C6 / Lanis

Posted on Fri 1st Feb, 2019 @ 10:21pm by Lieutenant Commander Lanis Dhuro MD
Edited on on Mon 8th Apr, 2019 @ 1:59pm

1,334 words; about a 7 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Infirmary, Chief Surgeon's Office
Timeline: MD 1

Experiment Number Six Addams walked into sickbay wearing her Aunt's Zeta Reticulan spider, Thing, as a hat.

"Oh, Miss Addams," the Corpsman on duty at the triage desk said, smiling at her. "Your mother is in Med-Surg ward two. Or you may wait for her in her office, of course."

"Although I am her child," the girl said, looking up at the Corpsman, "Chlamydia is not my mother. Technically, she is my second cousin once removed, though I usually call her 'Aunt.'"

"Ah. My error. I beg your pardon," the Corpsman said, a gleam of humor in xir eyes. "Then your Aunt is in Med-Surg ward two."

"And is Doctor Dhuro with her?" Six asked.

"No; I believe he is in his office."

"Thank you," the little girl said, and turned toward the right-hand hallway. The spider on her head tapped with its forefinger, and pointed the other direction. "Are you sure?" She asked it. Thing pointed to the left again, and Six reversed direction, walking down the corridor. She came to a door marked Chief Surgeon, and sighed. "Don't go getting all full of yourself," she instructed the spider, before pressing the annunciator.

"Come in," Lanis said from his desk. It was his day to do paperwork, and it seemed there were always piles of it to go through. Today he was looking through transfer requests, trying to find a gastroenterologist, as Chlamydia was especially keen to hire one. This week's batch had turned up 20 or so who were qualified but none yet who wanted to transfer to Starbase 109. Lanis sighed. "Everybody wants a starship posting," he muttered under his breath. He heard his office door swish open and glanced up from his computer screen. Lanis grinned. "Hello, Six, Thing. How are you both today?"

From atop the girl's head, Thing balanced precariously to display its thumb upward, before resuming its grip. Aloud, Six answered, "I am copacetic, thank you, Doctor Dhuro." She paused, then inquired, "Do you find yourself well today?"

"I find myself well aged--which is great, if you are wine or cheese. Come in and have a seat." Lanis shuffled some scattered PADDs into a neat stack so he could see Six and Thing on the other side of his desk. "It's good to see you both. What brings you here this afternoon?"

"Aunt Ischemia has said that I am a good kid, in the long run," Six commented, taking the indicated chair. "She inevitably follows this with the observation that there isn't much of a market for long-running goats."

Lanis laughed. "I obviously didn't spend enough time talking to her at your family's last Halloween party. She sounds like an amusing woman to know." He arched a gray eyebrow at her. "You don't, however, look like a goat to me--which is a good thing."

"Not even a little?" Six said, sounding disappointed. "I keep trying to do the thing with my eyes, but I can't quite get it." She made a brushing gesture, and then said, "The time has come to talk of deadly things, of knives, of apple pips; of Cardassians and kings."

Lanis studied her a moment. "I've known you, Six, for a little over two standard years--and I've never asked you this question, though I've often wondered. Why are you so fascinated by deadly things? Have you ever seen what they do?"

"Yes," the child answered. After a long moment, Thing clambered down to her shoulder. It tapped her collarbone to get her attention, then made a rolling motion with its index finger. "Oh," Six said. "Why do you think I'm being raised by the aunts?"

Lanis straightened. "I figured that either your parents died, gave you up voluntarily, or were declared... unsuitable to raise you, for some reason," Lanis said carefully. "On Bajor I knew a lot of orphans. I was orphaned. My childhood was very unsettled, so your parents dying was my first thought when we met. But there are, sadly, other reasons why children aren't raised by their biological parents." He grimaced. "Abuse, drug addiction, neglect. Those are all things I find difficult to understand, but I have seen their results." He shot her a look. "And if some of that happened to you, and you don't wish to talk about it with me, you don't have to. I don't want to pry into anything that's painful for you. I'm just trying to understand you better. All right?"

"Thank you, Doctor, but you needn't worry about me. I am not an orphan girl -- though it sometimes is a useful thing to be an orphan girl." The child smiled impishly. "But I'm not. I have the aunts, and they provide a safe and secure home environment in which I may blossom to my fullest potential." She paused, and in a conspiratorial tone of voice, added, "I heard Aunt Purulence say that."

"So one aunt sees you as a flower and another aunt sees you as a goat. Interesting household," Lanis commented. "But to get back to your story--you weren't orphaned. Therefore the question of why your aunts are raising you remains open." He glanced at the replicator. "Computer, please make a Tamarian Frost." He glanced at Six. "Would you like something?"

"Oh," Six said, and, "No thank you. I didn't understand your question, Doctor. Yes, my father was murdered, and my mother was a SafSilo Mark Twenty-Eight Incubator. But that's not what I came to talk about. I wanted to know about peculiarities of Cardassian physiology. In your time with the Resistance, were there any toxins you found particularly effective?"

"Your mother--what?!" Lanis re-oriented his way of thinking. So Experiment Number Six was not just a whimsical name dreamed up by members of Chlamydia's odd family. Six literally had been an experiment. She was very calm about it, Lanis thought. Too calm, he wondered? But that was her normal--and far be it from him to display shock or pity to her because of it.

He cleared his throat. "I do know of some things that are poisonous to Cardassians," he said, "But I never used any of those substances to kill a Cardassian. Call it my selective sense of honor. I used explosives to kill them during the Occupation--which I'm not convinced was honorable, either. If I had to kill one now, I would prefer to do it face-to-face, with both of us armed; we're not at war, after all. Why do you want to know about these kinds of substances?"

"They are fascinating," the child responded. "The chain of tiny events that results in damage, even death. The pathways, the molecular levers... the difference between helpful and fatal. Toxicology is..." she spread her hands, and Thing ran down her arm to be another spread hand. "Beautiful."

Lanis still wasn't completely convinced that he should discuss poisons and how to kill Cardassians with them with such a young child, but her answer rang true to his ears. "I feel the same way about surgery," he told her. "The way you can position an anabolic protoplaser and watch the cells literally grow back together. I never cease to be astonished by it. The process feels to me almost like a sacred experience." He let out a breath.

"Well, then, to get back to Cardassians--They are very difficult to kill by poison. I suspect Cardassia Prime must be home to a lot of poisonous native plants and animals, to have made it necessary for Cardassian anatomy to evolve to its current state. There are only two poisons I know of for certain that can kill a Cardassian. They are cobalt diselenide and a nasty compound called Voraxna. I'm sure there are more. If I were better at chemistry, I could probably extrapolate others, based on what I know works. "

This was a strange conversation to have with such a young child, Lanis thought. "Tell me what you already know about cobalt's effects on the Cardassian circulatory system...."

 

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