From: Kenneth Field (envision_at_fidalgo.net)
Date: Sun Feb 24 2008 - 12:29:29 PST
"Contamination"
(continues from Ran and Kim's "SURPRISE")
"How much of your effect on me ... is my effect on you? -- Ashleigh Brilliant
Location: ANDARA
Stardate: 2.80224.0656
Scene: outside the freighter
Mowree Nurunyon, ship's Counselor turned merchant tradesman, inverted the potted plant, one furry paw holding the plant and its soil in place, the other twisting the pot slightly to loosen its contents inside the container. It was a simple primrose, a species he'd acquired during a visit to TERRA. Its petals were a rich blue, fringed in yellow, and it had a very light scent to his inquisitive nose. Not all primroses had one, but this one did. He'd found them growing out of a snowbank in the Northwestern sector of the United States, and he'd thought that anything that tough deserved to be studied.
The pot slid off easily, and he set it aside. Still holding the plant and its attendant soil in one hand, he placed it carefully in the hole he'd prepared, using his thumb claw to break up the root ball. It wouldn't do to leave the primrose's soil compacted. Lastly, he scooped in native Andaran soil around the primrose he'd just transplanted.
"What are you doing?" asked Cmdr Eishnala Kor.
She'd come outside the freighter and spotted him on his knees working in the alien soil of the planet. Mowree looked up at her, squinting against the sunlight that backlit the Andorian's lean blue frame. He noticed her antennae bend toward him. His own ears, he knew, had flicked forward in an instinctive response to her approach. Kor's tone was part curious, part reservation, part disagreement. She was not having a good day.
"I'm transplanting this marvelous little primrose," he said, stating the obvious. "I'm also thinking about our predicament, and gardening helps me think more clearly."
"Is that wise?" Kor asked bluntly.
He guessed she meant to ask if transplanting the primrose was wise, not the part about thinking.
"Introducing an alien plant species into this environment?" she clarified.
Mowree shrugged. He'd been careful to seed the original primrose in Andaran soil back on the GATE some weeks before, and as he'd expected, the little flower had taken to its new environment easily. No danger of crossing alien bacteria with Andaran species.
"I've taken precautions, Commander," he answered, then changed the direction of the conversation. "As well ask if it's wise for us to be here. We're a greater threat to the Andaran culture than any little flower."
"Point taken," Kor grimaced.
"I try to leave something innocuous like this primrose behind in my travels whenever possible," Mowree confessed, standing and brushing the dirt off the knees of his overalls. "It reminds me of the roles we play in the cultures we visit at Starfleet's behest. I try to do no harm, as my medical oath insists."
"I've taken no such oath," Kor snapped.
"But you have the Prime Directive."
"Which doesn't apply in this instance. We're here to help these people ... and their children."
"Against what?" Mowree asked.
"Against whatever threatens them."
"And what if it's us that threatens them?"
Commander Eishnala Kor glared at him then, that penetrating gaze he'd seen so often during their sessions together.
"You think we shouldn't be here?" she asked in surprise.
It was a pattern of behavior he'd noticed before. When confronted, when fearful, or unsure, Kor challenged, attacked, confronted right back. Direct, not circuituous.
"On the contrary," Mowree grinned, showing his teeth, knowing Kor would not be intimidated by them. "I think we ARE here. 'Should' or 'shouldn't' is a moot point at this juncture. What we need to be concerned about is our effect."
"Whether we help or hinder?" Kor relaxed her antennae. It was the only part of her that was.
"Exactly."
Kor glanced away, then back.
"Contaminants," Mowree said, his ears flicking back alongside his head. "Lieutenant Crichton says the Window itself is not the problem. If not, then the incoming signal is."
"And how do we deal with a spurious signal?" Kor prodded him.
"Jam it. Stop it at its source. Filter out the contaminants," he replied with three options.
Kor glanced down at the little primrose in Andaran soil.
"Let's talk with Crichton."
-------------------- =/\=
NRPG: Shawn, here's what I have. Hope this fits.
-------------------- =/\=
Kenneth Field
envision_at_fidalgo.net
aka Lt. JG Mowree Nurunyon
aCNS/GS-2
aka Tomas' Alexei Vukovic
covert BORG infiltrator
currently under deep cover
aka Maury R. Tee
Professor of English (Retired)
Proprietor of "Impulse Drives,"
a little shop of horrors
GS-2, Promenade
aka Commander Gene McInnis, deceased
formerly CNS/GS-2
"To gently lie and prove the lie true ... everything is finally a promise ... what
seems a lie is ramshackle need, wishing to be born." -- Ray Bradbury
From HyperNews_at_youth.net
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