Lt Commander Rangi Summers Chief Medical Officer / 2XO USS Chimera NCC 96899 - Lt Commander Samantha Palmer Mission Specialist USS Chimera NCC 96899 = Sickbay Samantha stalked down the corridor in the fashion that she'd become accustomed to lately. As usual, everyone moved out of her way without even realising it. With her blonde hair perfectly (and freakishly so) in place, the temporal specialist tapped her commbadge. "Commander Palmer to Commander Summers... may I see you in Sickbay?" "Of course Commander...I'm on my way there." Rangi's hand slowly dropped from her commbadge {I wonder what she wants} she thought, envisaging the last time she'd seen the striking blonde woman. {She keeps to herself that’s for certain!} Rangi walked along the corridor and turned into sickbay. The place was quiet and almost deserted. She went straight into her office. As Samantha rounded the corner, she came upon the Sickbay door. It opened to let her inside, and she walked straight to the office of the CMO. "Doctor Summers? I apologise for the short notice, but I was wondering if I could go over a few things concerning the Marsh with you?" Rangi, who had not long taken her place behind her desk, got to her feet. "Please...come in... take a seat." she said indicating the chair opposite her own. "May I get you something?... tea... coffee?" She tried to determine Samantha’s mood, but found the expression gave nothing away. "Coffee, please... black, with two sugars," Samantha replied, offering a weak smile. She considered for a moment that she must seem quite cold and distant to the crew of the Chimera... exactly the impression she had of the SSF operatives whom she first met on the Hyperion many years ago. Her encounter with the Counselor outside the mess hall must have cemented that impression even further, but Samantha found it hard to let down her guard when she was keeping so many secrets. Rangi gave a polite smile as she left her desk and crossed the small distance to the replicator. She ordered the 'coffee, black, two sugars' and a 'hot chocolate' for herself. She glanced back at Samantha. “So...what did you want to discuss?" she asked and turned back to the replicator as the two steaming hot drinks appeared on a small tray "We've just entered the Spinward Marsh, and as you're well aware, this region of space contains a lot of temporal phenomena. As a result, the crew might start to experience the effects of temporal psychosis, though in a very light degree. I thought I would like to make you aware of this so you can be prepared if there are any cases that arise." "Right..." Rangi returned to the desk, offering the tray to Samantha who took the coffee mug. She returned to her own place, set the tray on the desk and sat down." I know a little about it. " she said "...often nausea and dizziness?" She looked across at Samantha. "But doesn’t it depend on race?" "Thank you," Samantha said, taking her coffee. "Yes. Races with telepathic or strong empathic abilities are more susceptible to it. At worst, patients will experience an incoherent time flow... in other words, they'll mix up their memories, thinking the past is the future or visa versa, reliving old memories; things like that." Rangi lifted her mug and sipped the sweet chocolate. “So Vulcans and Betazoids...right...well as you know our counselor is Betazoid and the Chief science officer is Vulcan." She pondered the possibility and consequences of either of them being affected. A sudden thought struck her. "Commander....I wonder...a short time ago I met a crewman in the turbo lift... she behaved oddly... oh, nothing dramatic." Rangi added hastily "...but she seemed to think she'd collided with me before. She hadn’t... it was quite strange." Samantha thought back to old El Aurian clock that stood on her desk, and her astonishment when she'd seen the hands move for the first time only a half-hour ago. "We might have been affected by a temporal fold," she explained. "Here, where there are so many anomalies, thousands of alternate timelines are created in the blink of an eye, and nullified just as quickly. That is why we must be very careful not to get caught up in one of these anomalies, otherwise we may be stuck in a time loop forever." "I see....right...." Rangi took a drink from her mug. She set it back on the desk but held it. " The...turbulence we had...I take it that was connected to something like that?" she asked, interested to know what other effects there were likely to be. "Yes, I believe so," Samantha replied. "The exact nature of these anomalies aren't well known. They are near impossible to scan and very hard to predict." Rangi lifted her mug and looked at the contents thoughtfully. She asked " The temporal psychosis...any idea of lasting effects? I mean..." she frowned. ".....it's treatable... presumably." "The effects last as long as the patient is exposed to the temporal source. It may linger for a day or a few afterward, depending on the degree to which they have been affected." Samantha took a drink of her coffee, and purposefully neglected to mention that temporal psychosis could theoretically be fatal. But, to console herself, she had been assured by the Bragg medical advisors that not even the Marsh could have such an extreme effect on the most telepathic of species. The only reason to fear a fatality from temporal psychosis would be if the person were exposed to repeated time travel in a relatively short period of time. "Treatment is simply taking care of the symptoms, perhaps combined with some counselling therapy." Rangi replied " That seems a bit too...easy somehow." and smiled thinly. She sat back in her chair. "I don’t pretend to understand all the workings of this." she said ..."and it bothers me...is it likely that the whole crew will experience it at the same time...or just individuals randomly?" "If everyone is exposed at the same time, then everyone will be affected at the same time," Samantha continued. "However, each individual experiences the symptoms in different degrees. Most people would experience nothing, a few would experience some deja vu, others may get mild headaches. For telepathic species, however, the symptoms build up and get worse if they are exposed for prolonged periods without enough rest in between. Non-telepaths recover quickly, and only experience the basic symptoms over and over and until they are out of exposure." "Well Commander...this will be interesting." Rangi said in a tone that implied she would rather be bored than have 'interest' such as this. “Tell me.." she asked " Have you ever been affected yourself?" "No," Samantha replied, and she spoke the truth. "I have never been so highly exposed that I've been affected. Humans are rarely affected by it even if exposed to average amounts." Rangi looked at Samantha, feeling that that for all her straight answers there was something that she 'didn’t' say though why or what Rangi had no idea. "You've come from the Bridge?" she asked. changing the subject. "No, I was in Astrometrics and then stopped by my quarters before I came here," she answered. "Oh..." Rangi gave a small smile. "I was there too. I met Lt Oriana as I left. There's been a little headway made...but not much. Samantha nodded. "We've managed to minimise the interference caused by the anomalies with the sensors. It may give us a greater chance of find the Gott." "And the X'chi perhaps." Rangi added. "We discovered something strange in their anatomy... again... unexplainable. To be honest Commander...there are too many 'unexplained' things with this mission." This time Rangi met Samantha’s gaze levelly. McTaggert's 'feelings' and her own concerns should have been taken into account she thought. She wondered what Samantha would answer. Samantha looked briefly into Rangi's eyes and then averted her gaze. She began to feel quite uncomfortable and suddenly claustrophobic in the small office. "If you'll excuse me, Doctor, I have some more work to do. Thank you for the coffee," she said, standing up and placing the mug on Rangi's desk. Rangi stood up too. "You're welcome." she said. "Thank you for the...explanation...I'll make sure all the medical personnel are aware of it." Samantha nodded to Rangi and then made her way out of Sickbay. Lately she'd become increasingly more uncomfortable when questioned about the mission. Nicolas' revelations had made her realise that she was just a pawn in some giant chess match. She knew more than the rest of the participants, but just enough to make her feel guilty and uncomfortable. She couldn't provide the answers everyone wanted from her. Rangi placed the half empty mugs back on the tray and carried them to the replicator. She pressed the buttons to have recycled and watched them disappear into the haze. {You know more than you're telling me} Rangi thought and shook her head. She had no empathic ability, but she would bet anything on the fact that she was right. {But what are you hiding?...and why?} = -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.323 / Virus Database: 267.9.0/50 - Release Date: 2005/07/16