Lieutenant (JG) Thea Kairis - By Jove, I Think She's Got It (Part II)
Quinn Reynolds
Something caught zh'Tisav's eye, and she leaned forward. A small cluster of berries, black and shining in the carmine light. In yet another disconcerting discovery, the cluster of fruits appeared to track the Andorian's movement, and Sevo approached to see what had captured her attention.
zh'Tisav: Hey, you see these berries?
Sevo: I wouldn't suggest eating them, if that's what you're asking.
Kairis: What about them?
zh'Tisav: I don't think they're berries. I think they're some sort of eye. Watch.
Thea did. She watched as the Andorian waved her hand in front of a berry cluster, and swallowed when the slim stem supporting them twisted to follow her movements. In the spirit of replicating an experiment to see if the results held true, Sevo did exactly the same thing, found the same results, and then snapped her hand backward as if she expected tracking to turn into grappling.
Sevo: Okay, that is freaky. But it could be some sort of natural reaction, too.
zh'Tisav: Possibly. Actually, I hope it is, because knowing we're surrounded by eyes is a bit much, even for me.
Kairis: I suppose it's a bit like having security feeds on a starship.
She sounded less convinced than she preferred. There was a difference, an uncomfortable separation between living aboard a starship where one accepted the need for security footage in public areas, and being watched by some incomprehensible intelligence with unknown motives, where every plant might be some kind of sensory organ.
Her nose wrinkled at the thought, lips turning down at the corners.
Sevo: Well, it seems like every life form here is part plant, including the animals. Maybe this… plant uses these berry-looking parts to “see” and it just instinctively moves towards nearby things; kind of like how normal plants in our world move their leaves along with the sun.
zh'Tisav: I'll take your word for it, I don't think Andorian plants actually do that...
Kairis: Assuming evolution even exists in this place; wouldn't that mean there's a distinct survival advantage in being able to see and move toward things?
Sevo: ::She shrugged.:: It's just a hypothesis. There's no way to know which it could be. We'd better be cautious, just in case something is watching us.
zh'Tisav: Agreed, because we still need to find the freaking gate among all this.
Kairis: There is that.
zh'Tisav brought her tricorder up, refocusing on the task at hand and not the spider-eyed plants watching their every movement. From the musical chirps of the sensor cycle, it seemed she had limited the scans to passive. From the look on her face, the answers the tricorder fed back were not helpful. Thea checked her own device, and found much the same; while the passive scans didn't antagonise the local flora, they provided little usable data.
zh'Tisav: Hmmm, the EM density changes. ::She moved the tricorder, taking a few steps in one direction, then reversing and going in another.:: There's definitely a pattern, it's stronger in only one direction.
Kairis: The only problem is that the direction they're coming from could change at any moment.
Sevo: Response
zh'Tisav: Well, the plants have a metallic component, just like on the other side. Faraday's Law states that a changing magnetic flux through a conductor induces a negative flux in the conductor, meaning an EM field creates an equal and opposite EM field. I'd theorize that the gate's energy field is inducing a field in the nearby plantlife, and those plants are then inducing fields in plants further out, in a decaying pattern.
Kairis: Oh, that's— ::she nodded.:: That's clever.
Sevo: Response
zh'Tisav: We could follow the density patterns back to the gate. Even the moss we're standing on is a plant, it's like we're standing on a giant EM antenna.
There was, perhaps, the most subtle of tremors in the Andorian's voice. A hint of excitement that they might have made some solid progress, or enthusiasm at the mere thought of such an interesting phenomena. Or both. Thea wondered if the woman's antenna would have told them more, and resisted the urge to attempt a peek through zh'Tisav's faceplate.
Kairis: This could also mean that the landscape changes, but the plants are... like an anchor, maybe? Or a skeleton? Everything changes around them.
It struck her for a second that it meant the dimension was almost the inverse of them. People, with their solid mineral skeleton and much more malleable flesh around it. Here, it was the minerals of rock and earth that shifted around the softer flesh of plants and fungi. The thought made her feel oddly nauseous.
Sevo / zh'Tisav: Response
Kairis: That could be how all the teams lost track of each other. Step off the main fungal corridors running above and below ground, and the land becomes much more malleable, people are easily separated when it shifts.
Sevo / zh'Tisav: Response
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Engineer (Damage Control)
USS Gorkon
simmed by
Commanding Officer
USS Gorkon
T238401QR0