The security androids used by the Vemlan government to put down the rebellion were, for the most part, simple drone machines, heavily armed robots with the basic features of a humanoid. They obeyed orders simply and without question. Though they had little personal initiative, they were perfectly loyal and obscenely strong. They also thought, if such a word can be used for the process, entirely in military terms. They were perfect soldiers.
Garan was the only security android to voluntarily side with the other androids. He was, as Jared had told Picard, a prototype, with advanced capacities and functions. It was an experiment to see if grafting certain programs from an Alpha android would produce a more efficient intermediary between living commanders and their mechanical troopers. The experiment had been a great success. Until, that is, their prototype model decided that he was fighting for the wrong side. He escaped from his workstation with a sizable arsenal and joined Jared in the early days of the revolt. Though Jared was a skilled tactician, well versed in strategy and military history, Garan had brought a detailed knowledge of the Vemlan military, including weapons systems, military installations, and chain of command to the uprising. While Jared thought in terms of long-range victory and the overall destiny of his race, Garan thought of the tactics of the battle and the potential battles to come. He had become an invaluable asset to Jared in his fight to free their people.
Garan continued. “While I was on board, I collected extensive information on the military aspects of the ship. The offensive and defensive capabilities of the vessel are far superior to both the navy and the Freedom combined. In control of the vessel, there would be an 87.7562 percent chance of total survival for the entire crew.”
“Picard already counted the Enterprise out, though,” objected Kurta.
“This is our survival we’re talking about,” Dren said. “I say we take the ship!”
“Could it be done?” asked Jared, looking intently at Garan.
The giant leaned forward into the light and spoke in even, measured, unexcited tones. “It can. Our lack of transporter technology makes it difficult, however. A shuttle would be detected and neutralized before it could dock. The best means would be if an agent already present activated the transporter. By introducing toxic gasses and Bioagent 23 into the life-support system, the organic beings would be incapacitated, allowing an android crew to take their place without resistance.”
Jared nodded, excitedly. “Perhaps Data can be talked to—”
Kurta hit the table before them with the palm of her hand. The sharp slap halted the excited babble of voices.
“Absolutely out of the question,” she said, slowly and deliberately. “The Federation was gracious and helpful to us, not knowing what we were, and then not caring. As much as I would like them to save us, I will not resort to war on a neutral party.”
“They have the means to help us,” Jared said, forcefully. “With their ship, we could destroy the entire fleet.”
Kurta shook her head. “Would you have it said that when our race was confronted with absolute destruction that we turned upon our friends like rabid wolves? We claim to be sentient beings—let us act like it!”
Jared stared directly at her. As an aide at the university, Kurta had been exposed to culture, ethics, and philosophy far longer than had anyone else, and it had left a mark on her. But she was not, and had never been, truly a warrior. The violence of the Games programming coursed through him, and he knew that conflict was necessary to survival.
Yet he could not afford a conflict with her—not now, not at a time when they would have to work together or be destroyed.
“Agreed, then. A straight fight.”
“Good,” she nodded. Jared listened as she began mapping out one possible strategy, and then looked over at Garan.
They would have to talk in private. Garan understood war, and weapons.
Commander Sawliru was determined to personally oversee every facet of his fleet’s battle preparations. The mission was to take the androids functional, “alive,” of course, but it was doubtful that they would come along peacefully. He winced when he thought about the number of young men and women under his command that would be dead by tomorrow at this time.
Mission Commander Alkirg had insisted touring with him to “support the morale of the troops.” It had the opposite effect. Her passionate prattling about how the androids would easily fall under the onslaught of real Vemlans was just the sort of propaganda that Sawliru detested. He knew otherwise, after fighting them for five years. The creatures could fight better than the average Vemlan and didn’t have the weaknesses inherent to flesh and blood. All his officers knew it as well. Yet Alkirg continued, making the stupid soldiers overconfident, and depressing the smarter ones. This was just the sort of prattle that had caused the whole mess in the first place, using men and androids in some futile, complicated political struggle. He detested it. Nonetheless, he dutifully followed along behind her as she traveled from station to station, checking each man and woman.
It would almost be pleasant if this turned out to be the fiasco that Hevaride had been. Sawliru could think of no better reward for the woman who had made him suffer so much than for her to be utterly destroyed, politically. But he didn’t want his own people to have to pay the price.
“No androids are to be used in this battle, is that clear, Sawliru?” she said suddenly.
The Force Commander couldn’t believe his ears.
“Excuse me, Mission Commander, but the Deltas are our mainline troops. They’ll be able to fight in the same environment as the rogues can. Our own people would be at a distinct disadvantage, otherwise.”
“Not at all, Commander!” she snapped. “This battle signifies the triumph of man over machine. The androids will be utterly destroyed, at last, by the might of this armada! A battle that will go down as one of the great historical turning points in our entire civilization! The defeat of the malfunctioning machines, the recovery of our most valuable colonization craft, everything, will ensure that not only will we be free from the terrors of the mad androids, but that our strength of will triumphed in our darkest day. It would look very bad for posterity if we stormed the Conquest with androids while we stayed safely out of reach.”
That would be the best place for us, Sawliru thought. With every word she said, he felt the sinking sensation in his stomach grow stronger.
“If that is your command, it will be done,” he said. “However, if I could—”
“Good,” Alkirg said, and she continued talking, almost as if he weren’t there. Sawliru nodded his head reflexively, suddenly realizing what a folly this entire mission was. He had started out with duty and honor and vengeance in his mind. He had lost his taste for vengeance at Hevaride, and lost his honor here, with Alkirg’s decision to have his own people fight and die, instead of using the war machines they had brought so far. All he had left was his duty, to his planet and his people.
The only thing that kept him sane at this point was the prospect of going back home to them soon.
* * *
Data was lying on the couch in his quarters, eyes closed, in a meditative state. He wasn’t exactly sleeping; he simply had turned off that section of his brain that was needed for physical action. His mind was, however, still madly at work on the problem at hand.
An electronic beep disturbed him.
“Data,” called the voice of Geordi, “Maran would like to speak with you.”
Data reactivated certain programs and opened his eyes.
“Repeat, Geordi.”
“Maran would like a visual conference. Would you like to come up here or—”
“No,” Data interrupted. “I will take it in here. Thanks, Geordi.”
“Don’t mention it. La Forge out.”
Data got up and switched on his desk console. The screen came alive with the face and features of Maran. She was back in uniform and at her desk in the library, and she looked anxious.
“Maran. How may I help yo
u?”
“Data! You’ve heard about your captain’s decision?’’ she asked.
“Yes. It is an unfortunate one, but the logic of it is inescapable. I am working on an alternative plan even now.”
“Do you have time to see me in person? It’s important.”
Data considered. “I will make time. Would you like to transport over? I will make the necessary arrangements.”
“Thank you, Data,” she said.
As soon as her image had faded from the screen, Data called the captain. Though he sounded wary about having a potentially vengeful android on board, he finally gave permission.
Data himself operated the transporter. When Maran materialized, she had a heavy, gold-colored cylinder in her hand.
“Data, this is why I had to see you.”
“What is it?” he asked, curiously.
“Do you remember the talk you and Kurta had on the Freedom, when she explained how we brought three treasures from home?”
“Yes. The first two were the library and the gardens. She failed to discuss the third. I must admit to some curiosity.”
“This is it,” she said, holding out the cylinder with both hands. “This is the third treasure. Data, as androids, we don’t have the same genetic codes as DNA molecules in organic life-forms. What we do have is a master design program, a controlling list of who and what we are. The good thing about that is that they may be copied.”
“I do not understand.”
“The possibility of death or capture has haunted us ever since the first days of the rebellion. Jared made it a policy to have everyone make a copy of their master design. We store them in here,” she said, indicating the cylinder. “This is our race bank. Had we all perished in battle, it would have been jettisoned into deep space in hopes that it would be recovered someday and used to rebuild our species from the ground up. I talked with Jared, though, and asked his permission to give it to you, instead.”
“Me? I do not see—”
“Data, listen,” she urged him, “I haven’t much time. I have a million things to do back on the Freedom. I’m taking a big chance here, placing my entire race in your hands. If Alkirg ever got her hands on this, she would destroy it out of hand—like she will do to us. When we are all gone, nothing but dust and spare parts, will you use this to recreate our race? On some obscure, out-of-the-way planet? The individuals will be different of course, since they won’t share our experiences, but we will be alive again, in some sense. What we have gone through won’t be for nothing.”
Data considered the matter. He realized the gravity of the request. It was akin to giving someone access to his own plans and designs. Could he trust himself to do as she asked? If the androids were truly destroyed, with no survivors, this would be their only legacy. It would be his responsibility to find a suitable world, set up the necessary equipment to build the bodies and manufacture the positronic brains. Not to mention restoring the stored programs to them. In a very special way, the Vemlan androids would be his children, without the taint of their slavery in their minds. They could build a new world in peace.
The potential for learning would be great. He already knew more about cybernetics than just about any other person in the Federation, and this would give him an entirely new perspective from which to study the matter. He would also have to take time off from Starfleet, an extended leave of absence, to do the job properly. Yet he knew he must do this if he couldn’t come up with a way to save his new friends.
“I will do this for you—though I hope it will not be necessary.”
“I think it will,” she said, gently. “There’s no way we can escape Sawliru’s fleet this time.”
“That seems to be an accurate statement. However, you fail to take my cognitive abilities into account.”
Maran stared at him quizzically.
“What does that mean?” she asked.
“To paraphrase an old Earth saying,” Data said, “you are not dead yet.”
Chapter Eight
WHEN PICARD WAS UPSET and needed time to think, he sought out Guinan. The manuals and regular procedures stated that when he, as captain, had a psychological or emotional problem stemming from the duties of his command, he was to report to the ship’s counselor for discussion and evaluation. But as much as he respected and admired Deanna, there were times when he just wanted a drink and an ear, not an empathic searchlight stabbing into his soul. There were just some things that you couldn’t discuss with your doctor but that you had no trouble telling your bartender.
Guinan was at her usual place, behind the bar in Ten-Forward, polishing a glass expertly and unnecessarily with a silken rag, when the captain walked in. The lounge was nearly empty, it being the middle of a shift. Picard glanced between an empty table and a bar stool, and decided on the latter. He didn’t want to eat.
“Nice to see you in here for a change, Captain,” Guinan said cheerfully. “What can I get for you? Tea?”
The captain shook his head. “Synthehol, please. The good stuff.”
“The good stuff, eh?” she asked, programming the computer for Picard’s special mixture. “Bad day?”
“Rather,” he said as the drink materialized before him. He took it and raised it in salute. “To the Ferengi.”
Guinan nodded. “To the Ferengi.”
Picard took a large sip of his drink and savored the taste. For some reason or other, nobody could program a drink-dispensing computer like Guinan.
“So what’s the problem?” asked Guinan casually.
“I just condemned a race to extinction.”
“Oh. Is that all?”
The captain nodded. “Basically.”
Guinan leaned forward and began to polish the bar unnecessarily with her rag. “Are you talking about the androids?” she asked. Picard nodded, sipping some more. “I met one of them. Maran. Data brought her in yesterday. She seemed nice enough.”
Jean-Luc scowled at her. “That doesn’t make me feel much better, Guinan. She’s very nice—for a terrorist. Unfortunately, being nice isn’t enough sometimes.”
“I know,” Guinan said, nodding. “My third husband was nice. Every day he’d do a little something special, like bring me flowers or candy or something like that. It got annoying as hell after a while.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died in a freak gardening accident.”
Picard stared at her a moment. It was always hard to tell if Guinan was telling the truth or not at times like these. She smiled right back at him, and he decided that it didn’t really matter. “But the Vemlan androids aren’t my only problem.”
“Data?” she asked.
Picard nodded. “I didn’t expect him to be happy about my decision, but . . .”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, ‘why’? He’s a machine.”
“A machine that tests as alive. A machine with a personality as quirky as mine or yours.” She shook her head in slight frustration. “Captain, every person on this ship is driven by something, some obsession or desire. Pure intellect can’t motivate a person to do anything. Even you can see that.”
“Yes,” Picard admitted. “We all have our driving forces. What are you trying to say?”
“That when it comes to Data, you expect him to act like the machine everybody has been trying to convince him he’s not.” Guinan sighed. “Have you ever asked Data why he entered Starfleet?”
“Yes. He entered the service to explore and expand his knowledge of the universe. My own reasons, exactly.”
“Why would he want to do that if he couldn’t feel the desire to learn?”
“It’s in his programming—”
“It’s in your programming as well, then,” she countered. “I may not be a scientist, but I know people. We get programmed just like any old machine does. All our lives, our experiences subtly influence us to do different things. It just takes longer than a machine. Look at the choices you’ve made in your career. You want to
go where no one has been before, see things no one else has seen. Now did that just erupt spontaneously in your head, or were there a few things that influenced you?”
Picard shook his head sadly and smiled. “Once again you have pointed out the obvious, Guinan. And rubbed my nose in it.”
“Well . . .” She smiled. “Consider that Data has never given you any serious problems because he has never been affected so strongly about anything except Lal before this. And even then, he didn’t react like a normal human being would. If you had to condemn a ship full of Klingons, would you expect Worf to be happy?”
Picard spent a while just sitting, sipping, and pondering. Guinan was a good enough listener to know when she was no longer needed, so she went to check on some of her other customers. She returned only when Picard was again ready to talk. Uncanny.
“I am amazed at the tremendous diversity of life-forms we discover out here, Guinan,” he said, dreamily. “Every mission we find living examples of how the universe is not only stranger than we imagine, but that it’s stranger than we can imagine. Yet the farther we go and the stranger things become, the real impossibilities are happening all around us.” He laughed, softly. “My tin man has a heart, and I never realized it before.”
“He’s a good boy. He reminds me of a few of my children. Kind of dumb in places, but he’ll catch on.”
“Yes,” agreed the captain. “In a very real way, he is a child.”
“Don’t think of him as a child, Jean-Luc,” Guinan warned. She again pulled out her rag and polished the bar. “Data has found a whole ship full of his evolutionary cousins. For all practical purposes these are his people. No matter how powerful Starfleet training and his loyalty to you are, he’s going to feel something for these people—something he can’t turn away from.”
“Point well taken,” said Picard, finishing his drink. He stood. “Thanks for the drink.”
Guinan smiled. “Thanks for stopping by.”
Picard returned her smile. “Well. I think I should go find Mr. Data and speak with him.”
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