“There’s one here,” Reg Barclay said, waving his tricorder over a pile of plasteel debris. “And another in that direction.” He waved absently at the confused ensign and then pointed toward the Enterprise’s bow. “And another that way . . .” The tricorder beeped and pinged. The ensign moved cautiously, mindful of cracks in the hull and protruding barbs of plasteel. While some starships were designed with the option to enter atmos in mind, Galaxy-class ships were most definitely not. Since the day of the fateful crash-landing, Commander La Forge kept trying to find the correct metaphor to describe the primary hull’s misbegotten aerodynamic qualities, despite the saucer shape. Early, easy comparisons like brick, cow, and whale had been discarded. He would eventually settle on “piano.”
“Watch that spot,” Barclay cautioned. “It looks like there may be a crack below the hull.” The ensign stopped moving and drew out his own tricorder to scan the area. More than one salvage worker had been injured by falling through the outer skin.
A much smaller figure walked confidently up behind the ensign and tapped him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, kid,” the man said. “Your shift’s almost over, isn’t it? I got this.”
The ensign looked down on the bald top of the man’s head and said, “Thanks, Albert,” before backing away. A moment later, the ensign called for transport and disappeared in a swirl of sparkling atoms.
Stepping carefully, Barclay approached Albert Lee, tricorder held out before him like it was a ward against evil, which, in this context, it might be. When he reached the older man’s side, the pair spent a companionable moment studying their individual readouts. All around them, in every direction, work crews were lifting containers filled with carefully tagged materials retrieved from the depths of the wrecked ship’s interior. Other crew members were beaming directly into the Enterprise, but only in areas that engineers had labeled as safe and stable and only with transporter beam enhancers to mark the site. A lot of exotic radiation had been released when the Enterprise’s secondary hull had exploded.
“What do you think?” Lee asked, tilting his tricorder screen so that Barclay could see it.
“The schematics say we should be near it.”
“Can’t rely on schematics. Too much got shook around, spilled from room to room. Bulkheads taken out. Hell, two-thirds of the ship’s contents are in the front third. A wonder more people weren’t hurt.”
“The inertial dampeners did their job,” Barclay said. “And our pilot had talent.”
“Luck’s more like it.”
“Luck is a kind of talent.”
Albert shrugged, then pointed at the gouge in the hull. “But, yeah, I think that’s the secondary computer core down here. The readings conform to the kind of output we’d get from crushed data storage units. Only one way to know for sure, though.” He knelt down, moving slowly, favoring his knees. Flipping up the eye shield, Lee flicked on the phaser and began to slice away the outer layer of the hull. The fibers in the ceramic layer popped off when superheated, and they folded into tiny spheres as they hit the cool air. The sight never failed to make Barclay think of someone popping popcorn.
When he was finished with the cuts, Lee waited for a moment for the material to cool, then grabbed the ceramic sheet with his gloved hand and tugged it aside. The slab of hull was incredibly light considering its durability, and the older man was able to shift the two-meter square with barely a grunt. The next layer of hull was much too dense to be cut with a hand phaser, but with the deflective material removed, tricorders could get a much better picture of what was immediately below them.
“That’s it,” Barclay said, studying the readings. “And it looks like the bulkheads held.”
“They should have. Precious cargo here.” While the ship’s primary computer core in the center of the saucer section housed most of the essential processors, the Enterprise had several sets of backups where data was stored. Barclay and Lee had been assigned the task of finding as many cores as possible and assessing their status. In addition to being the Federation’s flagship, the Enterprise was also one of the primary research vessels in the quadrant and her computers held precious data that, if lost, might not ever be replaced. In particular, Captain Picard had requested any scans of the mysterious energy ribbon that had passed through the system be retrieved and preserved.
Just as important was the crew’s personal data—recordings, photographs, programs, and artwork—and in a situation where so much had been lost, anything that could be retrieved was prized.
“I think we can do it,” Lee said. “Looks safe.” He tipped his head back to look up at Barclay. “I say we give it a try.”
“Agreed.” Barclay tapped his combadge. “Barclay to transporter room one. Please assemble a team and transport us to the coordinates I’m sending you now.” He tapped a keypad on his tricorder and transferred the data to the transporter operator.
“How many?” the operator asked.
He looked down at Albert who held up two fingers.
“Two in addition to myself and Mister Lee.”
“Very good. I’ll beam down two on your mark.”
Lee rose a little unsteadily and grudgingly accepted Barclay’s proffered assistance.
“We’re ready,” Barclay said.
“Energizing.”
Barclay gulped uncertainly and muttered a quiet benediction. He was confident their scans were accurate and knew the transporter wouldn’t beam them into a perilous situation. The problem was he hadn’t thought to flick on his work light before the transporter grabbed him, and he didn’t like the idea of beaming into a dark space.
Fortunately, the blue emergency lighting hadn’t failed in the core. Indeed, the room had seen far less damage than most of the others they had explored. A pair of unfamiliar ensigns fanned out to explore the perimeters of the room as Barclay and Lee swept debris from a pair of chairs and sat down at the main console.
A few minutes’ examination told the tale. “Not too bad,” Lee said, pointing at a diagnostic. “We lost power to sections six through fifteen, but the data hasn’t degraded much. We should be able to reassemble most of it by rebuilding the indexes.”
“What’s this?” Barclay asked, pointing at one of the blinking indicators. An ensign found the room’s main power coupling, and the interior lights shifted from blue to a brighter, more comforting tone.
“Damage indicator. Memory stack.” Lee studied the array. “Something dense. Taking a lot of flops.” He traced the diagnostic path back through subsystems until he found the origin point. “Holodeck program.” His eyebrows shot up. “Big one. Look at that. Didn’t know we let them get that big. One of the cores has been destroyed, though. How is it still running?”
Barclay studied the display and suddenly felt a spear of icy dread slip between his ribs. “Oh, dear.”
“What?”
“Can you run maintenance to that stack?”
“Well . . . sure,” Lee said. “But if I push something here, then I’m losing something somewhere else. It’s just a holodeck program.”
“No, it’s not,” Barclay said, his voice rising. He saw one of the ensigns look his way and lowered his tone. “I mean, yes, it is. But it’s not just any holodeck program. I know that program. The captain . . .” He was almost whispering now. “He wouldn’t want it damaged.”
“It’s already damaged,” Lee said. “Badly.”
“He wouldn’t want it more damaged. He made a promise.”
Lee shook his head. “You’re going to explain this later, aren’t you?” He tapped a control and the damage indicator light ceased blinking. Somewhere in the core, somewhere far away, some other bit of memory faded and died.
Barclay dabbed at his forehead with his sleeve. It had suddenly grown very stuffy in the room. “I imagine I will,” he said.
The Present—The Daystrom Institute
“And I assume he did,” La Forge said, the statement accompanied by a sigh of resignation and an acidic belch. Albert’s industrial-strength coffee had waged an honorable holding action against exhaustion, but the conclusion of the battle had never been in doubt. La Forge had lost track of how many hours he had been awake, but he felt the dull ache behind his eyes that meant his cognitive functions were on the verge of being iffy. While in transit to consult with Albert Lee, he realized he had managed to forget about this aspect of being Data’s friend and companion: he never slept. Back on the Enterprise, this condition had never seemed like a difficulty: there had always been someone else for his friend to engage with or another project to explore. Now, today, in their current situation, La Forge was feeling his resources erode.
It didn’t help that Albert, despite being at least half a century older than La Forge, was so damned full of vim. It must be the coffee, La Forge thought. He’s probably replaced most of his bodily fluids with it.
“He did,” Albert grunted. “Eventually. Reg was a terrible liar, but he was very good at delaying.” La Forge doubled his pace, having fallen behind. The old man was short and stocky, but he walked with urgent energy with the tufts of white hair on the sides of his head bouncing with every step. It must be the coffee . . .
“So, he revealed the contents of the memory core,” Data said. The android effortlessly kept pace with the old man, walking with his hands clasped behind his back and leaning forward awkwardly so they could speak without raising their voices. La Forge was initially concerned about drawing attention, but no sooner had they stepped through the campus gates than he remembered what the place was like: No one drew anyone’s attention at the Daystrom because everyone who worked there was utterly and completely focused on whatever they were doing and couldn’t give two hoots about anyone else.
“Again, eventually. When he realized what had happened, he tried to contact the captain and find out what he wanted done with it. Apparently, it had always slightly bothered Reg that Picard . . .”
“Captain Picard,” Data corrected.
“Yes, sorry,” Albert said. “Captain Picard hadn’t worked a little more assiduously to address Moriarty’s situation.”
“The captain had other priorities to address,” La Forge inserted. “You know . . . the Borg, the Cardassian conflict, the universe coming to an end. Other things. And Moriarty was fine. He had an entire universe to explore and all the resources he needed.”
Albert came to a halt. Data stopped beside him, still leaning forward. La Forge shot past the pair and had to do a quick pirouette in order to remain part of the conversation. “Was he?” Albert asked. “Fine? Really? I’d like to reframe that assertion if I may. Moriarty was in his own universe and was vulnerable to every evil in it. Plus, all that time he was also exposed to the Borg and Klingons and the universe coming to an end, with the difference that he would have never known what was happening.” He jabbed a stumpy finger up at La Forge. “Nothing that happened to him was real. His universe could have come to an end at any moment and he would have been just as blind and deaf to what was happening as a prisoner stuffed in a closet with a bag over his head.”
La Forge felt a slow burn of anger mingled with exhaustion creeping up the back of his neck. In the years that they had worked together back on the Enterprise, he had managed to avoid being the target of one of Albert’s tantrums. Being the chief had helped, since it meant La Forge had always been able to keep the talented but tempestuous engineer somewhere else, doggedly working on a problem. Unfortunately, in their current circumstances, there was nowhere for La Forge to go, nor any way to make Albert quit barking. He also knew the older man had a point: They had left Moriarty on a shelf, trivialized, if not completely forgotten. “I’m not saying you’re wrong. Not completely. But you were able to transfer the unit here. You stabilized the power and were able to determine that Moriarty and his companion . . .” La Forge drew a blank on the woman’s name. He could see her face in his mind’s eye, but her name was gone.
“Regina Bartholomew,” Albert said. “Countess Regina Bartholomew.”
“Right. Yes, her. And you could determine their condition.”
“We could tell they were still intact, but nothing more. We didn’t have the kind of diagnostics we needed to determine exactly what had happened. All of that data was lost when the Enterprise crashed . . .” Albert shook his head. “All we knew for certain was something cataclysmic had occurred. But there was no way to know how it affected Moriarty or the Countess or even if they were aware of the change. The only way to be sure would have been reaching into their world, retrieving them, and asking them, but what would have been the point of that? If they knew something was wrong, they knew it; if not, why bring it up?”
“It was a most peculiar ethical dilemma,” Data said.
“I don’t think ethics was ever a component in the discussion,” Albert growled. “More’s the pity.”
“You’re not being fair,” La Forge said. “Captain Picard made sure the memory unit was brought here, the safest place anyone could imagine, and the only place where there were resources to study the problem.”
“He should have made sure the unit was brought here before his ship was blown out of the sky.”
The low burn of anger suddenly flared hot and bright. “Too far,” La Forge hissed. “That’s too far. A lot of other things should have happened differently to a lot of people that day. You remember it; you were there. Some lost everything. Some died. I’m sorry for what happened to Moriarty, but if you’re arguing that we should be treating him just like everyone else, then can’t you have a damned moment of sympathy for all those other people?”
Albert jerked his head back as if he had been struck. His eyes went wide and his gaze softened as if he was remembering something he hadn’t thought about for a long time. His head dipped forward and the dip turned into a slow nod. “All right,” he said. “You have a point. Sometimes I get wrapped up in these things and forget . . . I forget who all is involved. My wife . . . she used to tell me I was always missing the forest for the trees until I crashed into a low-hanging branch.”
The trio stood in silence for a long minute while Albert stared at something on the ground. Finally, not able to think of anything else to say, La Forge muttered, “I didn’t know you were married, Albert.”
“It was a long time ago, kid,” Albert said softly. Then, he lifted his head and absently studied the sky, which was growing darker as clouds gathered overhead. “When you’re as old as I am, everything is a long time ago.” He pointed at the clouds. “We better get inside. Going to rain soon.”
* * *
To La Forge’s surprise, the security guard barely blinked when Albert breezed through the entrance waving his credentials. La Forge and Data followed suit, affecting casual ease. Once they were past, Data murmured, “I asked Shakti to arrange for our credentials to be authorized.”
“You mean you forged a pass.” Data shrugged and waved his hand in the universally understood “a little of this, a little of that” gesture. “Shakti is sophisticated enough to crack Starfleet security systems?”
“This particular building does not house highly sensitive material,” Data explained. “Otherwise, it would not have been so simple a matter. As it is, we should not linger.”
“So, in other words, yes, she can.”
“My father believed in being prepared for all contingencies.” He nodded to a passing researcher as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be there.
“And you, Data? What about you?”
“I believe my daughter has been abducted by an artificial intelligence whose sanity may be in question. I am prepared to take advantage of any resources I have available to guarantee her safety.”
“And the fact that you just said that doesn’t in any way alarm you?” La Forge asked.
Albert, who had raced ahead at his usual breakneck speed, was waiting in a turbolift car, beckoning for them to hurry. Data bowed slightly and indicated La Forge should precede him. “Not at this particular moment, my oldest and best of friends. Though I rely on you to reintroduce the topic when Lal is secured.”
“Oh, you better believe I will,” La Forge said. The dull ache behind his eyes was beginning to throb. He would need to sleep soon. Or have another cup of Albert’s coffee. The thought made his stomach churn.
“Don’t you two ever stop yammering?” Albert said as he punched a security code into the turbo-lift control panel.
“No,” Data said placidly as the doors slid shut. “Never.”
“I was only asking if there is a time when you and Alice are together where one of you is not talking,” Data said. “It was a sincere request for information and was not meant to elicit an angry rebuttal.”
The trio was walking down one of the wide boulevards that crisscrossed the outer suburbs of the main city, a middle-class neighborhood where the clerks, supervisors, skilled laborers, and health-care workers resided. Alice had told Data that she and Lal had made it part of their routine over the past few months to take long, rambling walks, the kind that took hours and devoured kilometers. According to Alice, this neighborhood, dubbed the Commons by the locals, was one of Lal’s favorites. Data saw the appeal: The houses and apartment buildings were idiosyncratic in form, but tidy and neat. Clearly, the people who lived here loved their homes and took pride in their appearance. Data particularly enjoyed the displays of domestic botanical cultivation—the ornamental shrubs, carefully weeded plots of vegetables, and flowering plants—that decorated every yard.
“Fine,” Lal said. “I accept your apology.” She had reconfigured her hair yet again, coloring it a bright purple and pulling it back into a messy ponytail. Currently, she was affecting what Data assumed was a sloppy, late-teenage form of camouflage: oversized shoes, accompanied by short pants, shiny black leggings, and what appeared to be a baggy hooded jacket, but was, in fact, a garment comprised of thin ribbons of fiber held together by complex magnetic and static electric fields. The garments were originally created for the Orion military to serve as easily modifiable outerwear—the ribbons were infinitely configurable—but they proved unreliable in extremely arid conditions. Fortunately for the Orion military, fashion designers quickly took to the “fabric” and youth culture in particular seemed to enjoy them.
The only negative factor was that the garments required an extremely powerful but compact power supply to generate and maintain the complex static field. The batteries were extraordinarily expensive, a feature Data could not help but mention every time he saw Lal wear the jacket. “Well, we have a lot of money, don’t we?” Lal would inevitably ask.
“That is not the point,” Data would reply.
“Then what is the point?” Lal would counter, but she never stayed nearby long enough to listen to the answer.
Data found all of this perfectly baffling, which, he suspected, was the main point of most of Lal’s behavior.
Alice just laughed. A great deal. Frequently. Though Data had to admit he had not always been particularly good at judging emotional states, he had determined that Alice might be the most cheerful entity he had ever met. He found it difficult to accommodate sometime. Now that he had an emotional state, Data was beginning to wonder if he was becoming a bit of a grouch. “Thank you,” Data said.
“You’re welcome,” Lal said flatly.
Alice just laughed and laughed.
It was getting on toward sunset, and, as was the tradition in the suburban neighborhoods, most of the residents had already enjoyed their evening meal and now were lounging on porches or sitting around the small biers called ninchalla toasting bits of sweet bread or slowly roasting fruit in foil for their after-dinner treats. Neighbors visited neighbors. Spirits and fermented beverages were served and voices burbled, some low and serious, others high and sweet. Everyone noticed the trio walking past, but no one objected to their presence. Strolling was a commonplace activity in the Commons and the place was too large for everyone to know everyone. Data found he was enjoying the placid anonymity. If only his daughter weren’t being so difficult.
“And as much as I am enjoying this outing,” Data continued, attempting to find the correct tone, “I am still not entirely certain what the purpose is.”
“The purpose, Father, was to get you out of your office.”
“I often leave my office.”
“To go to the casino.”
“I often leave the casino.”
“To go to our apartment.”
“I often leave our apartment.”
“But only to go to your office or the casino!”
“That is not entirely true,” Data said. “Sometimes, I go down to the kitchens.”
“That doesn’t count as part of the casino?” Alice asked, patting her pockets. She had taken to smoking the local brand of small cigars, a habit Data found loathsome, though he knew he could not prevent her from doing it while outside the residence. He was only grateful that Lal also seemed to find the smell and taste of the inhalant unappealing, though she said she thought Alice looked “pretty cool” when she was smoking.
“Not according to the unions,” Data muttered.
“It’s such a beautiful city, Father,” Lal groaned. “And you’ve seen so little of it. You’re always so busy.”
“I have a great deal to attend to.”
“But you have an army of employees,” Lal cried. “And you don’t see them sitting around waiting for something to do! But they can’t, can they? Because you take care of everything!”
“My father left me his empire,” Data said. “I must tend it well.” He almost said, It’s all I have left of him . . . but for a reason he could not name, he could not say these words aloud.
“Can’t you let someone help you,” Lal asked, “just a little?” She was waving her hands around in an extremely vivacious manner. Data enjoyed this aspect of his daughter’s persona. She was . . . passionate. She felt emotions deeply. Data sometimes worried that though he now possessed emotions, he did not feel as if the emotions ever possessed him. Lal never appeared to have this problem.
Folk of the Commons were paying more attention now. Lal’s impassioned pleas and Alice’s manner—Alice had a manner that all men attended and many women despised—were drawing stares. Data worried it was time to tone down the discourse. “Of course I can,” he said. “I have been thinking that Mister Oboloth shows great potential . . .”
“He’s stealing from you,” Lal said.
“Quite a lot,” Alice confirmed. “He has a mistress who likes expensive toys and has a mild narcotics problem.”
“Ah,” Data said. “Well . . .” They walked for several meters in relative silence while he absorbed this news. “Is there anyone else you would like to . . . No, never mind. Perhaps it is best you do not. Should I ask Human Resources to meet with Mister Oboloth?”
“Yes.”
“Definitely,” Alice said. “And his administrative assistant.”
“Is she also embezzling?”
“No. She’s in love with him. She’s not so much a criminal as someone who has poor taste. There has to be something they can do for her, poor girl.”
“I shall take that under advisement,” Data said. “Can you explain how you know these things when I do not?”
“You’re the boss, Boss. I just serve drinks.”
“You did serve drinks. Now you are my daughter’s ‘personal assistant.’ ”
“And don’t think it hasn’t been interesting explaining that to some of my friends.”
A pair of young men who were clearly heading out for a night on the town walked past them and gave both Lal and Alice appraising glances. Data was surprised to find his daughter’s pleasure in the young men’s attention provoked an emotional response, though it was difficult to describe its precise nature. He felt annoyed, alarmed, and proud all at the same time. He attempted to cover his confusion by asking, “What do you mean? Interesting in what fashion?”
“Most think the job is a ruse . . .”
“They think Alice is your mistress, Father,” Lal interjected.
“Oh.”
“Don’t worry, though. Most everyone approves. In fact,” Alice said, giggling, “I think your reputation has been significantly enhanced.”
“Oh?”
“I’m extremely popular.”
“She’s extremely popular,” Lal added.
“So, you have not done anything to dissuade this impression?”
“Of course I have. Everyone just assumes I’m lying. Which just makes the idea more intriguing.”
Data pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. In the days before his emotion chip was fully functional, he had frequently found human behavior difficult to predict; idiosyncratically, now that he possessed emotions, he usually found it utterly baffling. If his friend La Forge had been there, this was, he knew, one of those moments when he would have asked a question. Oddly, he was not comfortable asking a similar question of his daughter or her nanny. Admitting the need for an explanation made him feel exposed. Data decided to close off the discussion with another “Oh,” and a bid to change the subject. “But you still have not explained why we are out for a stroll this evening.” Then he added quickly, “As pleasant as it has been.”
“Good timing, Father,” Lal said, coming to a halt and turning to face a modest domestic structure. “Especially since we’re here.” The house had a rectangular face with tall, narrow windows. Based on his knowledge of Orion architecture, Data knew that the front door led into a reception room used to entertain guests when the weather was not optimal, which opened up into a wide kitchen where the family congregated for meals. Branching off from the kitchen were the private rooms used for sleeping, bathing, and study. The bottom half of the structure was shingled with wide timber slats, while the second and third stories were, as was customary, encased in an adobe-like plaster and decorated with brightly colored tiles, in this case yellow and blue. It was an engaging, even whimsical structure.
Data tipped his head to the side. “Here?” he asked. “Where is here?”
“My house,” Lal said.
“Your house?” Lal’s father asked.
“Yes. Alice helped me to find it. Actually, we walked past it a few weeks ago and saw it was for sale. I liked it, so I bought it. It’s friendly looking, isn’t it?”
Data nodded, unsure whether he was agreeing with Lal or simply trying to make words come out of his mouth. The ones that appeared were, “You purchased a house?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Without telling me?”
“Yes, Father. I am legally an adult, after all. I’m not obliged to ask for permission.”
“But . . . but . . .” Data found that emotion was inhibiting his ability to communicate effectively. He did not enjoy the experience. “But . . . why? I thought . . . I was under the impression that we . . . that our experience of living together . . . that it was improving . . .” And Data was not lying, nor did he feel as if he had misunderstood. Their domestic circumstances had settled into a much more peaceful and stable configuration since Alice had entered the picture, the oxide to their dihydrogen.
“It has, Father. A great deal. But I felt it was time for a change. I’ve decided I don’t like being a princess locked in a tower.”
“You’re not a princess locked in a tower,” Data protested. “You’re free to come and go whenever . . .”
“It’s a metaphor, Boss,” Alice said. “And, yes, she is. No one is accusing you of being an evil king. But still, a king. And sometimes, a girl doesn’t want to be a princess . . .”
Without actually realizing he had done it, he had mentally sent a request to the local municipal agency and looked up the real-estate listing for the structure. He found that Lal had indeed purchased the house after a week of negotiations with the former owner, an older woman whose husband had died the previous year. According to the inspector’s report, the home was in adequate condition, having been cared for assiduously by the husband for most of his life. Lal had already hired a contractor to make some minor improvements and repair a few subsystems that were functioning at less than optimum condition. She had undertaken all of these transactions using the legal identity Data had forged for her as a citizen of Orion Prime. He was simultaneously impressed by his daughter’s thoroughness and a bit hurt that she had never required his assistance. “And when . . . when will you be moving in?”
“Soon, Father. I need to buy some furniture. I was hoping you’d come along and help me look for some pieces for the front room. I have a few ideas that I think you’ll like for your room, but I wanted to check first.”
Data’s head snapped around so quickly he thought there must have been an audible click. He looked down at his daughter, who was pointing at the front porch and saying, “And I’d like to perhaps replace that banister. The inspector said there was some insect damage. Not too extensive, but if anyone wanted to sit on it, it might collapse. We are a little heavier than most Orions, after all.”
“My room?” Data asked.
“Yes,” Lal said, smiling, but not looking at him. “Overlooking the back yard, as is the tradition for the paterfamilias in Orion households. There’s a nice old tree I think you’ll like.”
“So you think I would like to live here?”
“I think you would, Father. More importantly, I think you need to live here.” Now his daughter was looking up into his eyes. She had reached out and taken his hand, too, and was holding it with both of her own. “I think you need to get out of that tower for a while. Doesn’t it feel a little like a prison sometimes?”
“My father made it, Lal,” Data said, though his words sounded a bit thin and desperate even to his own ears. “I am required to maintain it.”
“But you aren’t required to be your father. I think you might be in danger of that happening if you aren’t careful.” Lal squeezed his hand tightly with both of hers.
“I had not known you felt this way, my daughter.”
“I know,” Lal said, tilting her head in a manner Data found familiar. “I don’t think I’ve done a very good job explaining it. I find where you are concerned, I frequently have difficulty making myself understood.”
“That is very odd,” Data replied. “I have often felt the same way.” He squeezed her hand back.
“I’m going to punch both of you if you don’t stop,” Alice said. “Can we go look at the house now?”
Data released his daughter’s hand and turned to walk up the narrow path to the front porch. “Of course, Alice. Lal, please show your house.”
“Our house, Father.”
Data shook his head, smiling. “Your house, daughter. I saw the paperwork. It’s yours. I just live here.”