=======================================================
DISCLAIMER: I Don't Own Star Trek. And I'm not making any money from this.
Off topic? You decide.
The Woods are Lovely Dark and Deep
It was a nearly perfect example of Ariolimax californicus. Spock squatted down next to the log in order to examine it at eye level.
By observation only he was able to determine it was 25.6 centimeters in length -- his internal ruler was as accurate as his internal clock. He noted to himself that this was six millimeters longer than the normal maximum length officially described.
Its body was bright yellow and shiny with its layer of protective slime. As it made its way along the log it waved the four tentacles located on the anterior portion of its head. The upper pair helped it determine its location via light and dark. The lower pair where chemically sensitive and helped it seek food.
Spock had pulled up images of Ariolimax before he had come, but he realized that the holos did not do it justice. To see it in real life was so much better. The Ariolimax's color was brighter on in person inspection, and the gentle way it undulated along the log in its quest for nourishment was as graceful as a slow motion ballet.
Patrick and Toshi came up behind him.
"What are you looking at, Spock?" asked Patrick squatting down beside him.
"An exceptionally large specimen of Ariolimax californicus," replied Spock.
"Ah..." said Toshi bending at the waist to get at eye level as well. "A banana slug."
"They are cool," said Patrick. "Lots of them around here."
Lieutenant Commander Janine Garcia came over to see what the three of them were looking at. "Oooh....a banana slug. They are the second-largest species of terrestrial slug on Earth."
Her assistant Adam came over too. He was carrying a tricorder and Spock was very envious -- if only he'd thought to bring a tricorder.
"Kind of amazing that they survived the radiation dump that happened here during the war. The Ariolimax is almost extinct." Adam said.
"He's kind of cute," said Nyota, coming up behind all of them. "The upper antennae eye stalks are the eye stalks, right? I wonder if he is looking at us..."
"Technically, it is not a 'he'. Banana slugs are hermaphrodites," replied Janine.
"Whenever two banana slugs get together, you know its a party," Adam added.
"Would be cool to know how much they see," murmured Patrick
"Such a creature could never survive on Vulcan," commented Spock moving closer so his eyes were only inches from the creature. "There is no place on the planet that could supply both sufficient moisture and dead vegetation for its nourishment. Fascinating."
"Yep," said Patrick.
"Sugoi, neh," Toshi said quietly -- presumably in Japanese.
"Truly," said Janine.
"God, we are nerds," said Adam.
Nyota laughed.
"Hey, my Nerdlings" called Commander Sharpton standing with her husband Diego and a group of other cadets and officers. "This is just my back yard. Let's get moving so we can see the trees before it gets dark. I brought a few extra tricorders from the lab, in case any of you want to borrow them."
At the words 'extra tricorders' Spock determined that Commander Sharpton was indeed an excellent hostess, just as Nyota had said.
x x x x
Located about nineteen kilometers north of San Francisco, Muir woods was the last surviving grove of old growth Sequoia sempervirens, Coastal Redwoods on earth.
The tiny 240 acre wood hadn't escaped from the wars and upheavals in the late 2000's unscathed. There had been radiation contamination. The trees weren't supposed to have a girth as wide as their cousins the Sequoiadendron giganteum, or Giant Sequoia, but the radiation had done strange things to the trunks. Some were as wide as six to eight meters in diameter.
From historical pictures Spock gathered that the trees used to cast straight up to the sky, but the radiation not only made them wider, it did odd things to their shape of their bases. The trunks were irregular; they formed strange shapes and bends, almost forming little rooms. In one place tree trunks merged like a giant curtain fifty meters long and humans had cut doors to walk through them.
But still they kept their height. The highest tree in the Muir Woods was 100 meters tall. The floor of the forest, dotted with ferns from Earth's prehistoric times, was dark as evening in the filtered green light. Spock understood the Commander's concern -- it would be unwise to be in the woods after dark, even with flash lights.
The trail they followed was a meter and a half wide, so the group of humans ebbed and flowed along. One moment he was next to Nyota and she was describing how a U.S. congressman had bought the land for the woods back in 1907 to save it from logging, and commenting how the place reminded her of something Antoni Gaudi would build, if he had built a forest.
Then the next moment the Commander was next to him explaining how the radiation from the 2063 incident had affected the flora and fauna of the forest. "In the end, though, the radiation saved the place. It was contaminated up until about thirty years ago. During the dark period no one wanted to cut down the trees for tender because people who did..."
"...wound up getting sick and dying," finished her husband Diego. "That is why this place escaped the same fate as the rest of the old growth redwood groves up the coast.
"We were here when they finally began the cleanup. We lived on radiation therapy for several years so we didn't get sick. It was worth it though."
Spock listened to all the conversations while periodically studying his borrowed tricorder. Radiation levels were still elevated according to his readings, but not high enough for undue alarm.
The roots of the trees were unusually shallow. He noted this out loud to Patrick and Toshi as they sauntered up to him.
"That is one of the reason visitors are restricted. Too much foot traffic is hard on the forest root system." Toshi said.
"As giant as these things are they are amazingly fragile," added Patrick. Then he switched the topic, "Glad you finally came this year. It would be a shame for you to come all the way to Earth and miss this...You know every time I come here I'm still amazed by the place. It is nature warped by man in a way that is eerie and almost..."
"Almost alien?" Spock asked dryly.
Yumi and Nyota walking just a few feet ahead turned around and laughed. Nyota raised an eyebrow, he suspected she would be the only one who guessed he had been truly been joking...partially anyway.
Toshi and Patrick looked like they were in shock. Then they both laughed.
"Well if you say so, Spock..." said Patrick.
"Indeed, I would never find such an environment on Vulcan." It was true -- Muir Woods was alien to him as well.
And felt that visiting the place was an experience worth having. He had read as much as he could about the forest as soon as Nyota had pointed it out to him, but holos and words did not do it justice. The softness of the forest floor under his feet, the chill of the shade, the moisture in the air, the green light of sunlight filtered through hundreds of meters of foliage, the twist and turns of the bases of the trees, and of course banana slugs...each its own mystery, these things could not be captured, they had to be experienced.
Surely this sensory data must serve as more than just a source of stimulation? His neural pathways must be blossoming in the rush of new input. There must be some way he could reconcile these experiences with a logical purpose.
What else was he missing? He had exchanged a lab on Vulcan for a lab on Earth, but had the trajectory of his life really changed?
x x x x
"Hey, the little guy is still here," said Nyota staring at the banana slug on the log outside Commander Sharpton's house. Dinner was a few minutes away, they had just come back from the forest.
"That is a long one," said Patrick holding up a tricorder.
"Probably a record holder," said Yumi.
"Glad our toddler isn't here, he always tries to eat the big ones," said Patrick's wife Katie.
"Spock," asked Toshi, "If you touched it...would your telepathic touch allow you experience what the banana slug experiences?"
Suddenly five sets of human eyes were on Spock. He was squatting at eye level in front of the banana slug again. He reached out and put a finger about one centimeter in front of the slug instinctively, "Such primitive creatures are not cognizant of their experience. There is no awareness in the slug for me to share."
One of the tiny chemical receiving tentacles of the slug came into contact with Spock's finger. It was such a tiny movement that Spock could not even see it -- he merely felt the tiniest of pinpricks of electricity. Suddenly, all motion in the slug stopped.
"Hey, what happened?" said Patrick shaking the tricorder. "All his nervous system readouts just went blank. It looks like the little guy just died!"
Spock took a sharp intake of breath. Was the slug dead? What just happened? There was nothing in Vulcan literature on banana slugs, so he had no information on how his touch might have affected it. Nor could he remember Vulcan touch alone provoking death in any creature. He withdrew his hand.
Suddenly, of their own accord, the slug's tentacles started to wave, and its body began to flow once more along the log. Fascinating.
"Oh, there he is again. Maybe just a momentary glitch..." said Patrick studying the tricorder. "This thing is nearly ten years old…"
Spock decided not to comment. He suspected something had happened to the slug – but it would be unethical to experiment on a living creature.
Suddenly Diego, the Commander's husband, shouted from the house, "Hey everyone, dinner is ready!"
Patrick, Yumi, Toshi and Katie got up and started across the grass. Nyota and Spock just stared at the banana slug.
Nyota swallowed. Spock realized she was leaning even closer to the log than he was. She was perhaps the only person who realized he had touched the Ariolimax. "What happened, Spock? Did you just reboot the little guy's hard drive?"
"I do not know. Fascinating."
For some reason this did not provoke the normal Pavlovian Vulcan Giggle Effect.
"Come on," Nyota said, "Let's go inside."
A/N
Birth control…banana slugs...and more! (Banana slugs are very real, and I think they are cool...but I am a nerd!)
Muir Woods is a real place…does not look like I've described it though.
I'm not sure if I should post short chapters on a regular basis, or long chapters less frequently. I haven't completely finished the thought here...but I don't know how long it will take me to write the next three short chapters.
Do you think it sort of is coming out though, why this is important to Spock's life? The thought/the outing continue into the next two chapters.
Wrote another story, Spock and his first time…"The Mirror", 'cause some people asked.