2:25 A.M.
by Annie MacDonald

Two twenty five a.m. Green and violet light off the controls in engineering: Carey working through neural pack diagnostics alone on night watch with minimum crew underfoot; good; B'e trusting him to locate problems if not solve them. Only took five years, eh? ... Are you still running specs on the slipstream, Carey? No, I don't mind in the least. Keep it under .001 of energy consumption, that's all. You simply never know what you might discover ... Though I should tell you when I asked Commander Tuvok what the chances were, he said he could not possibly compute them, which is as near an outright lie as I've ever heard a Vulcan tell.

Blue flower just coming out in hydroponics, small, star-shaped, with an uncloying perfume; get biolab to check potential tomorrow -- no, today dammit, forenoon watch -- and record; scent reminds me of Kes, how she liked the smell, the colour of plants; oh, I miss her delight in moisture and growth. I just miss her. Nobody heals as fast now as they used to when she talked to them. Although Suzuki is coming along: Chakotay was right, she should have been in biomed all along. But she was a better gunner than Patel will ever be. What am I going to do with Patel? Nobody aboard my ship is stupid, but Patel does a damn good imitation. He must have changed his speciality four times -- no, five. Brilliant in training, bored to uselessness after a month on detail. Well, he can stay where he is for a stretch ...

So Seven -- no, Annika -- actually rests in that niche; Doc says the balance is now 80 per cent sleep, as in snore like the rest of us, except me at present, and only 20 per cent this tense vertical stasis; waxen skin, totally still body, I feel I shouldn't be looking at her with her defences down, poor child; no, she's not a child. Yes she is. Clever, very certain of herself, then it all collapses suddenly because she can't understand why every sentient life form won't do as she orders and she can't just bloody assimilate them any more. What am I going to do with Henley? Can't spare her even for a few days in the brig, much too useful that one, and I might have hit Seven myself under the circumstances ... Not might. Would. Well, would like to have done. It'll have to be two weeks' loss of replicator privileges. I'm starting a kitty: any privileges lost as punishment are banked. Chakotay can operate it, he's got the strict-but-fair reputation: when there's enough, everybody but command staff has a party; or at least booze and snacks. We go below from the bridge one at a time and do two lengths of the room with half a glass then leave them to gripe.

Ah, there is some of that tea -- I use the designation extremely loosely -- left. Odd how comforting that tiny murmur of simmering water is: I suppose Neelix must find it even more so than we do. Morning, Wildman. Hello, Naomi. Did you have bad dreams, Naomi? Come here and let me tuck your sleepsuit in. No, I don't think there are any bones in the cooking pots. Let's look in all of them, shall we? See? All empty and clean like Neelix left them. I bet he left those cookies for you, too. No, I'm drinking tea, Wildman; thanks for the offer, though. ( ... Is she still having nightmares, Wildman? What did the Doc say? He showed me the drawings she did. I still have nightmares about the Hirogen, and I wasn't locked up alone for weeks without my mother ... We can only hope she'll get to feel more secure, or at least learn to live with the insecurity like the rest of us ... ) Yes, Nu, sorry, Naomi now you're a big girl, I'll walk you back to your bunk. Or you can sleep in my cabin if you feel safer there. Just for tonight, though. You can wind the clock if you promise to be very careful with it, because it's very, very old. Yes, even older than I am. It's even older than Commander Tuvok. I'll unlock the door from here, and you just tell it to open and it will. G'night, sleep tight ... s'Ok, Wildman, you're allowed to kiss the captain if you're five next month ...

So Doc, what are we going to do about Naomi? No, it's two-fifty-five, no, three-seventeen. Tea, Doc, it's tea, scan it. No caffeine, no tannin, and no damn taste either. I couldn't sleep of course. No I do NOT want that stuff, if I take it I will wake up like a bear with a sore head, and we've already got one of those on the bridge. I don't know: moving the Wildmans into a cabin without viewports worked for all of three months, then she got terrified again. She's fine during the day, up all night. They were just in the mess. And I can't tell her it couldn't happen again. She knows it could ... Neelix can calm her but we can't let her stay in the galley most of most days, it's not safe for her or fair on him. No, Wildman didn't get a letter from home. Remember, we only unscrambled about 80 messages and not all of those. How are you faring with Kaminski? No, his work is exemplary. Repairs shuttles faster than we can smash them. Almost. Sacajawea must be about two-thirds a Kaminski collage by now. Work of art. But we can't keep on using the brig to dry him out. Where the hell does he get the rep rations from? Chakotay doesn't know, and if Chakotay doesn't know ... it's ... unknowable. Kaminski's a pain in the ass, but you can't expect them all to behave perfectly when they find out they've lost everything and everybody. Oh, it's fine, there's hardly even a mark let alone a scar any more. But, d'you know, I can feel it when I've pulled a double on the bridge. The leg goes numb for a minute and then it aches. Trick of the nerves, I don't think an old-style bullet could do damage any more permanent than an energy discharge. Yes, the swimming helps. I might go for a swim, there's nobody in Number One deck, and it's a fairly low-energy program. I don't want to go back to bed, and anyway Naomi is probably in it by now. That at least works, though I don't know why. Oh, four times, Nu says it's the biggest bed she's seen. Which it is. And she likes to wind the clock. She almost broke my coffee-pot ... but Chakotay caught it. No, it's not replicated. One of the cups is: well, replicator-mended anyway, like half the things aboard. Do humans feel there is a difference? Very good question, Doc ... yes, I think we do. We feel there is replication, which seems to look and taste and feel like the real thing, but it isn't the real thing. And then there's the
authentic object, which contains all the time it took to make and the imagination of the maker and the associations of the maker's society. Like my mother's cooking. Or the things in Chakotay's cabin. He doesn't replicate the things. He replicates the materials to make them from. And he says he doesn't even like doing that. I think I'm coming to agree with him. The pigments I bought are completely unpredictable -- I've only managed to get them to flow smoothly for a couple of miniature paintings -- but I enjoy the process ... I don't use the Da Vinci program so much, it's just not the same if it doesn't count when you mess it up ... What?! I never think of you as "replicated." Would you mind if I said you become both less and more predictable with every experience you go through? Not unreliable: I didn't say that ... Oh, very well, it will save me coming below tomorrow, I mean today ... Now, let ME look. See? All levels within acceptable parameters. I'm in passable repair if hardly as good as new. And I haven't had a cup of coffee between eight bells and dog watch for weeks. If you aren't going to turn yourself off, could you do some research? There must be data on similar cases to Naomi's in the records ... Seven seems to be good for her as well. Both the same age, really. And somewhere inside all those biometallic wrappings, our Seven is very scared. No, Henley will get two weeks' loss of rep ... The whole kerfuffle was good for morale, actually. That's Chakotay's view, anyway and I trust his instincts about crew totally. Trust them about me? You're very sharp with the questions tonight, Doc ... May I answer that one some other time? ...

No, no, Tuvok, don't get up. I just wanted to use my head. A head in the ready room may be my last remaining captainly privilege. I have a guest in my cabin and I hope she and her mother will be asleep by now ... I don't want to disturb them until I absolutely need to for a shower and clean clothes. Now, when was the last time you were on portside deck 12? Just under the port nacelle? The readings off the hull there are normal -- I just checked again -- but I've been through there a couple of nights lately, and sound is just a little different there. I don't know in what way, it just is ... Rap on the bulkhead and listen. I think when it was patched and then patched again, we repped panels so fast that the patches have identical molecular structure ... too identical ... absolutely no variants at all. I think they're brittle. I'll get structure on to it this morning ... It can't wait, it really can't, if they are brittle then we're untrimmed, could be stressing the whole hull. We'll just have to borrow your Kappa team to finish the bay doors and pray we don't need a security all hands on deck ... Never enough, are there? You just can't get the help these days ... No, it's tea. Don't raise your eyebrow like that, it is disgusting but mineral-rich, according to the Doc ... Just leave me a padd with the numbers, I'll get Chakotay to arrange the handpower once we know if I'm imagining the worst. But I heard that ... hollowness on Excelsior, and that was the problem there: we may have to strip away that section of the hull and replace it completely ... Worse things happen at sea, eh? I was going for a swim, but I'm too tired. Not sleepy, unfortunately, just a little short on energy. I'll try another cup of tea ...

It's tea, Chakotay. T-E-A. And frankly, it's vile. Tuvok has just done that with his eyebrow, but the other eyebrow ... No, no, I really can't accept ... OK, but use my credits for the leaves, please. I was just trying to explain to the Doc that I'm beginning to find the ritual of pouring the water on the herbs in itself helpful. That has a marvellous scent. What is it? I can never pronounce those names exactly, and when you try and compare new tastes with the tastes you know, you always sound ludicrous ... And why would you be in the mess at ... four-oh-eight? Oh, no. Is he all right? I thought he was beginning to get over it. But then, I hoped Kaminski had kicked it. And that Nu was doing well. Wrong. She was in here, about an hour ago. Usual nightmares. Did Doc show you the drawings? Grim, aren't they? Shells and antlers and bones. She just won't tell anybody what she saw. As far as I can understand, they didn't hurt the young of the prey because of the taboo to ensure game for the next hunt; so they just locked her in the cabin, and fed her and left her alone. But she must have been let out sometime, because she saw their trophies, that's what she's drawing. She just asked me if there were bones in Neelix's saucepans. So did you get him to calm down? How? How the hell did you get him to drink it? Guileful, Chakotay. In fact, downright cunning. And have you doctored this tea, too? But in a way, his instincts were right ... rest will ease his jitters for a bit. You're going to have to deal with his embarrassment over the next week, though, he's going to be upset that he was upset. Anybody else see him like that? Not so bad, then. D'you have anyone even remotely underoccupied to cover the galley today? He was out 36 hours last time. No, Kappa team will have to finish up on the bay, we need structure handpower on those hull panels. I'm fairly sure they're brittle, I've just been listening ... Yes, that's EXACTLY it: I couldn't quite explain to Tuvok, but that's it ... it's not that you can hear anything, it's what you can't hear that sounds wrong. Not a blip on scans, though. Did you ever bother with scans in your Maquis ship? She looked somewhat spit and string ... Poor Chakotay, you look more tired than I feel, and you're not going to get your cabin back until tomorrow ... The Wildmans are in mine. No, I don't mind if it helps, and I've seen quite enough of those four walls this year ... Feel free to use my ready room, but the replicator's out, be warned. He wouldn't be so bad if Kes were still with us. Oh, I meant to tell you -- d'you remember that hopeless weed she said would have really valuable pollen when it flowered? It HAS flowered. Tiny. Bright blue flowers in their own small clouds of yellow pollen. It reminds me of her somehow ... Yes, I miss her too. Thanks. I would love another cup ... Exactly what I thought, but only two week's loss of credits: I'd fine Seven as well except it wouldn't have the slightest effect on her. And I've had an idea, you're going to be the banker for penalty reps, they all get booze and food when there's enough in the fund. No, the sinners go as well. We don't though, well, we just make an appearance ... Do you think Tom is getting his balance back? ... But the only thing that got through to him was taking him off helm ... Yes, I certainly did clock those regular night-watches off together: you've been putting the watch padd at the bottom of the pile since you started scheduling them ... Yes, and you knew that I knew ... There, that grin is even better as a restorative than the tea. Tom sits at the conn without fidgeting all next day, have you noticed? Of course you bloody noticed. And B'e's happy to let Carey play with the toys all night ... Carey is still running specs on slipstream. It's a hobby, Chakotay, like model starships. And you never know ... Just gulping air. No, OK, I admit it, the captain should not lie, it's a yawn. For which many thanks. Look at us, Chakotay, seven pips and not a bunk between us ... I'll take the ready room, you can have the Wildmans' cabin, Nu had her Flotter doll with her so you won't step on it ... g'night, sleep tight.