Itinerant Druid

Posted on Tue Dec 4th, 2018 @ 1:28am by Lieutenant Ian Murphy

Mission: Season 2: Episode 3: Determination is not always a good thing
Location: Science Lab; Estelle's Cabin
Timeline: en route
2382 words - 4.8 OF Standard Post Measure

Estelle walked into science, approaching the first person she saw. "Good morning, Lieutenant. I'm looking for someone who can help me with a bit of a botanical problem. Do you, by any chance, know a few things about plant life?"

Looking up from the PADD he was reading from, Ian blinked a couple times before lifting his eyes to Estelle's face. "Well, I'm more of a hard-sciences guy than the soft-squishy sciences." Ian answered, the corners of his lips forming a half-smile. He wasn't really on-duty here -- just getting information from the biology department for a project of his own. "But I did pretty well on the academy's botany courses." His brow furrowed a second, and then he added, "I'm Murphy, by the way. What do you need to know, Lieutenant..." He said, leaving the last syllable hanging for Estelle to insert her own name.

"I'm Estelle", she smiled. "Ship's surgeon. I've got this plant, you see, which is a genetic variant of mandarin orange. I've followed the instructions of the grower for light and soil conditions and three of them are fine. One, however, seems sickly. I'm good with people, okay with animals, but I'm totally lost trying to diagnose and treat a plant."

Murphy nodded slightly, a little relieved that she was a doctor and not a counselor. "Pleased to meet you." He said before pulling out his personal tricorder and tapping a few buttons on it to have it access the ship's mainframe and call up botanical information. Yes, he was just the sort of guy to have designed and built his own tricorder because the standard-issue Starfleet models didn't live up to his standards. "I can check it out for you, if you..." He glanced around her. "Uh, if you want me to go have a look." Because she didn't seem to be hauling one around.

Estelle could imagine the purpose of his glance and chuckled. "Yes, please, if you would? It's a bit unwieldy to be carrying it through the ship's corridors. Not to mention a strain on my back." Yes, antigrav lifts were helpful, but one had to get the thing onto them, and they didn't take care of inertia either. And yes, she could have just used the transporter, but the power use for no reasonable gain? "You've got a tricorder with a bigger display, I see. I've always wondered why they made them so small."

"And here I was picturing a dwarf tree that yields fruit the size of a grape." Ian said, wondering quietly what she planned to do with such a tree. Raise fruit for the sake of having fresh fruit, for trading on the ship's black market (because real almost always trumped replicated), or just for love of growing something? "My guess is that they made them that way because it's amusing to watch stodgy old science officers mashing their fingers on the screen to get it to work. Passive-aggressive way to urge older officers to retire before advances in their fields outpace them."

Estelle laughed. "That's an.. interesting theory." But Starfleet's technological progress had reached a plateau of late, and most of the new impulses came in ever more outlandish ship designs. Same function, different shape, and for no apparent reason other than having it be different. Estelle wondered why Starfleet couldn't build their modern ships to look as good as some of the older ones. "But yes, they're essentially dwarf trees, but they yield standard size fruit. And they're delicious." She headed towards the nearest turbolift and directed it towards her quarters.

"And it's not even one of my more outlandish theories." Ian replied in a dry tone, walking alongside her with a casual, loping gait. "You're lucky I'm not a fan of Mandarin oranges, or I'd probably start trying to coax some out of you in exchange for my services. It would be a different matter altogether if we were talking pluots or bananas. Or tomatoes." Having been back on Earth for a few weeks while renewing his teaching certificate had really spoiled him. Fresh produce abounded on Earth, in markets and restaurants, even despite the widespread availability of replicator technology.

"I've got some coffee and tea which I brought aboard with me", Estelle said. "Those are the only goods I have that I might bribe you with. The primary purpose of the trees is to give off an aroma, to make the stale ship's air smell fresh, alive even." Stepping out of the lift, Estelle keyed the door opposite open and invited Ian into her cabin.

After walking inside and taking a moment or two to look over her cabin (although not too long, because when you look at someone's quarters you got a feel for them, and it was a little too soon for Murphy to be getting a feel of Estelle), Murphy chuckled and shook his head. "Can't bribe me with coffee, I have almost twenty pounds of coffee beans in my shuttle." Ian had foregone use of a cabin and slept in his shuttle instead. "Plus seedlings in stasis in case the ship crashes or gets stranded in another galaxy. Again." His last posting on the Elysium had taught him the value of preparedness. He didn't comment on the staleness of the air because he'd just never really noticed it, having been born on a ship. "Which one is the patient, doctor?" He asked, glancing down at his tricorder.

"That one in the corner", she pointed. They were all in the corners, but there was only one with yellow and brown tipped leaves. "The colour seems a bit off, wouldn't you say?" She'd read about the other galaxy, and was just waiting for a chance to do a close examination of their chief engineer, just felt bad about walking up to him and asking for a chance to examine him for scientific curiosity. Who would do such a thing to a sentient being? Still, she was itching to do just that.

Aiming his tricorder at the tree in question, he nodded slightly. "Yeah, a little. The distal tips of the leaves don't have the normal sheen that citrus leaves do." He said, walking to the plant and removing a peripheral wand from a compartment of the tricorder to scan the trunk and roots. "Normally, disease in potted plants comes from something like a fungus or other invasive organisms. I'm reading this off of a file on growing plants onboard a ship, by the way..." He said putting the peripheral back into the tricorder to read out the results.

"So you're basically saying, you're about as clueless as I am?" Estelle wondered. "Thing is, something has to be affecting the tips of the leaves to have them turn that colour. This is supposed to be an evergreen variety. It exchanges old leaves for new ones periodically, but not like this, and not all at once. I haven't cut any branches off, or done anything to the roots." She walked over to the kitchen and came back with two mugs of a mild but flavourful blend of coffee. The mug she held out to him had the mathematical formula 'F equals m c squared' in big letters, then below the explanation which said 'The Force equals midichloreans times caffeine squared'. Estelle's mug simply read 'Coffee is ALWAYS a good idea'.

"Yeah, but there are literally millions of micro-organisms that could be causing this." Ian concluded quietly. "The sort that the transporters don't filter because they're necessary for many of the sentient species' on the ship, and are benign to the rest, but could be quite deadly to a plant." He said, holding up the tricorder so she could see the readout. "Case in point, this little... Well, it looks like it's a bacteria. Computer says the closest match it can find is L Bacilli Bolarus Um... Screw whatever word that is, it's too damn long and you can't mix Latin with Bolian, dammit." He said, pointing to it. "I don't suppose you shook hands with a Bolian after they got out of the bathroom recently?"

"No, I don't think I've met a Bolian in months", Estelle said. "Plus, I'm always meticulous about hygiene. I'm a surgeon, after all. My hands are clean, or at least cleaned regularly. I don't even touch my own nose." He was right, mixing Bolian with Latin was a crime against the humanities. "So, we need only eradicate this infection and the plant will recover? Or is there something else?" She recognised her own questions as being on the same level as patients would often ask her, but what did she know about trees?

"It's something that could have been picked up from a stray PADD. People share those things around a ship like juicy gossip. Pick up the PADD, pick up your coffee cup..." He smirked, putting his tricorder away and taking hold of the coffee cup she offered him. "And yeah, basically. Kill the infection, give the tree some extra nutrients to throw off the effects of infection, and it should pull through." He said, taking a sip of the coffee. "Hey, this is pretty good. Not a Klingon strain, I take it?"

Estelle looked up from the plant and to his tricorder, then realised what he meant. "Oh, the coffee? No, it's a highland blend grown on the wet slopes of Garizia, that's a continent on Beta Garindis IV. I went there once on shore leave, while I was stationed on the Tirpitz, and fell in love with the taste. I've been getting a steady supply from there ever since."

"Nice." Ian said, nodding. "I'm becoming a bit of a fan of Betazed beans, but they're a little pricey, and I don't buy their line about their growers sending 'positive telepathic messages to the plants to help them grow.'" He said, using his free hand to make finger-quotes "Sounds a bit like pseudo-mystic woo to me. So I stuck with old-fashioned Colombian. Add a little chicory and allspice when brewing... Dear lord, I'm a coffee snob."

Estelle grinned. "Having refined tastes doesn't make you a snob. If we can't enjoy the little things, are we truly alive?" She took a sip from her mug for emphasis. "One of my favourite blended varieties comes with almonds in the mix, they add a touch of nutty flavour to the beverage, and nutty suits me just fine." She might almost market it as her own signature blend at this point.

"Wouldn't something like almond milk do that, as well?" He honestly didn't know, never having tried almond milk, but knowing of its existence. He then knelt next to the tree and studied its pot and trunk. "My best suggestion for helping fix the tree would be to take the scans of the bacteria and then take it down to a transporter room and have them use the scan data to filter out the bacteria. It's mutated a little from what it used to be before it infected the plant. After that, it's probably a matter of proper nutrition and care."

"Sounds good", Estelle smiled. "Thank you. I shall do that straight away." She walked over to her console and entered the appropriate data. "Hertz to transporter room one", she said. "Please beam the object at the coordinates provided onto your transporter platform, then back to where it is now, running these biofilter parameters. Thank you." She looked at Ian. "Send your tricorder data along? I don't know how to tap into your custom device from here."

"Already on it." Ian said, having set down his coffee when she went to the console and pulled out his tricorder again, opening it up and tapping away at its controls. The data was sent swiftly to transporter room one, along with a message to let the officers down there know it was Estelle's request. And then he picked up his coffee and moved several feet away from the tree as it began to glow and shimmer with the transporter beam lights. While he acknowledged the utility of transporters, Ian hated them.

"I'm trying to make this cabin both practical and comfortable", Estelle said. "And without at least some greens, I don't feel at home." The place had to serve three purposes. It was her kitchen, her music room and her reading nook, and in Estelle's mind, with the artwork on the walls and the richly decorated furniture, that was perfect.

Ian looked around, which was really the first time giving her cabin a good look, and nodded. "And that's a laudable thing. I pretty much live in a shuttle down in the shuttlebay." He had a cabin, just never used it. The shuttle had a hammock, a tiny bathroom with shower suite, a replicator and his forge, and he was quite happy with it, despite the cramped accommodations. "I forge swords there. It's livin' the dream." He said with a grin. Was he? Well, that much remained to be seen, as he had just gotten back to the Elysium a little while ago.

"I paint this furniture", Estelle smiled. "I'm not good with crafting things, so I replicate the designs I like. But all the colour you see, that's my work. Just those paintings, obviously, they're classics. Replicated copies. Helps me relax after a long day spent inside someone, if you catch my drift."

"Yeah. Everyone needs a hobby." Ian mused with a nod. "Especially if their job is stressful." Or extremely dull. "Anyway, I should get back to the academy and work on my lesson plans. If the tree doesn't recover, let me know, and I'll direct you to someone who knows their botany better than I do."

"I shall do that, thank you", Estelle smiled. She accompanied him to the door out of habit. "Should one of your students develop bone break fever or something, you'll know who to call to return the favour."

"If they do that, they're in the wrong discipline." Ian replied with a smirk. "Or they're doing science the wrong way. But I'll keep it in mind." He said as the door whisked open. "Take care, Doc." He favored her with a brief nod, and exited.

Lt. Ian Murphy
Itinerant Druid
USS Elysium

Estelle Hertz
Fruit Cake