"Bridge to sickbay." Came T'Pol's voice over the intercom.
The doctor moved over to the panel and hit the button. Wails could be hear din the background as the young children were being forced to have a bath. "Phlox here. Go ahead."
T'Pol winced slightly when she heard the screams from sickbay. "We have arrived in orbit of Aurel."
Phlox sighed in relief. Two days trying to keep the four of them awake, since John's feeding Porthos veggie dilemma, had been one hell of a task. "That's great! Have you contacted them?"
"It took some time as Hoshi hadn't fully programmed their language into the translator, but yes. They also know what the problem is. Bring the children down to launch bay one as soon as you can."
"Acknowledged. I'll get them settled first." He sighed and glanced back at Peter who was having to multi-task, and making a mess of it. He'd find out the reason for their regression later, but for now, getting them back to their proper selves was the priority.
"Natenga homal." Leonal Foleco greeted the away team as they climbed out of the pod.
The little kids were brought out, Peter having to hold John and Trip apart as they had been fighting about who was to get out first. Both were trying they hardest to get away from his grip, but it was too tight and they were failing miserably. Travis had three-year-old Hoshi in his arms and Phlox was carrying a nine month old Malcolm Reed.
"Oh my goodness!" Leonal said in surprise at seeing them.
"We trust you can help them?" T'Pol said… it was obvious that the smells of very young human children got to the sensitive nose of the Vulcan… particularly that of Malcolm's nappies.
Leonal nodded her head. "We have the anti-dote" She turned her head as a male came up and stood beside her. "Natenga, Dralan." She acknowledged him with a slight bow of her head.
"Natenga, Leonal." The male said and they looked at the new comers.
"So it is a virus?" Phlox questioned.
Leonal shook her head. "No… it's a chemical found in the fruits we use to make yurum… a drink your away team said to be similar to 'wine'."
"You gave them a life threatening chemical intentionally?" T'Pol was now a bit wary about these Aurellians.
"Oh no!" Dralan quickly defended themselves. "We thought the concentration of chemical to water would be too low for the regression to happen to your crew. Obviously your bodies and metabolisms are more susceptible to the chemical than we first thought."
"The brew we gave your crew is a much weaker one than we drink ourselves." Leonal explained as more Aurellians gathered around to see the guests… and the children. "We did scan your people before offering the drink to them. We thought it was safe."
"Please accept our deepest applogies." Dralan was trying to keep the peace between them and the humans.
T'Pol nodded her head, satisfied with the explanations. "As long as our crew are returned to their original selves, then it will be forgotten… by me. I am unsure as to how the Captain will take it.
All the Aurellians nodded their heads in agreement. "That is understandable." Leonal agreed.
Trip finally managed to get out of Peter's grip and began to run off. He wanted to explore.
"Trip!" Peter shouted as he let go of John and began to ran after the little boy.
T'Pol quickly grabbed John before he had the chance to run off. He kicked and screamed as he was restrained by another person. He wanted to explore too. "Lemme go!" he shouted, only to have T'Pol tighten her grip till he was finally in her arms where she keep a better hold on him. "I wanna play wiv Charles!"
"This is no time for playing, John." She spoke softly as she tried to calm him down.
All eyes were now watching the running three-year-old as he dashed around fountains, under benches, behind bushes and trees, and also on the chaser, Ensign Watson who stumbled as he tried to catch Trip.
Trip giggled as he kept running, for such a small boy he sure did seem to have a lot of stamina. "Trip!" Peter kept calling as he tried to catch him, but kept missing. "Get back here right now or there'll be no pecan pie for you when we get back to Enterprise!"
Even the mention of the engineer's favourite pudding didn't seem to stop him and it was several minutes before Peter walked back o the rest of the group carrying Trip under his arm. He looked at Leonal. "I am begging you! Turn them back now!" He'd nearly had enough of trying to look after them and had hardly had any sleep.
Leonal nodded her head. "It will be done… I have asked a couple of friends to calculate how much you will need… they should have the anti-dote in about two hours."
Still with Trip under his arms, Peter slouched onto a bench, putting the boy in his lap as he did so. Two hours was going to be a long time for the man.
