Chapter Four
Mikey laughed weakly and reached for Data's hand. Data moved his folding chair closer to the medicot so he could give the boy's fingers a friendly squeeze.
"You have arm hair," the boy observed, pushing Data's sleeve back, then pulling at his collar. "And chest hair. And bristles on your chin."
Kahlestra snickered wickedly and leaned against the foot of the cot.
"Are you going to grow a beard now, like Commander Riker?" she asked.
"I was not planning on it," Data said, giggling despite himself as he pulled his arm away from Mikey's teasing pinches. "Ow! That's enough now."
"All the male Klingon warriors have beards," Kahlestra said, teasingly pressing the paintbrush end of her braid against her chin in demonstration and speaking in a fake, deep voice. "It's tradition."
"Then, I am fortunate that I am not a Klingon warrior," Data teased right back, playfully plucking the braid from her hand, then flipping it over her face, "because I do not intend to grow a beard!"
Their silly laughter masked the low hiss of air escaping from between Ishta's teeth as she rolled her eyes under her blanket, but Data's ears caught it just the same. He glanced over to the girl, hunched against the far wall, and gestured for her to move closer.
"Come join us, Ishta," he said.
The girl just glowered at him, her blue eyes like cinders in the shadow under the blanket.
"Then, at least say something," he invited. "If you are upset, I—"
"Just stay where you are android," the Orion spat, and Data's expression fell.
"Ignore her, Data," Kahlestra huffed. "She's being a brat."
Ishta's growl grew louder.
"Well, you are!" the Klingon snapped. "You knew from the start that Data was supposed to have skin! What the hell is your problem!"
Ishta turned her head away and hunched deeper into her blankets.
Mikey snickered.
"She likes him, that's the problem," he taunted. "She thinks Data looks hot!"
"Shut up!" Ishta shrieked. "I swear, Cancer Boy, if you weren't already dying I would kill you!"
Data blinked at the real anger in her voice.
"You don't mean that," he said.
"She does," Kahlestra said, and she and Mikey giggled.
"Data?"
"Yes, Mikey?" Data said, his concerned eyes still on the sulking Ishta.
"Is it just your skin that's skin now, or did you change your insides too?"
Data turned back to him and smiled.
"I only replaced my outer covering," he said, directing his voice toward Ishta. "My insides are just the same as before. Would you like to see?"
"Yeah, yeah!" Mikey and Kahlestra cheered.
Data shot them each a sly, secretive look, then pressed a pressure point on his inner arm. An access panel slid open, revealing the sophisticated mechanisms and blinking diagnostic lights underneath.
"That is so freakin' cool," Kahlestra said.
Ishta looked up, and grunted.
Mikey sighed and leaned back against his pillow.
"You're so lucky, Data," he said. "I wish I could be an android."
"Yeah, me too," Kahlestra said. "Then, I could stay here in the Federation and I wouldn't have to go back to that stupid Klingon school!" She shot a little glare at her unconscious mother, but couldn't hide a tinge of genuine concern.
"If I were an android, I wouldn't have to be sick all the time," Mikey said.
Data smiled, but his amber eyes had grown distant, and a little sad.
"Even androids can get sick, Mikey," he said quietly. "Only, when it happens to us, it's usually called a 'malfunction.'"
"Malfunctions can be repaired," Mikey grumped.
"Sometimes…"
Data swallowed away the sudden roughness in his voice, then reached out to stroke Mikey's hair.
"But, so can humans. That is why you have doctors."
He smiled, and playfully tapped the boy's nose, but it was difficult to push away the fierce frustration fisting in his chest.
Only minutes before, they had received word that Dr. Crusher's arrival had been delayed another three hours. The Ninevehan government had already granted her runabout permission to land, but Nineveh IV's ridiculously counterintuitive regulations regarding the importation of medical supplies, coupled with the post-permission red tape involved in actually landing a spacecraft in the desert, was creating the kind of knotty hold up that could drive even the most bureaucratic-minded Zakdorn to tears.
It would, of course, have been much easier just to use the transporter from orbit. And, while that may have been fine for Kurak, Dr. Crusher was wary of subjecting a child in Mikey's condition to the energies of a transporter beam. She insisted it was a far better, and safer, bet to bring the runabout, its sickbay, and its far superior resources, to him and, as long as he remained stable, no amount of persnickety bureaucratic procedures was going to stop her.
Until it arrived, though, Data intended to make it his mission to keep the children's spirits up.
"Kay told me how brave you were back in the desert, when I was feeling unwell," Data said. "How you helped Howard keep the girls from fighting."
"And how you carried all that meat back from our hunt, remember?" Kahlestra said.
Mikey nodded.
"Chontay! Qapla'!" he said.
Kahlestra beamed.
"That's it!" she cheered.
Data chuckled fondly, and squeezed his hand. To his surprise, Mikey squeezed back, sitting up a little and putting real effort into it before he lay back down with a gasp.
"My goodness!"
Data carefully flexed his fingers, making a show of pretending to check for damage, and Mikey smiled.
"That is quite an impressive grip," Data told him. "You are stronger than you think, Mikey. I am very proud of you."
"Yeah…" Mikey said, and yawned deeply, his heavy lids struggling to stay open. "Data?"
"Yes, Mikey?"
"Will you stay with me?" the boy asked. "When the doctor gets here?"
"If that is your wish," Data told him.
"It is," Mikey sighed. "Data?"
"Yes, Mikey?"
But, the boy had fallen asleep, the biomonitors bleeping in time with his slowing heartbeat.
Data shared a glance with Kahlestra, then pulled the silvery blanket up to Mikey's chin and leaned in to press a soft, fatherly kiss to the boy's forehead.
"Sweet dreams, my child," he whispered.
Ishta pursed her lips and lowered her eyes, resting her chin on her knees.
"He's going to die," she said. "You know it."
"I don't believe that," Data said.
"Then you really are dumber than you look," the Orion grunted.
"Hey!" Kahlestra snapped.
"What?" Ishta retorted. "He's an android, right? He's got a fancy metal brain! He knows, if he had to replace his stupid skin, he could have picked any face in the universe! And he picks that?" She snorted, and curled her lip. "He looks like some big-nosed, pasty-faced, computer tech geek! And, his hair is stupid too!"
"I'm flattered," Data said dryly.
"Why do you have to look human, anyway?" Ishta snarled. "Humans are idiots. Ugly, hairy, ape-faced idiots! If you're an android, why not keep looking like one? No one would mistake Howard over there for an Orion!"
"I am Howard," Howard announced chirpily from his monitoring station by Kurak's biobed. "How may I be of assistance?"
"You can shut up!" Ishta snarked.
"That is enough," Data snapped. "My apologies, Howard," he told the robot. "Please, return to your work."
"Right away, sir," Howard acknowledged, completely unfazed.
Data turned his amber glare on Ishta, who glared right back.
"I was constructed and programmed by human parents," he said quietly. "A father and a mother that I barely knew. They provided me with a very pale synthetic skin that was extremely durable. But, although it was far stronger than human skin, it did not allow me to feel sensations the way you children can. I could distinguish textures and materials. I could hold an ice cube and measure its temperature, weight, volume, melting rate – any aspect at all – with computer accuracy. But, holding it did not make my hand feel 'cold.' It did not make me shiver. The melting drops did not tickle as they dripped through my fingers or down my arm."
"Can you feel those things now?" Kahlestra asked.
"Yes, Kay," he said. "And, it is entirely due to this upgrade. Since my construction, major advances in the science of synthetic skin grafting have produced an entire range of artificial skins that are now capable of mimicking every component, layer, and function of organic skin. I saw no reason not to take advantage of this improved technology."
"Then…your new skin is still fake. I mean – it's 'android,' like you," Ishta said.
Data snorted a slight laugh, and nodded.
"In a manner of speaking," he said. "This is not organic skin. And the fluids that flow through the complex mesh of synthetic tubing beneath it are the same nutritive fluids that have supplied my systems with energy all my life. Only, they are now tinted dark red rather than yellow, to help give this new skin its 'realistic' hue. I can still control the rate at which my hair and nails grow, and since I can now adjust the concentration of melanin in my skin, I have the ability to make my skin and eyes appear darker or lighter at will."
"Again, you picked that look?" Ishta said snidely but, this time, it was more teasing than angry.
Data smiled.
"If you must know," he said, "this 'look,' as you put it, is a carefully chosen composite. I had the computer run a simulation to determine what my parents' biological offspring may have looked like, had they chosen to have any. From literally thousands of options, I chose one that, I felt, looked most like me. This face you now see."
"Looks just like your old face to me," Kahlestra said, peering at him closely. "Except your skin's not all whitish and your eyes aren't yellow."
"Yes, they are," Ishta said, leaving her corner in order to make her point. "There's loads of yellow in there. See?"
"But, there's also some brown and green," Kahlestra said, leaning in even closer. "Even a little blue. See? They're like two little golden nebulas."
Data laughed, and leaned back in his chair.
"You children are wonderful," he said. "'Little golden nebulas…' I like that."
"Yeah…" Ishta stuck out a finger to touch his cheek, then his nose and forehead. "Euuch... Skin grease, nose hairs, little wrinkles…"
She shrugged.
"Eh. You still look like some stupid, old-man, big-nosed human, but I guess I can get used to it."
"Thanks," Data said, and rubbed the places she'd poked.
"Jerk," Kahlestra said. "He doesn't either. He just looks like Data."
Data blinked at her, his head cocked just slightly.
"Is that what you really think?" he asked.
"Of course!" she said, and he suddenly had to look away, startled to feel his face and eyes burning.
"I waited so long to perform this upgrade," he confessed, once he could talk. "Years, in fact. I waited…because I was afraid. I did not want anyone to judge me, or to misinterpret what I had done. In addition…" He sighed a little. "I wanted to be sure I was doing this for the right reasons."
"What do you mean?" Kahlestra asked.
"I told the counselor... I did not do this because I wanted to mimic humans, or attempt to convince anyone that I was a biological human being," he said, gesturing to his skin. "I did this because I honestly feel it is a more accurate reflection of who I am…what I was designed to be. I am an android, but I am also the child of my father's mind…my mother's creative core… I am a construct, but not an automaton. I can feel, and I can dream. I am a man born of human imagination, but I am a man, just the same. And now…now that I have chosen to stop hiding…to stop denying…"
He shook his head, and smiled a little.
"Well, perhaps it is too much to hope that others will see that too. At least, right away. Society will insist we keep proving ourselves…"
"Proving ourselves…" Mikey sighed sleepily, and curled up under the blankets.
Kahlestra giggled, and Howard quickly returned his glowing photoelectric cells to his monitor screens, his expression as smooth and blank as ever.
"Data?"
"Yes, Ishta," the android said.
"I think you're the weirdest guy I ever met," she said, and briefly rested her forehead against his shoulder. "And, I seriously do not think you're hot," she mumbled, lifting her head to glare at Kahlestra. "No matter what those little twerps say…"
"I believe your sentiment is most appropriate," Data said, a slight teasing tone entering his voice, "especially given the fact that you are all far too young to—"
"Picard to Data," his combadge chirped, and they all gave a little jump.
"Data here, sir," he acknowledged, giving Ishta's shoulder an apologetic little pat as he rose from his chair.
"Data, meet us in the primary control room," Picard said. "I'd like to make one more trip to the site before Dr. Crusher arrives, and we could certainly use your input."
Data glanced at the children, his gaze resting on Mikey's sleeping form.
"Go ahead," Kahlestra said. "We'll be fine. We've got Howard."
She beamed.
Ishta rolled her eyes, and headed back to her corner.
"Whatever," she said.
Data pursed his lips in irritation, but nodded slightly and said, "I will be there momentarily, Captain. Data out."
To Be Continued...
References Include - TNG: The Naked Now; The Offspring, Family, The Quality of Life; Brothers, Birthright, Unification; Peak Performance; Timescape, Inheritance; and the movie First Contact.