Part Nineteen
Terlina III, some seven years later
An Interlude…
Soong stared down at his wife's still body, listening to the soft bleeps and hums of the machines that kept her breathing, kept her heart beating, her blood flowing to her slowly dying brain as the synaptic scan efficiently mapped its fading neural pathways…
He had returned to Omicron Theta twice since the attack by that ridiculous, oversized snowflake. The thing had ravaged all biological life on the colony world, its energy beams breaking down and absorbing all plant and animal matter…but it had left the buildings, machines and equipment pretty much intact. Upon landing his shuttle, Soong had found himself walking through an eerie ghost town: a damp, muddy ruin with no grass, no trees, no crops, the prefab structures already showing signs of neglect and decay…
Both trips, Soong had moved quickly, cautiously, staying only long enough to fill his shuttle with medical equipment, replicators, furniture, computer supplies, construction materials – anything he could bring back to his little makeshift retreat on Terlina III, anything he could scavenge that might make his wife more comfortable.
Terlina III...
Soong found the irony of this latest exile acutely painful. After all Lore's begging, his pleading to return there… And now...
There had been so many warning signs, right from the start. But, Soong had brushed them all away, passing them off as childish whining, a quirk of programming, too wrapped up in his own concerns to listen to his son, to actually note his feelings…
Father, I want to go home! Back to Terlina III. I don't want to stay here.
Lore, this is our home. Right here on Omicron Theta. It's time you got used to it.
I don't want to get used to it! I hate this place – I hate these people! Please, please, Father, don't make me stay…
Of course, Lore had still been a computer then, and very young. His vocal pleas had quieted to the occasional grumble following his holographic upgrades. Then, later, after Soong's trial, when he'd returned to the colony as a full-fledged android…
Well, the situation had been different. Lore finally had his freedom, the ability to go and come as he pleased, where he pleased… No longer a child, a boy to be nurtured and protected, but a man, an adult who needed his space, his independence…
Or, so his father had thought.
"How could I have known?"
How could he have known? How could he have seen what Lore had worked so hard to hide? The simmering anger, the slowly heating rage bubbling and boiling just behind the android's cocky smile…
Why?
"You saw it, Julie," Soong whispered, pulling his chair closer to his wife's bedside. "You suspected what he was doing, that he was working to sabotage us, our family, his own brother…long before that crystal entity…thing. Why didn't I see, why didn't I help him, why couldn't I stop this before…before…."
Soong sighed deeply, gently stroking his wife's soft, auburn hair. Her eyes moved just slightly beneath closed lids. A response to his touch? His voice? Or just another spasm of a failing nervous system?
He'd stopped by their child's gravesite, the first time he'd returned to the colony. It had been unrecognizable without the flowers, the grass…the chestnut tree with the fire-red flowers his wife had loved so much… From there, he'd taken an abandoned speeder to the caves…just to see…
His other boy had still been there. His youngest. Lying where Soong had positioned him, on a stone slab just outside the hidden entrance to the cave complex the colonists had worked so hard to complete, his eyes closed, his arms straight by his sides. So still…
It wouldn't have taken much. Soong had set a proximity detector to activate the android should a humanoid form come within ten feet of the slab. It would have been a simple matter to walk toward him, brush the dust from his dark hair, wait for those golden eyes to open…
But he'd driven on, on to the house, his lab, hunting for materials…the materials he needed…
To save Juliana.
He would come back, he'd told himself at the time. He could always come back. Once Juliana was settled, once he'd turned that old prefab shack into suitable home, he'd come back for them. For both his boys.
But, the second time he returned, he'd found the slab empty and his youngest son gone. The standard-issue bootprints in the sand indicated he'd been taken by Starfleet, to the ship sent to investigate the colony's destruction.
Shaken, Soong had run into the caves, to the hidden chamber where he'd locked Lore away…
But, nothing there had been disturbed. The Starfleet away team had simply done what Starfleet always did: note the obvious, grab a token trophy, and move on. But, such was the way of bloated bureaucracy. With all its formal procedures and rolls of red tape, it would probably take the Federation another twenty or thirty years to scrape up enough curiosity and resources to actually scrutinize the colony's remains.
In the meantime, Lore could stay where he was…until his father had a chance to think…
How could this have happened?
"Why, Julie?" he whispered to unhearing ears. "I thought...I thought things were going well, that our lives were finally getting back on track. Why did it go so wrong?"
To Be Continued…
References include TNG: Datalore; Brothers; Silicon Avatar; Inheritance.
Next time, we go back in time for Act Two of this story. Data's part is coming up soon! :) Thanks for reading, and thanks so much for your reviews! Stay Tuned!