PNPC Ensign Ceylan Graves - Peregrinate I

[Ras El'Heem]

((Deck 15, USS Khitomer))

 

One uniform led while two others shadowed, raptured in lecture. Their dialogue bounced on the more prominently occupied hallway of the day shift.

 

El’Heem: My apologies. So, the mushrooms talked to Korthis and they guided him out of the cavern and he survived! Now we take the opportunity every year to celebrate the mushrooms who saved his life.

 

Not that there was truly and day and night shift, but one shift was more plainly staffed than the other. That conversation seemed a nuisance to nobody but the inchoate figure who watched them pass. The half-hearted apology didn’t seem maliceful, but it presented tautologically in the day-to-day for Ceylan. He slithered off to the side to be prone to the bulkhead and observed the trio evaporate around the contour of the ship.

 

Sparks: Uh...beggin' your pardon sirs, but I don't think we got any mushrooms down here...'specially no fancy talkin' ones…

 

He subsisted in the chiaroscuro of the corridors, not in the shadows, as there were none on a utilitarian vessel such as this, but in the spaces between notice. His liminal frame drifted just outside the focus of others where he could exist unseen without truly hiding. Many of the lower decks provided an environment with fewer prying eyes.

 

He passed through the arteries of deck 15 like air to an embolism. The labyrinthian nature of the subsecting hallways allowed him to easily skirt direct attention. The turbolift was out of the question. He could not control when others would board, so he avoided it entirely. He opted for access ladders and ramps. It could certainly be touted as the scenic route, but Ceylan preferred it as the path less travelled.

 

((Deck 16, Astrometrics / Stellar Cartography, USS Khitomer))

 

As graceful as his clandestinity seemed to be, his nature in itself was ambisinister. Ceylan backed into his posting, cautiously ensuring he wasn’t being cornered, and nearly hopped and yelped like a cartoon character when he realized someone was already occupying the lab.

 

Matthews: -appened. Even if that’s all I want to do. I – 

 

He slowly wheeled as his ear flaps bristled at the officer’s self-reflection further in the room.

 

Matthews: Computer end recording.

 

Knowing that avoiding his introduction would only draw more attention, Ceylan stepped into the room transiently. He stooped in the shadows at the edge of the light cast by the large cartography table. His tall gaunt figure acted as unimposing as possible, his hands were folded in front of him and dangled on their gimbal-like shoulders. The exposed skin on his face glistened and sparkled as the various colors in the room glinted off him. He wasn’t used to not being the punctual-most arrival to his posting. His concerns lay in the fact that this switch to the antithetical shift would be comprised of increased social interaction and therefore more chances for his frangible shell to be cracked open.

 

Graves: E-E-Ensign Grav-Gaves, sir.

 

Ceylan’s eyes avoided finding Matthews’. They feathered left and right above the man’s head only ever occasionally and accidentally looking directly at him.

 

Matthews: Response

 

The Kelpien continued to stand there, fidgeting with his hands and the hem of his uniform. He didn’t reply.

 

Matthews: Response

 

Ceylan nodded and ducked his head as he cut left abruptly and gangled up the five steps to the tiered viewing deck, all grace lost to him now that he was the subject of scrutiny.

 

Graves: Ye- Yes sir.

 

The lab was a large, chamfered rectangle with a expansive, centralized area on the ground floor. A real-time holographic cartography table comprised the main source of lighting in the room, supplemented by the countless curved-wall workstations that lined the perimeter. On the second tier the walls were lined with smaller personal cartography tables and workstations. Each elevated deck on either side of the main concourse was an arc that terminated at the large floor-to-ceiling viewing port.

 

Matthews: Response

 

Ceylan took up one of the cartography stations and shrunk into his seat in an attempt to evaporate from Matthews’ attention. He knew the room would soon fill with other junior officers and he’d just be another worker ant. He frantically pulled up the void mapping he had been working on.

 

Matthews: Response

 

He leaned in a way as if to use the transparent holographic image of his table to block his face.

 

Matthews: Response

 

Ceylan flinched as Matthews appeared just on the other side of the glowing cloud of gas in the projection. Their eyes met momentarily before he winced and closed them.

 

Ceylan: I’m just wo-working on the v-void we just lef- ::beat:: -t.

 

The image that hovered over the table was exquisitely detailed, especially since it represented such an ethereal concept. There were trace elements woven between each other like a complex tapestry of celestial origin. Last known locations of the lacunal beings they had encountered congregated in involute bursts of color. The pattern was clearly discernable but that was all the information the esoteric digital manuscript the Kelpien was penning displayed.

 

Matthews: Response

 

He perked up ever so slightly, tilting his head way to avoid direct eye contact but opening his eyes to observe the structures he’d mapped.

 

Ceylan: You can’t see th-them. Much of this is in the infrared or ult-ult-ultraviolet wave lengths.

 

Matthews: Response

 

The Kelpien nodded slightly and hunched his head over the table again.

 

Ceylan: Mhmm.

 

Matthews: Response

 

Tags/TBC

PNPC Ensign Ceylan Graves

Astrometrics and Stellarcartography

USS Khitomer

As simmed by 

Lieutenant JG Ras El’Heem

Medical Officer

USS Khitomer (NCC-62400)

K240106RE3