*** CMO Office * USS Chimera *** After the door closed behind Lt Idrani, Rangi returned to her desk. She sat down in the green leather chair, leaned back and folded one arm across her stomach, so supporting the other arm and rested her chin on her hand. {This is just too coincidental} she thought {Lt Idrani has hallucinations......they're an increasing occurrence...and I have a growing dislike for Athena that I just cannot stop.} She shook her head. {It 'has' to be the pollen...and that means that if two of us have ongoing effects...how many others do too? ....and why?} It was a puzzle and Rangi lowered her head so that her fingers rubbed her forehead. She sat still for a moment, eyes closed and reran the events of the past hours. After the Winter Ball had ended, she and Shane had returned to his quarters. She had wanted to tell him then of her fears...that she was experiencing feelings of dislike for the counselor that increased without reason on every occasion they met. But he had silenced her, telling her that there should be no talk of troubles to spoil their evening and so it had been left unsaid and the time that followed had been perfect bliss. The night hours had been ones of love and contentment, passion and tenderness combined with promises and words of love.... and in the morning she had woken still wrapped in his arms. She had looked at him, at first thinking him asleep but when at last she had moved slightly, he had opened his eyes and smiling at her, had said nothing but turned to her,kissing her gently and reaffirming all that had gone before. Now Rangi blinked back to the present and with a sigh, wondered how it had all gone so wrong. {How can we share so much...yet say such angry words?}she asked herself. It had seemed the right time to tell him, for she had thought he would listen and understand. An hour had passed since they woke and she had disturbed him when she moved to rest propped up on her elbow, looking down at him. {He didnt listen all..} she thought, now gazing at his smiling face in the holograph on her desk top. {He didnt try to understand. As soon as I mentioned Athena he became defensive.....} Rangi broke her gaze and sighed again, looking at the stacks of work awaiting her attention. His attitude had caused old doubts to resurface. Sometime ago there had been rumours running rife on the ship that there was 'something going on' between the Counselor and the XO. Rumour had said that he had spent some hours in Athenas quarters and that two guards on duty outside at the time had been ...'persuaded'...that he had not been there.They had 'supposedly' fallen asleep at their post. At the time, Rangis father, then on the ship, had asked her if she believed two trained security men would do that. Eventually, Rangi had told Shane she had heard what was being said about him and Athena and he had denied any wrong doing. Rangi had accepted his word, the rumours had died away and until now, she had not experienced the feelings of uneasiness and doubt that had arisen at that time. But when she had told Shane earlier in the day of her present feelings, it had all flooded back to her, fuelling the feeling of distrust and causing her to make veiled accusations to which he had replied with a stinging retort. She had left his quarters soon afterwards and they had not spoken since. When Lt Idrani had explained his own worries and experience, Rangi had thought there must be a connection, for both of them had growing experiences of a painful personal nature. It was just too much of a coincidence. She knew that somewhere she had read something about someone who had researched pollen effects...but where, what and whom she could not at that time recall. It was that fact she had in mind when she had told the lieutenant that she had something to research. She would find it and seek an answer...and she would do so as soon as possible. *** End Log *** LtCmdr Rangi Summers CMO / AXO USS Chimera