Traceroute

Posted on 21 Dec 2012 @ 12:25am by

1,693 words; about a 8 minute read

Mission: Episode 02 - Resupply
Location: USS Galileo: Science Lab 2
Timeline: MD14 1330 Hours

ON:

After Coleman's pronouncement, the meeting dispersed relatively quickly and Liyar followed Maenad out and into the labs. They'd decided to break up sections of the crew into not affected, least affected, somewhat affected, compromised and severely affected, and approach the problem from two separate trajectories. Liyar's list was growing, but the more it grew, the more haggard he looked as a result. He was now resting his head in his hand, staring at the screen in front of him unseeingly. He roused himself as if asleep and continued the pattern scan before hitting the submit button when yet another pattern registered to him.

The 'compromised' portion of their grid was the most full, with the 'severely affected' margin well beyond average. The only ones 'somewhat' or 'non' affected were distinct by either species or arrival time after landing on Vega IX. Another beep on his screen jerked him out of another lapse in concentration and he hit the submit again for 'severely affected'. Attempting to discern the difference without medical training was taxing on him, relying on the intricate nuances he could feel when following the threads of connection. He ended up undoing the last one and replacing it in the 'compromised' section instead.

"Forgive me. I am not normally prone to this level of error." It was the second one he'd 'misjudged', fortunately Panne caught the first. It was fortunate his presence was actually helpful in terms of accurate analysis (minus the odd glitch) else he figured he'd be more a detriment than anything else.

Maenad was sitting hunched over the computer screen with her legs tightly crossed. Her chin rested in a palm supported by an elbow while her free hand worked the commands. If this job were anything, it was boring. She turned from her console to look at him. "Are you all right?" she asked him suspiciously. Maenad sat upright and arched her back into a dramatic stretch, meanwhile considering Liyar. The Vulcan looked uncharacteristically... human, she thought.

Liyar finished inputting another few patients into the 'severely affected' block and as if a delayed reaction looked up, blinking slowly and nodding. "The terminology all right as I understand it has variable definitions..." he almost mumbled it. "I am... functional," he decided. Another beep. The work would be routine, if it didn't almost solely rely on Whatever This Was in his mind. Distracted, he watched her stretch with a mild frown on his face. Was that healthy? He'd seen Terrans do it before. What was the purpose? (It is, truly, a question to motivate all Vulcans.) "What is the purpose of that?" he asked out loud unintentionally.

Maenad looked at her screen, but it hadn't changed. She frowned back at him. "What was the purpose of what?"

Liyar blinked. "Pardon?" He mulled that over for a while before realizing he'd spoken his thoughts. "Ah." Understanding dawned. He pressed another button on the touch screen lazily. "It was not my intention to miss a nonverbal cue." There was something to be said in the difference between his normal demeanor and this one, which was almost listless, in a way that might be acceptable to Vulcan society, but sincerely lacked his usual presence. "The movement you made? I have seen others do this. What does it indicate?"

Maenad now turned her chair so that she faced the Vulcan entirely. She crossed her arms as her frown intensified. "Mister Liyar, I have no idea what you're talking about."

Liyar's brow was furrowed as he tried to come up with a proper word for it. But... "It was rather elaborate. You do not recall? You put your arms over your head." He crossed his hands at his wrists and rose his arms slightly in an approximation. Then almost questioningly added, "And arched your back? I admit, I am at a loss as to what this indicates."

"What?" Maenad laughed to herself as if she were alone. "Mister Liyar, I was stretching." She scratched a temple, stunned.

"Indeed," he said, a little confused by her laughter, but he supposed that meant it wasn't bad? "Is that significant?" he asked curiously. On the screen in front of him, he was moving names from one area to another, and attaching footnotes with the on-screen keyboard. Another beep came from it and he winced as the pain ricocheted through his pounding head. He leaned down and switched the sound off. It was easy enough to see the big bright red (which is, as an emergency color, just plain random. Why isn't it green?) square flashing up telling him 'priority'.

"No, it's not significant," she said. "Vulcans don't stretch?" Maenad asked him. "It's just what happens when you don't move for a while, I don't know the medical reasons behind it," she smirked.

"I do not believe that we do," Liyar confirmed with a very grave shake of his head. "That one is -" he looked over, halting one of the automatic processes she'd set hers on by placing a finger in between the mounting data stream. "- That one is severe." He tapped it and brought it out of the 'non' pile, showing its isolated life signs. Crewman Jrin. "The program must not be discerning their symptoms... Benzite. The oxygenation filter has been factored in," he quickly realized. With the additional support from the assistive devices, Jrin would register normal enough to pass. He keyed in another sequence experimentally and her life signs quickly began to fall into the red column.

"Hm," Maenad turned back to face her screen. She adjusted the parameters of her search to compensate for Liyar's discovery, but so far yielded no results. Miss Jrin might have been the one exception, but it was safer to make the adjustments just in case. "That's too bad, Mister Liyar. A good stretch can be a very pleasurable experience."

Liyar arched an eyebrow. "Perhaps so. Vulcans are not known for prioritizing pleasurable experiences," he commented, while adding a few more to his own database in the 'non' pile. The crew changeover from the last mission really was substantial. How many had they lost?

"How are you doing?" Maenad asked a few minutes later. "I think I've determined who's in need of attention first."

"My data follows a similar pattern," Liyar confirmed, tapping a button to turn the screen to its opposite side to show Maenad. Nearly all of the sections were filled out, though some more than others.

Maenad went over her lists for a second time, making sure that she hadn't missed anyone. When she saw Kiri's name in the 'severe' category, she felt herself droop. She hadn't spoken to her yet today, she realised, then made mental note to do so at her earliest free moment. "It's not like we prioritise stretching just because it feels good, Mister Liyar," Maenad had to distract herself from her thoughts. "I wasn't thinking that I should stretch because it would feel nice. They're usually involuntary."

Liyar finished a final calculation on the screen in front of him and moved to transfer it onto a PADD. "Indeed," he offered with a small nod. "I am told this is a distinct difference in our neurology. Biological controls tend to obfuscate the need for involuntary motion," he said almost redundantly, figuring she probably already knew that. It was, on a certain level, interesting. He noted the droop in her demeanor. "Are you all right?" he returned the question she'd posed earlier.

Maenad smiled at him, appreciating his attempt to be more comfortable around her. For some reason humans seemed to find it strange when Vulcans didn't use or understand their colloquialisms, but then when they did it didn't feel right either. It was now her turn transfer her findings to a PADD. Once the data had uploaded, she set the PADD next to the console. "Yes," she finally answered Liyar, looking at him forlornly. "Lieutenant Cho, as you probably saw, is on the list. After what happened to her the other day, I've been..." she paused. "I'm just worried about her."

"I recall," Liyar said. "I am confident that we will be capable of restoring Lieutenant Cho and the remaining affected to their nominal states," he offered, meeting her gaze calmly.

She gave him a half-hearted smile. "I'm sure you're right," she said, then yawned and wiped the water from her eyes. "I'm confident this will work."

Liyar stood from his seat and was about to turn to leave when he noted her state. "Do you require assistance?" Liyar asked, because he wasn't overly familiar with emotional states, but he could recognize that people usually only cried when they were distressed. He still really wasn't sure what to do. Was it serious? He knew that Kiri's collapse earlier prompted a very distressed sort of distress.

Maenad stood as well, grabbing her PADD. "Assistance?" she smiled again. "That was a yawn, Mister Liyar. You mean Vulcans don't yawn, either?"

Liyar had a vague thought that maybe involuntary was equally a synonym for unaware... but now she was smiling, which was the exact opposite of crying... Terrans were confusing. "I do not believe so," he answered, but then rose a hand to one of his eyes in explanation. "You were crying. Does this not indicate distress?"

With a slow shake of her head, Maenad let out a laugh. "Sometimes yawning makes tears," she said to him. "Don't ask me why. But it doesn't hurt, nor does it feel particularly good or bad, so my guess is that the tears are a physiological thing, but I really don't know. Shall we take our findings to Coleman?"

Liyar avoided displaying the perpetual confusion he found himself in among Terrans and simply chalked it up to another Weird Thing he probably wouldn't get. "Affirmative," he agreed instead, and swept out through the doors behind her.

[OFF]

Lieutenant (JG) Maenad Panne
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lieutenant (JG) Liyar
Chief Diplomatic Officer VDF/SDD
USS Galileo

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