Exotic Spores, Molds and Fungus part 1

Posted on Fri Nov 27th, 2015 @ 7:28am by Captain Charybdis MacGregor

0 words; about a 1 minute read

Mission: Taking Chances
Location: Zaryx 4 agricultural colony
Timeline: 2265
Tags: Zaryx

The captain led the way, and the science officer and security chief fell in step behind him. A military stride, once learned, was hard to break, and it was almost habit to fall in step with one another when moving as a unit. Of course, Charybdis managed hers with a rather singular undulation in her hips as she did so... but then, the Academy hadn't managed to break her of it, so she was unlikely to stop now.

The Captain stopped at the weapons locker to grab a phaser, then holstered it. He looked at Celes, "Protocols must be followed, right?" She smiled briefly before securing one for herself and handing one to the science officer as well, then she disbursed communicators. As they entered the transporter room Captain O'Conner was already standing on the pad, and they took their places as the door swooshed open and Dr. McKenzie arrived. "Right on time doctor," the captain quipped, then he nodded to the transporter chief.

"Energize."

Matter was transformed into energy, directed in a stream to the planet below and reorganized into matter once more, and the landing party found themselves in a standardized prefabricated Federation colony. The nearby buildings were basically converted cargo containers, designed to haul goods to the planet then be emptied out and used as prefabricated structures. The colony was obviously advanced, as they had already taken to pulverizing and processing indigenous rocks to make concrete; in this case it had something of a pastel yellow cast that contrasted quite nicely with the deep blue sky overhead, and further out there were structures that had been constructed of the selfsame material, newer than the original colony structures. They were apparently in the town square of the settlement, as evidenced by the number of people and the relative foot traffic passing through. Beyond the square and the immediate collection of buildings of the settlement could be seen fields of crops in bright reds, oranges and blues, as well as some (by Earth standards) traditional greens.

As the Captain and the settlement leader spoke and made pleasantries, Charybdis opened her tricorder and began taking scans, sampling the atmosphere, nearby lifeforms, electromagnetic fields, audiovisual recordings, signal transmission traffic, and she was preparing to move to perform a soil sample when she heard her name. She looked up and the Captain was gesturing to her; caught off-guard, she defaulted to raising an eyebrow and nodding.

When in doubt, Vulcan out.

Apparently the Captain was volunteering their services for a variety of problems that the settlement was having, she realized, and so she scanned back through her tricorder record... sure enough, it had recorded the conversation for her while she was busily telling it to do a half dozen other things. She smiled and patted the device fondly... she was fond of many devices, but she certainly had come to love the versatile little tricorder. She was still debating just what to name it... it was unwise to grow attached to Starfleet property, but she was considering making an exception for the black pleather and chrome device. She left it scanning the area while she slung it over one shoulder and across her body, and informed the Captain of her intent.

"I'll go scan the affected crops and see what sort of determination I can make, Captain." He nodded at her and smiled, and she found herself staring down at her tricorder with her cheeks tinging sage as she walked away. Had she not made her decision on this matter? Did she not understand her own plan of action? Why in Janus' name was she suddenly acting like a shy schoolgirl just because the human had smiled at her?

None of this mattered; it was now time to work. She had an objective; a problem to eliminate, a puzzle to solve. Her superior had expectations to be fulfilled, and she would succeed.

She had her thermal imaging scans and the narrow band EM scans, as well as the gamma telescope high resolution images of the settlement from orbit loaded into her tricorder... Blackie? No, that was a stupid name. She set all three on overlapping views to better process the information, set her resolution close enough so that she would be able to actually make out details of the settlement, and then set out for the orange trees, one of the patches of green a few thousand yards out. They were closer than the rice paddies and less likely to be quite as wet, she surmised from the thermal images, though there appeared to be rocky dry areas in amongst the paddies which she might use to her advantage.

As she arrived at her intended destination and began to scan the orange grove, an elderly human in a green coverall approached her. She noted his presence and scanned him, insuring that he was what he appeared to be, then continued with her assessment of the area. The elderly human watched her for a few moments, then waited until she was bent over to inspect some fungal growth beneath one of the citrus trees to speak.

"Reckon yoah one'a them fancy Stahfleet gals, eh?" he drawled in an Earth dialect with which she was unfamiliar.

Almost automatically, when in the presence of strangers, in a conversation that was unwelcome or feeling defensive, Charybdis tended to default to Vulcan standard behavior, as it tended to be somewhat alienating and gave her an excuse to be aloof. In this case she did not know where this conversation was potentially going, but she decided almost immediately that it held low odds of being useful to her.

"I am a Starfleet officer, that is correct," she replied over her shoulder.

"Y'come ta see what's wrong with mah oranges, have ya?"

No, idiot, I've crossed the stars for your sparkling wit and keen conversational abilities, and so that you can stare at my great rounded hindquarters while I bend over in this ridiculously short excuse for a skirt. "Among other things, yes. Are these myconids found sprouting near all of the affected fruit-bearing trees?"

"Yuh. We tested 'em, but there's no psychocillibinates to 'em, and no psychoative chemicals we could recognize, though they do appear ta be some saht 'a ascomycota, but we still ain't determined a mycelium for 'em. But eating 'em seems ta drive ya mad, fer a short term, and jest a little tetched in the head for a while aftah that."

Oh... well, perhaps idiot was a bit harsh, she mentally retracted, given that she had to look up a number of the words he had just casually thrown around. Biology was definitely not her strong point, and she wished the Doctor were here... this seemed more his department. She sent a message to his medical tricorder to ask him to follow up on the fungus' effect on colonists who had tried them. But this part was her task, and she would see it through. She stood and turned to face the elderly human, only to realize just how close he had been standing to her and how relatively short and stooped he was as she nearly knocked him over with her tricorder. She cleared her throat and he stepped back a pace.

"Comparing my thermal imaging scans with my visual inspection thus far, it appears that this fungal growth is attacking the root system of the citrus trees- is that correct?"

"Well, we ain't got no fancy thermal imaging, but yeuh, basically wheyah the shrooms bloom the trees don't." A gentle breeze passed through the grove at that point and she noticed the fragrance of the orange blossoms... as it was early spring not all of them were in bloom as yet, so the scent was light and delicate, but sweet and wonderful all the same.

While part of her mind delighted in the beauty and wonder of nature, the other half scanned what she was inhaling to insure that her lungs were not filling with potentially hazardous myconic spores. There was a surprising absence of said spores, in point of fact. She bent over to reinspect one of the gilled fungi, and was somewhat surprised to read that there were no spores being seeded by the myconid at all, apparently... which was traditionally the primary method of seeding and reproduction.

Curious and curioser.

The elder human continued speaking about weather patterns, how it affected his arthritis and conjunctivitas, how the winters had been surprisingly dry while the rains needed in the spring had not come, his difficulty with his prostate, his youth in the town of Bangor and how he had once loved a girl so fair and fine, as well as a number of other folksy anecdotes that she kept one pointed ear tuned to while she worked and nodded politely at appropriate intervals. Meanwhile she scanned one of the trees that was not blooming sufficiently, then moved around him to scan a healthy tree for comparison. She was beginning to see a pattern, but she would have to process all of the data before she could make an accurate assessment of the situation for her Captain.

The Captain, she reminded herself again with a sigh. She pulled out her communicator and contacted the bridge.

"This is Lieutenant Charybdis to Ensign Sato, do you copy?"

"I copy Lieutenant, over."

"I would like to request a few specific narrow-band EM scans of the groves and fields when the Bonne Chance passes over the settlement again in 5.3 hours. I am looking for specific frequencies of alpha, beta, gamma and theta waves, at the frequencies of 7-12 HZ, 13-40 HZ, 1-4 HZ and 4-7 HZ, respectively. Got it, Ensign?"

"Yes ma'am. I'll get those for you on the next fly-by and contact you with the results."

"Excellent! Thank you very much, Ensign Sato... Charybdis out." She snapped her communicator shut and checked her map of the settlement. A similar thermal image as the one that she was currently on the border of could be found in a rice paddie approximately 2.79 kilometers to the south southeast of her current position. She glanced at the elderly human, who was apparently still regaling her with a tale of his youth and an adventure he and three friends had undertaken to go see a dead body.

Smiling politely, she wiggled her fingers in a wave and expressed "I appreciate your help in this matter and hopefully I will find a cure for your agricultural ills. Thank you for your time!" And at that, she hustled off, double-timing it to her next destination.

"Glad to seeya comin, gal, but love ta watch ya leave..." the old human cackled quietly as she departed. It never failed to surprise her how humans didn't seem to grasp that the pointy ears truly did mean 'enhanced auditory capability'. But then, that wasn't exactly a phrase she was particularly unfamiliar with from her travels on Earth.

 

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