earth did you miss that?" Malcolm muttered. Amata turned and gave him a quizzical look, but she did not pry.
"I will go and tell him that I survived, then," said Amata harshly. "In spite of him. I will ask him to make the others again. And then we will leave and go into space alone, where he cannot hurt us and no one will find us and be afraid like your captain. You will help me. And you will come with me, because you are my friends."
T'Pol would have a field day pointing out the holes in that logic, Malcolm thought. Amata's eyes fixed themselves on him.
"The Vulcan would agree with me. It is very logical." And with that, the world went black again. The last sight Malcolm saw before slipping into darkness was Amata sitting back down in the pilot's chair, utterly determined to enact her vengeance on the man who had deserted her.
****************
The planet draws closer, filling the viewscreen just as Enterprise did a few
days ago, when she was still in her little escape pod. She can feel Him in its
shadow; she has been able to feel his prescense since they left.
Enterprise does not know they are flying right into his clutches. Of course, the ship and its crew are unfamiliar beings to him, but He would find a way to use them. She did the right thing, stopping their engines so she could escape.
Perhaps if I go back and show him that I was strong enough to survive... Perhaps he will tell me that I am the best of his creations, the only one who could resist the cold. Maybe he cast us out to test us, not because he did not care for us...
The stars twinkle in the void, peeking out from around the planet's edges. There is no sign of his ship visible to human eyes.
Amata is not human, though; she does not need her eyes to find him. She directs the little ship toward the planet's surface, homing in on an innocent rock, a natural satellite too small to really be called a moon.
There he is.
And there is where she goes.
****************
Sorry I took so long to post this chapter. I just keep not having time to write any more, so it took me a while to get it written. Hopefully it will not take as long for the next one.