"Of Eggs, Tribbles, and Small Humanoids"

[Guest Fiona Weber]

After speaking with the programmer... instructor... or did they call them teachers? Joy waited, until Schawana was brought. Joy smiled. "Schawana? Would you mind coming with me to sickbay for a moment?

 

She walked up to Joy. "Mommy sent you?"

 

"Yes. Mommy knows."

 

"Ok, Mommy told me you are a nice person." She took Joy's hand. "Your hands is cold, Why?"

 

Joy accepted her hand, and started walking towards sickbay. "I'm not human. I was just made to look and in part think like a human. But I'm really made. In some ways, I might be a machine."

 

"Oh, ok." She skipped alongside Joy, swinging her hand happily. "So where are we going? The teacher just told me Mommy you were coming for me."

 

Joy examined the erratic motions of her partner, and wondered if she was malfunctioning. Some sort of seizure? "We are going to Sickbay. The orb might have done something to your mother. We were wondering if it might have affected you as well."

 

The child shrugged, then continued moving. "Ok."

 

"Here we are." The sickbay doors opened. Joy hoped, if something was wrong, Fiona could fix it.

 

Schawana skipped in all happy-like. "You're a new doctor?"

 

Fiona looked over to the door, and a chill came over her. Children. "I've been on Republic for a little while. Please. Pick a biobed and stay seated on it."

 

Schawana looked up to the doctor and Joy. "I'm too wittle. I cant cwimb that high."

 

"We can give you a boost." Joy gently but firmly gave her a lift up to a free bed. "See?"

 

Weber grimaced just a bit, moving warily close to the halfling human. "I'm just going to scan you, then you can leave. Fair?"

 

Schawana swung her feet happily. "Tank you."

 

Joy smiled and stepped back to give Fiona room. "You're welcome."

 

"I guess so. Mommy told me to always follow doctors' orders," she said, nodding her head as she spoke.

 

Weber activated the tricorder, letting it run for a few cycles. "That was very nice of Mommy, wasn't it, Joy?"

 

"Common sense. But Mommy is usually good at common sense."

 

Fiona barely resisted a snort at Joy's comment, biting her lip hard to avoid the reaction.

 

"What is comment sense? Is that good?" the child asked, still swinging her legs over the side of the bed.

 

"Common sense, little girl," Fiona replied, "is the most important thing one can have."

 

"Common sense means being smart about every day things. Like being good with doctors," Joy added.

 

"If it's so important, can I have some too?"

 

Joy looked at Fiona. "Do you have some to spare?"

 

A smirk. "My best advice would be to always think before you act. Every time. Otherwise, you'll end up like Mommy."

 

Schawana was unaware of the ordeal with her mom. "Yeah, I wanna be just like Mommy!" She giggled. "Mommy is a captain."

 

The doctor smirked, and mumbled under her breath. "I pity the kid."

 

"Schawana? What do you remember of that orb?"

 

She turned to Joy. "You mean the silver egg?"

 

Joy thought it prudent to get on a nice safe subject, like religion, and away from Mommy's rank. "Yes."

 

"A wady gave it to me and told me I could have it. She said it would give me good dreams if I put it under my bed."

 

Weber's smirk turned even more amused. "Now why doesn't anyone give me good gifts like that? The best I ever got was a dream journal, and, well, I didn't exactly want to write everything down that I dreamt of..."

 

"Do you remember what the lady looked like? What she was wearing?"

 

"She was a normal wady."

 

"Did you have good dreams?" Joy asked Schawana.

 

"I had dreams I was playing and then there were people crying.

 

"Do you remember why they were crying?" Joy briefly lifted her tricorder from her belt, and set it to record the conversation.

 

"Umm... no. I just heard them crying. Then the dreams went away, and the next time I got the egg out to play with it, it was gone."

 

"Someone stole a little egg? Shock! From a child, no less." Fiona pretended to be horrified.

 

"Mommy said Auntie Blu wanted to look at it to make sure it was safe for me, and they took it."

 

"Ah, well. Aunty Blu found out it was a very special thing," Joy stated.

 

"Did I do something bad? Is that why it was taken away?"

 

"You accepted a gift from a stranger..." Fiona suggested, innocently.

 

'But she was a nice wady."

 

"Well, anyone can seem nice..." Weber turned to upload into the console, smiling back at the child.

 

"Talk to your mother about accepting gifts," Joy suggested. "You might at least want to show them to her when you get them."

 

"I'm sowwy if I did a bad ting," she said, then remembered her manners. "Yes ma'am."

 

"You didn't do a horrible thing. Not what you did, anyway. But the dreams that egg makes are special, and led us into interesting times."

 

"Apologize to Mommy dearest," the medical officer commented. "She's the one who's in the hottest water over it. The rest of us are just along for the sample-taking ride. Speaking of which..." She turned to Joy, then to the monitor after getting the android's attention. "It's faint. It's there, and it's old, and very, very faint. But it's there." Fiona looked back at the child. "Are you playing with mushrooms right now?"

 

"Ewwww! I hate musooms -- they are nasty."

 

Joy shook her head. So many people suggested mushrooms make good fuel.

 

"Oh... Mommy said the crying I heard was being made my the tribbles. That they wanted out."

 

"Well, they got out, and they chased the Klingon, but I don't know that they lived happily ever after."

 

"Tribbles. Remind me never to go to your quarters. I have a few tribbles back there..." She pointed to a back store cabinet. "But they're just for feeding my -- " Fiona stopped, a faint ray of compassion for the child in her heart. "My curiosity about furry creatures."

 

"Mommy is going to be mad at me. I was the wast to pay with them and I tought I put the lid on tight." She began to cry.

 

Joy thought too many people were keeping tribbles. "I'm sure she won't be mad about that. That was a while ago. But do you want to go back to Mommy now?" Schawana, still sobbing, nodded, and Joy lifted her up of the bed, and deposited her gently back on the floor. Why did organic beings insist on randomly generating sentient beings? Why couldn't they just download a mature personality? "Come on, then. Shall we go?"

 

Back on the ground again, she took Joy's hand. "Oh, otay."

 

"I'll be back, Fiona, and we'll figure out just what this means."

 

The little girl turned to wave at the doctor. "Bye bye!"

 

"Yes. Goodbye, Joy. Goodbye, Schawana. You can have one of my tribbles if you're missing one of yours, but don't expect candy. Try a Klingon ship for that. And bring a tribble to trade for the candy!" Sardonic, yes, Fiona knew.