DISCLAIMER: The Star Trek universe and all characters within that universe belong to Paramount and Viacom, and no infringement on my part was intended. The original text is ©November 1999.

Author's Note: This story is incomplete. The copyright date will reflect any changes. Heave Ho is set in the midst of Caretaker, parts one and two.

Deck Four, Corridor 4c
U.S.S. Starship Voyager, docked at DS9

"You'll never believe who you've got to orientate." Michael Tolsen handed Jen Guillis a datapadd; the entire crew manifest in a bite-sized chunk.

"What, like a Cardassian?" Guillis asked, tapping a key. Tolsen shook his head. "Something worse?" Tolsen nodded. Guillis kept tapping, scanning the list, until she noticed one name. Her eyes widened. "No. Please tell me no."

Tolsen patted Guillis on the back. "I didn't have the heart to let you find out when she beamed on."

Guillis squeezed her eyes shut. "She promised she'd never come back. I heard her. I taped her. I have documented proof that she'd never come back to Starfleet."

"Maybe we can beam you back onto the station before--"

"Rossotti to Guillis," a cheerful voice called from Guillis's communicator. "How's it going, toots? Screwed Mike yet?"

"Oh god, we're too late," Guillis moaned. "The whole damn mission is doomed."

Transporter Bay 2

"Careful with that suitcase, Jen, my books are in it. If it opens up now the military atmosphere around here will be ruined." Rossotti balanced another carpet bag on her trolley, then eyed the two trunks, four suitcases, and three other bags still on the transporter. "Sure I can't get a personal transport to my quarters?"

Guillis heaved up the suitcase Rossotti had given her when she'd entered the room and tried not to think of what sorts of books were inside it. "Ros, only senior officers can order personal transports."

"So maybe I'm a senior officer."

"Bullshit."

Rossotti gave an experimental tug on the trolley. It wobbled, but held. "I require external aid for moving heavy objects. You know me and my back. Probably didn't drink enough milk when I was a kid."

"They'll never believe it."

"Then Guillis, my love, we've got some serious moving to do." Rossotti went behind the awesome stack of luggage and gave a shove, sending the trolley flying forward and through the doorway. The sliding doors didn't open quite fast enough--two bags, one with a sticker reading "Havana, 677" on it, fell from the pile. Rossotti picked them up and trotted after her still-cruising trolley, which had deftly rounded the corner and was barreling toward the turbolift. "I programmed the ship's design into it. Any idea where my quarters are?"

"Deck Six, section five, number three-two."

"Damn--I was hoping to be closer to Engineering. So much for plan A."

"Rossotti, please don't tell me you have a plan."

"Had a plan, Jen. Don't worry, though, there's still B through Z." Rossotti started to walk faster.

"I remember your plans, Ros. They always involve me. Please don't let this involve me, Ros. I don't want to be court-martialled before I make lieutenant."

Rossotti began to run, her bags held loosely in each hand. "Remember when you had dreams, Jen?" she called out, dodging a startled scientist.

"Jail was never part of that dream!" Guillis nearly crashed into the ship's doctor and the turbolift wall in quick succession. "Why are we in such a hurry?"

"To catch the trolley before it gets to the captain's chair. Bridge, sir."

"What?"

The turbolift went up. "Well, I didn't know where to send it, did I? Don't worry, none of my stuff is flammable."

"So you didn't bring--"

"Except for that."

"Rossotti!"

The turbolift came to a halt. Rossotti's smile was entirely too cheerful. "Who knows what we may need for entertainment later on?" The doors opened. The trolley wasn't there. The captain, commander, and chief engineer, however, were. Guillis hid against the turbolift wall. Rossotti waved and said, "Hi!" To the turbolift, "The fourth floor, my good man."

The doors closed. "So who were those people again?"

Guillis told her.

"Uh huh. Well, never too early to give a good impression. I wonder where my luggage is. Messhall, d'ya think?"

"Rossotti, what are you doing here? You promised me you'd never come back after the Academy. You let me tape you promising." Guillis heard the tremor in her voice. "Rossotti, you do have orders to come here, don't you? You're not just here to--"

"Just call me your guardian angel. How's it with you and Mike?"

"There's nothing between--"

"Linwood to Rossotti. We have a large vehicle blocking the way to Holodeck 1--it's got your nameplate on it. Would you care to pick it up?"

Rossotti winked and tapped her commbadge. "I'm currently on a turbolift headed in the opposite direction," she murmured, her professional voice contrasting sharply with the face she was making. "Could you please bring it to deck Six, section five, room three-two? I have a meeting with the captain to go to."

"Understood, Rossotti. We'll have it transported."

"Understood. Rossotti out." Ros smiled. "And that, Jen, is how to get things done. Now tell me when I'm supposed to meet-and-greet with the brass--I don't want my truths conflicting."

Captain's Readyroom

The door chimed. Janeway looked up from the mass of paperwork on her desk--this ship would be handed to her lock, stock, and phaser within the next few hours, and that meant signing form A and waiving form B and swearing her everlasting soul to form C. Still, she had to start acting like the captain sometime. "Come in."

A dark skinned young woman in yellow entered and stood at a vague approximation of attention. Oh, it was technically accurate; she was standing so stiff that she could be used as a warpcore cleaner. It was the grin that ruined the effect, in addition to the rather unique hairpiece. Janeway stared at it a moment, until it uncurled and started staring back with big obsidian eyes.

"Ensign Rosalyn Rossotti, reporting for duty." The ensign leaned forward, her feet never leaving their spot precisely four feet from the desk. She flourished her duty assignment in front of Janeway, and the captain wondered why it was that the ensign seemed familiar.

The miniature thing in Miss Rossotti's hair temporarily put aside, Janeway looked over the newbie's assignment. "This looks standard, Ensign. Welcome aboard." She smiled. "You'll report for duty at 0700 tomorrow morning; departure is at 0730. Until then, settle in, and feel free to explore the ship and the space station. Dismissed."

The captain gave the assignment back again, smiled one last time, and went back to reading the Regulations for Importing/Exporting Space-faring Vessels To/From Space Stations of Type B6 and Larger. Within moments, there should have been the sound of the door opening and closing, then sweet silence until the next nervous crewman.

The sound that instead aired was a very loud, very long, yawn.

Janeway looked up. The ensign was still there, an apologetic look on her face. More noticeable was her hairpiece, whose painted pink mouth was stretched wide open. "I'm sorry," Rossotti said, "it's my, well, it's my hair Thing. It's not used to this lighting."

It had a great many tiny teeth. "And you called this to my attention... why?"

"Well, Captain, it all has to do with my hair Thing. Or rather, all my other Things, not necessarily having to do with my hair. It's the gel, really."

"Gel, Ensign?" The conversation was rapidly degrading. The--Thing--had closed its mouth, but was regarding her with an unblinking ambivalence.

"The gel packs, you see, I was the one who kind of thought of them. Well, I helped theorize them, with my hair Thing, which led to other Things, which led to this project, and a starship with a brain that I really know a great deal about. It's why I'm being assigned here, Captain, and I need a thumbprint from you to authorize it." The ensign held the datapadd out again, and Janeway took it gingerly back. "I'm here to fix the weird bits."

Janeway looked at the ensign uneasily. "What... precisely... are you, Ensign?"

"Technically, Captain, I'm an engineer. But that's just because they couldn't invent a uniform for me, wouldn't have looked good. I'm an animasociaphilocomptronist. It's a major I made up myself, Captain; you'll find the course description appended."

So... so this was a highly specialized engineer with rank. Considering the nature of the ship, it didn't seem that odd. Janeway tapped a key on the padd, reading the information as it scrolled down. She paused the text at one point. "You dropped out of Starfleet?"

"Only temporarily--they wanted the patent for my hair Thing with only five percent royalties. My agent advised against it."

"But they... still took you back?"

"Oh yes. After I waved the gel-filled ship idea at them." The ensign eyed the surroundings. "It isn't quite how I envisioned it--I thought it would all look more transparent. And green."

"Miss Rossotti... " The ensign turned back to Janeway. "Miss Rossotti, I'm certain that you are well-aware of your talents in the area of engineering. But this is my ship. If I want anything--for any reason--there should be no doubt in my mind that you will immediately hand over what I want with no discussion of price, copyright, or agenting. Is that clear?"

"Perfectly. Did you thumbprint it?"

The captain pressed her thumb on the bottom right-hand corner and handed it back to Rossotti. The ensign checked, nodded, and turned to leave when Janeway finally said, "Have we... met, Ensign?"

"Briefly, Captain. I was in the turbolift at the time, looking for my semi-sentient luggage trolley. Am I dismissed?"

Janeway gestured vaguely and the ensign grinned, saluted, and marched out. The hairpiece waved its tail at her just before the door closed.

Messhall

"God, Rossotti, you brought that Thing. Does the captain know?"

Rossotti sat down at the table between Tolsen and Guillis. "I wore it in. She would have asked, but I think it reminded her of her hair bun. The girl must be repressed." To Tolsen, "So, Mike, how's toots?"

"I was this close to forgetting about sophomore year, Rossotti. This close."

"But who'd want to forget? The lights, the music... "

"... the way the dance hall nearly blew sky high... "

"... and didn't the night seem to shine just a bit brighter after that? That's your problem, Mike, you lack adventure in your life. You and the captain both. And Guillis."

"Ros--"

"I was thinking of making a Thing for you, Jen, just to keep life interesting."

Guillis looked faint. "Please, Ros, no Things. Not until you can make one that doesn't... not work."

"Got some bad news for you, my love. Guess what I gave you anyway." Rossotti gestured around the room. Tolsen and Guillis looked uneasily at the seemingly solid walls. "See what you miss when you don't flunk a few grades to stay with me? When I showed back up at the Academy you were off on that science mission. You missed it when I showed the brass my biggest Thing yet. After that, it was all hush hush and then boom, the first mission and me here to go down with the ship if it doesn't work."

Guillis leaned forward. "But Ros," she whispered, hysteria carefully masked, "if this is one of your Things, that means it's going to work. Your Things always work, Rossotti. If your plan A was to give me a Thing, Ros, I'd like to give it back now."

"Plan A was to develop a brewery that could be powered by the warpcore. I was going to need your help in drilling the holes. I was thinking of a mini-time chamber could be used, like those orb Things of the Bajorans--speaking of which, I was thinking that it wouldn't be that tough to make one, but mine would be less wonky--"

"Oh god."

"Rosalyn Rossotti?" An ensign wearing blue approached the table and held out a hand. "I'm Lisa Calloway. We'll be sharing quarters." As Rossotti winked unobtrusably at Guillis, the young ensign said, "I was wondering if maybe you could move your luggage, it's on the bed and in the bathtub, and the walls... well, the walls... "

Rossotti stood up, a friendly look on her face. "I'm sorry. We can unpack everything now if you want, that'll give us some time to get to know one another."

"Oh, that'd be great," the ensign said, sounding relieved. She headed for the door.

Rossotti smiled, waved to Guillis and Tolsen, and left.

There was silence for a moment.

"I give her three hours," said Tolsen.

"That was Lisa. I roomed with her one semester; collects religious icons on painted shells. She thinks she's the odd one in most room assignments. I give her till tomorrow morning."

Tolsen shook his head. "Poor Calloway."

0700
Engineering Console 7

The trouble was, Rossotti only really knew how to do one thing. And that was to make Things.

They weren't that difficult. You just made them little bodies and poured in their little gel-brains, and after that it was just a matter of teaching them. No one else, though, seemed to have the knack for it. Then again, Rossotti didn't have the knack for, say, keeping quarters with anyone. For some reason, it bothered roommates to wake up with one of Rossotti's Things on her bed (or over her bed, or in her bed). Not to mention when the Things would decide to join the happy roomies for breakfast. If waking up to a snuggling wall Thing didn't drive her out, then seeing the hair Thing pick at Ros's Eggs Benedict certainly did.

On a brighter note, Rossotti believed that nearly anything could be accomplished by creating the right Thing--it was only a matter of figuring out what, exactly, had to be done.

For instance, Rossotti had very little idea of the proper procedures for a starship takeoff. Or, for that matter, the proper procedures for operating a Starfleet Standard engineering console. The classes that would have taught her all this had been carefully dropped in favor of her independent studies, and what she couldn't avoid she'd bribed someone else to do for her.

However, what she did know was that her hair Thing had within it the entire Operating Procedures Manual. It currently was crawling around on the console, tapping the appropriate keys and humming quietly under its breath; doing, rather efficiently, her job.

It had taken her almost three months to teach it how to utilize the manual and the basic motions necessary for such, but it took only a week for it to learn how to hum a full orchestra version of Beethoven's Ninth.

She loved her Things.

No one had yet noticed Rossotti's hair Thing--she wondered idly if there was someone who would be checking up on her, making sure she was doing whatever a animasociaphilocomptronist does.

If someone did ask, there was only one thing she could say: she was making sure it all kept working. Fortunately, "working" meant 'not oozing out of the walls and forming independent thought structures.' At least, that's what she thought her Things would do if they stopped working. It would be interesting to find out.

Rossotti smiled and began humming Mozart's Requiem.

Science Lab

"And then it kind of leered at me and started humming--"

"Rossotti to Guillis. I'm bored. How's about you tell me all the sad details."

Lisa Calloway turned green. Guillis sighed and tapped her commbadge. "Of what, Rossotti?"

"You and Mike. Don't tell me you haven't gotten--"

"Guillis out."

There was a moment of silence.

"Rossotti to Guillis. Have anything interesting I can do?"

"Rossotti, please tell me you have an actual reason for calling down during the middle of my shift."

"Because I'm in the middle of my shift too. This is business. The chief caught me with my Thing, said I might as well do something useful with it. I brought the rest of them down here too. There's gotta be something unusual I can test on them--they're getting antsy." A pitiful note entered the engineer's voice. "They're not used to traveling from home."

"Are they going to start taking apart the ship if I don't give you something?"

"Maybe."

Lisa shrieked. Guillis started scooping various substances into a case. "I'll be down in ten, Ros, okay? Try to keep them occupied."

"Don't worry, I've started playing Schubert--they've never heard the Vulcan Symphony's recordings before. Rossotti out."

"'Don't worry', she says. Right." Guillis paused for a moment and looked around the lab. Hensley was supervising, but apparently he'd overheard Lisa's trauma tale and the recent comm message--he looked about as panicked as Guillis felt. She left before he pushed her out the door.

It was when Guillis was on the turbolift heading to Engineering that Voyager entered the Badlands.

Unfortunately, it was when the ship seemed to shift five feet to the left beneath her feet that Guillis dropped her case, cracked her head, and fell in the flickering light.

Deck Six, section five, room three-two

"Fuck."

Guillis took this as a sign that she was still alive.

"Basic first aid and a box of band-aids. Fuck. I should've downloaded Gray's Goddamn Anatomy."

Vision was starting to return--chunks of light and dark revealed themselves.

"We're chasing fucking Maquis, for chrissake. Should've given the Thing a mini-hypospray at least."

Visuals cleared and focused, revealing Rosalyn Rossotti, pacing.

At about the same time, Guillis felt something small and pointy on her chest--pacing.

"How the hell am I--"

"Ros?"

Rossotti looked over, blinked, smoothed her hair, and pulled a chair over. "Jen?"

"Ros... what's on me?"

"The clock Thing. It's got some medical knowledge, I figured it would know what to do."

"Why's it pacing, Ros?"

"It's worried."

Guillis thought about this for a moment, then decided not to. "Could you take it off, Ros?"

"Sure, Jen." Rossotti lifted the small Thing off of Guillis's chest, cooing gently at it until she set it back on the bedside table. It scuttled behind Rossotti's large analog alarm clock, muttering Pachelbel.

"What happened, Ros?"

Rossotti got out of the chair and began pacing again. "So okay, according to sensors, we enter the Badlands. A couple of minutes in, a wave of glued together tetrion particles shows up behind us, and next thing I know my Things are screaming the Magnificat-Fugue No. 5 and the ship is bouncing along to the tune. Nothing near me blew up, but console 2 permanently took out the chief and 12 got at least two people, and I think Delfisl fell over the railing."

That was bad. Guillis didn't want to think about the Science Lab's casualties; or Tolsen. "Ros, why am I in your quarters?"

"The luggage Thing dragged me to you. Lucky me, the turbolift had only stopped a meter above the deck. When you wouldn't wake up, I tried to contact Sickbay, but there was no answer. The sensors said that there were dangerous levels of carbon dioxide and monoxide in the air--I had the luggage Thing bring you here, and the clock Thing jumped on your head the second you were on the bed. The luggage Thing went back out again; I think it's looking for Mike."

"How does it... "

"It knows how to find lost stuff--I left it alone once with my collection of 2Ds, and it grew fond of the two of you. I think it stole one of your hair pins when it put you down."

She paused and looked up. "Computer, can you please play some Mozart? Anything."

The music played, Rossotti paced. Guillis made an attempt to sit up, and failed miserably. "There must be something else, Ros. You forgot to thank the computer."

"Damn. Thank you, Computer my love. You have lovely taste."

"Spill it, Rossotti."

Rossotti sat down again. "Know much in the way of astronomy, Guillis?"

"I'm a cartographer, Ros. I breathe in lightyears."

"Stupid question, fine." Rossotti pointed across the room, to the bay window. "I don't see a damn thing out there like home. Can you tell me where we are?"

Deck Two, Corridor 2a

Michael Tolsen was, in fact, alive. Conscious, even. Until, that is, he heard Handel's Messiah playing quietly in his ear, and saw a large luggage trolley sidle up to him and grin. Then he went out like a light.

Deck Six, section five, room three-two

Rosalyn Rossotti was having some trouble.

Guillis had confirmed that they were far beyond the fields they knew--Rossotti could deal with that, at least until she had the chance to properly regret the loss of her younger Things In Progress.

The Things with her (including the rather large one with the stenciled numbers and insignia on the front) hadn't noticed the change yet--all they knew was that they were working, which was enough to keep them cheerful. So she didn't have to worry about them until later.

The problem was, Rossotti had the nagging feeling that she should be doing something to help stop the warpcore breach in progress.

It had been the wall Thing's sensors that told her. Normally, unless she was down in Engineering, she'd never have known about her imminent death. The miracles of modern science at work once more.

So there she was, an engineer with a case of guilt and no way to exonerate herself.

She shouldn't have dropped all those basic courses at the Academy.

The most Rossotti could do, really, was send her hair Thing on down. It knew more than she did anyway, and it could chat with the ship Thing while it was at it. She took it off of her head and set it on the floor. The hair Thing yawned, hummed the first five notes of Für Elise, and scuttled out the door.

The luggage Thing entered immediately after, carrying an inert Tolsen and looking pleased with itself. It entered the bedroom and set him down beside Guillis, then tried to slip unobtrusably into the wardrobe. Rossotti stopped it, looked over Tolsen, then shook her head.

"It took his ensign pip," she murmured sadly.

Some minutes later

Mike woke to considerably less fanfare than Jen did.

Shortly after he'd been put on the bed, the clock Thing had snorted, pasted a band-aid to his forehead, and left for regions unknown, possibly the replicator. Rossotti had entered the bathroom with the luggage Thing, a hydrospanner, and a look of deep consternation. Jen had tried to get up, stopped trying to get up, tried to do nothing, sighed, and pulled over one of Rossotti's books. Then sighed again.

So Mike awoke the sound of sweet silence, followed shortly by the sweet sound of the luggage Thing screeching Chopin through two layers of duranium shielded walls. Tolsen turned his head, carefully, toward the warm object lying beside him, and saw the fuzzy blonde head of Jen Guillis tucked between the covers of a paperback novel.

"Sylvester, or, The Wicked Uncle?" he asked groggily.

Jen looked up and smiled briefly. "It's from Ros's collection. She's got hundreds of reproductions like this--all written in the 1900s, describing romantic scenarios in the 1700s."

"And she reads these?"

"Yeah, I mean, I knew they were historical somehow, but she never let me borrow any. Her quarters are crammed with them."

Mike had never actually been within Rossotti's quarters. He'd heard rumors--very descriptive rumors--but looking past the bed, Tolsen found that much of what he'd heard was only a slight grazing of the truth.

The bed itself was Standard Issue. Much of what was within the room was Standard Issue. There were no Turkish Love Tents set up, nor big boxes marked "Uranium in Putty Form--Not For Play". Instead, in corners and where Standard Issue decorative items would normally stand, were large, lovingly constructed jungle gyms of clear plastic tubing and carpeted platforms. They looked very much like hamster Habitrails made for gigantic slugs. Slugs, because those were what appeared to be slowly crawling around the structures. Some of the double-fist sized things were making their way to salt-lick bars of dilithium. Others were jumbled all together in a mass of softly quivering slime. Mike wished them happy dreams.

In the main room, just beside the door and just in Tolsen's range of vision, was a brightly lit work area, composed of a large work table and dozens of neatly marked drawers. On the table were two piles--one of plastic components, and one of metal--and what was clearly a half-constructed body for a new Thing. Already Rossotti had laid out tiny paint bottles for it. Tolsen squinted--red, gold, blue, and black. He wondered if Rossotti was making a present for the captain.

Where there weren't Thing construction and learning centers, there were bookshelves. Rossotti appeared to read nothing but books similar to the one Guillis had, all bearing titles like 'A Marriage for Melissa' and 'The Daring Debutante'. What was more amazing was that this many texts had survived long enough from that period for Rossotti to make reproductions of.

"What happened?" he asked, picking up 'The Reformed Rake'.

Jen put down her book. "When?"

"Before the luggage Thing smiled at me."

"Something bad."

"How bad?"

"According to Rossotti, the ship's suffered an ungodly amount of damage which may kill us all within the next few minutes. If the ship keeps structural integrity, we have no medical team or commander or engineer, which will lead us to death from the lack of able bodies or the incompetence of the ones we do have. And for the piece de resistance, we've been mysteriously transported to an unknown region of space, which will in all likelihood take us decades to traverse, the end result being that we'll either be dead or wishing we were by the time the ship gets back to the Federation."

Mike put down his book. "That's a bit beyond bad, I think."

"It could be worse."

"Yeah?"

Jen picked up her book and stared at page 32. "It just could."

There was an awkward silence.

Mike felt the obscure urge to say something, but all the words were more like friendly gestures and he didn't think Guillis would respond well to either at the moment. Particularly since Tolsen wanted to dig himself a small hole in the Security wardroom and stay hidden until Earth was back in view--which would no doubt hamper communications some.

Mike felt something brush the side of his face. "Don't worry," Jen said quietly, "it's just the wall Thing. Just ping its nose and it'll go away."

Tolsen reached one hand up without looking and searched around the warm metal for the Thing's head. He found it--felt something soft flick his fingertip. It seemed that Rossotti had given it eyelashes.

A moment later and he found the cool plastic that was supposed to be its nose.

It was still sulkily unwinding itself from his neck when the quarters disappeared and he dropped four feet onto a hard country summer.

A place too bright for comfort

In 2D animated vids, the antagonist and all his various accessories are vaporized by the rabbit, leaving nothing but a burned patch on the ground and, incongruously enough, a pair of shoes. Or a hat.

It was for the same reason that Tolsen, Guillis, and Rossotti appeared on the green countryside with no books, no hydrospanners, nor anything else that had been upon their persons besides clothing.

Except the wall Thing.

"Hot damn," said Rossotti, coming over to the bruised triad on the ground. "Let's see if any other Things came along for the ride."

Guillis tried to lever herself up. "I don't hear any humming."

"And I don't see any lurking," said Tolsen. He rubbed his head and stood. The wall Thing disagreed, and pulled him down again.

"Come here, darling," Rossotti said. She stroked the Thing's nose, calming it somewhat. To Tolsen, "It's a month old. You're familiar. Wanna pretend you're a wall for awhile?"

"If I said no, Rossotti, would you listen?"

Rossotti unwound the Thing from Tolsen's leg and began draping it on herself. "'Course. Jen'd kill me if I didn't."

"Ros--"

"This is an adventure, my loves. Let's explore." The wall Thing curled around her waist and over her shoulder, Rossotti headed toward the farmhouse in the distance. Milling groups of colored uniforms surrounded it.

Tolsen stood again and helped Guillis up. "Am I the only one wondering where the hell we are?"

"Well, Mike, we could be on Earth."

"If you believe that then I don't think Rossotti's medical expertise helped at all."

They caught up with Rossotti. "Wasn't me, Tolsen my love. Ever seen my clock Thing?"

"Is that where this band-aid is from?"

"What, you were expecting a laying on of hands?"

Guillis spotted most of Stellar Cartography by the corn fields. "How about I leave you two here while I go do something constructive, like check in with my superior officer? Hensley looks frantic."

Tolsen frowned and looked around. "Right. Thanks for the reminder. I've got to find the acting chief of Security--I think F'lasti was it last shift."

Rossotti tossed something small and bright at him. "Don't forget your pip."

Mike caught it one-handed. "How... ?" At Rossotti's blank smile, he just shook his head, said, "See you two later," and wandered over to a Bolian in yellow by the oak trees. Guillis patted the wall Thing, waved over her shoulder at Rossotti, and then went to join the Cornfield Cartographers, not so much up at bat as wondering what sort of bat they had been handed.

And then there was Rossotti.

"Hello?" she said.

There was no one listening. Aside from the wall Thing.

It was not, however, much of a conversationalist.

The chief of Engineering was dead. Ros felt sorry about this in an oblique kind of way--she hadn't really known him, he hadn't really known her, and his death was startling, but not cause for a desperate depression. It was just death.

But she didn't know who was next in command--her hair Thing could have clued her in; it was still onboard, though, presumably communing with the ship Things.

Rossotti scratched the wall Thing behind its ears. It hummed a children's hopscotch tune.

She had to find the engineers. She had to find out who was next in command. She had to take orders and become one with the efficient machine known as the Starfleet crew, of which she was a small--but important--cog.

"Damn," she said, trudging toward a likely group of yellow uniforms. "And I thought space would be fun."

Deck nine, section three
Starship Voyager

A small, pointed face curved around a bend, inspecting the area before it. The Jefferies tube looked inconspicuous enough, but who knew what hidden dangers might await.

The hair Thing, being in full working order, trotted out to find some of that danger.

What "working" meant, in practical terms, was that the Thing in question could move, learn, articulate, and put into action the RP. The 'Rossotti Program' was not so much a stack of code or an interesting piece of hardware--it was the cumulative effects of Rossotti's training and teaching, condensed down into tiny, single-line definitions deep within the code of what, exactly, a Thing was or was supposed to be.

The first line was always: "Live." (Or, somewhat more likely considering Rossotti's unique version of appropriate programming language, "Live, dammit!")

Around the middle or so: "If life is as eventless as death, then there is no difference."

The last line was always: "To live, there must be emotion, adventure, and the knowledge that with neither, there is nothing but the machine."

Of course, Rossotti never said it like that. Her precise words were usually something like: "Look, toots, if life was all sugar, then how'd we know whether it was shit-flavored or not? 'Course, you're a Thing, so you've got the extra problem of determining whether you can tell the difference between sugar and shit. Don't worry, you'll figure it out eventually--while you think, show me the touch-pattern for checking planetary readings."

But deep down, the words were translated, and so always, always, Rossotti's Things worked. It's because they were, essentially, Rossotti.

The hair Thing didn't think about it. Instead, it jacked itself into a random tube console and checked the status of the warpcore.

All was clear.

The hair Thing purred Handel. It rearranged its claws slightly, and jacked its tail into a different terminal.

It was then that the Thing could hear the ship's Things screams.

Where the Engineers have met

Rossotti was doing her duty to country and captain, or at least the best she could do. She tapped disheartedly at her tricorder, trying to get it to disgorge useful information. She'd reprogrammed it years ago to fit her needs; instead of things like atmospheric readings and weapon scans, it analyzed data related strictly to the Things. It was all she'd ever needed it for... before.

She sighed and tried finding out whether any of the flowers nearby were showing signs of developing electrical paths in their matrixes as a precursor to bio-neural circuit-activated brain activity.

Lalyn Rys, from the engineering console three over from Ros's, looked up from her tricorder and stared around. "It's a holoprogram. It's all a holoprogram, but it's not using any technology I can hack into." From the awe and despair that accompanied the last part of the revelation, it seemed that Rys found the latter the most disturbing.

The temporary Chief, Carrey, tapped something--several somethings--into his tricorder, and frowned. "You're right, it won't crack. I'll have to tell the captain." He closed his 'corder and began dividing them into groups of four. "I think this environment requires search pattern theta. See if you can find where this program's seams are, anywhere we can gain control. Scan the main areas first, and make sure to look for transporter residuals--if there's anybody still on Voyager, they may need whatever frequencies we find."

He finished assigning the engineers into their groups and went to brief the rest of the command structure of the situation. The only people left where they started were Lalyn, Jems, Resnick, and Rossotti. Their mission was to hold the search "position", the point of reference for the spiraling theta pattern.

"Prophets out the airlock with half a can of air... " Lalyn was muttering under her breath, trying to type commands into her tricorder using both hands and her nose. Jems and Resnick were no better, though Ros didn't quite know what language Jems was swearing in. They all, however, looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.

They were doing their job. Well, she should do hers.

Rossotti carefully pulled the wall Thing's head forward, and directed its attention to her tricorder. She pointed to the main display, and said quietly, "This is your standard device for analyzing surrounding data. Now, I want you to stick your tail forward--ah, there's a sweetie--and just play around here, see what you can do, okay? That's good, look, you found your own thermal readings... "

The illusory farmhouse

Carrey reported, Janeway listened. The temp Engineering chief went off to discuss the situation with Cartography's chief; Paris and the green ensign, Kim, came over, apprised her of what they'd gathered from the section chiefs they'd run into (all but engineering and stellar cartography, it seemed), and they too left to seek more information. Then it was just Kathryn Janeway, a couple of security guards, and the surrounding holoprogram.

Janeway regarded the simulation around her, trying to ignore the large plate of cornbread being shoved beneath her nose by one of the jovial holo-people. The food wasn't real, but pretended otherwise remarkably well--the smell, the steam rising gently, the crumbly yellow just like her aunt's... But discovering a perfect batch of cornbread in the middle of the Delta Quadrant was highly unlikely--the consistency alone was bound to be off.

She stepped away from the grinning hologram and its filled plate, instead sitting down on the porch steps beside the banjo player.

Everything that wasn't made in nature had to have been created. This was a simulation--the person who ran it must be nearby, controlling. She just had to find them.

The hologram beside her was a competent player. She tried to tune the music out anyway.

If I was interested in confusing hapless captains... I'd be doing a fine impersonation Ensign Rossotti.

Or at least, her hair Thing.

Second chrysanthemum patch on the right

"Janeway to Rossotti. Report to the porch."

Her fellow engineers stared. Rossotti cleared her throat and tapped her commbadge. "Ah, porch, Captain?"

"A set of steps, Ensign, leading to a doorway."

"Thank you, Captain. Which porch? There are--" She tapped the link closed. "Somebody tell me how many damn porches there are."

Jems looked up from his tricorder. "Three?"

"Good enough." She tapped her badge again. "--three of them, Captain. Which one?"

"Whichever one I'm at, Ensign."

"Aye, Captain. Rossotti out."

The seventh set of steps

"Oh my darling, oh my darling, oh my darling --listen, miss, you have to sing from the gut, like you can feel the man's pain--"

Rossotti could see the captain now. She could also see her life, flashing like a bright purple blob in front of her eyes. Her childhood, her academic career...

Good God, she thought, when did I ever own a set of manacles?

"Rossotti, when I say report... "

"Sorry, Captain. Technical difficulties."

"What kind?"

"The wall Thing fell off. Twice."

The banjo player was warbling an unidentifiable verse of My Darling Clementine. Rossotti suspected he was making it up as he went along.

"Ensign, what's that around your shoulders?"

"My wall Thing, Captain. It's related to the hair Thing and, well, Voyager."

"The 'wall' Thing... ?"

"It can climb and remain stationary in places most other objects can't. So far, it tends to live on the bedroom wall and dangle from the bathroom's ceiling. If you want I can show you the mechanism that allows that, took me forever to figure out--"

"Later, Ensign." Janeway took one last look at the Thing, then addressed Ros directly. "Tell me, Miss Rossotti, if you wanted to hide the control panel of a vast holographic simulation, where would you put it?"

"I wouldn't put it anywhere."

"Oh?"

"I'd tell my Things to put it somewhere."

"Ah. I see." The captain glanced at the wall Thing. "I don't suppose you could tell me where your Things would put it?"

"Of course, Captain. They'd put it where I would be most amused by finding it." Rossotti looked around. "I know thirty-seven jokes involving strategically-placed piles of hay. They'd probably put part of the panel somewhere in the barn."

Janeway nodded. "Janeway to Pa--"

"But."

Janeway's hand hovered above the commbadge.

"In theory," Rossotti said, picking the words slowly, "the Things know what I know, and I know what the Things know. And if I know that the barn is the obvious place, then they know that I know, and they'd do something completely different, but I'd know that too, and they'd know that I knew their knowing of my knowledge, so therefore... " She unwound the wall Thing and whispered in its plastic ear, "Go fetch."

She let go.

The wall Thing dropped and rolled with the fall, landing what was presumably upright at the porch's base. It swung it's head from side to side, humming a flat note while it thought, and then in a flash of improvised techno roped itself up the nearest porch column, swung out into space... and landed fully on top of the banjo player.

"What's this all about?" The hologram was sputtering beneath the layers of painted metal. He tried to pull the wall Thing off--the Thing started humming Hail the Conquering Hero, something the bed Thing must have taught it when Rossotti wasn't looking.

Janeway started to speak, but Rossotti beat her to it. "Hello, sir," she said brightly, "my Thing seems to think you have control of this simulation. Could you explain why it would think so?"

The man opened his mouth to answer--but then he twitched to the side. "No," he muttered. He faced them again. "No, get your men away from it."

Janeway stepped past Ros. "Away from what?"

The man stared at her. He blinked, and Rossotti's Thing slipped to the floor. After a moment the floorboards beneath it rippled, and it sank out of sight.

Something went *tink* in Rossotti's head.

"You goddamn mother-fucking bastard!"

"Stand easy, Ensign!"

The captain held Rosalyn's arm with one hand. "Stand easy," she said again, and this time it wasn't just the captain's grip that held Rossotti back. Janeway walked past her and up to the man. "Tell me what's happening."

The banjo slipped from his fingers. "No," he said, "you're too soon. I'm not ready for you yet."

The female hologram stepped forward, her plate of food replaced with a pitchfork. "Since you don't want any corn, we'll just have to get on with the next part."

The simulation phased out, and what was beneath the Iowa farm land was a corridor, and a doorway. Everything glowed.

It's the fucking light at the end of the tunnel, Rossotti thought. Except I don't think it's just the lighting.

Oxygen deprivation can cause both unconsciousness and what seems to be a near-death experience--often both at once. Rossotti now learned this firsthand as the world turned black.

Within the glowing chamber

Oh dear, Rossotti thought. I'm naked.

And there's an eight-inch needle bearing down on my chest.

Shit.

She watched as the needle plunged, but she didn't scream. She couldn't feel it. All she could feel was a cold tapping against her forehead.

And all she could hear was a lowly hummed My Darling Clementine.

END