Chapter Fifteen
Though I had unrestricted access to the ship’s chief psychiatrist, Jung, I also had an assigned counselor: Lt. Giada Rossi. This occurred to me all of a sudden, while passing her door, due to recognizing her name on the doorplate. I paused and rang to see if she was in. I was about to walk away when the door open. She was brunette, average height, and remarkable in just how unremarkable. She was the kind of woman who was incredibly striking due to being counter to social norms, like not wearing makeup, which is probably not a good way to make a new friend by saying you find them attractive due to their unconventional features, even though it was one of my favorite reasons for watching BBC. You often got real actors and actresses, as opposed to just people that fit a certain look.
“Captain?” Rossi asked, drawing me out of my ‘stargazing’ look.
I snapped back to present reality. “Sorry, am I interrupting?” I asked.
“I am free,” Rossi said, stepping back to allow entrance.
I entered. I immediately noticed a dish filled with a mixture butterscotch and spicy cinnamon candies on the coffee table, a container with water and several glasses on a tray. The office had a circular couch, possibly to do group therapy. It was an inner quarters, without access to a port view, but a full wall screen revealed a subdued rain forest setting and a gentle waterfall. I approached the waterfall. There was the additional sound of light rain and the leaves could be seen dripping water. If you drew closer, you might find evidence of a butterfly waiting out the rain under a leaf. It was almost as if this were live and you could walk out into another world. I almost brought my hand up to touch the wall screen.
“So, what brings you by?” Rossi asked.
“Uh?” I said, turning back to her. She was still standing, outside the circle of the couch. “Oh. I was just passing and I recognized your name.”
“So, you’re just introducing yourself,” Rossi said.
“Yeah,” I said. “Have we met before?”
“Yeah, we probably met in a parallel universe,” she said; I couldn’t discern if she meant it to be playful or sarcastic, so I chose to believe playful. “Do you want to spend time exploring that, or would you like to focus on the reason that brought you to my door?”
“I thought all crew was required to check in with a counselor. The Captain is included in that subset, right?” I asked, sorting through my memory and finding that it was on my to-do list, per the itinerary that Watanabe showed me.
“Well, they don’t all have to see me, specifically. There are several good counselors on board, of which you’re one, and, besides, Jung already checked you off, so you’re not here for the compulsory first assessment,” Rossi said. “And, you would know that. You’re a trained counselor, and the Captain, and so you don’t need a contrite, ambiguous reach around to make an excuse to see me.”
“Shockingly stated, and yet, accurate,” I said.
“I rarely engage others through Rogerian methodology, and I don’t see the need to waste time,” Rossi said. “Did you want to discuss something specific?”
My first response to that was I already had a Dr. House on board, so why did I need a female counselor version of him? Fortunately, I didn’t say that. “This feels a bit adversarial.”
“Oh, nice,” Rossi said. “You softened it by saying ‘this feels’ as opposed to what you’re thinking, which is ‘you seem,’ which would have been more direct. Do you prefer Rogerian?”
“Can you sell it?” I asked.
“Can I fake it?” Rossi asked. “I’m a woman. I think I can fake it. Oh, that look! I thought you’d appreciate the humor. No, seriously, I am confused, John.”
“You’re confused?” I asked. She is so not Counselor Troi.
“Yes, you say you didn’t drop by to discuss anything specific, you just wanted to meet me, but I am showing you the real me, and your raising your shields because I am not fitting your expectation of what a counselor should be?”
“What if I had some unconscious motive for stopping that required teasing out, but your abrasiveness just shut it down?” I asked.
“Assumed abrasiveness,” Rossi pointed out. “But see, your last statement seems to acknowledge that you had an unconscious motive for stopping.”
“Well, no, I don’t have an unconscious motive, I was just saying,” I corrected.
“So, again, you just dropped into say hi,” Rossi said.
“Yes,” I said.
“Nice to meet you,” Rossi said.
“Really?” I asked.
“What? That didn’t sound genuine enough?” Rossi asked. “And I was using my good fake voice.”
“Are you always this adversarial?” I asked.
“What exactly are you looking for?” Rossi asked.
“I don’t know. I thought I’d say hi, and usually people say come in, have a seat,” I said.
“Do you want to sit?” Rossi asked, moving into the inner circle of the chair. She lifted a candy from the dish. “Water, candy perhaps?”
“No,” I said.
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I mean, I don’t want to sit now,” I said.
“So, you did want to sit, but you wanted me to ask first,” she said, tumbling the candy in her fingers.
“OMG, this is exhausting,” I said.
“You mean ‘you’re exhausting?’” Rossi corrected.
“No! I mean exactly what I said. This, this conversation, it’s exhausting. I feeling irritated. I am not sure exactly why I am feeling irritated, or why this went in the direction it did, but I do know this is not the way I want our relationship to be,” I said.
“Good for you,” she said.
“What?” I asked. “Wait. This, all of this, was a test?”
“If you like,” Rossi said. “You’d be surprised how many tech oriented specialists lack good emotional coherence, but you are clearly in touch with your emotions. I know you grew up wanting to be Spock, yes, I read your Fleet profile, and you are so not Spock, but I think given the emotional instability of your family of origin it was the right tact, which has made it easier for you to access your emotions now, in your later years. I still see a time delay in your response. If someone asks you an intellectual question, you have an instant answer. If someone asks you an emotional question, it clearly takes you a moment to process. It’s tangible, at least for me. I see the processing. An inexperienced counselor would be filling the silence with more questions, not letting you complete the process. In terms of social intelligence, well, I would say you tap in on the low end of the Autism Spectrum, which I think better explains your poor social boundaries than childhood trauma. Comparatively, though, I would say you are probably better balanced than anyone I have assessed on the ship so far.”
I blinked.
“See, you’re processing that statement,” she said. “I give you a pass, and now you’re assessing my assessment and maybe even questioning my qualifications and tactics, but I know you better than you think, and it wasn’t because I held your hand or coddled you with a soothing voice.”
“How many people have you assessed?” I asked.
“750,” Rossi said.
“All like this?” I asked.
“Oh no. I doubt this approach I used with you would work on most people,” Rossi said.
“And you think I am better adjusted than most of the people you assessed?” I asked.
“Better balanced,” she corrected. “You have a great crew. Some super intelligent people, way smarter than you or I, yet many of them have zero people skills, but they function well and can perform their duties. You have some socially superior people, but their tech and science knowledge is limited. You bridge the gap between these folks, and clearly the people chosen were not random. Everyone fits in such an interesting way that you could pitch me a conspiracy theory and I would so buy it. Your command staff, they are absolutely, stunningly brilliant. They’re going to make you a star.”
The energy was palpably different than from when I entered. “I don’t want to be star.”
“Oh, please,” Rossi said. “You’re so a star child. Sorry, they call them Indigo’s now. You’ve been waiting all your life to shine and you just needed the right team. When you shine, you will illuminate everyone around you. Hiding your light will diminish everyone that works for this ship.”
I headed for the door.
“What? We’re done?” Rossi asked.
“You weren’t expecting a ‘thank you,’ were you?” I asked.
“Nice,” Rossi said. She tossed me a candy.
I caught the spicy cinnamon and left.
I arrived in Sickbay. House didn’t appear to be in his office, and the only one visibly in Sickbay was a nurse. The nurse looked up from one of the med packs she was checking.
“Captain,” she said.
“Nurse…” I said, trailing to indicate I was hopeful to learn her name.
“Tarkington,” she said, coming over to shake hands. “Tara Tarkington. I told them you wouldn’t be gone more than a couple hours.”
Is that all I was gone? The way Loxy was acting, I was gone weeks! “Well, I am glad I didn’t worry everyone. Have you seen House?” I asked.
“He’s in his office,” Tarkington said.
I looked back into his office, and still didn’t see him. The walls and door to his office were transparent so he could observe Sickbay, but we could also see in. I looked back to Tarkington for an explanation. I saw no indication she was responding to internal stimuli. She appeared to be present and lucid.
“He’s on the floor,” Tarkington whispered.
I thanked Tarkington and headed into his office. I found House on the floor, behind his desk, eyes closed, with a large headset covering his ears. I waited, testing the belief that people can sense when someone is staring at him. House became perturbed and opened his eyes. He lifted one side of the headset, and I was surprised by the volume.
“That’s going to make you deaf,” I said.
“What?” House said.
“Yeah. I need an eval,” I said.
“The nurse can do it,” House said, placed the earmuff back over his ear and closed his eyes. He opened his eyes to find that I hadn’t left. He took the headset off completely. “Honest, boss, the nurses are competent enough to do a simple eval. Nurse Previn is even a nurse practitioner, that’s like one whole step above a television doctor. What do you think, half a doctor? They do the work, I sign off on it, everyone’s happy.”
“The Doctor is supposed to evaluate every person who goes on an Away Team,” I said.
“We just met like three hours ago. How much of an Away team could you have had?” House asked.
“I was gone for at least three months,” I said.
“Psych ward, upstairs,” House said.
“I hooked up with the daughter of a time lord,” I said.
“Upstairs,” House repeated.
“I am wanting you to do my eval,” I said.
“That seems like obsessive compulsive disorder, and, again, that’s one floor up. His name is Jung. I’ve read some of his books. He’s actually a legit Doctor when he isn’t practicing alchemy,” House said.
“House, you’re my Doctor and you’re the Doctor on duty. I have nothing better to do than stand here and converse with you, in fact, I think I will continue to stay here and do this, until my eval gets accomplished,” I said.
House got up, placed the headset on the table, and accompanied me out to the nearest medical bed. He opened a drawer looking for tools. He closed it, went for another drawer.
“You want me to sit or lie down?” I asked.
“Not that kind of Doctor,” House said.
He seemed startled by Tarkington being suddenly in his space, but seeing how she carried an instrument tray with the standard fair, he took the device he was looking for, the business end of a medical tricorder, passed it over me, set the device back on the tray, and headed back towards his office.
“Hold up,” I said.
House turned back to me. “We’re done.”
“No, we haven’t talked,” I said.
“I’m not that kind of doctor. Jung is upstairs, but even he is just going to prescribe meds and have you talk to the counselor,” House said.
“I know the average Doctor visit is two minutes, but that wasn’t even two seconds, and you’re not just going to scan me and walk away without discussing the findings,” I said.
“There were no findings,” House said. “You’re perfectly normal for you.”
“What about the radiation?” I asked.
“What radiation?” House said.
“Did you even scan for radiation?” I asked.
“Yes, and you’re no more radioactive than anyone else from Earth 2017,” House said. “Trust me. Any idiot with tricorder can be a doctor these days. If you had exceeded any of the normal thresholds it would have given me a light or a beep and it did nothing. You’re perfectly physically healthy. Mentally, I have my doubts, but again, not my department.”
“Well, I want to be less radioactive,” I said. “Can you give me something for that?”
“Yep,” House said. “Advice: Eat well, drink lots of water, avoid radioactive areas, and repeat daily for about seven years.”
“Explain that?” I asked.
House rubbed his forehead. “Can’t you just read a medical book or Wikipedia like everyone else?”
“I could. But, you’re kind of my Doctor, and well, I think ‘doctor’ in Latin means teacher?” I said.
“So, you have been reading,” House said, frowning. “Read less, watch more funny cat videos on youtube.” When it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere and I wasn’t ready to dismiss him, he added: “Look, your body is constantly renewing itself. Different organs have different renewal rates. The small intestine epithelium for example, it’s brand new within two to four days, the variable being metabolism. Skin epidermis is replaced in about 30 days. You take in food and water, you eliminate food and water. Eventually, you’ve replaced every atom in your body. Do this in an environment where there is no radiation, you’ll be less radioactive, in about 7 years.”
“Explain tattoos,” I said.
“Excuse me?”
“If the skin replaces itself every thirty days, why don’t tattoos go away?” I asked.
“You’re going to be a pain in the ass,” House said.
“Probably,” I said.
“Well, your two minutes is up,” House said. Then stopped, smiled at me with an afterthought. “By the way. You’ve not completed a physical yet. SOP says everyone has to have it after reporting in, so we can monitor change over time. Or something like that. Anyway, Tarkington, take him through the paces. Oh, and also, get me a blood sample, the old fashion way. I’m told we shouldn’t trust tech.”
“Oh, this is going to be fun,” I said, even as House walked away.
“If you’ll step this way, Captain, we’ll get the resting heart rate before we start the treadmill exercise,” Tarkington said. She took blood samples before and after intense exercise, just because House asked for the samples and she was predicting he would want variables.
“You know he is just going to throw those away,” I said.
“He wouldn’t do that,” Tarkington said.
Apparently she hadn’t didn’t know House. She saw my skepticism.
“Why would he have me stick you with a needle then?” Tarkington ask.
After my physical, I found my way back to the hangar deck. Walking the corridors revealed we had substantially more crew, unless the population density of this deck was peculiarly high. People gave me looks like they knew me, nodding, but not interfering or stopping me to talk. That was going to take some getting used to. Who was I? The Captain. What does that even mean? I was a crew chief on the line for years and never earned this kind of look from my fellow employees. I can go further and say with some certainty, I was not well liked on the line.
I arrived at the hangar and was relieved that it was empty. I don’t know why I wanted to be here. Maybe I just a wanted a big empty space to contemplate life. Was I hoping Jenny would pop back in and say she needed me and we’d be off in a flash to go save a world? Was I not happy enough here? Here I was in the place I had always wanted to be and now I was wishing I was elsewhere? I wished my son was here. I wanted to show him so many things.
The hangar was the largest open space on the entire ship. The floor was glossy black with red, luminescent lines mapping out its surface that would be visible in the dark, in the event of a power failure. About eye level, I noticed green luminescent markers, and then I noticed the ceiling was also mapped out in red. I intuitively understood this to be the visual glide scope sort of dead recognizing that pilots used when landing. I guess if the computers were ever off line and someone needed to, a pilot could still land.
An officer strolled out across the deck, intent on intercepting me.
“Excuse me, Captain,” the officer said. She was African American, wearing a uniform heavy on blue, with lines of gold and violet. The combo of colors alerted me to the fact she was multifaceted, gold for command, in this case, blue for aeronautics, and just hint of a darker blue than the communication’s blue. I would later learn Indigo was for space. “I need you to step over here, on this side of the safety lines.”
I followed her instructions and joined her within the safe zone. She introduced herself as Captain Stacey Collins, pilot, but presently standing as the OOD, or Officer of the Deck. The shuttle bay doors began to open. You’d expect doors that size would make a great deal more noise than they did when opening, but it was unreasonably silent. Red lights flashed in the hangar, and the ambient lighting diminished to almost nil. The blue tinge of a force field was evident as the air pushing up against it caused it to fluoresce like a static signal on an empty channel. “Shuttle on final approach” was announced over the intercom. I looked, but didn’t see it.
“This never gets old,” Collins said, excited about watching another shuttle landing.
“Yeah,” I agreed. I had more than 24 years of watching planes come and go, with a front row seat to a runway. If I were a guessing man, Collins was about thirty years of age, and she was either active or retired military in her other life. Navy, with aircraft carrier experience. I was tempted to ask about her ‘other’ life but decided to just watch for the shuttle.
“Thank you for inviting me to serve here, Captain,” Collins said. “I was so disappointed when I didn’t make the cut or NASA. Oh, I am not like mad at NASA or anything. I understand I was up against some heavy competition and my colleagues deserved their postings, but I so wanted to visit the ISS and be on the mission to return to the moon.”
“And now, here you are,” I said. “Not even in the same universe.”
“We’re in the same universe,” Collins said, blinking her confusion. “Oh, you’re speaking metaphorically. Yea, we’re like nowhere near where we were. I am so hoping this isn’t all a dream. There it is. I have visual contact.” She said this last part into her headset boom.
The shuttle, a pin prick of light that might have been mistaken for a star, except it was moving, and growing, and the speed was slowing as it grew closer until it was entering the hangar so slowly it was mesmerizing, as if you expected something that heavy and slow to simply fall. It settled, and there was the sound of gasses being released, and vapor pooled underneath the shuttle, and flowed like a creepy Halloween party mist.
“Be careful not to touch the exterior of the shuttle,” Collins reminded me, as she went to greet the passengers.
A greater welcoming party emerged from the side of the hangar. A fork lift emerged to collect items from the back of the shuttle. People exiting the shuttle were met by Collins and directed to their next duty station. I was pleased that everything was going so well. It was a swarm of activity and everyone seemed to know what their duties were, which I guess made my job really easy.
The shuttlecraft held my interest over the people who were emerging. Yeah, there was some non-human type stepping out, a couple of them tall and needing to duck, and a couple that were probably feline, which did catch my eyes, but I was all over the shuttle, which was not TOS, and not TNG. If anything, I would say it was POST-TNG, with a splash of deviant-ART, modern chic. It was beautifully sleek, rakish design, with the narrow part of the forward fuselage that swept back to a broader area that ended with a notched section just like an arrowhead. The shuttle’s engine nacelles were built into the over design, as opposed to the clumsy separated versions that previous shuttle designs held. I was tempted to go up and run my hands alongside it, but Collin’s words held me back, as it was either too hot or too cold to touch the exterior skin.
The pilot emerged, caught my eyes, and approached me. Collins nearly stepped back to catch her, but I waved to her, saying I got it. Collins continued with her duties.
“Hello, ‘Captain,’” she said, really putting a spin on ‘Captain.’ It sounded playful, not disparaging.
“Sacagawea,” I said. Her flight uniform was a solid piece, from head to toe, and had a slick, glossy gleam of latex. There was no apparent seam and I wouldn’t have been surprised if it had been painted directly onto her body. It had the blue and indigo outlines indicative of aeronautics and space aviation, but also violet for navigation. It made sense that she would be a pilot and a navigator. The pip of a 2nd Lt, suggested she was still a pilot in training, whereas Collins was a genuine aviator? There were still tons of things I still didn’t understand about our arrangement, and maybe I didn’t need to understand everything. Maybe her rank was also a reflection of her age. If she was 18, she lied on her entry form. Not that she had bothered with an application process. She was here because I was here. Or was I here because she was here. Ugh, stop it!
“Lt. Sac, reporting for duty, Sir,” she said, going all rigid and saluting.
“Oh, don’t do that,” I said.
She didn’t back down until I saluted. “Sacagawea”
“Sac,” Sacagawea corrected.
“Sac,” I said. “Not so formal on the ship, and definitely never salute on an Away Team.”
“Aye, Captain,” Sacagawea said. She remained at attention.
“Please, at ease,” I said. She sort of relaxed, if you consider parade rest with hands in the small of her back relaxed. “So, you doing okay?”
“I’m adjusting,” Sac said. “I prefer my traditional clothing, for example. But I am genuinely surprised by the diversity of people here, and that there are other women in charge...” She noticed my eyes going beyond her and turned to see what I was staring at. She turned back to me still not sure.
I was definitely transfixed. Five ‘furies’ emerged from the shuttle, each having to duck out due to their height. The tallest was probably eight feet tall. Oh, if you hadn’t noticed, if I am using English measurements instead of metrics, it’s because I am likely so excited that I defaulted to childhood programing. I came from a time when the public at large were on the verge of rioting in the streets because the US government wanted us to join the world in metrics. Consequently, they backed off, and I mastered neither system. (Some of that could just be me. I am not blaming government, the educational system, or my family for my perceived lack of education. At some point, it is on me to learn what I need to learn.) That said, maybe the governments are right about worrying that the public at large would riot if there was a public announcement that aliens exist. We nearly burned Congress down for suggesting metrics, so what do you imagine would happen if they say, yeah, Roswell was just one of a dozen crashed ships we collected. What a world I come from! But back to my exciting observation! Wookie like creatures just stepped off the shuttle. I have to emphasize ‘Wookie-like’ because, they clearly weren’t Wookies. I don’t think. One distinguishing feature was that the female furries were non-earth tone colors. Specifically, one was pink, one was lavender, and one was sky blue. And, oddly, their arms and legs were bare, not a shred of evidence of fur, and if it wasn’t for the fur covering every other inch of their body, if all I had saw was an arm or a leg, I would have thought they were human. And they weren’t in uniform. Their fur was long enough to drape over the parts humans cover with clothing, and the fur almost seemed like clothing in and of itself, like a coat draped over them, cutting off mid-thigh. Except, it moved with muscles, so if it was a coat, it wasn’t just ‘draped on,’ it was glued. Oh, and furry wrists. The male, the 8 foot one, was black and grey in fur color, but was completely covered head to toe, arms and legs. It fumbled in a leather purse for their identification.
“Are you staring at the females?” Sacagawea asked, looking back.
“You brought Wookies onto my ship?” I asked.
“Uh?” Sacagawea asked. “The furrybrites?”
“Uh?” I asked.
“Sorry, that’s my slang for them. They’re Sasquatch,” Sacagawea said.
“What?” I asked, making sure I heard her right.
“How can you claim to be from the modern world but don’t know anything about Sasquatch?” Sacagawea asked. “Yeti?! OMG, John. My people have been interacting with furrybrites for as long as we’ve been a people. Please tell me, you didn’t cut down all the forest and drive them to extinction.”
“I, um, okay, wait, I don’t know, I mean, I have heard of Sasquatch and Yeti, but, my culture considers it more myth than reality,” I said.
“Do they look mythic to you?” Sacagawea asked. “They are the most loving creatures I ever met in the real world. The males tend to be loners, quiet and shy. I have rarely seen a female furrybrite alone. The males, with a few exception, tend to be earth colors, taller and broader at the shoulders. The females tend to be shorter, sometimes reaching seven feet, have accentuated hourglass body features, and come in a range of rainbow colors, every color imaginable. I especially like the blends, which look a lot like butterfly patterns, but most are pure tones. The males are more likely to be blends, different shades of browns or grays.”
It was clear to Sacagawea I was listening, and yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off of female Yeti/Wookie people. I don’t know why I was so captivated. I was tempted to go introduce myself, captain’s privilege, right? but I just stood there, gawking. What the hell is wrong with me, I wondered. So far I had met grays, and seen feline humanoids, and dragons, and giants, and, well, though the giantesses were hot in a Flintstone sort of way, I had been too caught up in being tossed into a pit to linger in romantic fantasies. Where I am going with my thoughts. Oh, yeah, clearly there is no shortage of attractive females onboard the ship, and I have a pretty solid relationship with Loxy, and so there wasn’t reason for me to get so transfixed, but I was head over heels star struck with the Furrybrites, and so far this was a greater level of attraction than any previous alien encounter I had had, yet.
“Are you having a reaction their pheromones,” Sacagawea asked.
“Uh?” I said, barely able to bring my attention back to her now that the Yeti had departed the hangar deck. Pheromones? I hadn’t even noticed, but the ‘Wookies’ kind of had an odor! “Oh, no, just getting use to the diversity.”
“Yeah, not sure I am buying that,” Sacagawea said. “The biggest thing I have to get use to is the fact I am flying pure energy.”
I was still checking the exit door, hoping they’d come back, but I was finally able to meet Sacagawea’s eyes again. Could it have been pheromones? Do Yetis have some power over human beings? I registered Sacagawea’s words ‘pure energy’ and for a moment I thought I heard Spock channeled through ‘Information Society’s’ song of the same. I love the song, but hate the video. The video doesn’t seem to reflect the words, and it’s chaotic, like a bunch of ADHD kids running about in meaningless meanderings, kind of like my normal thought process. “I don’t understand that last bit,” I said.
The OOD emerged from the shuttle, after confirming it was empty, and spoke into her mic boom: “This is Collins,” she said, joining us in the ‘safe’ box outlined on the floor. “Shuttlecraft Galileo is clear for decommission.”
Deck lights brightened, focusing on the shuttle. Sparks began to issue from the ship, not like metal grinding on a stone wheel, but like sparks leaving a fire, or fairies leaving a nest in a mass exodus, or like a beehive that had been struck with a stone. The process began to accelerate until a flash point occurred and the whole ship simply evaporated in a blaze of light. This did not look like a transporter beam taking the ship away; the ship simply ceased to exist. There was the sudden strong smell of ozone and the particles were caught up in force beams, twirling like whirlwinds as they proceeded towards exhaust vents.
“Did you just beam up a shuttle?” I asked.
“No, Sir,” Collins said. “It was constructed with a form of artificial matter, an advanced version of holodeck matter, if you wish, and was decommiss