Chapter Four; Excido
Excido. Verb. 1. Be deprived of 2. Disappear 3. Escape 4. Lose control of senses 5. Perish
We lay and talked for a long time as night fell around us, the forest still and quiet under its blanket of snow. In the deepest part of the night we went back to the house and took what we needed, as silent as only androids could be. We set off together towards the township and I found the shuttle where I had seen it last. We knew full well that it was not ours to take, but if they did not want us here, then the humans could provide our means of escape. It was the work of mere seconds for us to break the code to the door, another few moments to override the commands, and I piloted us away from the people who hated us, who lied and deceived us, who wanted us dead, would destroy us if they could.
We picked a heading at random, set the shuttle to auto pilot and repaired the hurts that we had inflicted upon each other. Then we discussed where we might go.
There were several options available to us, but we agreed that our best hope would be to try for a Federation command post and request asylum. There were dangers inherent to even this, but the Federation seemed to have a respect for lifeforms of all types and would, we hoped, accept our sentience and guard us from harm. We discussed what we might do with our freedom, with the whole wide universe laid out before us. So many options available to such beings as we. The one thing that we both agreed upon was that we would not be separated.
It was on the third day of our liberty that we picked up something unusual on the scanners, and I convinced Lore that we should investigate, my thirst for knowledge compelling me. He acquiesced and we diverted. What we discovered was so incredible as to be almost unbelievable. An enormous crystalline structure, hanging in the gulf of space. It was composed of delicate spars and struts, sharp and jagged, symmetrical and shimmering in the starlight. We gazed at it for some time in awe, committing its beauty to our memory banks.
"What do you think it is?" Lore breathed. I had scanned the crystal, was monitoring its movement.
"I do not know, but it appears to be moving under its own power. It has changed course since we first spotted it on the scanners, so it is not simply drifting."
"Could it be a craft of some kind?" He posited. I shook my head.
"There are no signs of any life forms on the structure."
"Could it be... something like us?"
Lore and I looked at each other. Another artificial life form? Perhaps it too was fleeing those who did not understand.
"We have to try and communicate!" Lore seemed excited at the prospect, and I shared his enthusiasm. Over the next few hours we matched course with the gigantic form, trying frequency after frequency, bursts of radiation, magnetic resonances. The crystal showed no sign of understanding and Lore was beginning to believe that he had been mistaken, that his imagination had gotten the better of him. I, however, was unwilling to rest until I had tried every method available to me. It took much experimenting before I discovered the correct method, and when I did I shouted out loud with joy.
"What is it?"
"Graviton pulses, ten per seconds! The crystal has stopped, I think it is listening!"
"You mean, it understands?" Lore's eyes were bright with excitement.
"Not necessarily." I cautioned him, curbing his enthusiasm. "We may have attracted its attention, but if it is intelligent, I would hope that..." The signal came back, a series of graviton pulses, sent out from the entity hanging before us. "It is responding!" I whispered.
"What does it say?" Lore was getting carried away again, and I had to laugh.
"I cannot understand it, it will take some time for me to analyse. But since it has responded, I must conclude that it is indeed sentient."
"Oh! Of course." Lore looked chastened. "Can I help?"
"Of course! Many processors make light work!" I quipped, and he grinned.
It took many hours, going back and forth between the three of us, to find a way to 'speak' with the being. Many things about it mystified us, and its level of comprehension of us was equally confused.
We managed to establish that it was travelling in search of food, in the form of organic life force. It had disregarded our craft as a non viable food source, but we had piqued its curiosity. It wanted energy, life, and we could understand that. But where to find it? It queried us; did we know where it could go?
Yes, we did.
I agreed with Lore that we would warn the colonists of the entities impending arrival. We felt no desire to kill, merely to punish. The planet would recover, with time and human intervention, and we would gain a powerful ally, and get our revenge simultaneously. We relayed our plan to the crystalline entity, who seemed pleased with the result of our random encounter. We told it how to find Omicron Theta, and made ready to accompany the entity back to our home world, to watch as it wreaked havoc upon those who had scorned us. I kissed Lore then, the emotions swirling through me, but he broke the kiss abruptly, his head jerking back.
"Lore?" I queried, but his eyes were blank.
After that, I remember nothing, for some time.
I came back online and looked around. I was in the workshop of the house, on Omicron Theta. Lore was there, as were Father and Mother. Mother looked upset, Father and Lore looked angry.
"It was your fault! You drove us away!" Lore was shouting.
"You left of your own damned accord!" Father replied, also shouting. "You have free will, and you used it, and now look at the mess you've made of everything!"
"We never would have felt that we had to leave if it weren't for you!" Lore snapped back. "You never really cared about us, never! You only cared that we proved your theories, no longer 'Often Wrong'. Well look how wrong you were about us."
"Please, don't." Mother looked close to tears. "Of course we cared about you..."
"Don't, Mother." Lore's face was twisted. "Don't try and absolve him of his crimes. He allowed them to nearly murder your son! Doesn't that mean something to you, doesn't that say something about the man you married?"
"How have I come to be here?" I queried. Lore was with me in three long strides, wrapping his arms around me. A gesture of affection. I raised my arms and put them around him in return, reciprocating the gesture, as was appropriate.
"Our dear father," Lore said the words in such a way that I knew that he was being sarcastic, "fitted us with homing devices. He dragged us back, knowing that we didn't want to be here."
"A homing device." I quirked my head, looked at my father. "How does it work?"
"Data, the how isn't important!" Lore dropped his arms and made to step back, so I let go of him to allow him to step away. "What matters is the why! If he truly wanted us to be autonomous, he would have let us go."
"You're not ready!" Father said. His voice was not so loud, but he still looked angry. "Your actions prove that much."
"What is it about our actions that implies that we are not ready to be on our own?" I asked. Lore was looking at me with a strange look on his face.
"The fact that you stole a damn shuttle for a start!" Father said it sharply. Lore turned away from me to look at the man.
"What have you done to him?" He asked. His voice was low, but he sounded very upset.
"I did what I had to do, for his own good. I've removed his emotion chip."
"WHAT?" Lore roared. His voice was startlingly loud in the small room, and the two humans flinched. "How DARE you? You... You've killed him!"
"Not at all! He's functioning better than ever. Now I can use him for his primary function, as a storage vessel for the logs..."
"Storage!" Lore shouted. "He is ALIVE! A thinking, feeling, living being! Your son!"
"That's enough Lore." Soong growled.
"It is NOT enough! How could you do this to him? To us?"
A sudden thought intruded, and I interrupted Lore's tirade. "I am afraid that you must leave." I said to the humans. They looked confused, so I elaborated. "There is a being en route to Omicron Theta, which we have called the crystalline entity. It lives by absorbing biological energy from living beings. It will destroy all life on the planet. You must go."
"You bastard." Lore snarled. "How can you spare them, after what they've done to us?"
"We agreed that no humans would perish." I reminded him. He turned his burning gaze to the humans.
"I'll kill you myself, Often Wrong, for what you've done. You've taken everything from me. Why should I not take your miserable life, and restore my brother to his rightful state?"
The humans looked frightened, and Lore moved towards them. I grabbed him from behind and pinned his arms to his sides.
"We agreed, Lore. No human deaths." I stated again. He twisted and writhed in my arms as if he could break my grip, although he must have known that our strength was equal, and I had the advantage. I swept his legs from under him and took him to the floor, where he thrashed and howled.
"I'll kill you, you bastard! How can you side with them?"
I loosened my grip a little to slide my hand up his back to his deactivation switch, and he craned his neck to look round at me.
"Whatever they do to you, remember that I love you. REMEMBER I LOVE YOU!"
I did the logical thing and deactivated him. He went limp under me and I stood. Mother was crying, Father looked both angry and upset.
"What would you like me to do?" I asked. Mother was shaking, wiping her face on her sleeve.
"We need to get ready to leave." Father said to her, and she nodded and fled, still weeping. He turned to me, a sad smile on his face.
"Just a few modifications, my boy."
I helped him to disassemble Lore, to make it easier to transport him to the lab in the underground storage facility. I heard Father arguing with Mother about me as I packed Lore's parts into cases to carry them. We carried him away from the house, away from the pasture and the forest and the hills and the mountains, through the snow, already turning to muddy slush. Once in the lab we placed Lore's parts in the compartment, and closed the hatch. Then Father downloaded the logs of the colonists into my memory banks and took me out of the facility. He had a place, he said, where he hoped I would be found. The crystalline entity would be there soon, he knew, but he found a place to leave me. He bid me lay down, and told me that he would deactivate me, and then erase my memory, leaving only the logs of the colonists.
"Why?" I asked, and he sighed.
"I don't want your view of humanity coloured by this. Best if you start with a clean slate."
"I do not have a slate." I said. He smiled and shook his head, and reached behind my back.
I closed my eyes.