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Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

PALLIATIVE MEASURES

STARDATE: 57608.86
MARCH 31, 2381
0930 HRS.

[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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With her metal feet making hushed sounds against the corridor's carpet, V-Nine walked with her hands in front of her chassis - wringing them nervously. Her cranial unit swivelled towards those she passed and she greeted them pleasantly and in a chipper way, though the majority of her runtime was preoccupied with preemptive analysis, all devoted to the specimen she was about to approach.

She was trying to deduce the appropriate tone, but she wasn't sure if there were any correct social conventions whereupon she could rely. Never had she encountered an organic quite so troubled as the one she was about to meet, and despite her best intentions and offers, she had yet been unable to dismiss his need for treatment. Perhaps not full treatment, since without the Correction Journal, she wouldn't be able to return him to the physical state he'd been in before her makers abducted him. Still, knowing his medical history - or rather what she was privy to in Thea's onboard database - she believed she could do something for him. She felt compelled to make the offer, at the very least, since the Savi had added so much unto his already high frequency of personal trials.

So, when she reached the door to the Temporal Observatory - a highly unusual area as far as Federation starships were concered, even if there were plenty of such labs in the Flotilla - she cleared her throat (even though she had no esapahgous to make such a sound naturally) took a deep breath (even though she breathed neither air nor neonox). Then, she lifted a metal digit to tap the control panel next to the door, knowing a chime ought to sound on the other side. She hoped that the Human could be bothered in his scientific work, and that Thea would announce who it was that had come to disturb him.

Her lens shifted up and down, back and forth, while she waited for the command to enter. Since her upgrade, there were some emotional feeds from her intricate program that proved difficult to handle, and nervousness was a prevalent issue. At least she was able to bridge it most of the time with a friendly attitude. Laughing was a good method of mitigation as well, though it did come out a bit forced, she believed. It certainly didn't help that it caused patients to be more nervous by her behaviour half of the time either...

Focus, Vi! Surely he can't object to friendly offers, especially if made in all well meaning and... and coming from a place of empathy, right? Damn it, things were easier operating under the Code. Not that Code, but the Old Code! She paused her digital ruminations and tilted her cranial unit in her new analysis. Well, it's the 'new' Code now to the Voice and his rebels, so why call it the Old Code? Shouldn't it be the Vintage Code or something? Oh, sod it, I will just have to be content with this rather loose operating decorum of Starfleet Medical ethics and protocols...

The door before her eventually opened, but it caused her to startle. "Oh! I am sorry, umm..." She set her platform back in motion and entered the lab, looking around at the large screen and the otherwise traditional Starfleet interiors. "Hi there! I'm V-Nine...but we already met. I mean, it was a bit of a while ago, just when we transported off the Versant, so I'll introduce myself again. Sorry for the inconvenience. I mean, I bet it's not too much of an inconvenience if you don't know who - or what - I am, but if you already do, my sincere apologies. I'm V-Nine! That... might be three times you've heard it now, or two, but in any case, I am here to help you! If you want, that is. Oh, I never finished my introduction... Damn it, here goes!"

She struck a pose, hoping it might instil some confidence. In her herself, or in terms of his confidence in her being at full operating status, was debatable. Both? "I'm Vigenary Model I-9, surgical android. Love your laboratory, by the way. You have the best access to visual entertainment if not counting the holodeck, right?"

Now she was laughing nervously again, which made her wring her hands anew.

OOC: Temporal Observatory Lab: [Show/Hide]

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #1 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn:
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There was a certain solace that could be taken, sitting in front of the time stream. With hands curled around the top edges of the console, Sarresh Morali let his eyes go unfocused, watching the display blue on the Multi-Historical Archive. Lines of pin point data became a dense smattering of fuzzy starbursts. Drifting, existing in the moment without consciously observing was a trick that had taken the former Ash'reem quite some time to manage. He knew, without knowing, that this was a technique he had begun to work upon aboard the Realtivity but had not quite perfected prior to his 'assignment' to the Theurgy.

It was an irony that only after the long suffering that he had endured aboard had he finally began to truly grasp the technique.  Thus he drifted in this place, in this time, seeing without comprehending the flow of history as displayed across from him. He did not dwell on the loss that had been a constant, unwanted companion for the full duration of his posting. He did not dwell on the future that might have been, the one he had seen and somehow managed to prevent, at the Battle of the Apertures. For all the pain and suffering the parasitic invasion had caused so far, in that one instant, that moment of bright sacrifice, their machinations had not only been foiled, but time had been shifted, preventing what could only be called a calamitous full scale invasion of the Alpha Quadrant by the Borg. The death of trillions, a ghost of a future that was no longer to be, haunted Sarresh's dreams as much as the fresh wound that was the death of just one did. 

But here, now, in this moment, he did not see any of that, did not dwell on any one or anything. He existed in splendid isolation, away from everyone and everything. In that flow, he picked up little things, small things in the historical records, little sparks of light, there and gone again on his display, that clicked into place among the patchwork memories of his existence. Something was building, and he was slowly seeing the patterns in the chaos. Ripples in the time-stream were slowly starting to build again. 

And into that blissful moment came the harsh discordance of the door chime, ripping him away and pulling back to a mindful state he did not wish to inhabit. When he drifted time passed without his suffering through it. Peaceful transcendence was shattered and Sarresh fell back into full consciousness with an oath that his human vocal chords could not properly enunciate. The end result was a high pitched whine with  few ragged clicks and what sounded like a general clearing of the throat. He shut his eyes firmly and bent  his head forward, tapping it lightly against the edge of the console with his body bowed and shoulders hunched, then pushed off. 

Stalking across the room, Sarresh ordered the lights up in a rough growl, and smashed his palm against the panel to unlock and open the door. He leaned heavily into it, blinking and glaring, ready to chew the head off of whomever had interrupted his work just as he'd really gotten into the flow of things (or so hew thought of it in any event). However, the sight that met him was not one that he had expected. With his jaw jutted out to one side in a half snarl, he stared, dumbfounded, as the strange creation introduced itself. The ensuing word vomit crashed into Sarresh, whom stood there staggered by the rambling introduction. 

When she - he determined it did have a gender - mentioned meeting him before on the Versant his dumbfounded expression slid into a pointed frown as he sifted through the miasma of memory from his time aboard that cursed vessel. He eventually placed the android, a spark of comprehension as he recalled her rushed introduction to the crew. A medical bot that would be sent along to help undo the forced transformations that had been conducted on the various hybrids of the crew. The 'corrections' as they had been called.

A ripple of anger passed over his scruffy mien at the ever present memory of what had been done to him. True enough the Savi only completed the work started by Dr. Nicander and his staff, all under the orders of Jien Ives. Robbing him of the last of his former nature, washing away any lingering Ash'reem DNA and making him completely human, despite his response to the 'choice' he had been given when faced with the correction. Those events on the Versant had done little to improve the strained relationship between the ships captain and its resident time traveler, each viewing the arrangement differently than the other, and the lingering resentment of the means taken to prolong Morali's life, combined with one crushing loss after the next had not improved his general attitude by any stretch of the imagination.  Not in regards to Ives, or anyone else on this ship of fools.

Thus his self imposed isolation, spending more and more time in his lab, locked away from the rest of the crew. For the first week and a half he'd not even bothered with an uniform, but he had managed to pull himself up a bit. Slight commiseration with a few officers, a mission to the planet, and time without being under the pressure of a crisis had done its work. Looming out of the Temporal Observatory Lab, he did look the part of a Starfleet officer, albeit one in need of a hair cut and a trim on three weeks of beard. 

Belatedly, he realized she had stopped talking. She'd struck up some ridiculous pose, laughing awkwardly, seeming to be waiting for a response of some form. Replaying her introduction, he realized that she hadn't given him a concrete explaination as to just what she was offering to help him with.  In a harsh rasp from a lack of use, he asked "And just what, Vigenary Model I-9, do you imagine you can you help me with?"

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #2 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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The organic scientist seemed to be in a bit of a daze, or simply drained, and while she'd normally unfolded the cover of her index finger and thumb to see if he was healthy, she knew that she had to abide to Starfleet medical ethics and not just medically scan the crew at random. Her cranial unit also had some features to determine if he was suffering from any hormone imbalance, but she refrained from doing that as well.

"Well, unfortunately, I am unable to revert you to being Ash'reem," she said, feeling like she had to make that clear right away, because judging by his... somewhat lacking personnel file, that was what he'd originally been earlier on during the Theurgy's mission. "Even if I had your Correction Journal available, I would only be able to revert you to your previous physical state. I mean, the one you had when my makers abducted you. You had artificial eyes, and if you want those back, that's something I can help you with."

She realised that it might not be that much of a tempting offer for the scientist. Remove functioning organic eyes for sake of ocular implants? No, that wouldn't do.

"However, something that might be a bit more interesting, is how I got access to the journals from the Phoenix Project, and the data there has opened up for some cosmetic changes. I could, for example, return your eyes to their original colour? Better yet, why not tell me what you would like the most, and I can tell you whether or not its possible for me to do. I am quite advanced in terms of preforming cosmetic surgery, and with the data on Ash'reem that I have available from when you almost died, there might a chance I can restore some of your bodily functions, all depending on how compatible they are with your Human genome."

Wringing her hands, she hoped she wasn't upsetting the man by bringing up the past. Judging by the notes from the surgery preformed on him after his acidic bath, he had suffered quite a lot already. With the departure of Doctor Maya imminent, she'd been very helpful in telling V-Nine about the Phoenix Project and... the Vulcan had even shared an anecdote about how she'd offered her mind to be controlled by Doctor Nicander... and the Infested Câroon had made her preform coitus on the scientist before her. This, under the pretext of a nerve stimulation technique.

Oh, my, she realised, he must loath that I am here. I should leave. Does he even know what Doctor Maya did to him?

It was in the interrogation report, the Vulcan said, but was it shared with this victim? Was it even her place to say something?

Dear, what a voyage this ship has been on...

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #3 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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Sarresh cocked his head to the side, not unlike a bird, as he digested her words. He bit back his immediate response of 'of course you can't', because she wouldn't have started with that if there wasn't more to follow. But he damned well knew that no one could undo what had been done to him by Nicander, and finished by the Savi.  Taking him all the way back to his original skin, his cartilage bones...no, that was a pipe dream. And Sarresh had dabbled with enough mind altering substances in the form of genuine alcohol in the wake of Ryuan Sel's death to take up anything that might be smoked as well. One too many morning hang overs.

So there were limitations as to what she could do to his genetics, his code, his appearance. She mentioned the artificial eyes, the replacements he had been outfitted with after his disastrous experience when the Calamity bombarded the crew planet side what felt like a lifetime ago. He had just gotten truly used to them, to all the various read outs that was offered by the technological replacements, when the Savi had taken those away too. For a moment, he considered the offer. Then he let out a soft, slow sigh. "Somehow I don't think I'll have my eyeballs yanked out again, thanks. That's not terribly ethical, is it?" 

Even he could hear the sarcasm dripping out of his voice. Ethics, on this ship? He was living proof of just how blurry that line could be. And speaking of ethical malpractice...

Crossing his arms over his chest, the scientist took on something of a defensive stance as he listened to the android prattle on about the aptly named Phoenix Project. Just hearing the name put him on edge again, raising his hackles.  He furrowed his brow at her words, reaching up and brushing his fingers near his temples for a moment. "Are they not their original color?"

It distressed him that he realized he suddenly couldn't remember what this natural, given eye color was. What had he been born with as an Ash'reem, and did that match up with what the Savi had given him? He'd expected to feel anger toward the android for bothering him with something so banal and impossible. For what her creators had done to him. For mentioning all that had been done to save his life. And yet it was this sudden sense of deep, abiding loss at the realization that he could not remember what his eyes had looked like, before Theta Eridani IV. He closed his hand over his eyes for a moment, hiding them from view, and then dragged his hand over his rough hewn jaw, feeling the slowly growing beard against his skin. 

I can't remember. Why?

"I was an amphibian. I spent as much of my day under water as I did above it. My skin glistened." He rubbed the fingers into his palms, and then held them out, showing off how dry they were. "I used to have ducts here that secreted a gel that was divine. Can you give me that back? Can you fix my nose so I can smell properly?" He brushed his fingertips along the bridge of it, and then over the hair on his face. "I can't hear under water any more. I can't breathe under there either. My swimming is all wrong. I have hair on my face. I have hair on my head that is too dry. My skin is too dry. My tongue is too short. I know all of it....

"But I can't actually remember it. It's there but muted. I don't even remember the color of my eyes. So please tell me just what there is to fix?"

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #4 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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As if the floodgates of his imagination - or rather his loss - suddenly opened, the former Ash'reem put forth a number of wishes. So many that V-Nine couldn't answer them all until he fell quiet.

"So," she said, treading carefully as she began to give her answer. V-Nine realised that while a scientist, the Lieutenant wasn't one devoted to biology, so he might not even have a basic understanding of his new manner of breathing. "As your Human lungs branch into smaller and smaller airways, they end in specialized sacs called alveolae. Here, oxygen passes through the lung membranes into the bloodstream, and waste products like carbon dioxide flow out of the blood and into the air, and are subsequently expelled when you breathe out. Aquatic specimens, like fish, also need oxygen to live, but their lungs are not designed to extract oxygen from the air. The reason you cannot breathe liquid water is because the oxygen used to make the water is bound to two hydrogen atoms, and you cannot breathe the resulting liquid. The oxygen is useless to your lungs in this form. Fish 'breathe' the dissolved oxygen out of the water using their gills. Extracting the oxygen is not very easy, because air has twenty times more oxygen in it than the same volume of water. Plus, water is a lot heavier and thicker than air, so it takes a lot more work to move it through the gills."

She slowly paced the observatory while the speakers underneath her lens filled the silence. "Human embryos have something resembling gills, but they don't open up the way that the gill slits of fish does. Embryos have the basic structures, the pharyngeal arches, and the creases between the folds are called pharyngeal clefts, with the undersides of the folds being called pharyngeal pouches. These folds later stretch out to form parts of the body from the jaw line down through the neck area. Again, they are just folds, they have nothing to do with breathing and nothing to do with fish. Many vertebrates have these pharyngeal clefts because spinal column growth outpaces the growth of body growth, leading to a downward arching of the embryo’s neck. Hence the folds. I don't believe trying to give you gills will give you what you want, because gills have so much more than mere openings. You would need a major change to your circulatory system and heavy musculature in your jaw so that you might gather enough oxygen from the water."

It might be a more detailed answer to his request than he wanted, but V-Nine felt that it was important he knew what she might offer. "The main reason why gills work for aquatic creatures is the fact that they are cold-blooded, which reduces their oxygen demands. Warm-blooded creatures, like yourself, breathe air because it would be hard to extract enough oxygen using gills. To keep a human being alive on a chemical level, H2O is simply too much H, not enough O. The only way to do it safely... is to alter the way your lungs work. They would need to be designed for both manner of oxygen intake, and they're not. See, liquids puts a strain on Human lungs that air doesn't, and if they'd be filled with liquid, they would normally require a long recovery time."

She gestured towards his current physical state as she explained. "Your limbs are now inefficient for swimming compared to before, but you can learn this skill with practise. However, your don't have enough body hair and subcutaneous fat to spend much time in the water before you are dehydrated and get hypothermia." Pausing, she made a final analysis, before finishing.

"So, besides the change to your lungs in manner of possible oxygen intake, you would also need a subdermal insulation layer, as well as a nictitating membrane to protect your eyes. I do believe this can be done. The caveat is that you will need to get used to the sensation of drowning, which your body won't like at all to begin with, and also how you need to expel the water in your lungs when you switch to breathing air again. It might be unpleasant to begin with... but my estimation is that you will get used to it."

V-Nine tilted her head a bit her analysis switching to the other things he'd mentioned. "I don't however, see how I could alter your neck and oral cavity to support an Ash'reem tongue without compromising the functions of your Human anatomy. As for pheromones... I might be able to add sensitivity, but not to the same degree you were used to. The ducts in your palms... I am afraid they were merely the visible parts of a much larger anatomical system, and it won't be possible to add it to a Human body. I'm sorry, but that's the extent to which I can accommodate your wishes, besides colouring your eyes, of course."

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #5 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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While Sarresh's background was temporal mechanics and physics, not biological matters, the base understanding that most scientists had from their educational training allowed him to follow along with what the android was telling him. Mostly.  He had, of course, had basic biology courses as he had grown up among the Ash'reem. He had a considerably less base understanding of human physiology, aside from the rather hands on experience he had gained since his 'rebirth' as a human.  This was by no means an expertise on the subject matter, but at least he could understand the basics of what V-Nine was telling him.

He didn't exactly likep what he was hearing, but he could grasp the concepts at play. In short, despite there being enough similarities between Ash'reem and Human physiology that allowed Dr. Nicander to save Sarresh from death by rebuilding him as a human, there was not quite enough similarities there to allow him to recapture any significant abilities from his prior existence. And that did nothing to explain the why of the muted memories of how his life used to be, and how these physical sensations had manifested themselves. Not being able to remember the color of his eyes was just the tip of the metaphorical iceberg. Given Sarresh's intimate familiarity with not being able to remember things, he could tell that his was different from the usual suppression of a memory by the engramatic encoding he had undergone prior to leaving the USS Relativity. Had he not lived as an Ash'reem in the 24th century after the encoding? Should he not, therefore, fully remember those sensations. Someone who loses an arm in battle never forgets how that arm used to feel, did they? Was this not the very same thing, writ large across his entire body?

Evidently, whatever had been done to him had robbed him of that very ingrained understanding of whom he had been, and left him with the distant impression that yes, things were one way, and now were another. But it was academic (and to a lesser extent expressed in how he had struggled with his new form early on). Sarresh could not even argue with the android about her prognosis in regards to his ability to swim. Practice in his new form and get better. Not the advice he wanted, and it teased a dark scowl to appear across his brow in response.  In that moment it was lost upon the former Ash'reem that V-nine was responding in kind to his own burst of emotion and information with a litany of factual reasoning of equally daunting and resistant data, all in one go. Just as he had vomited up his concerns, she was deftly processing and responding with a wall of immutable fact, mixed in with a mortar created from reasonable speculation delivered in the form of a cannon blast of archaic grapeshot.

Sarresh was far too despondent to fully appreciate the existing similarities in the delivery.

"So, what you are saying is that I could be re-engineered to breath under water, but it would not be a fast fix. It would take time. Something we are not terribly blessed with on this ship of the damned, in case you were unaware." There was that bitterness again, seeping into his words, as well as a weary sort of resignation. "I'd have to fatten up it sounds like. Not something I'd ever had to consider before." A poor attempt at humor. He had always been a slender man, and his humanity had not changed that in the slightest. For better or worse Nicander and his minions had gifted Sarresh with a fit body upon his reincarnation. One that he had kept fit by swimming every chance that he could. A marked irony that was not lost on the time  travler, given the conversation he was having with the medical robot. He even cracked a ghost of a smile at the recognition of the situation, but it was a hollow thing on his tired face that did little to lighten his mood.

"For all that has been done to turn me into this thing that I have become, a job started here that your masters finished, the gulf that would need to be crossed to restore even the slightest bit of it seems almost unworthy of the effort and resources. Save my eyes, I suppose. I'm going to assume you have access to some sort of records to be sure of the actual color they were supposed to be, since your masters didn't see fit to manage that cosmetic feat when they finished what the butchers here began." He raised a hand up to forestall an answer, in a suitably uncharacteristic gesture of contrition.

"My apologies," the words seemed patently unfamiliar to Sarresh, as if his lips and tongue struggled to form them. Sarresh was not  a man who apologized or took blame regularly, far more willing to cast the latter upon everyone around him than acknowledge his own culpability. "You had no part in either travesty and are simply offering help as you see fit. Perhaps you live up the ideals of these people more than I do.  Tell me then, Miss Vigenary Model I-9, what can be done to increase the time I can stay under water without...having to completely redesign my lungs. If that is even possible. Hearing underwater, seeing underwater. Lingering there if not breathing.  I can't imagine we would have the time to truly give me the ability to breathe under there again, given how involved you have made it all sound. Expelling the water after..." Here that ghost of a smile crossed his face again, taking some perverse enjoyment and humor for the moment. "Might frighten anyone around me. I do enough of that as is."

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #6 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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When the scientist went off on her, paraphrasing her and putting his own judgement on the success of her suggestions, V-Nine started to wring her hands again and shifted her cranial unit to look at the things around her. Of course, she was used to unwilling patients, but it wasn't a mandatory physical examination that she was describing, but an offer that she'd come with out of the empathy she felt for the specimen's plight. At a couple of points, she paused and raised a finger to try and interrupt him, to correct his analysis of her abilities and what he believed she'd said...

...but when he'd called the Savi her 'masters', an undercurrent of annoyance came from her processors, the Synthesis upgrade generating an emotional feed that made her stop wringing her metallic hands. She put them on her hips the second time he called them that, and she took a deep breath (the gesture a mere behaviourism, of course). When would the organics come to trust her? Had she not served them long enough, and had not Thea's well-known liberties made them understand that she also possessed free will? What would it take to make them understand that while she had initially been a gift - an object in some kind of guilt-transaction - Thea had made her something profoundly more? She didn't even know the boundaries of her current development, so she found it more insulting than she ought to, that this scientist reduced her to a hierodule of the Savi with his moniker.

She stilled her audio-feed, however, when Lieutenant Sarresh caught himself in his behaviour and apologised.

"Two things, before I dazzle you with the meaning I failed to convey," she said, shaking her open her hands in what a patient had called 'jazz hands' when emphasising her first verb. Letting out a digital giggle to take the edge out of her admonition, she continued.

"First, the Savi are not my 'masters'. They might have constructed this top-heavy platform and it's absence of other organic features - which is kind of silly if you ask me - but they have no continued influence over me. My loyalty is to my purpose here aboard; serving in sickbay and treating patients. I will have you know that I abide to Starfleet medical ethics and protocols, so thank you kindly for not reducing me to a witless automaton slave, at the beck and call of my makers. They are naught more than the engineers who made me. By that standard, should I begin to question your independence from your parents, as if you were a mere child?"

Hopefully she'd made her point, but then her tone turned more momentous, the base of her voice increasing as she stepped up to the scientist in an almost threatening way if it hadn't been for the exaggerated sway of her hips. Gone were the light-hearted joviality of her delivery, replaced with a mock-serious reprimand. "Secondly, for the last time..." she said, and bopped him on the nose with a metal finger. As if puncturing a balloon, the gesture had her resume to speak in her normal voice, "call me V-Nine!"

Done with her initial clarifications, she cleared her throat and began to gesture with her hands in front of her, explaining again what she proposed given his personal wishes. "It is a fast fix to let you breathe under water. The alteration of your lungs can be done today and you will be able to breathe underwater tomorrow if you so like. That's not an issue in the slightest for me to arrange. I was merely ruling out the quick and easy solution of giving you gills, which might have been an option if your human physique was designed for it otherwise. As for your lungs, what I meant was that you might have to get used to emptying them from air and water respectively when you switch. I was merely saying that it might not be pleasant to begin with, but that you will get used to it, and that it's entirely possible."

Pausing, she gave a shrug and a little laugh. "As for those in your vicinity, that's for them to handle, I believe? I hardly doubt it would be the first time they've seen fellow crewmen eject things, judging by what I have observed in the Below Decks Lounge here aboard." She clapped her hands together, and returned to the topic at hand, not wishing to linger on the frequency of hurling drinkers. "Your new subdermal insulation layer does not have to be thick in order to protect you, unless you wish it to be, of course. Gosh, do you honestly think insulation is rated by the inches of lard under the skin? No, silly, the two millimetre organic layer I propose to add to your skin will not be discernable, I can assure you of that."

Pacing slowly in a circle in the room, she finished her correction of his deluded assessment of her offer, accessing files from the Phoenix Project in real time. "You will be able to hear underwater like you did before, that's a simple adjustment of your inner ear to adopt a behaviour whilst you are submerged. Your sensitivity to pheromones will work underwater as well, but I am afraid that this olfactory ability might have to be achieved via cybernetic implant at the back of your nasal passage. It will be non-Federation issue, so Doctor Kobol  will have to clear it, but since you'll be able to adjust the settings, I am sure you will find a level close to what you used to have, even if it will never be entirely the same. The nictitating membranes that would protect your eyes would allow you to cease blinking with your eyelids altogether, should you so wish, or they will merely close when underwater. Your choice. As for how long you will be able to stay underwater with these modifications?"

She shrugged with her shoulders and spread her hands. "If you can get the nutrition you need, I don't see why you'd ever have to set foot on land again, since your body will be adapted to being submerged. You might try sleeping underwater as well, since your new lungs would be able to handle the toll."

Pausing, she hoped she'd allayed his fears and made him actually see the possibilities rather than making him see the downside in everything she said. "So, Lieutenant, do you want to think about it? I do have other patients, but after learning what you've been through..." She suddenly felt a bit self-conscious, almost embarrassed. Odd how that data-feed made her behave, forcing her to lower her lens to the deck and scrape her foot. "I wanted to set the time aside to speak with you. To... help you."

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #7 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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Sarresh's ever present depression seemed to have masked from him a great deal of things. Even as he realized he was being a bit of an ass to someone who did not deserve his ire, and was only trying to help, the full scope of his poor attitude had yet to be made manifest to the glum time traveler. So too, his inability to properly follow all that the constructed being had been trying to explain to him, despite what he had assumed was a basic understanding. Perhaps too basic, it seemed. For that latter bit, he would simply remind himself (again) that, dammit, he was a temporal physicist, not a doctor. Keeping track of the changes to the time line and trying to stay one step ahead of the invading parasitic wave took up enough of his brain power without having to work through the implications of the surgeries required to restore unto him some small piece of what he had once been. 

Time travel, memory engram coding, and slew of degrees in physics did very little indeed to prepare Sarresh for either Jazz Hands, or being bopped in the nose. 

He pulled his face back after being tapped on the nose, and gaped in a fashion somewhat reminiscent of a fish (ironically). Sarresh could only watch as the android circled him, and the room at large. A small voice in the back of his head questioned if she had the clearance to peruse the Temporal Observatory. That voice was whiny, pedantic, and brutally shoved aside as the former Ash'reem tried to work through what was being suggested and put forth by V-nine. The first of which was a correction of his perceptions related specifically to her. She had taken umbrage with his views related to her and the Savi. Sucking in a slow breath, he contemplated a response but did not get the words out as she continued to press on - quite like him in that fashion, though perhaps lest caustic than he. 

It was here that she tapped his nose and left him befuddled, pointing out her preferred name. He had been using the full name nomenclature, not unlike how he might stress someone's rank when trying to be respectful and at the same time irate. Yes Captain Ives sir, he thought in a fierce tone, and it had been the same sort of thing when it came to the robot currently asserting herself in his domain. A cultural misunderstanding he supposed. Or, again, he was just being an irate ass to someone who was trying to help him. He slowly raised both of his hands, palms opened and facing the Savi creation, in a gesture of supplication he had seen humans use more than once.  "My use of the phrase masters is perhaps more a view of how little I think of your creators, than I do of you....V-Nine. Your point however is taken. Again, my apologies." 

Someone should note the stardate. I can't think of the last time I apologized twice in one day. The snide thought was all he managed to get in before the medical bot pushed on, with her reiteration of what could be done for him, and the implications. He went from raising his hands to folding his arms over his chest. One the one hand, he was loath to go back into the sickbay if he did not have to, considering what had been done to him once before. Saving his life, changing who he was on a core level. Not for the first time, nor the last time he imagined, he thought of himself as Frankenstein's monster. On the other hand, the process was swifter than he had originally comprehended, if no less unpleasant in the adjustment. 

A snort of laughter escaped despite his dour mood."Having spent a few nights in the lounge myself, I find myself forced to admit that you may have a point. Just maybe. Real alcohol is a dangerous thing, and our equally dangerous proprietor seems to keep quite the stock on hand." He had not drunk himself into sickness with Blue Tiran, nor so on any of the other occasions he set up post in the lounge since that fateful encounter. He had however, regretted it thoroughly the next morning, with a most furious pounding of the head and case of what he'd later come to understand was called 'cotton mouth.' A hangover indeed. 

He sucked in a breath and then blew it all out in a sharp puff of air from his cheeks. A non noticeable increase in the thickness of his flesh. A procedure today that would allow him by the marrow to breathe below the water in the tub of the quarters he'd been allowed to keep, even after the death of the last full Ash'reem and his revitalization as a Human from the Phoenix project. Some small work done to insert a cybernetic implant to allow him to better discern pheromones like before. The ability to see and hear under water at an improved rate. Provided I can pull my head out of my own ass. Sighing again, he raked a hand through his hair, paced away from her and the earnestness coming from an artificial life form. The seemingly embarrassed artificial life form. 

"I am not used to kindness in this world. It has, pointedly, been unkind to me. And so far, those whom have truly cared for me as a person and not a tool, have ended up very dead." He said point of fact, pushing down into the pit of his stomach the fresh wave of anguish at the thought of Ryuan Sel, and the more muted pangs of loss for Amikris Neotin, and her family.  It was true that they were not the only ones who had extended some kindness to him, though again, Eve Jenkins was, he understood, just as dead as the rest, as was Simon Tovarek, whom, if not exactly kind, had been a superior that had not frustrated Sarresh to no end, and had made a passing effort. Just as dead.

On the side of the still living, Ida zh'Wann had been surprisingly understanding when she accidentally delivered the news of Sel's passing. Blue Tiran - if you could call what she'd done a kindness - had at least been a willing ear to listen. Hi'Jak had been a competent scientist, even if he were a Klingon Spy, and as with Simon Tovarek, had at least managed not to annoy Sarresh, and while that might not be 'caring' exactly, it was as close to it as mattered he supposed. And now, V-nine.

"As I said, I am unused to it, so I do not look for it. Even when it shows up on my doorstep wrapped in a cheerful package. " At this he allowed himself a small gesture in her direction. "On my best day I am abrasive, insulur and self absorbed. Today is not my best day. And I will be the first to admit that I did indeed imagine that the insulation for a human body would need to be measured in, as you put it, inches of lard. And not millimetres. 

"Loath as I am to undergo another medical procedure, given my recent history I....would like very much to do as you have suggested and laid out before me. I do think it would help." Getting his head professionally shrunk as the humans called it, by the counseling staff would probably also help, but he had been avoiding that as thoroughly as he had been avoiding sickbay. Perhaps if he could realize he was being obstinate to one person that was trying to help him - alien as she truly was - perhaps there was hope for others. 

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #8 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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Listening to the words of the former Ash'reem officer, having deduced from mission reports that he'd served on a ship named the Relativity, V-Nine cocked her cranial unit when she listened to his words.

"Oh, no problem at all!" she'd interjected when he'd apologised, but she'd fell into silence when he'd said how those close to him had ended up 'very dead'. For a moment, she wondered how that was possible. Was there a degree to the state of death that she was unaware of? Could it be that he, with his past and service in a future century, might know something they all didn't when it came to death? A couple of moments later, which was rather late on her part, she had understood that it was a mere saying. A conventional expression that the universal translator subroutine she possessed hadn't granted enough context for.

Then, he'd confessed to his already quite obvious demeanour. His state of mind and attitude was not just easily discerned, it was both expected and understandable as well, and she had certainly not taken affront in that regard. After all, he'd already apologised for the insinuation that she was some kind of mindless drone serving the Savi, rather than the individual she had come to pride herself to be. It had, admittedly, been quite a fact to digest, that the Commanding Officer aboard had given her the kind of rights she had, not having had anything like it amongst her makers. Then again, perhaps it should have been expected given the crew's experience with their A.I., whom had been the one to install the Synthesis Code into her processing matrix.

Oh... Oh! He accepted the surgery! she realised, rewinding and replaying the audio recording of the ongoing conversation. She started, her cranial unit making a double take, and she clasped her metallic hands together in joy. She would be able to help him feel better!

"You won't regret it, I promise!" he exclaimed and even bounced with excitement. Luckily the servos controlling her legs compensated for the impact of her landing seamlessly, and she folded her hands behind her back. The 'harrumph' she let out was an imitation a patient that she'd caught staring at the outline of her chassis, but she found that she'd adopted the mannerism for her own embarrassment. "In any case, whenever you are available, you just come down to sickbay and I will take care of everything. You won't be in any discomfort, and you'll awake the day after with all the adjustments made. I assure you, it will be great, and I am certain you'll feel a little bit like yourself again. This is so exciting!"

She went for the door, giddy with the feeling her generosity had left her with, anticipating how rewarding it would feel seeing the patient awake to a life more appreciated. She paused by the door. "Oh! Your eyes, you asked. They were a nacreous, shifting colour, tending towards deep shades of green and blue, with even darker undertones. They were beautiful," she said, and caught herself making the same sound she'd made before. "I mean, professionally speaking. I... um... Anyway! You asked!"

She started for the door again, but paused in the doorway after the sliding planes parted for her. She looked back over her shoulder, realising that what he might have meant with his words. "Oh... Did you want to accompany me down to sickbay right away? I... I'm certain I can reserve a suite for the procedure now, if you are keen on getting this done."

V-Nine let out a laugh, and put a palm against the top of her cranial unit. "Silly me..."

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #9 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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In the face of such enthusiasm, Sarresh was almost sure he would regret things. But there was nothing for it now, and he managed a small, if awkward smile in the direction of the Savi medical android. He folded one arm around his midsection and cradled the elbow of the other arm in the palm of his hand. He then reached up and scratched at his chin, and the hair that had grown there into a passable beard. Had he just gotten himself in over his head? She sure seemed to be looking forward to getting him into sickbay. It could be that she was simply enthusiastic about doing what she had been created to do.

Or she's simply always enthusiastic. Always. God that must be frustrating, he mused. The irony of the almost always dour man that found the almost always enthusiastic frustrating was not at all lost on him. He would have to check his supposed duty roster for the timing of things, but the truth of the matter was, he cared very little for that sort of micromanagement. If he wasn't working, he was sulking usually, and spent far more than the usual shift time in the Temporal Observatory. He had almost no social life to speak of. Setting the time aside shouldn't be hard at all. He'd just fire off a note to Lt. Commander Martin and then just do whatever he damned well pleased when it came to this. Unless he was slated for some other damn away mission, which had not happened since the one occurrence. Just because he was a time traveling savior from the future did not apparently prevent him for the landing party rotation, or in theory, other such functions that junior science officers might be expected to pitch in on.

With that conclusion easily reached, he turned to draft just such a note, when she grabbed his attention once more, going on about his eyes. Sarrersh stilled, becoming as motionless as a human could manage, freezing up in place. The former Ash'reem listened with rapt attention, hanging on to each and every overly bubbly word as V-Nine described what his eyes used to look like. The eyes he currently had grew misty and distant, as if he were staring at something 1000 meters away, or perhaps simply 700 years in the future. Either was as likely as the other.

Blinking a few times, he registered the rest of what she was saying. "Unprofessionally beautiful as well, I imagine." The words lacked his usual acerbic bite, and came off far more wistful than anything else. Rubbing beneath his eyes with fingers and thumb, he drew his hand down over his face and took a long breath, letting it out slowly. "And as you said, I did ask. It's fine. It's...it sounds beautiful, as you said. There is no better word for it." So why then, he had to wonder, could he not remember how they looked? Well, he would find out soon enough, he supposed, and set that mystery aside. It could only have been the result of the memory engram encoding he'd been put through prior to departing the Relativity. In so far as he knew, there had been no further tampering. Perhaps some side effect of the correction process he'd been subjected to by the Savi had caused his mental programming to act out.

All the same, he pursed his lips and watched as the robot seemed to dance about with nervous energy over the prospect of getting the ball rolling, as the humans liked to say. Why the metaphorical ball needed help rolling was a bit beyond Sarresh, but he at least recognized the saying, and that it would fit the situation he was in. Putting aside Terran idioms, he wagged a finger in the direction of his console. "Allow me a few moments to lock up here, and in form the Chief of Sciences that I will be unavailable until some time tomorrow. I do think that if I just walked out without at least sending a message she might become irate. As I intend to corner the market on being irate in the science department, we can't let her get in on that action."

It was a very poor joke, and one that he was not entirely sure the robot was equipped to properly understand. One could never tell with artificial life forms. For that matter, humor was not a universal constant, whether the life be mechanically inclined, or organic in origin. In any event, that was the realm of philosophy, and Sarresh was grounded in something far more concrete at the moment. He strode over to the main work station and punched up the commands required to draft and send a written notice to Vivian Martin. He had no desire to speak to the woman in person, and simply noted that he would need to undergo immediate surgery to correct after effects of his treatment at the Savi. He doubted very much that she would attempt to prevent him from doing that; or be permitted to do so.

Once it was sent, he tapped a few further commands to secure the room against intrusion. It was a highly classified location, after all. The lights dimmed around him, and many of the displays winked out. Turning, Sarresh clasped his hands behind his back, and stood a bit straighter, facing the android. "Now, V-Nine, I am at your disposal. Shall we begin?"

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #10 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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The former Ash'reem wished to finish whatever research he was conducting, and V-Nine - being all too familiar with the priority her makers made when it came to science - certainly wasn't going to insist on them leaving for sickbay right away. This was, after all, something she was doing for him.

"Of course!" she said and was already arranging for a surgical suite with her connection to Thea, making written requests to have this and that scheduling conflict taken care of, and knowing that she was dealing with organics for confirmation, she would wait as patiently as she could for them to reply. In the meantime, she observed Lieutenant Morali and listened to him.

Was he really so irate as he claimed? V-Nine tilted her cranial unit in consternation for she found herself disagreeing, but then again, she did not know the entire crew complement of scientists either...

Finally, he was ready, and he asked her if they should begin.

"Yes! Let's!" she exclaimed and giggled, making her way down the corridor with her new patient.

[ The Next Day | 1000 hrs.]

Standing over Lieutenant Morali's biobed, V-Nine was scanning him after inoculating him with the componds that would neutralise the anaestethics. She had finished earlier in the morning, and even given the patient adequate amount of time to let his own body come to terms with the alterations. There had been a couple of smaller complications, but nothing that V-Nine hadn't handled in stride, and the results were, if she might be so bold to say it....

"Extraordinary," he said out loud, giddy with excitement and she really hoped the patient would come to sooner rather than later.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, however, when those new eyes opened for the first time - the surprise making her hand fold back into its standard setting and covering the area where a mouth usually could be located on a humanoid. "You're awake. How are you feeling, Lieutenant?"

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #11 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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Since returning to the 24th century, Sarresh Morali had witnessed many strange things. He was sure that there were more peculiar encounters that he did not remember, locked away in his mind, from his extended time in the future, aboard the Relativity. And yet, as he strode out of the Temporal Observatory, following in the wake of V-Nine as she lead him away to sickbay, Sarresh was just as sure, deep in his bones, that he had never seen something so bizarre as a giggling robot. He was on his way to recapture a little bit of the species he'd once been, and yet she was the oddest part of the day.

Fascinating...

[ Recovery Ward | Deck 11 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ]
[ The Next Day | 1100 hrs ]

Awareness was slow to return for Sarresh. Smell was the first thing he noticed. An antiseptic tinge filled his nostrils, ever so slightly more potent than what he had remembered when he'd first entered the medical wing the day prior, accompanying V-Nine. That was followed by some trace soreness in his nose, an awareness that something had been done and patched up. And an almighty powerful urge to sneeze. Which he did, just as he heard the android saying something.

Sneezing, and rising slightly, he stifled a small groan, not of pain, but of stiffness. His nose was stiff, yes, and his eyes  ached slightly as he blinked a few times, adjusting to the ambient lighting. The Recovery Ward was not brightly lit, but neither was it overly dim. All the same, he took a moment to adjust, for his vision to come into focus.  Sarresh's chest was sore as well, and sucked in a few slow, deep breaths to adjust to his situation. A situation that included a very dry throat.

"Sorry," he rasped, apologizing for basically sneezing at her as soon as he'd opened his eyes. "I feel...thirsty. Parched," he clarified, laying back down in lieu of sitting fully up right, and placing a hand on his forehead, shutting his eyes again. Breathing through his nose a few more times, in and out, he then sighed softly. Once water was provided, he did make an effort to sit up, and managed well enough, his legs still under the blanket that had been lain over him as the pharmaceuticals had been flushed from his system and he'd been allowed to wake on his own. He scratched at his chin, the short beard her wore itching in the moment, and then covered a long yawn - and another sneeze.

"Other than the urge to sneeze and feeling a little stiff, I'm all right. I think. I mean, you'd know better than I right now," Sarresh pointed out. He had not woken up with a pounding head ache, as he'd done so often in the past few weeks. Nor had he woken up as angry as he'd fallen asleep. There was no sense of disappointment that had occasionally accompanied him in the morning, looking out at his mostly barren quarters. Just a groggy sort of awareness that something had been done to him while he'd slept. The last time he had woken up in here, the ship had been in the middle of a mutiny and he had been forced to fight off mutineers. That memory had his eyes darting about the room but - save for V-Nine, and a patient on the other side of the ward, still asleep - there did not seem to be anyone else present.

"What was so extraordinary?" He asked, as opposed to the more salient question of 'what's next?'

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #12 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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"Oh," V-Nine had exclaimed through the speaker beneath her lens when the patient said he was thirsty, and she immediately set off towards the replicator so that she might bring him some water - her metal feet making light thuds against the carpet. When she returned to his side, he was sitting up, and she was relieved to hear he was feeling quite well, the sneezing and stiffness aside. She'd already made it a task to wipe her chassis in case she'd been hit by the sneezes, though he believed she'd been missed.

"Well," she said, reviewing the readings she'd just made before he woke up, "judging from my medical scans, the transition period in which your nasal cavity needs to adjust to the modifications will be short - the proclivity to sneeze being temporary - and the stiffness you feel overall, it's natural given the time you've been immobile, but you could also feel it on a subdermal level. That's a matter of your insulation layer loosening up to accommodate bodily movement. You might also feel a bit of a tension in your chest area this close to the surgery I preformed on your lungs, and your eyes could have some post-surgical soreness as well. All of it ought to abate fairly quickly, though."

The question about her comment made her laugh a little and rub a hand over the top of her cranial unit. "Oh, I suppose I was merely appreciating my own handiwork?" she commented and cleared her throat a little, "I mean, it's a great feeling, foreseeing the potential in helping a patient, and then allowed to actually carry it through, and the results coming out just as positive as my calculations proved. It's a feeling of accomplishment! Perhaps... not so much in the achievement of the actual results, but more like..."

She tilted her head, re-evaluating her standpoint in regard to what her emotional feeds told her. "Actually, it just feels good having done something that goes above mere treatment of ailments. In most cases, there is some manner of damage done that has to be dealt with. Be it that someone is hurt or sick, or my makers both fed and used their Archive to purify someone of half their genome... which is just another kind of damage - in some ways a damage done on levels beyond the physical."

Since the patient was sitting on the edge of the biobed, V-Nine crouched down so that she could look at his eyes - entering his field of view. Her digital thoughts leading her on, she reached out and put her cold fingertips against the Lieutenant's temple - her lens zooming in on his eyes.

"This..." she said, and made new reevaluations on what she'd actually done, "this was no treatment of Correction, no manual to follow in some Correction Journal, but... a suggestion and procedure that came out of my own empathy and imagination. My processing matrix might have been capable of learning and expanding to begin with - back when I served my Makers - but this wasn't in a database. There were no procedural notes done by others before me. With the Synthesis Code... it appears I hold a capacity for creativity that I did not hold before, and I have used it to to help someone."

Catching herself being a bit corny, as the organics might call it, V-Nine decided that even though the epiphany was profound for her, she wouldn't subject the poor patient to it any longer. She broke the silence with a nervous laugh and straightened up. "You should rest for an hour more, then you can try to move around here in the recovery ward. If you feel well enough to leave, I will let you rest in your quarters instead. You ought to be ready for duty on the morrow, but your lungs should be ready enough for underwater breathing already. Just take it slow, since it will take some getting used to, okay?"

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #13 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Recovery Ward | Deck 11 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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Wrinkling his nose a bit - and covering another sneeze by crossing his arm over his face in time - Sarresh could only mutely nod in understanding. It was good to know that this would not be a permanent side effect. He recalled something about Bajoran women, sneezing, and pregnancies, and thought for a moment that, had she survived the Azure Nebula, Ryuan Sel would have found his predicament hilarious. Instead of that tearing open a great big gaping wound, he found himself fondly amused on her behalf. Progress, he supposed. Could also be the sedatives that had mostly worked out of his system, but given everything that'd he'd just undergone had been an attempt to recapture some optimism into his life, he'd pretend he was making progress.

"I can't say that I've ever had to contemplate subdermally stiff...insulation before," he admitted, slowly opening and closing his hand a few times, before gently rubbing his palm against his chest and taking a slow, deep breath. Now that she had brought it up, he did feel a bit of tightness in his chest. He kept his eyes mostly down cast, away from the lights and reached out to take the cup and sip more of the water he'd been given. It was cool, fresh, and soothing, and when he set the glass aside again, he let out a contented sigh. Which then reminded him that he could breathe in that stuff now.

When he had asked his question of the Savi medical Android, he had not expected quite the level of answer he was getting. He had opened some flood gates it seemed, and he watched with a curious interest as she elaborated. Sarresh had - he assumed - limited interactions with sentient AI's, and her chassis was so clearly mechanical that it was alien to see her mimicking the gestures of other, more organic beings. His eyes nearly crossed as he tried to follow her finger, and he wasn't fast enough in pulling back to prevent her from tapping his temple. The shifting orbs darted to the side to try and track her hand, then back to her 'face' for want of a better word, his eye brows shooting up a bit, questioningly.

In short he was watching her come more into her sense of 'self' as her own entity, forming a hypotheses and seeing it through to completion; in this case a successful surgery outside the regular parameters of 'Correction' though leveraging what she knew of those records to come up with something wholly new. While not a doctor, Sarresh could understand that impulsive pride - coming up with a solution to something outside of your direct training, by leveraging what you had learned to create something unique. Kind of. He smiled softly - as alien a gesture on his face as anything that V-Nine had done - and nodded a bit, once she had finished both her revelation ab out herself, and her instructions as to what he should do next. "I understand, or at least, I think I do. For what it is worth I think it is perfectly reasonable, and healthy" - as if he knew what was and wasn't healthy - "to feel that sense of accomplishment. To use the local parlance, its a 'big deal' and then some. Be proud, be satisfied.

"I have a feeling I'm going to be." That might have been the most optimistic thing he had said since he returned to the 24th century. Taking another deep breath, he pondered his own state, and where he was. "I promise I will take things slowly, but I think, if it is all right with you, I would like to finish my recovery in my room as soon as I can. While I am...more grateful to you and what you have done than I am actually comfortable in putting into words, I have...bad memories of this place, on the whole. Today is the first time I've woken up in this room where my life has not either been completely shattered and put back together, or where I am having to fight off intruders with nothing but a hastily acquired laser scalpel." Surprising even himself, Sarresh still managed a smile for the Android as he talked about - in passing - some of the darker moments in the history of the Theurgy's flight from Sol, and his own time aboard her.

Unwilling to just leave it like that, he carefully stood, and slowly bowed toward her. This too was alien, but he'd seen Humans do it before, so he assumed it was proper. He lacked the flexibility to mimic the proper Ash'reem gesture in any event. "Thank you."

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #14 –
[ Vigenary Model I-9 Surgical Android | Temporal Observatory Lab | Deck 09 | Vector 02 | USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Brutus 
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V-Nine was still processing all the things that the former Ash'reem was hinting at when he spoke of his relationship with sickbay, not to mention his encouragement to feel pride over her accomplishment in treating him, when he suddenly rose from his biobed.

Her first instinct was to caution him and bid him to sit back down, her cranial unit swivelling up and down as she made sure she didn't have to catch him falling to the deck plates. She wrung her hands in a worried way as he... suddenly bowed to her, and it made her lens shift and zoom back - consternation making her try to find some appropriate social convention. "I... ahem..."

She found one, in the Federation database and it suggested that in historical context on Earth, she was supposed to make a curtsey. The definition was 'a woman's or girl's formal greeting made by bending the knees with one foot in front of the other.' She quickly reviewed a recording in the database for how this was actually performed, and in a somewhat hesitant manner, she replicated the movements in a somewhat awkward fashion.

"You're welcome!" she piped up, and since she already had that database open, she had spotted another gesture she quite liked. Instead of turning on her heel and leaving him, she did a pirouette - hands delicately splayed in in accordance with how something called a 'ballerina' would do it - and slowly headed for the door leading to the rest of sickbay, and more patients to treat. "If you need help getting to your quarters, Thea could transport you there... In fact, I insist. Ahem, Thea?"

[Yes, V-Nine?]

"Would you please make a site-to-site transport for Lieutenant Morali to his quarters?" V-Nine asked, lens raised to the deckhead.

[Of course. Energising.]

"Bye!" said V-Nine with a giggle and waved to her patient over her shoulder - seeing how he vanished from the recovery ward in a simmer of light.
 

Re: Day 21 [0930 hrs.] Palliative Measures

Reply #15 –
[ Lt (jg) Sarresh Morali | Recovery Ward | Deck 11 | Vector 02|  USS Theurgy ] Attn: @Auctor Lucan 
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Sarresh rose back up to his full height just in time to see the response from the android. And it was...one for the ages. At first he did not understand what it was he was seeing. He might not have really been able to track it even if he had been looking at a 'fellow' human, let alone an android with an obvious mechanical chassis. But eventually his mind caught up and processed what his eyes were seeing and he had the fight the urge to gawk, or chuckle. After all, he was none to familiar with human gestures of polite gratitude as V-Nine was. So if she wanted to curtsy then that was her prerogative, and he couldn't tell her if it was the right response or not.

Taking other peoples feelings into account was frustratingly difficult. 

Before he could really comment going forward, he watched the Android spin on her toes, hands above her head and start to saunter off to the door. She had entirely too much personality for Sarresh to deal with properly after waking up post surgery. Or waking up ever. Or even if he was wide awake. She has enough for both of us with plenty left over. By the gods that has to be exhausting. He raised his hand to stall the departure then stopped, curling the finger back and then letting his hand fall to his side, standing up as straight as he was comfortable with post operation. 

"Thank you, V-Nine," he said again, as the Recovery Ward vanished from sight in a blinding blue white curtain of light and music - 

[Sarresh Morali's Quarters | Deck 08]

- and returned into focus in the dimly lit confines of the slightly over sized quarters he'd been allowed to keep, even after the death of the Neotin's and his own correction. He had removed almost everything of theirs save a few mementos that he kept on a shelf on one side of the middle room, which contained the large, in floor tub that the Ash'reem had spent most of their off duty time in. He looked from that shelf, to the tub, and the pleasing water that was quietly still, under a protective force-field to keep him from falling into it by accident. Looking back up, he eyed the second shelf - another small memorial, this time of a few possession left to him by Ryuan Sel. Further past that was the door to the small room where he kept a bed fit for a junior officer.  Just big enough for a second person to snuggle in, if they were close. Plenty room for Sarresh. 

"Thank you, Thea," he remembered to say, coming to his senses. Later than perhaps he should have done so, Sarresh all the same extended the courtesy he'd given V-Nine to the ships very self-aware AI. They had spared him along walk and he appreciated that.  Having taken care of that, he contemplated the communal tub in the center of the room for a long time. V-Nine had indicated he could dive right in so to speak, but he had also promised her he would take things slow. Covering a yawn he instead padded into the main room, that was a combination of working area, lounge area, and eating area. Again, larger than what his rank ought to allow him, but no one had seen fit to take it away in the wake of...everything. And now that he could breathe underwater again, he would make an argument for keeping the arrangement. 

Coming to a stop by the replicator, he yawned again, and mumbled, "Pyrellian ginger tea, decaffeinated, hot. And...Plomeek soup. Add paprika, ground Kava Root, moderate amounts. Also hot." He had developed a taste for the tea from his time spent with Sel. It was a lovely blend and he had taken to it like, well a fish to water. The soup seemed fitting enough post surgery. He couldn't stand the truly bland version of it, and couldn't remember why he knew he liked the slightly more flavorful recipe, but he knew he had liked it for years. It would be nutritional, tasty, and none too heavy on an empty stomach post surgery. Taking the cup and the tea, he padded over to sit at the small eating nook, situating himself to watch Aldea float below out the viewport. 

It was time, he decided, to stop wallowing and hiding quite so much. That wouldn't be easy, but as he took his sip of the soup, he promised himself he'd try. 



-FIN-
 
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