Chapter Thirty-Four
"Then, Howard is not here?" Data said, looking around the dome's connected living, dining and kitchen space.
"Nope," Ishta said, sitting slouched over the dining table with her chin on her arms and her long, unbrushed hair covering most of her face.
"Hm. I must admit, I feel somewhat disappointed. Perhaps I should inquire—" Data paused and frowned. "No, I would not want to interrupt their meeting. Not so soon after…" He cleared his throat and looked away.
"I'm sure he's OK," Kahlestra said. "He must have left last night with Dr. Anders. We were asleep by then, so we didn't see him go. But, don't you think it's weird about Mother, Data?"
"Weird?" Data asked curiously. "What do you mean?"
"Well," Kahlestra said, "it's like, instead of just shutting me out, like she always does, I think, last night, she actually seemed to be listening to me. And she didn't say anything about my homework this morning. That's pretty weird." She opened her eyes wide and slammed her hands down on the table. "Kahless! Data, do you think she might be planning to let me stay?"
Data winced, his thumbs seeming to twitch of their own accord.
"I would not jump to conclusions just yet, Kay," he said gently. "As you yourself pointed out, the situation between your parents regarding your education is…quite complicated."
"Sucks," Kahlestra snarled angrily, and pushed her chair back so roughly, the table rammed against Ishta's ribs.
"Hey!" she snapped.
"Sorry!" Kahlestra yelled.
Data rose to his feet before the girls' anger could escalate.
"Kay," he said. "Please listen. To speculate without facts can only lead to frustration. As the great detective, Sherlock Holmes, warned, one cannot build bricks without clay."
"'Bricks without clay?'" Ishta peered at the android through her long curtain of hair. "Is this your talky android way of saying her mom's gonna keep her stuck in that Klingon school forever?"
"Not at all," Data said. "If anything, I'm saying that things can change. Often, when we least expect. Unfortunately, the linear nature of our experience of the spacetime continuum means we do not have the information required to predict our own futures. When so much of the framework that affects our lives is decided by outside agents – by parents or superior officers, by bureaucrats and politicians we will never meet… It is important to acknowledge what we, ourselves, have accomplished so far on our own behalf."
Ishta snorted.
"Like what?"
"Like our meeting," Data said. "Helping each other survive the desert. Allowing Mikey a chance of recovery."
Data walked to the living room window, staring out at the pale, blue sky.
"He is on his way to Luna colony now with Dr. Crusher, to undergo radical genetic treatment," he said. "Already, his grandparents are waiting there to greet him. Given the terrible circumstances of his illness and abduction, such a reunion may have been thought impossible. And yet it is about to become a reality. Because we acted. Because we cared."
He turned back to face the girls, his amber eyes as warm as the sunlight filtering in through the window behind him.
"I don't know if Kay will be allowed to attend the school of her choice," he said. "I don't know if the Federation authorities will ever allow a machine like me to adopt, or even join a family unit. I cannot make those promises to you children, or to myself. What I do know is that we are here together, and we will be together for days to come. Let us focus on the present, and not dwell on future verdicts that are beyond our direct control. For all we know, dreams that seem impossible now may turn out right in the end."
"Good grief," the young Orion said dryly. "Why does this sound so familiar…"
"Perhaps because you, Ishta, are very perceptive," Data said, and chuckled as he turned back to the window. "To dream the Impossible Dream," he sang teasingly. "To fight the unbeatable foe / To bear with unbearable sorrow / To run where the brave dare not go…"
The young Orion groaned and rolled her eyes, but Kahlestra scampered quickly to her room, returning to shove a data padd into the older girl's hands.
"Wha—?" she protested. "Kay, come on—!"
"No, go do it," the Klingon insisted. "Show Data your essay!"
"Yes please, Ishta," Data said eagerly. "I am quite curious to read your thoughts on the story of Don Quixote."
"It's not a big deal," Ishta said, her hair hiding her blushing face as she thrust her arm toward him, the padd dangling from her hand like a day-old fish. "It's a stupid play about some crazy old guy who thinks his dreams are better than what's really out there. It's sad, if you ask me. Tragic!"
"Is that why you started crying when that Aldonza character went to Don Quixote when he was dying and sang him that Dream song?" Kahlestra teased as Data took the pad and flash-read the girl's short essay. Then, he slowed his reading speed and read through it again.
Don Quixote is not real and dreaming of a better life is not enough to make it real. Stupid Sancho followed him around. He said he liked him. But, that's not why Aldonza went to find him. His dream made Aldonza very angry. She knows you can't live in a fake castle. You have to fight in real life. That means hard work and pain and she knew that more than any of those rich jerks. Don Quixote is an idiot. He hurt her worse than anyone because he was the only one in her whole life who made her care about herself. He made her dream she could be a better version of herself. Someone who didn't hurt and hate all the time. Someone who wasn't hurt and hated. He couldn't give her that dream because he was stupid and he died. He hurts her and makes her doubt and then she gets attacked and she screams at him. But even though he hurt her worse than all those stupid men did, she still goes to find him when he dies and lets herself believe that her dream can be real. In the end, she becomes Dulcinea by herself. She learns and fights very hard until the life she wants is not impossible. Then, her name is Dulcinea.
Data blinked and lowered the padd, his expression deeply thoughtful as the girls' argument came back into focus around him.
"I did not!" Ishta shrieked, grabbing a pillow from the couch and thwapping Kahlestra with it.
"You did too! I saw a tear!" Kahlestra laughed and hit back with a pillow of her own.
"It wasn't a tear! My hair was still wet! I'm only going to use sonic showers from now on!"
"You were crying! You think Don Quixote was right to believe in his quest! You think Aldonza was right to believe in him, even though he died!"
"Shut up!" Ishta screamed.
"Ishta," Data invited, and opened his arms. Ishta seemed to hesitate, then rammed into him head first, clutching his bicep and pressing her face into his sleeve.
"This essay is very brief," he said, allowing her her space as she leaned heavily against his side. "The margins are rather wide and you chose quite a large font."
"You said it had to be two pages," Ishta muffled into his arm.
Data laughed fondly and stroked her tangled hair.
"Did you enjoy the assignment, Ishta?" he asked her.
She shrugged, but didn't pull away.
"You are right about Dulcinea," he said. "It may not have been what he intended, but Don Quixote did hurt her. Far more than he may have realized."
"He didn't know anything," Ishta mumbled.
"Did she not grow stronger, once she learned to care about herself? Once she began to believe she was someone worth caring for? Is that not a worthy quest?"
Ishta shrugged again, and slowly pulled away, her dark hair sticking out in all directions.
"Would you like me to brush that out for you?" he offered. "I could pull it back in a braid, then we can start preparing our breakfast pancakes."
"I can do it," Ishta said, and headed for Kahlestra's room to find her hairbrush.
"Braid my hair, Data!" Kahlestra said, and the android smiled.
"Very well, Kay," he said and patted the high kitchen chair. "Hand me an elastic and take a seat up here."
"What kind of pancakes are we making?" the young Klingon asked as she took her seat. "Chocolate chip? Blueberry?"
"Your mother requested real, from scratch, freshly-cooked pancakes," he told her. "With tart berries and Klingon blood pudding, fried crisp and brown."
Kahlestra turned to stare at him.
"Really? That's what she told you to make?"
"Those are her very words," the android assured her. "Why?"
"That's her birthday breakfast! We only ever have those pancakes on special occasions."
"Hm!" Data's eyebrows shot up and his face broke out in a surprised, rather goofy grin. "Ah. Indeed?" he said, clearing his throat in an attempt to mask his secret glee. "Then, she must consider this morning quite special. Perhaps because we are all here to share it?"
"Maybe." Kahlestra shrugged. "Like I told you, she's been acting pretty weird all morning."
Data's happy grin broadened and he finished up Kahlestra's braid with a bright, elastic snap.
"You're all set," he told her, using his android strength to lift the girl down from the chair as if she were weightless. Kahlestra laughed in delight.
"Tell me," he said, "what is required to make these special occasion pancakes?"
"Well, for one thing, they're not really 'pancakes', like the round Federation-style pancakes you had the other day. They're Klingon," Kahlestra told him. "The batter is kind of thin and really bright yellow, and you squeeze it out from a bottle to make a kind of swirly web shape. Before they get too crisp, you fold the webs around the berries like cones and serve them with the fried blood pudding. Sometimes, there's this super spicy, brittle caramel drizzled over the top!"
"This seems far more complex a project than I anticipated," Data said, anxiously rubbing his chin. "After all, I have never actually cooked anything before. And we have little more than half an hour, now. Do you know if your mother has a favorite recipe we might consult?"
"Well, she doesn't cook much. Usually we just use the replicator for everything – except the racht, of course." She glanced at the squirmy worm bucket in the sink. "But wait! She has a bunch of Klingon recipes stored on one of her padds. I'll go get it!"
The recipe, once they found it, was written entirely in Klingon, and seemed even longer and more convoluted than Data had feared. The flavorings were specialty ingredients unique to the Klingon homeworld, and each of the many steps employed precise measurements, exact timing, and expert-level folding and blending techniques and terms Data had never heard of, let alone attempted.
"You know what I think," Kahlestra said, smiling wickedly as she watched Data and Ishta stare dolefully down at the long rows of complex instructions. "I think my mother really likes you."
"What?" Data blinked in alarm.
"She set you a challenge, Data," Kahlestra said. "It's a doozy, too. She wouldn't do that unless she likes you, and she wants to see if you like her enough to complete it. It's a Klingon thing."
"A Klingon thing?" Ishta smirked and gave the android a teasing nudge. "Well, Data? You said you'd never been in love. Want to make out with Kay's mom?"
Data stared helplessly, his ears burning. His entire face felt hideously hot and red...
"Shut up, Ishta!" Kahlestra exclaimed. "It's not like that!"
"Yeah, then what's it like?"
"She knows Data's my friend. She wants to be friends too. That's all!" Kahlestra shouted. "That's all, OK!"
Ishta snorted.
"Whatever. You're the one who brought it up."
Kahlestra's eyes widened dangerously, but Data placed a hand on her shoulder.
"Whatever your mother may have meant," he said, "the task is ours now, and I mean to do it right. These ingredients will be difficult to replicate, and we don't have much time. I say we head to the cafeteria dome and set up our workstation there. Will you girls come with me and work together as a team?"
"Team Pancakes!" Kahlestra cheered.
Ishta pressed a palm to her face.
"Good grief..."
Data smiled at her and held out his hand until, reluctantly, she took it. Kahlestra quickly grabbed the other.
"Excellent," he said, giving both their hands a happy squeeze. "Let's have some fun!"
To Be Continued...
References Include - Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Copper Beeches; The Impossible Dream (song, 1965), lyrics by Joe Darion.
The last parts are in the works! Stay tuned! :D