Skin and Hinek

Posted on Thu Feb 27, 2014 @ 9:58pm by Lieutenant Nicole Anderson

908 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: A Whole New World, Part 2 - Durbatuluk
Location: Sickbay

"All right, this is going to hurt a bit," Nicole said, helping to hoist a crewman onto a biobed. She ignored his grunts as she lowered him onto the biobed and carefully cut his boot off around his now-swollen ankle.

"I think I broke it," he said, gritting his teeth as she pulled it off.

"No self-diagnosis please, Mister Bryant," she said. The angle was swollen and ugly, and she poked it gingerly, eliciting a few painful gasps. "How did it happen?"

"I was in jefferies tube two-four-seven," he said, "and I was moving down a deck. I slipped on the rungs and landed back on the deck hatch."

She glanced at him and back at his ankle, running her tricorder over it briefly. "What's Rule One of passing down the connector tube ladders?" she said.

"'One by one until you're done,'" he said. "Yeah, I know. I was in a hurry."

"Haste makes waste," she quipped, reaching for her tools. "You've managed to partially tear a few ligaments, but nothing broken," she said. "What were you in such a hurry about?"

"Dickenson was right behind me, and he was moving fast, pushing a couple of us along," Bryant said through gritted teeth.

"Well, I hope you learned your lesson. If he's in that much of a hurry, get off at the next deck and let him pass," Nicole said, flicking his angle and making him cry out. "Pain, the Great Educator," she said. She fixed him with a stern gaze. "Next time," she said, "let him pass and rush himself down. Just because he's getting aggressive doesn't mean you need to hurt yourself." She ran the instrument over his ankle, bringing down the swelling and repairing the damage. When she was done his ankle looked normal again and he was looking in far less pain.

"Thanks, Doc," he said, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Oh, don't thank me, all in a day's work," she said, her accent giving a false sense of sweetness. "Come in with an injury that stupid again and I'll make you walk over and get my instruments for me. Clear?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, swallowing.

"Now get some new boots and get back to your shift. And be careful: you're going to be tender for a few hours, so pace yourself."

"Yes ma'am," he repeated, moving off the biobed, wincing slightly and walking unevenly out of Sickbay in one boot.

She watched him leave and saw Yarin enter at the same time. As he approached, she nodded a greeting. "Skin sample time?"

"Correct Doctor," Yarin said as he sat down on the biobed and raised all four of his arms outward.

"Right to business as always," she said, sighing. "You know, Yarin, you need to work on your small talk." She walked over to a cabinet, pulling out a sample container and a small grafter, then came back to his side, holding one of his arms gently.

"Small talk is ultimately pointless as it takes time one can use for learning. Knowledge is the only important thing in life; we are only what we know," Yarin said

"Interesting philosophy," Nicole said, slowly removing samples of his skin, "if a bit narrow-minded. Even Vulcans acknowledge certain amounts of polite conversation as logical. And if we are what we know, how do your people explain instinct?"

"That concept is unknown to me. On Nya we are all subconsciously, constantly in telepathic contact with each other. In an instant we know everything about an individual, so there is no need to second guess and no need for unconscious thought like instinct to exist."

"Sounds very Betazoid," she said, transferring her samples to the container and putting it down on a specimen tray. She pulled her tricorder back out and scanned his arm slowly. "What about when you meet individuals you can't automatically 'download,' for lack of a better term?

"Then further study is required." He turned a wistful purple color and sighed. "Life is all about learning new things if one just keeps an open mind. I apologize; recently I find my thoughts drifting out into the void."

"Is that normal for your people?" Nicole said, again scanning him, focusing on his cranium, tracking his brainwaves. "On Rigel, we say daydreaming was our mind's way of opening to Providence."

"No it is not normal, I believe I am experiencing the onset of the narcon-gleesh, the natural biological process I explained to you earlier," Yarin said. "If I am charting this correctly you should be seeing increased activity in my mesiofrontal cortex."

Nicole scanned again, and nodded. "Indeed. I'll have to do some more research. I assume that everything I need to know about your people has been added to the ship's medical database?"

"Yes however I will send a subspace message back to Nya to see if there are any new techniques you should know about," Yarin said.

"Well given how far that is, that will take some time," Nicole said, idly. She glanced at the sample containers and then back at Yarin. "I'l put the samples through a few tests and see what I can come up with."

"Very good, keep me apprised of your progress," Yarin said as he left Sickbay.

"And a nice day to you as well," Nicole said to herself, taking the specimens to the lab.


Nicole Anderson
CMO
USS Victory

Yarin
Chief Science Officer
USS Victory

 

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