Tribble in Paradise

Louisa M. Swann

The room glowed with light. Not the artificial trying-to-be-natural light used on the Enterprise, but real sunlight that not only lit the room, it warmed Data’s backside as well. It didn’t take a positronic brain to figure out he wasn’t on board the Enterprise—he was lying in a bed with feather pillows and soft, fluffy blankets…and someone else.

The bedsprings creaked as Data sat up straight. His head felt light and the room seemed to sway. He glanced down at the figure beside him. Shiny brown hair cascaded across a softly tan cheek; everything else was covered by the same blanket he held on his lap.

Data’s stomach started to tingle, an odd sensation he’d felt once before when trying a carbonated beverage. This tingling, however, had nothing to do with liquids and everything to do with his growing sense that things were not as they should be. Memory came in slow, awkward trickles: Geordi installing his emotion chip. A dream about tribbles. The Klingon attack.

The Enterprise crashing…

They’d survived the impact; started to pull themselves together. Then came a howling roar unlike anything he’d ever heard before. A flash of rainbow.

A sharp prickle of electricity.

And everything went blank as if he’d been deactivated.

Data could deal with the blankness, with the reality of deactivation. He couldn’t deal with the realization that hit him like a megawatt short from his computer console.

Veridian III was gone. Along with the Enterprise and her crew.

His circuits must have gotten scrambled somehow. He needed to adjust his emotion chip. Turn it off. Do something to take away this empty feeling.

Data stared at the blanket draped over the woman curled next to him. Humans believed in heaven; androids in deactivation. But deactivation was nothing. Blank. No dreams. No heaven. Nothing. He wasn’t deactivated.

Where was he then?

“Computer, cancel holodeck programming.”

The sun kept shining, the woman kept sleeping, and somewhere outside a bird warbled a good morning song.

Had the crash, the fight with the Klingons, Geordi’s kidnapping all been some kind of horrible nightmare?

Data tossed back the covers and slid his legs over the side. A mirror on the opposite wall cast an image back at him, and for a moment Data didn’t recognize his own reflection. The man sitting on the bed had to be someone else. He looked too alive to be an android.

“My circuits are in need of major adjustments.” He rubbed his chest, absently noting the strange pounding. Seemed it was more than his circuits that needed adjusting.

Birdsong drifted through the window again, along with a sweetly pleasant odor. Data stood carefully, trying not to wake the slumbering woman. He tiptoed to the window and leaned out, farther and farther, finally catching sight of a tiny blue bird sitting several branches up in the leafy tree that wound its way toward the pale blue of the morning sky. He glanced at the pink house across the street. Farther down the street were other houses, some brown, some yellow, one a very bright blue. Data slapped the windowsill in frustration as he struggled to place the setting. The information finally clicked into place: He was looking at a typical American neighborhood, circa 1970-something.

The sweet scent of roses drifted by, and a breeze caressed his cheek. He touched the spot with a finger—his skin was as warm and pliable as a human’s.

“Data?”

The voice startled him and he spun around. His hand smashed into a small figurine on the dresser beside him and sent it crashing down onto his toe.

“Ow!”

“Are you all right?” The woman’s voice was full of concern.

He knew that voice, but from where? His toe stung and Data leaned against the window frame, trying to make sense of a world that had somehow gotten its wires crossed.

The woman struggled to sit up. The blanket fell from around her shoulders, revealing rounded breasts and an equally rounded belly beneath a very sheer nightie. “Honey? What’s wrong?”

A frown furrowed the woman’s pretty forehead and for a moment, Data almost remembered who she was.

“You’re scaring me.” She gathered the blanket up over her shoulders and scrunched back into the pillows.

The memory slipped into place. Ard’rian. The colonist who’d befriended him on Tau Cygna V.

And she was pregnant.

Data swallowed. Hard. “Nothing’s wrong,” he said. “I was just listening to the bird.”

“You listen to that bird every morning,” Ard’rian said, a slight note of pique in her voice. She slipped out of bed and padded over to stand beside him. Data took one look at the sheer nightgown and turned back to the window, shocked by the waves of sensation rocking through his body. He knew what female humans looked like, both with and without their clothes. He also knew the biological process of human reproduction.

So why did he feel this way?

“Excuse me,” he said. He stepped away from Ard’rian. “I think I need to use the facilities.” Data gave a weak smile, stepped over to the door beside the bed and pulled it open. A fuzzy ball bounced from beneath a rack of clothes and rolled between his feet. He picked up the ball. It was warm and soft and purred like Spot only with a higher pitch.

“Data?”

He didn’t have time for explanations right now. If he didn’t find something that resembled a refresher soon, he had a feeling the situation was going to get worse. Much worse.

Data slipped past a startled Ard’rian, crossed the room, and tried another door.

This time he found himself in a hallway with cold oak floors and pale green walls. He hurried, his feet slapping against the floor in stilted steps because anything quicker threatened to bring disaster.

He glanced down at the tribble in his hand and memory flashed through his mind. His emotion chip had just been installed, and Data remembered being unreasonably upset when he’d read about Captain Kirk’s treatment of the furry little creatures. He’d discussed the matter with Geordi…

Data hugged the tribble close, listened to its contented purr. It was still unclear to him exactly why a human would try to “get back” at a Klingon by condemning a little furry creature to life among its enemies.

Just as it was unclear why, now, at this precise moment—when his positronic brain was malfunctioning and he might be headed for a meltdown—all he could think about was finding the refresher.

Data smelled coffee just before he ducked through another door and stopped.

In the kitchen.

He gawked at Guinan poised before an olive-green stove, coffeepot in hand.

“Third door on the right,” Guinan said. She smiled and pointed back down the hall.

“Thank you.” Data put his fuzzy new friend on the table and left.

Data had never felt such relief. He tugged the lightweight fabric pants back into place and glanced at his bare chest in astonishment. The paleness was gone from his skin. He peered in the mirror at his reflection—instead of golden android eyes, blue eyes stared back. With both hands he pushed and pulled the skin on his face, wincing at the scratch of whiskers beneath his fingertips. No pasty white almost-flesh. This was the real thing.

Quickly, Data headed back into the kitchen. He glanced at a photograph hanging on the wall and his brain and feet stopped along with the rest of time.

It was an old-fashioned daguerreotype. A family portrait with the subjects dressed in mid-nineteenth-century clothing.

But that wasn’t what stopped him.

He moved a step closer. The figure standing in the middle of the picture was himself, dressed in floppy western chaps and a broad-brimmed cowboy hat. He had a huge smile on his face, and his right hand rested lightly on the shoulder of a girl.

A chill swept across Data’s skin—an odd feeling, like all the hair on his body had suddenly decided to stand on end.

He looked at the two other figures standing tall and proud behind the smiling Data: his creator/father, Dr. Noonien Soong, dressed in the fancy vest and jacket of a riverboat gambler. And in a gown of pearls and lace that clung to her waist and swept gracefully to the floor, Juliana Tainer. The android who called herself his mother.

After a deep breath, Data looked back at the girl dressed in a bonnet and pinafore and let recognition flow through his baffled circuits.

Lal.

The daughter he had created. The daughter who died because he’d made her too human.

A sense of loss rushed through him so overwhelming Data thought his legs would collapse. He traced a finger across the face in the photograph. Her cheeks were rosy. Alive.

A strange, rhythmic sound hammered in his ears. It took Data a moment to figure out he was hearing his own pulse. He startled slightly as Guinan handed him a cup of coffee. He gripped the mug tight and his palms began to burn. “I think my circuits have been scrambled.”

“Come on.” Guinan moved over to the table and sat down. Data stared around the kitchen at the rustred linoleum and faded green walls. Oak cabinets. Window with rose-covered curtains set in the wall over a stainless steel sink. Beside the table was a sliding glass door that opened onto a small redbrick patio surrounded by green-leafed bushes and a cacophony of various flowers. Data sat down and cradled his cup in his hands. Stared at the furry tribble centerpiece.

“At first I thought I was on the holodeck, but the program wouldn’t stop running.” He looked at Guinan and raised an eyebrow. Why wasn’t it surprising to find her here? “Maybe this is another dream?”

“You’re not dreaming. In its own way, this is all very real.”

Data stared outside at the hummingbird hovering over a bush covered in purple horn-shaped flowers and tried to understand.

“You’re in the Nexus, Data. Everything around you is made from the shadows of your dreams.”

Data looked down at the cup cradled in his hands. Inhaled the rich scent. Raised the cup slowly and took a tentative sip. The coffee was bitter, hot, and oddly enough, satisfying. He took another look around.

On the bookshelf along the back wall of the dining room was an inverted crystal bell with two tiny figurines inside. He stood and walked over to it, lifted it from the shelf. Music began to play and the figurines began to dance. Data cocked his head to one side and let the music flow through him. His feet started to itch with the need to move.

He turned back to Guinan. “I can see this construct is made up of things I’ve found pleasant.” The stilted sound of his own words irritated him as if he’d taken a step backward, instead of forward. A tingle spread over him—his words were stilted, yes. But he was using contractions!

Guinan came over, stood beside him. “This isn’t a construct, Data. The Nexus is real. Everything you’ve ever hoped or longed for, or in your case, found pleasant, is here in the Nexus.” Her round face lost its smile.

“There is a penalty, though. The Nexus has a way of making you forget your old way of life, old family, old friends. It is a heaven, one most people can only dream of and very few get to experience.” She looked at him hard. “Just remember, Data. You can be any place, any time you wish.”

Wind roared and howled, like the wind after the Enterprise had crashed. Startled, Data looked outside, but the leaves were still. He reached down, pinched his skin. “I’m human then?”

Guinan nodded, her sad face a bit sadder.

“It’s what I’ve been searching for,” Data said. A light, almost giddy feeling made his feet want to dance. “What I was programmed for.” He picked up the coffee cup and turned it over in his hand.

“You might say I’ve achieved my objective.” He stepped to the sink, rinsed the cup, and set it to dry. The water washed across his skin, soft, warm.

“This could become a very pleasant habit.” He started to open a cupboard, then stopped.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Data turned around.

Guinan was gone.

Of course. He didn’t need her in his dreams anymore.

A cookbook on the shelf caught his eye. He slipped the book from between its companions and thumbed through it. Found a recipe. Pulled eggs and milk from the refrigerator.

Data loved feeling alive. Loved the contractions. Loved the feeling of joy bubbling inside his skin. He looked down at the freckles on his arm, brushed a finger across the tiny hairs, and shivered as goosebumps rose on his skin. The furry bundle on the table trilled in time to his happiness. Data laughed.

“Now where’s the flour?”

He opened cupboard after cupboard. He found plates, cups, bowls, serving bowls, pots and pans. Tea. Coffee. He finally stepped over to a tall door he assumed was another closet and pulled it open.

Canned goods filled ceiling-high shelves along both sides of a narrow room while bins of various sizes sat along the back wall. Fascinated, Data moved into the small room, examining cans of peas, beans, corn—the variety seemed endless.

“Mid twenty-first century.” Data laughed. No replicator here. No need to recycle. He tossed a can in the air, set it back on the shelf, pulled open a bin…

And froze.

The bin was empty except for a purring furball. Data lifted the tribble out and held it to his face. His gut clenched as he remembered how Kirk had shipped the tribbles off into the clutches of the Klingons.

“How could he do that to a creature as sweet as you?” Data muttered. It cooed back at him, and his anger faded.

“You two get to know each other.” He set the second furball on the table and turned back to the pantry.

“Now. Where was I? Ah, yes. Flour for the pancakes.” He pulled open the flour bin. It was empty. And so was the next bin and the next.

A tiny fragment of alarm pierced through Data, not unlike an unexpected electrical shock.

He ducked out of the pantry. The two tribbles were in the middle of the table just as he’d left them. Data shook his head and laughed. “I guess I’m developing an imagination.” He looked through the cookbook, found an omelet recipe, and went to work.

Ten minutes later, he turned the stove off and looked back at the table.

Everything was picture perfect: Two placemats faced each other across the table. In the center of each placemat was a plate with a glass full of orange juice above and to the right. Silverware sat next to the plates just the way the book described—fork on the left, knife and spoon on the right. Three furry tribbles in the center…

Three?

“Daddy, how sweet.”

All thought of tribbles fled from Data’s mind. His feet froze to the floor and a lump the size of a full-grown tribble found its way into his throat.

“Lal?”

She stood in the doorway, feet bare, dark hair still tousled from sleep. She was young, maybe six or seven. Before she’d…

Ard’rian came into the kitchen and gave Lal a quick hug. “Good morning.” She ruffled Lal’s hair, picked up a glass of orange juice. “Breakfast, Data? How thoughtful.”

Data opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He stared at his family.

His family. Ard’rian’s face glowed and her brown eyes sparkled. She wore a simple tan smock that stretched wide across her stomach. Her hand rested lightly on Lal’s shoulder. And Lal…Data grabbed the back of a chair before his knees gave out.

Ard’rian took a sip of orange juice, raised an eyebrow at the tribbles. “What’s this?”

“It’s a pre-baby present, isn’t it, Daddy?” Lal grabbed a tribble from the table.

Daddy. The lump in Data’s throat grew. He gazed down at Lal’s shining face. So much like his Lal and yet…so human. She hooked an arm around his waist and smiled a smile that went straight to Data’s heart.

Ard’rian rounded the table and held Data close in a hug. “You’re always so thoughtful.”

“I thought you might like an omelet.” The words squeezed past the lump in Data’s throat were almost more than he could manage.

“You know I love omelets, silly.” Ard’rian set the tribble back on the table and sat next to it, sipping at her orange juice as she continued to pet the furry creature. Data could hear its purr from where he stood. He set another plate on the table, lingering over Lal’s head long enough to catch the clean fragrance of her hair before he picked up the pan and dished out the omelet. But he couldn’t eat a bite. He sat and watched his family eat. He was warm all over and his chest felt so full, he thought it might burst.

Lal offered the tribble a little piece of her toast.

“Don’t do…that,” Data said. His face grew warm as his daughter stared at him and shook her head.

“It’s all right,” Lal said. “He doesn’t bite.”

“He?”

“Well, I can’t tell for sure, but he acts like a ‘he.’” Lal rubbed her cheek against her tribble and smiled.

Ard’rian finished her omelet and stood up, tribble tucked tight in her arm. “Get your shoes on, Lal. We’ve got to run. Got a doctor’s appointment, remember?” She stepped over to Data and gave him a long, lingering kiss. Data sat stunned for a moment, then felt himself responding to the warmth of her lips. He had to fight the urge to pull her back when she finally broke contact and stepped away.

“Why don’t you leave the little—guys—here?”

Ard’rian and Lal both shook their heads.

“Nope. I want to show him off,” Ard’rian said. “By the way, I’m stopping by my sister’s on the way back.” She snatched up the other tribble. “Maybe we’ll take this other one along. You don’t mind, do you?”

Data slowly shook his head and tried not to think about the empty flour bin.

Lal took the tribble from Ard’rian and hugged it in her other arm. “Aunt Sally will love him.” She grinned and the room glowed with sunlight.

The glow lasted even after they were gone. Until Data opened the pantry door and a mound of fur tumbled out.

Less than a week later, the Nexus was no longer a paradise.

Tribbles occupied every corner of the house; Data couldn’t find a place to sit down without causing a squeak from a tribble, Lal, or his wife. He locked the furry little balls inside boxes, but Lal burst into tears and Ard’rian refused to speak to him. He turned his back as the pair freed his caged tribbles.

“Might as well make dinner,” Data grumbled.

But all the fresh food was gone. He pulled on his shoes and walked downtown to the corner grocery store. A sign on the front window said they were closed due to “Tribble Infestation.” He turned to go back home and almost bumped into Guinan.

“Where have you been?” Data knew he was being unreasonable, but he didn’t really care.

“They’re all over, you know,” Guinan said in a quiet voice.

“Of course, they’re all over,” he said. “Isn’t that what tribbles do?”

“I mean, they’re all over,” she repeated. “Throughout the Nexus. They’ve infested everyone’s lives.”

For a moment Data just stared as his soft, fuzzy world came crashing down around him like waves on a sandy beach.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Guinan continued. “There has never been an instance where one person’s life runs into another’s unless it is willed into being. These cute little creatures,” she pulled one out of her sleeve, “have taken over, not just here, but everywhere.” She handed the tribble to Data. He cradled the little furball in his hand and rubbed it against his cheek, closing his eyes to feel the softness and the trilling purr.

When he opened his eyes again, Guinan was gone.

With a heavy sigh, Data looked at the grocery store. At the sign in the window. Kirk’s solution had been a bit cold…Data thought about the Enterprise filled with tribbles and bowed his head. He could will them on board a Klingon ship, but couldn’t imagine Klingons in the Nexus. There was no place for the little furballs to go except into oblivion.

A band tightened around Data’s chest as the tribble’s purr tickled his palms. Why couldn’t they just leave him alone? He didn’t want to make decisions; didn’t want responsibilities. He just wanted time to enjoy the family he never thought he’d have.

Down the block a window slammed and a tribble squealed. It wasn’t only his life the tribbles were infesting. He nuzzled the ball he held once more as if to absorb its softness. The tribble trilled its melodic purr and Data closed his eyes.

When he opened them again the tribbles were gone.

Things should have been perfect. But Data couldn’t help feeling that something was still wrong. Something he couldn’t put a finger on.

Something he should be doing.

At first he thought it was just because he missed the tribbles. Missed their quiet trilling purr. Missed their comforting softness and warmth. But Lal didn’t cry and that bothered him. Ard’rian just smiled and said it was for the best. Didn’t anyone care except him?

He stayed up late after everyone had gone to bed. The kitchen was clean and an untouched cup of tea sat on the table before him, the steam long since gone from the liquid.

“Everything’s back to normal, thanks to you.”

Guinan.

Data didn’t turn. He stared into his cup; tried to fit logic where logic didn’t fit.

“Something’s still wrong,” he said. “I can feel it.” He finally looked up. “It’s as if I’m supposed to be doing something, but I’ve forgotten what it is.”

Guinan smiled, a soft, sad smile. The same smile she’d always had. It made Data think of the Enterprise. Captain Picard. Counselor Troi. Geordi La Forge. His crewmates. His friends.

But what about his family?

“They’re all here, you know. In the Nexus.” Guinan slid into a chair and rested her elbows on the table. “Captain Picard, Counselor Troi, Commander Riker…”

“Geordi?” Data raised an eyebrow. Guinan nodded and her face grew even sadder.

“The Enterprise is in danger, Data. Captain Picard is trying to save her. There’s someone here in the Nexus who can help.”

Guinan raised a hand as Data started to speak. “It’s not anyone from the present Enterprise crew. But you know the Nexus now. You know the attraction, the danger.”

Yes, he knew. Data stroked the cold cup beneath his fingers and tried to ignore the pit in his stomach. He knew what Guinan was going to say. What it was he’d forgotten to do.

“By choosing to return to our former lives, the Enterprise crew can cause a ripple in the Nexus. A ripple that will let the truth show through. The captain needs this moment to convince the one person who can help him save the Enterprise.”

Data thought of Ard’rian’s soft skin, Lal’s sunshine smile. He looked around the kitchen of his home—his perfectly normal human home—and shook his head.

This wasn’t a dream, a construct put together amid the wires and contacts of his positronic circuitry and made possible by this abnormal phenomenon called the Nexus. It was real.

It was heaven.

A heavy weight settled around his heart, and Data suddenly felt as cold as the cup in his hands. Heaven was for humans and he was an android.

His friends needed him; it was time to go home. Back to the world of electronic impulses and memory chips.

Data thought of the unborn child he’d never see, of the sweetness of Ard’rian’s kisses, of Lal, and his heart shattered.

How could he leave his daughter again?

Guinan’s hand touched his. “It’s your choice, Data. But you have to make it now.”

His eyes burned and for a moment he thought he heard a sound that couldn’t possibly be a sob come from deep inside. Then he closed his eyes.

And dreamed.

Data’s arms were full of purring fur. Hope clenched his stomach in a fierce grip, but the purr wasn’t a tribble purr. It was lower and more rhythmic. The creature he held in his arms was much larger than a tribble. And it had legs.

He opened his eyes and stared around his quarters. The violin standing in the corner. The half-finished painting on the easel. Now he saw them for what they were: empty, meaningless attempts to move beyond the unfairness of fate.

But androids didn’t believe in fate, any more than they believed in heaven. He nuzzled the cat.

“Hi, Spot. It is good to see you.” Disappointment swept through him, hard and fast at the sound of his words. Spot looked at him and meowed.

“Are you hungry?” A picture-perfect table appeared in Data’s mind and for a moment he imagined himself dishing omelet onto plates. He smiled a sad little smile. Memories. He had always claimed people lived on in memory, and he had believed what he said—in a logical, mental way. But now he understood physically, emotionally.

The Enterprise and her crew would survive, and after things returned to normal, he could take out those memories, look at them, one by one.

Remember what it was like to be truly alive.

The red alert Klaxon sounded—loud, urgent. Data took a deep breath, let his emotions rest deep inside. He hugged Spot tight one last time.

And headed for the bridge.