From booda@datasync.com Wed Feb 12 19:48:42 1997
VOYAGER: "ASHES TO ASHES"
Kim: "Vessel on converging course. Range six-point-two, bearing two-eight-
five. A small one, approximately three meters in length. Life readings...
they're a bit confused."
Janeway: "Sort them out. Mr. Chakotay?"
Chakotay: "Anything that small, inhabiting such a tiny ship...we must assume
that, despite their apparent size, they're intelligent, possibly with feelings,
spirit, a desire to survive, to struggle against tyrannies of larger beings who
would enslave them but for their strength of will..."
Janeway: "Careful. I think you just dropped a stitch."
Chakotay: "Captain?"
Janeway: "In that Maquisomorphic flag you're knitting." (Chakotay looks
sullen and clams up as Janeway shoots him a withering sneer.)
Kim: "Sorting out those life form readings now, Captain. Twenty-four
separate readings. Configuration...Human. But..."
Janeway: "Twenty-four humans in a space that small? Impossible!"
Kim: "That's just it, Captain. They register as separate life forms on the
sensors, but physically, they're within extremely close proximity to each
other."
Janeway: (mysteriously) "As if...they were twenty-four souls in one body...
Mr. Kim. Patch readings through to Medical. Initiate haling, known human
dialects first."
Chakotay: (grumbling to himself) "And if that doesn't work, try the UNKNOWN
ones."
Janeway: "What's that, Mr. Chakotay?"
Chakotay: "Nothing, Captain. I just said, 'I hunger and thirst. I could chew
on dog bones', that is, much like my distant ancestors."
Janeway: "I have to admit I'm a bit peckish too, but none of us can afford to
leave the bridge at this moment. (Into ship's communication) Neelix, bring
lunch up to the bridge for the duty watch."
Neelix's voice: "Right away! I've just prepared a scrum-diddley-umptious lunch
from Kes's nail clippings and the remains of the diminutive race we defeated
LAST week!"
(Bridge crew suppresses convulsions of anticipation)
(The Doctor appears through Holodeck tie-in)
Doctor: "Your suspicions may be correct, Captain. It does appear that there
are twenty-four humanoid life forms inhabiting a single physical containment.
Either that or they're violating each other's personal spaces to an EXTREMELY
unhygenic extent."
Janeway: "Just the facts, please, Doctor."
Doctor: "The genetic makeup is puzzling, however. The 'body' these beings
inhabit appears to be a plasma-enforced physical simulacrum, containing the
genetic information of all the individuals, separate yet fused. And the
Council of Nicaea thought THEY had a problem..."
Janeway: (shutting off Doctor) "Sufficiently obtuse, thank you, Doctor. Mr.
Kim, any answer to our haling?""
Kim: "Captain, the vessel is haling us, in 20th century Earth English. The
haler identifies itself as 'Timigene Learyberry'."
(Neelix and Kes enter with the watch's lunch as an image appears on the
viewscreen. It is that of a middle-aged human of indeterminate race and sex,
rather ordinary and nondescript in appearance.)
Learyberry: "Greetings, Captain and Crew of the Voyager!"
(Neelix, seeing image, is shocked enough to drop the lunches he's carrying.
Homologized nail clippings and race remains spill all over the deck.)
Neelix: "It's the One from the Ashes!"
Janeway: (rolling eyes) "Mr. Neelix, something tells me you have some
information which may be helpful to us at this juncture. So I request that
you cut the usual whimsy and fill us in before I have Mr. Tuvok challenge you
to a Pon Farr duel with Texas Rules."
Neelix: (chagrined but conciliatory) "Oh...it's nothing, really. But everyone
in this quadrant knows about the One from the Ashes! The many-spirited One!
Legend says that a vessel filled with the ashes of several deceased creatures
was brought to this part of the galaxy, centuries ago, and life was breathed
back into the ashes to remake a single being! Since then, it is said, the
being is returning to its point of origin in its original ship, exchanging
wisdom wherever it goes with all the good little girls and boys on a thousand
planets!"
Janeway: "Thank you, Mr. Neelix. I may reconsider the Texas Rules."
(Paris enters, fingering some scratches and odd abrasions on his neck.)
Paris: "Sorry I'm late, Captain. I was assisting B'Elanna Torres in rooting
out a clogged Jeffries tube..."
Janeway: "So it appears. You might close your fly, Mr. Paris, and then provide
an evaluation. This seems to be a case of the Caretaker at work, wouldn't you
say?"
Paris: "Sure looks like it, Captain."
Tuvok: "Captain, I urge caution. It could be a Kazon trick. Put all weapons
on full alert. Plot interception and engage. Bring main batteries to bear..."
Kes: "Mr. Tuvok, dear, take a chill pill! We're all beautiful people...
although of course we can't all be as beautiful as Neelix..."
Janeway: "Let's hear what it has to say. It may very well possess advanced
intelligence. Certainly no worse than what we have assembled here...Greetings,
er, Learyberry. We are..."
Learyberry: (with friendly but somewhat disconnected aspect) "I know who you
are, my children! Everything that is in your ship's log is known to part of
me, for it is from that mind that all of it came!"
Janeway: "Er...that's all very well, but..."
Learyberry: "And I have good news for you! I can return you to your Federation
or Rebellious Segment Thereof, in an instant, using the wisdom contained in
another of my constituent spirits, that of the being once known a Timothy
Leary!"
Paris: "Timothy Leary? A 20th century Earthling, an early experimenter in
psychactive substances, if I recall my history. But...Timothy Leary's dead!"
Janeway: (pointing at image) "No, he's outside, looking in."
Learyberry: (holding up a piece of contact paper and a sugar cube) "These
contain a substance which can take you anywhere in the universe..."
Chakotay: "One question. If you have this capability, to go anywhere in the
universe at will, what are you doing wandering around out here? Why don't
YOU go back to Earth?"
Learyberry: "What's the rush? Heck, as far as the Earth goes, you can have it.
MUCH prettier pictures out here! And no humans to screw things up. That's
why I wouldn't mind if you'd take these and get going..."
Janeway: (looks around at crew, thinks for a moment) "Hm. You know, you have
a point. In any event, it couldn't hurt THIS bunch much to drop a little
acid...Transporter, prepare to receive shipment."
Learyberry: "Great! And I'll throw in some Action Figures!"
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