by Jeffrey Lang
By the time Data reached the blackjack table, Lal had abandoned it (and approximately seventy thousand Terran yuan, according to the accounting program) and had moved on to the craps table.
The most reliable stickman on the floor, Jimmy McGuire, was running the table. Data could hear his silky tenor before he could see the player due to the dense ring of spectators around the pit. “On your bets, place your bets. Yes, sir, you can bet either way, with the little lady or against her. She will or she won’t, she can or she don’t. Eleven is the bet. Anyone else? No, all right then, come on out. And that is nine. Nina from Pasadena. Point is nine. How about the six and eight there, sir? It’s never too late. Two numbers are better than one.” Jimmy’s patter was the best on the floor, both reassuringly corny and mysteriously engaging. Data was one of the few people in the casino who knew the stout, red-faced stickman had once been an opera singer, renowned on several worlds for his performances in Terran and Klingon classical performances. Why Jimmy had abandoned his career at the height of his fame was one of the many unsolved mysteries that swirled around the casino.
Sliding up to the bar, Data saw Jimmy’s eyes flick toward him even as the call continued. “Shooter is looking for nine. Nine, nine, finer than wine. Double up now. No cheating before seven o’clock. How about a little insurance? We carry all kinds of insurance . . .” Data lifted his index and middle fingers, a sign that he was only there to watch. Jimmy stroked the tips of his thin mustache and let Lal continue with her roll. “Don’t forget the big red eight, folks. Big eight, running mate.” Jimmy twirled the dice around in the curve of his stick, then flicked them back to the shooter.
Lal scooped up the dice and held them at eye level. “These are bent, Jimmy,” she said. “I can see the curve.”
“Now, miss, you know you can’t say things like that. I have the straightest game in the quadrant. No kinks here, no curves, no bends. Jimmy’s table is above reproach, so everyone should make a toast.” The stickman looked around the table and waited for the assemblage to respond.
Data picked up the glass nearest to hand and called out, “Jimmy’s table!” Swept along, the rest of the onlookers raised their glasses and echoed the toast with a roar. Jimmy comically tugged at his collar, bent his head in thanks, and while the rest of the spectators congratulated one another for their good luck, implored Data with his eyes to remove Lal as quickly as possible.
Data swept in behind his daughter and murmured, “Good evening, Lal. I was just headed up to our quarters.”
“Good evening, Father,” she said. “I was waiting for you by the door with your slippers and your meerschaum pipe, but you didn’t appear at the appointed time. I grew concerned and decided to come find you.”
“I thought we had made an agreement,” Data said, attempting to scoop the dice out of her hand, but the dice did not budge a millimeter. “You told me that you would stay in the residence when I was needed in the casino. In exchange, I would escort you to any of the floors . . .”
“I haven’t forgotten our agreement. Alternative question: Did you? I seem to recall an ancillary codicil that stipulated you would return to the residence by nineteen-hundred local time or contact me and let me know you would be late.” Lal pushed out her lower lip and narrowed her eyes: her version of a pout. “And what time is it?”
“The time is nineteen-zero-six,” Data reported, guiding his daughter away from the bar. She flipped the dice onto the table and bounced them off the wall, the faces showing a five and a four. “I would have been one minute late if you had waited. And there was no way you could have known I was late since you obviously left the residence before I arrived.”
“I have my ways, Father. My little observers.” Data winced. He would have to create a new generation of nanites to seek out and placate Lal’s swarm.
“One minute does not spell the difference between engagement and boredom.”
“As you have pointed out on more than one occasion, one minute can be a very long time for people like us.” Lal smiled wickedly, knowing she had scored a very solid hit, and locked her legs so they had to come to a halt in the middle of a busy aisle. Patrons swirled around them. Servers and security workers moved closer until they recognized the cause of the disruption and paused. The casino’s major domo software spoke into Data’s ear, asking if he required assistance. He clicked his tongue against the back of his throat, a subvocal indicator that he would not, for the moment, need help. Servers and security workers uniformly took a step away, though all of them continued to watch the scene unfold from the corners of their, respectively speaking, eyes or ocular implants. “I can hear you communicating with your little friends, Father. It’s not polite to have more than one conversation at a time. Isn’t that what you’ve told me in the past?”
Data sighed. “I have told you so many things, Lal. In the short time we’ve been together, I have tried to impart to you every bit of knowledge about polite and appropriate interaction that I possess. I hoped you would find the information valuable and accept it in the spirit with which it was offered. And yet . . .”
“And yet, I am such a difficult girl, am I not?” Lal said, pulling a strand of her dark hair back over her ear. For the first few weeks after they had relocated to Orion Prime, Lal had retained the neat bob she had worn during her first incarnation. Then, she had undertaken a period of experimentation, changing the cut and color frequently, sometimes more than once a day. She had also tried out different forms of dress, makeup, and skin tone. Data understood she was experiencing a kind of accelerated adolescence, but, as quickly as his mind functioned, he found the speed, direction, and duration of his daughter’s transformations exhausting. Most recently, she had settled on long, straight hair that she frequently wore pulled back into a ponytail or braided into a plait, with tresses dangling over her ears. She fidgeted with the tresses endlessly, as if she found them annoying, but whenever Data suggested trimming them or pulling them back with the rest of her hair, Lal would accuse him of finding her “look” unappealing.
“You are my daughter,” Data said, keeping his voice low and even. “And I love you. I accept that you may not agree with all of my values, but I would appreciate being accorded the respect I feel I have earned and discuss some . . .”
Lal rolled her eyes. “Oh, Father! Really! You are just so . . . so . . . ugh!” She stamped her foot, a gesture of exasperation that probably cracked the plasteel under the carpet. She spun away and stomped off in a fit of pique. Fortunately, she appeared to be headed in the direction of the turbo-lifts. Data knew it would be a mistake to assume she would make it to their residence, but he also knew he shouldn’t try to accompany her.
“They’re impossible at that age, aren’t they?”
Data turned and saw one of the servers standing immediately to his right, close enough that all he would have to do was shift his hand slightly and he would be able to retrieve the beverage she proffered on her tray. He found it difficult to understand how the server had been able to come so close without his noticing her approach; Data chalked it up to being aggravated with Lal.
His acute sense of smell told him the beverage was bourbon and branch water, a drink he had once mentioned he enjoyed in the presence of the head bartender. The comment had been a lie, since Data did not particularly “enjoy” any intoxicating beverage since he could not become intoxicated, though, in truth, he was more intrigued by the complex flavors enmeshed in the ethanol molecules found in dark whiskeys. “Is this for me?” he asked.
“Looked like you could use it,” the server said. Data recognized her face since he made it a point to memorize all the personnel files, but he realized he had never heard the woman’s voice. Though it was difficult to judge, having heard only a few words, he thought she must possess some kind of regional accent. There was a peculiar, clipped quality to her pronunciation and elongated vowel sounds.
“Thank you,” Data said, accepting the drink. He took a sip. Clearly, Alice had prevailed upon t
he bartender to give her the top shelf. “You are Alice, are you not?”
“I am indeed. And you are Mister Soong. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
“And I yours. Tell me, Alice: How old do you think she is?” When Lal had first arrived, Data judged that most Terrans would assume she was a young adult—in her early to mid-twenties—but with all the changes she had made to her appearance, he now believed Lal looked younger, more like an adolescent in her mid- to late teens.
“Hard to say.” Alice flipped her tray and held it against her midsection. Cocking her head to the side, she said, “Maybe eighteen. Maybe twenty or twenty-one if the light is right. Though judging by the way she’s running you around, it might be more like thirteen.” She laughed, then looked at Data from the corners of her eyes. “If you don’t mind my saying so.”
“I appreciate your candor.”
“I’m loaded with candor. Candor is my specialty.”
Data held out the half-empty glass and Alice slid the tray under it so neatly that when he released it the ice cubes did not clink. “I understand. Do you have any other thoughts you would like to share? Advice, perhaps?”
“I’m going to assume a spanking is out of the question.”
“It would be ill-advised.”
“Then I’ll share with you a bit of wisdom passed down to me by my own dear mother: When dealing with a surly adolescent, either treat them like a child or treat them like an adult. Don’t try to split the difference. It only confuses them.”
Data let the idea sift through his neural net and compared it to the behavioral models proposed by the great theorists in developmental psychology. To his surprise, while the idea did not precisely match up with any premise they proposed, neither did it contradict them. “Your mother was a wise woman.”
“That’s what she kept telling me right up to the day she kicked me out of the house and changed all the locks.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah, but I deserved it. Also, I had her credit chit in my bag, so I was good.”
“Ah,” Data said again, unable to fashion a better response. “Perhaps I should catch up with her now.”
“You do that. And remember: If you kick her out of the house, check her bag first.”
“That is excellent advice.”
* * *
Data rapped with one knuckle on the door to his daughter’s private quarters. “Lal?” he called softly. “Lal?” Then, once more for good measure, “Lal?” The locking mechanism clicked once and the door swished open, albeit very slowly. “May I enter?”
The room was dark, the shades drawn tight against the lights of the city. The response came from the opposite corner where Lal had positioned a chaise longue she referred to as her fainting couch. “You may,” she replied, but so softly that only her father’s enhanced auditory receptors could have detected her voice.
Walking to the middle of the room and facing the chaise longue, Data clasped his hands behind his back and stood up straight. He resisted the urge to shift to infrared. If Lal chose to sit in the dark, she was asking for privacy. “I feel a distinct need to apologize,” he said, “but am uncertain as to why. The sense of shame our altercations provoke . . . it is confusing.”
“Good.”
Though he did not need to breathe, Data mimicked the act of respiration when he was around humanoids. When he entered their private quarters, he usually ceased the act, enjoying the stillness. Despite this, his daughter’s words provoked a deep sigh. “Which do you mean? Is it good that I feel the need to apologize or that I find shame confusing?”
“Both.” Though he could not see her, Data had the definitive impression that Lal had just crossed her arms.
“What do you want, my daughter?”
“You know what I want.”
“If I knew what you wanted, I would not ask.”
“We’ve talked about it on seventeen different occasions,” Lal said. “I remember each one of them with perfect clarity.”
“As do I. Every one of those conversations . . .”
“Lectures. They were lectures. In a conversation, people listen to each other . . .”
“I listened to you,” Data said. “I simply did not agree with your conclusion.”
“You have to let me out of here!” Lal cried. “I’m dying!”
“You are not. And you will not as long as you receive your treatments,” Data said, verbally pouncing. “And the only time you missed your treatment was the time you, as you euphemistically put it, ‘went to explore the city.’ ”
“I lost track of time!”
“How can you lose track of time?” Data asked. “You are an android! You are one of the most sophisticated entities in the galaxy! When your matrix has stabilized—when we have removed the risk of you ‘losing track of time’—you can spend as much time as you like exploring the city, the world, the galaxy, but until then, you will do what I tell you!” Data was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that he was shouting and shaking his finger in a pitch-black room. He was also absolutely certain that, in her dark corner, his daughter was smirking victoriously because her father had lost his temper. Data lowered his hand. “Lal, I only want what is best for you.”
“You don’t know what’s best for me. You just like to tell me what’s best for me.”
“I am your father. Yes, I do know what is best for you. When you are older, when you have more experience, you can . . .”
“How am I supposed to get more experience if you won’t let me do anything?”
Data couldn’t stop himself from crossing the room and leaning down over the chair. “On the occasion when I did let you do something, when I let you do as you pleased, you broke our agreement and . . .”
The blow was so swift and sudden that it didn’t register on Data’s senses until his left arm went numb. His neural net dampened the sensation a millisecond after the pain reached his central processor. “Ow,” he said, and reached up with his right arm to rub the spot just above the shoulder joint. Nanomachines were already repairing the damage, though his internal monitoring devices told Data that he would not be able to use the arm for another forty-two minutes. Lal’s strike had been brutally precise.
“Father, I . . . I’m so . . . Please, let me help . . .” She rose from her chair and gently touched his numb arm.
“There is no need,” he said softly. “The damage is being repaired.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“I know you are, Lal.”
“My mind is racing, Father. I can feel it galloping ahead of me.” Data saw that his daughter was not looking at him. Her eyes, two luminous pools of yellow and orange, looked past him into the middle distance. “I may need a treatment soon.”
“As you wish, Lal.”
“I can feel it, Father.” She took a step toward the corner where the apparatus was stored. “My mind . . .” Her knee buckled. Lal stumbled, collapsed gracefully forward, like a ballet dancer portraying a dying swan.
Data stepped to the side in order to catch her with his good left arm. Cradling her gently, he dragged his daughter to the apparatus and let her flop to the floor. Fortunately, he had only to activate the device and let it run. No cables or physical connections were required. When it powered up, the apparatus hummed gently and emitted a soft glow—just enough light that he could see Lal’s face using his normal visual sensors. This, he thought, is what it is like to watch a sleeping child. He wondered how humans could ever tear themselves away from the sight, how they could ever get anything done, how any of them ever got any sleep themselves.
6
A placeless place
Smiling, Alice asked, “And then what happened?”
The corner of Moriarty’s mouth crooked upward. He ran his hand down over the length of his silk tie. “Well, of course, we lived happily ever after.”
“I’m pleased to hear it,” Alice replied. “At least someone did.”
“You learned enough about your new exis
tence to feel comfortable?” Lal asked.
“And then set out to explore,” Moriarty explained. “Which we did with relish. Our small ship served us well for a time, but then we decided we needed to trade it in for something with a little more elbow room.”
“How was that possible?” Lal asked. “Warp-capable spacecraft is not inexpensive. How were you able to procure the funds you required?”
Moriarty laid a finger along the side of his face and leaned his elbow on the chair arm. “This is true. The ship we decided we needed—a forty-meter yacht capable of extended interstellar flight—required a significant outlay of credit.” He tapped his temple with his forefinger and continued. “Remember, however, that by any standard you care to use as a measure, I am a genius. A criminal genius when need calls, but, fortunately, that was not required more than occasionally. One of the wonderful things about this era is that one is free to move about quite as one likes. Acts considered criminal on one world are quite permissible on another. Please consider that the era when Regina and I were born was one of the most oppressive and repressed in human history. Not so much for the upper classes of course, but for the vast majority of the citizens of Western Europe, economic and cultural circumstances conspired to force . . .” He paused and pinched the bridge of his nose with his forefinger and thumb. “But perhaps this is not the time for a lecture on socioeconomic history.”
“No, please go on,” Lal said, leaning forward, clearly enraptured.
“No, please don’t,” Alice said, waving her hand. “Back to your story: You stole a yacht . . .”
“We purchased a yacht. We stole the credits we needed. Some of them. And it wasn’t even really stealing. If one happens to be very good at doing complex equations in one’s head and one happens to be in a casino, is it really stealing if one plays a game of chance that one . . .”
