Who didn't own a show that she saw
So she wrote something new
And please don't sue
'Cause this isn't against the law.
Author's note: I think I may have made it seem as if you should know who Tobin is. Don't worry about it if you've been wracking your brains trying to see who the heck he is. I just made him up and I'm changing the blurb to be less confusing. All will be revealed in time....(spooky fortuneteller noise)...
TRADING SPACES
******************
"This is it."
"Why did Mr. Reed come in here?"
"How the heck would I know?"
"Ensign, I am merely trying to ascertain the situation. There is no need to snap at me."
Hoshi sighed and swept her flashlight over the dark corners of the caves. "I really don't know, T'Pol. Right here is where Trip and I stopped to fix the recorder."
"The room the Lieutenant entered is there, then?" asked T'Pol. Hoshi looked where she was pointing and nodded. "Any answers will most likely be found in that chamber," T'Pol said, and picked her way through the rubble to the door of the mysterious room. "Did you examine the room when you were here earlier?"
"We were a little preoccupied," answered Hoshi, peeking over T'Pol's shoulders. The room, slightly smaller than the bridge on Enterprise, gleamed in the glow of the flashlights. Exquisite, complicated crystal patterns ran the length of the walls, coming together to merge behind a narrow hexagonal platform with a graceful crystal spire protruding from the top. Malcolm's scanner, burned and blackened, lay forlornly on the floor in front of the spire.
"There's even a crystal walkway," Hoshi said, her voice echoing in the stone room. "Look, it leads right up to that altar thing." She pulled out her own scanner and flipped it open.
She cried out in surprise as a sharp spike of electricity burned through her hands, and dropped the smoking scanner to the floor. "Ow ow ow ow," the ensign cried, waving her hands in the air until the pain disippated.
T'Pol, on the verge of activating her scanner as well, thought better of it and retreated back to the doorway. "Are you all right, Ensign?" she asked, gingerly touching the walls.
"It shocked me!" Hoshi snapped at her. "It's never done that before!"
The Vulcan ignored her rude tone and stepped a few paces away from the door before pulling out the scanner once more. "There seems to be an electric charge present in the crystal patterns. When you stood on the walkway it interfered with the scanner and sent a current through your hands."
Hoshi glanced at the third scanner, Malcolm's, laying beneath the altar. "He must have tried to scan that and got electrocuted."
T'Pol did not answer; she glanced at the scanner and then back at the room again. Hoshi thought the Vulcan looked almost perplexed. "Subcommander? What's wrong?"
"There is a strange radiation emanating from the crystal. It is strongest around the spire on the altar," T'Pol said. "I suspect that it may also have something to do with Lieutenant Reed's condition. I am sure the doctor would know how to treat a simple case of electrocution."
Hoshi raised an eyebrow that nearly matched T'Pol's own for height. "'Simple electrocution?'"
The Vulcan ignored her. "Stand out here, Ensign, and try to record the symbols on the walls. Perhaps they can be translated to tell us what this place is."
"Where are you going?" asked Hoshi as T'Pol stepped back away from the room.
"I will scan the rest of this place," the Vulcan answered. "There may be something there that will help us." She walked away from Hoshi until all that could be seen of her was the bobbing beam of the flashlight. The ensign sighed and began to take down the symbols on the wall. It didn't take long, and she called out for T'Pol when she had finished.
"Follow the sound of my voice," answered the Vulcan. Hoshi, with her keen hearing, easily detected the real sound among the soft echoes and followed it down a long spiraling passage.
As T'Pol's light came into view, Hoshi neglected to watch her feet and tripped head over heels on a treacherous rock. To her surprise the rock cracked apart, revealing a grimy leatherbound book inside.
"You should be more careful," said T'Pol, coming up the passage behind her. Hoshi picked up the book, taking care only to handle it lightly, and dusted off the cover. More of the alien symbols decorated the brown cover; she opened the book and found, to her great surprise, what looked to be neat cursive in the English alphabet. The words were faded and nearly indecipherable; Hoshi could make only out a few random things like 'trees' and 'language' on the first page.
"How on earth could something like this have gotten here?" she said, aghast. T'Pol poked at the 'rock,' which on closer inspection turned out to be a grimy metal box, so caked with the dirt of age that it had turned the same dust brown as the walls.
"Perhaps this culture was very advanced and brought it here," said T'Pol. "It is possible they visited Earth in diguise."
"Let's go back up to the ship," Hoshi replied, replacing the book in its box and hefting the entire thing onto her shoulders. "I interned as a translator in an archive once; you can sometimes use ultraviolet light or particle scans to detect ink residue."
"Perhaps this book will reveal something of this planet's culture," said T'Pol.
Hoshi shook her head at the improbability of it all, and replied, "That's what I'm hoping."
*******************
Okay, this chapter didn't really clear anything up, but some major revelations
will happen in the next. What does she find in the book? And can it help
Malcolm? Next time on "Enterprise," same fan-time, same fan-channel!
(probably more like Sunday, actually.)