Medical ethics and cultural protection: Pulaski's decision to excise Sarjenka's memories to prevent cultural contamination and preserve developmental integrity, set against Data's attachment and moral grief.

From the bridge Picard coldly authorizes an irreversible medical intervention: Pulaski must surgically excise a child's memories of the Enterprise and of Data. In measured, clinical language Pulaski explains the …

In Sickbay Data and Dr. Pulaski bring the exhausted Sarjenka to a biobed. Pulaski sedates the child and rigs a delicate neural disruptor that casts a cold blue beam across …

Data materializes in Sarjenka’s darkened room carrying the sleeping child, tucking her in with delicate, mechanical tenderness. He presses the previously silent Elanin Singer Stone into her palm; it begins …