JP: Doctor Brenna Taybrim & Lt. Cmdr. Alora DeVeau: Seeking Answers (Part 1)
Jamie LeBlanc
It was late. The sun had set, casting the shadows across the gardens, night stretching her blanket over the sky and the stars nestling in its folds. They twinkled merrily, silently giggling, offering a beautiful landscape to gaze upon for those who wished to remain awake and admire them rather than answer the call of sleep.
Alora took a few minutes to do just that. Upon her initial arrival, the stars had been strangers, placed in odd paths of the sky, unfamiliar, though still beautiful. Now they had become more so, and she could place and even name some of them. Constellations were fairly common among all societies, and Betazoid society was no exception.
Alas, she could not linger all night. There were things that must be done. Supper had been taken, those who had wished to stay were given comfortable rooms, their needs and desires tended to, but Alora could not and would not sleep. Not yet. Making her way back inside, Alora traversed through the hallway to the room that had once been Enzada’s office and was not surprised to find Brenna Taybrim there. Offering the woman a smile, she stepped over and lightly caressed the Taybrim matriarch’s shoulder on her way to the chair behind the desk.
DeVeau: ~Pardon me. I just wanted to get some fresh air for a few minutes.~
The redheaded woman looked up and offered a soft expression towards Alora.
Brenna: ~You are fine, my dear. Fully understandable considering all that has transpired over the past few days.~
Alora settled in the chair, sighing softly as she did so. She seemed to do that a lot lately. Perhaps it was all the responsibilities that she suddenly found resting upon her shoulders that elicited such a response. Perhaps it explained the similar habit of Sal’s.
DeVeau: ~Do you wish to have more time? I understand this may not be easy to find...or that there may be nothing to find.~
Which would indicate Alora was being a little paranoid and was also likely a little crazy.
Brenna arched a ginger brow and considered.
Brenna: ~I am exploring a few possibilities. You are correct, the evidence left behind in the medical scans - if present - is not apparent.~
She gazed at Alora, wondering if this was impatience or paranoia. Or both. And if it was paranoia was that something bred by Starfleet? Or maybe that was Brenna placing her own biases on Starfleet. She had always been paranoid that Starfleet would steal another one of her loved ones away from her. That was the only reason she had been so negative about starfleet for so long. It had taken from her that which could never be replaced and she was afraid it would take from her again.
Only recently did the possibility that Starfleet might give her something in return cross her mind.
DeVeau: ~So...perhaps I’m just crazy.~
It was possible. Alora was always open to the idea she was completely nuts.
Brenna: ~Not apparent and not possible are two very different things.~ ::She paused and took one of the PADDs from the table, offering it over to Alora.:: ~There is an anomaly.~
Alora canted her. Well, that was something, wasn’t it? An anomaly? Alora didn’t necessarily *want* there to be evidence, but she just couldn’t shake the feeling.
Deveau: ~Where?~
She tapped the screen, showing a chart of the medical scans. There was one unusual symptom that stuck out.
Brenna: ~Here. On her second to last medical scan she was showing signs of Asterixis. With none of the normal clinical reasons to have that symptom. Her health was, as you say, quite good, especially for her age. Now Asterixis can have rare causes such as exposure to unusual flora or ingesting Aldavian Liverwort. But none of those rare causes are deadly or damaging to Betazoids.~
Which left the question of why. Why would there be a slight tremor in the hand, like the flapping of a bird, the sort of thing usually associated with stroke, encephalopathy and liver failure in an otherwise healthy woman? What was hiding in the details?
Alora leaned forward, reading the information on the screen, coming to the end, then starting all over again. The second time, she read through it more slowly. The third time, even more so. Leaning back, she frowned and reached up to rub her eyes.
DeVeau: ~Could this possibly be an early sign? Something that had yet to manifest itself with symptoms?~
The matriarch leaned back, considering, tapping a stylus on the edge of the PADD
Brenna: ~Possibly. Or it could be a sign of something well hidden, something where the only symptoms to manifest were disparate and difficult to pin down. Who holds their arms out at length to see how their hand reacts on the regular?~
Unless Lumie Enzada was doing a strange sort of exercise it was unlikely.
DeVeau: ~And if those causes are rare, non deadly, and don’t affect Betazoids, then what would have caused it in her?~
It didn’t make sense. Two and two should always add up to four, but there she was getting an infinite amount of questions and very few answers.
Brenna: ~Generally I connect the symptom to hepatic encephalopathy. Which most often shows up with liver failure. But could also be due to illicit drugs, an overdose of sedatives, certain hypnotic drugs, respiratory disease, a buildup of toxins in the blood… All of those would easily show up on a basic medical scan.~
All. Or almost all. There were always outlying cases.
But they hadn’t. Not a single one. Alora knew she’d never take drugs that were not prescribed by a doctor, and she certainly would be careful to do so exactly as directed. There had been no respiratory disease, and as Brenna had stated, anything she’d mentioned would have been on the autopsy.
DeVeau: ~Hepatic encephalopathy would have brought about symptoms. I talked with Enzada every week. Ryzek would have said if anything about her had been off. And her scan was all clean. Unless you think something would not appear?~
Brenna: ~If I had to say which of the possibilities would not show up? Powerful hypnotics in trace amounts could still have a detrimental effect while passing under the medical scan radar.~
A detrimental effect. Detrimental didn’t always mean deadly. In this case? Death had been the result, but of what? Yet, Alora realised she was jumping to conclusions again. They hadn’t actually determined any real unnatural cause of death.
DeVeau: ~I’m getting ahead of myself. Okay, there was indication she suffered from asterixis. There was no indication that she had hepatic encephalopathy, no azotemia, or any other illness that might have caused such a thing. Toxicology report was clean - but there are certain types of drugs that could get passed unnoticed. Certain hypnotics.~
She paused for a moment.
DeVeau: ~Something like neopenothal.~
Brenna Taybrim laced her fingers together and rocked slightly in her chair as she thought. Neopenothal was a common, plant based hypnotic, easily ingestible in trace quantities, easy to overlook.
Brenna: ~It certainly is common enough to be overlooked.~
DeVeau: ~But amounts small enough to be missed by a scan wouldn’t have caused her death…~
But had they been used as a means to an end?
Brenna: ~Some houses use The Ardris lily, which is rich in neopenothal, as a gateway to spiritual discovery. Not unlike some mild toxins that have pleasurable qualities on Earth.~
DeVeau: ~I didn’t know that.~
Well, she certainly was learning some things. Still…
DeVeau: ~Unfortunately, that doesn’t explain the death, or how that would have caused this encephalopathy. Does it?~
Taking the PADD into her hand, Brenna started to cross check certain elements.
Brenna: ~Long term use can cause damage, but death is only from long term overuse. However… ~
She trailed off mentally into a rush of questions and ideas.
Overuse. Alora allowed the silence to settle for a few moments, thinking back on her conversations. She didn’t know everything about Enzada. She knew many things, knew her health was good, but whether or not she used this lily in the fashion Brenna indicated some day? No idea.
Deveau: ~I’m still having trouble connecting this to her passing.~
It seemed like too little to go on. Too little to really cause something like that.
~*~
Tbc…
~*~
A JP by
Dr. Brenna Taybrim
Simmed by: Commodore Sal Taybrim
Commanding Officer
StarBase 118 Ops
E239010ST0
&
Lt. Cmdr. Alora DeVeau
First Officer
Starbase 118 Ops
M239008AD0
~Julian Beck
E239010ST0