Part 12 (1/2)
”Most unusual,” Data said again. ”My head and limbs are throbbing in a most unpleasant way. I feel very weak and tired.”
”Are you sick, Data?” La Forge said.
”Sick? Accessing.” Data made the usual jerky reading motions with his head. He stopped suddenly, a pained look on his face and a hand to his temple. He said, ”Sick. Ill. Ailing. Disabled. Not up to snuff. I have no way of knowing if this describes my condition, never having felt this way before. But it is a logical working hypothesis. I do seem to be not up to snuff.” He smiled, evidently felt pain, and touched his temple again. ”Captain, may I be excused?”
”If you were any other crew member, I'd send you to sickbay. What do you suggest, Mr. La Forge?”
”It does seem to be an engineering problem. And though I'm not a doctor, I doubt if what he has is contagious to other members of the crew. Come on down to Engineering, Data.”
”Very well. This is most interesting. Ow.”
”Ensign Crusher, would you see that Mr. Data arrives in Engineering safely.”
”Aye, sir.”
They got Data to his feet, and he and Wesley shuffled out together.
When the door had closed, Picard said, ”It seems likely that Data was infected by the main computer.”
”It seems that way.”
”Is this related somehow to our holodeck problem?”
”You better hope not, sir. If we have Boogeymen in our mainframe, we are in big trouble.”
”Exactly how big?”
”I don't know at the moment. But Data being sick could be a break for us.”
”How so?”
”It gives us two views of the problem rather than just one. The parallax could give us a clue or two.”
”I want some answers, Mr. La Forge. Or at the very least, better questions. One hour in the conference lounge.”
”Aye, sir,” said La Forge as he quickly left the room.
Picard looked around. In the entire Federation only three or four cases of mental illness were reported every year. Not one case of computer mental illness had been reported in many years. If the mainframe of the Enterprise was the statistical anomaly, Picard was not confident that La Forge's ideas about parallax would save them.
Down in Engineering Wesley deposited Data in a chair, then sat across from him and watched. It was odd to see Data, who never got tired and normally had the posture of a machine, with his elbows on the table, slumping. He touched his forehead and winced occasionally. Yet Data's skin color was the same as it always was and he didn't sweat. Wesley guessed that he probably didn't have a temperature. He had an operating temperature, but that wasn't the same thing.
Wesley said, ”How do you feel?”
Data looked puzzled for a moment and then said, ”Generally, with my hands, but I have sensors all over my body. Did I say something funny, Wesley?”
Wesley shook his head and said, ”Sometimes I think that pretending you don't know what humor is is the funniest thing about you.”
Data didn't understand that, and Wesley knew it was pointless to try explaining it, so he just forged on with another question. He said, ”What is your condition?”
”Much the same as it was before. Tell me about being sick.”
Wesley considered the question. Most ailments that were common before the twenty-third century had been eradicated. Still, germs, viruses, and other afflictions mutated constantly and were sometimes accidentally carried from one outpost of the Federation to another. People even occasionally caught cold. Wesley suspected that Data knew all this and really wanted to know how humans reacted to being sick. Data was a great one for playacting. His rendition of Sherlock Holmes was not the end. The drama group he directed was famous all over the s.h.i.+p.
Wesley said, ”I had a cold once.”
”Cold? As in heatless, chilly, nippy, frigid-”
”No, Data. A cold. A viral infection causing you to sneeze and cough and have a fever. Nothing really hurts, but you get bored with sneezing and coughing, and that's after the infection makes you tired to begin with.”
”I see that being the son of a doctor has had its effect on you.”
Wesley was pleased by that, but he said, ”Everybody knows this stuff, Data. But the important part as far as you're concerned, is that when you have a cold you lie in bed with tissues to sneeze into and all your favorite books and a portable computer terminal and maybe some games you can play by yourself and a gla.s.s of water and some cough drops.”
”Sounds cluttered.”
”Maybe if you were well it would be, but if you're sick, it's just comfortable.”
”I see. Comfort is a consideration.”
Wesley nodded.
”Useful information. Please excuse me,” Data said and rested his head on his crossed arms.
Wesley sat there feeling helpless. If Data were human, he'd already be in sickbay. If he were just a machine, Wesley would already be poking a hyperspanner around inside him. But Data was supposed to be self-adjusting. He wasn't supposed to get sick or broken or whatever.
When La Forge emerged from the turbolift, Wesley went over to talk to him.
”How is he?” La Forge said.
”Not so good. But he's having fun with it.”
”That's our Data.”
They watched Data for a while. He wasn't moving. Which in Data's case meant nothing. Wesley said, ”Did he catch this from the mainframe?”
”I hope not, but the evidence is pretty clear, isn't it?”
”Yeah. Does this have anything to do with my Boogeymen?”
”The diagnostics didn't find the program. But even if the Boogeyman program somehow got through, the machete program would have cleaned it out.”
”That's a relief.”
”You may be relieved, my boy,” La Forge said as he put an arm around Wesley's shoulders and guided him toward Data, ”but personally, I'd rather have Boogeymen. At least I'd know what the problem was and how to deal with it. As things are ...” He shrugged.
Data looked up as they approached and attempted to erect a smile. La Forge said, ”Can I plug you in again, Data? I'd like to run a little diagnostic of my own.”