For two long, miserable weeks, Reed watched as Enterprise slowly but surely turned into a mushroom farming operation and spice refinery. Bit by bit, person by person, the activities on Enterprise came to be centered around the spice. Landing parties frequently went down to talk to the Dolizet, to discuss growing, harvesting and refining, as well as to look for specimens of the mushroom in the wild. Aboard the ship, Cargo Bay 2 had become the central hub of all activity, as it turned from a storage room into a fungus laboratory. Speaking of laboratories, all science labs (including Sick Bay) had redirected their efforts to studying the mushrooms as a whole, along with their different varieties and the refinement processes that were used to make different types of spice for different purposes.
Never had the Engineering and Science divisions worked so closely together, designing, constructing and setting up ideal habitat for the mushrooms to grow, and reverse engineering the refinement equipment the Dolizet showed them for turning the mushrooms into spice.
Most of the Armory team was reassigned to Engineering, where they serviced and maintained the essential systems of the ship while the Engineering team focused their efforts and attention on the mushrooms. The hell of it was that, not only had Reed's workload grown exponentially as he was left more and more on his own to service and maintain the ship's weapons, but the Armory team didn't seem the least bit bothered by their reassignment. They even claimed to be happy to be of service. Anything for the damned "space spice."
Reed had found nothing to suggest a relation between cordyceps and the Dolizet mushrooms. Mushrooms, to him, were an immensely tedious subject and it was easy to lose focus, especially after a long shift. He also kept having to stop off and do side research on terminology with which he was unfamiliar. Additionally there was occasionally something that seemed promising in its relevance, but upon closer inspection was no help at all. He'd even stopped off to study rabies for awhile since Souci had mentioned it. That was no more enlightening than the mushrooms, if a great deal more horrifying.
But back to the mushrooms. Contrary to what one would expect if they'd seen enough of Commander Tucker's horror films on movie night, the only cordyceps Reed could find that preyed on something besides arthropods did not target humans, but instead other fungi, for their parasitic activity.
In any case, comparing the scans Phlox had taken of the Dolizet mushrooms with that of the cordyceps revealed they had almost nothing in common. As Phlox had said, the Dolizet mushrooms actually had more similarities to chocolate than anything else from Earth.
Yes, Reed had done some comparisons of the spice and chocolate as well, when he was at a loss for what else to do. These sorts of studies were not at all in his field, and it was a struggle to begin acquiring a foundation of knowledge on which to base any sort of independent conclusion.
Reed didn't pause to realize for a moment that he was trying to do in two weeks what took most people years. He had only basic school boy grounding in biology, and lacked both the interest and aptitude for biological sciences. Even historical biological weapons had given him fits when he studied those, because he just didn't understand one half of the entire subject.
His only companion at this point was the constant headache. Even Travis had stopped joining him for meals. In fact, it seemed to Reed that Ensign Mayweather had completely given up.
In the end, Reed's late night attempts at research got him nothing except a reprimand from T'Pol for nodding off at his duty station, a reprimand which she insisted be formalized. Archer was more ambivalent about it. That at least had a certain feeling of normality to it. Captain Archer had a very relaxed command style, whereas T'Pol would have run the tightest ship in the fleet if she'd been given half a chance. Still, it was almost surprising, considering how often Archer had been coming down on Reed lately. But apparently Archer was feeling more himself that day for some reason.
In any case, each day went much the same as the one before.
Shower. Get dressed. Stop by the Mess for coffee. Stare at his data pad without comprehension at the ship's maintenance report and the daily schedule. Tell himself he should eat breakfast, but mostly just stare at it in the same way he looked at his data pad until it got cold. Report for duty. Get chewed out by Archer for something innocuous that didn't warrant nearly so much attention. Sit around waiting for something to happen while at the same time hoping it wouldn't, and wonder how things were going with the landing parties. Head to the Armory to do scheduled maintenance, something that he had to do earlier every day as more and more of the work fell to him as his team was picked off and reassigned one by one. Punch out for the day. And back to his quarters, where he did as much research as he could in the few remaining hours of the day before he stumbled into bed and fell asleep without even changing out of his uniform, too exhausted to even care thanks to the previous night's lack of sleep.
Two weeks. An absolute eternity.
But the worst was yet to come.
Jonathan was in Cargo Bay 2, impatiently watching the transformation from storage room to farm.
He didn't like waiting for things, but especially not something so important as this. He wanted to see those first mushrooms sprout, or whatever it was that fungus was supposed to do. He wanted to see that they had the temperature, humidity and lighting in the bay set right for the needs of the fungi. He wanted to be reassured by the growth of the fungi that they had just the right substrate put together to suit the needs of the Dolizet mushrooms. Once the easiest variety was well established, he wanted to move on to the more challenging and particular varieties of the mushroom. He wanted to see what they could be made into that would benefit mankind. He wanted to be doing the refinement process on mushrooms they'd grown on Enterprise themselves. And then he wanted to discover new and better ways of handling and processing the mushrooms and spice.
Gardening had never been an interest of his, though he now found the subject endlessly fascinating, which meant that he could do little but watch while other members of the crew did most of the work.
And nobody was working harder to make this project succeed than Trip and T'Pol. Still, it was too bad there wasn't a mycologist on board. The closest people available were Phlox, T'Pol and those like them who had a very broad range of knowledge when it came to biological lifeforms. But it still wasn't the same as someone specialized in the study of fungi.
Jonathan had actually sent a query back to Earth, asking for a list of prominent mycologists. He planned to screen them, and then contact some of them to see if they would be willing to join the Enterprise crew. Not that he'd said as much in the long-range communique. It was too complicated to explain from this distance. He hadn't even received an acknowledgment of his request yet, much less a reply. It sort of reminded him of history class, and learning about an old Earth form of long-distance communication known as the postal service, where physical letters were transferred from person to person and carried by vehicle to their eventual destination. Jonathan had thought such communication delays must have been fraught with difficulties, but he'd never imagined actually experiencing those.
"Captain," T'Pol said, drawing Jonathan's attention.
He went over to where she and Trip were hunched over a small mushroom habitat. There was no visible mushroom, just a little pile of dirt on which sat a small chunk of plant matter that looked pretty woody but which T'Pol insisted was not on which the mushroom spores had been set to grow.
"What's up?" Jonathan asked, catching wind of the concern passing between Trip and T'Pol.
"T'Pol found a parasite on this one earlier today," Trip said, "Phlox whipped somethin' up to kill the parasite without hurtin' the mushroom, and it seems to have worked..."
Jonathan sensed a 'but' coming on and waited. T'Pol did not disappoint.
"Though this parasite was caught and quickly eliminated before it had the chance to spread, the possibility exists that we may not be so fortunate a second time," T'Pol said.
"Meaning?" Jonathan asked.
"Having our entire crop of fungi in one small area such as this Cargo Bay carries a distinct risk. One blight that goes unnoticed for too long or otherwise proves difficult to control could wipe out our entire population of fungi, especially the more delicate varieties," T'Pol explained.
"Sounds bad," Jonathan commented, reasonably certain that the two wouldn't have called him over if they didn't have a proposed plan of action, or at least a proposed means of formulating such a plan.
"What we need is a second farm," Trip said, "Even keepin' the mushrooms as separate as we can in here might not be enough. We've got good filtration in the air ducts, but also good circulation. That's part of why we have the decon chamber, it's the only truly isolated place on the ship."
"We can't turn Decon into a mushroom farm," Jonathan said emphatically.
"No, of course not," Trip shook his head, "I know that. Anyway, Phlox already put his foot down on that. But if we had some other spot on board, it'd still give us a better chance of limiting the spread of disease, especially if it was on a completely different deck so we could seal it off if we needed to, a lot quicker and easier than another cargo bay."
"What did you have in mind?" Jonathan asked, looking from Trip to T'Pol and back.
T'Pol answered this time, "Deck F."
"The Armory?" Jonathan felt his eyebrows climb, "Malcolm won't like that at all."
"Malcolm doesn't like anything, sir," Trip scoffed, "He'd complain about a rainstorm coolin' down a hot, sunny day."
"We're going to need to keep some weapons," Jonathan said, having rather reluctantly been forced to accept that reality over the last year, "And personnel who know how to use them."
"Several of the laboratories on that deck have already been converted to the study and care of the fungi," T'Pol said, "It would be a minor matter to refit them so that they were better suited to the purpose. The Armory is the logical place for the mushrooms to be due to its nearness to properly equipped labs."
"We're not sayin' to throw out the Armory entirely," Trip ventured slowly, "But I think we can all agree it's a little over equipped, and a mite bigger than we need it to be."
"You might admit that," Jonathan said, "And I might. But I don't think Malcolm will go for it."
"Lt. Reed is paranoid. It is in his nature to expect trouble where there is none and, in doing so, to cause it himself," T'Pol paused briefly, "The reassignment of most of the Armory crew has increased the workload to the few who remain. With the possible exception of Lt. Reed, they should welcome the reduction of equipment they must monitor and maintain."
"And what about Malcolm?" Jonathan asked.
"Cap'n, Malcolm's been nothin' but sour grapes and rain on our parade from day one," Trip said, "And he's not takin' to this new mission like the rest of us are. Sir… you may wanna think about reassignin' him to somewhere he'd fit in better, and replacin' him with a new tactical officer that's more able to relax and accept reality."
"Despite Commander Tucker's unnecessarily florid description, I agree," T'Pol said.
Jonathan sighed unhappily and admitted, "I think you may both be right. I'll go talk to Malcolm."
"I think he's down in the Armory, countin' torpedoes," Trip offered.
That tracked, since Malcolm had earlier asked to leave his station on the Bridge in order to do inventory and equipment maintenance. Though the way Trip put it may it seem like a trivial activity. And maybe it was. What did Enterprise really need with torpedoes? She was just farming mushrooms and, if anyone hostile showed up, Jonathan was willing to share some of those mushrooms with them.
Peaceful traders and merchants didn't tend to get shot at too often, because they always had something valuable to bargain with. Anyway, people generally refrained from eliminating them because maybe they'd get a nice discount or perhaps the traders would keep something special in stock for them.
Or so Jonathan had heard.
He didn't quite like thinking of Enterprise as a merchant ship, but if that's what the mission called for, he was willing to live with it. Yet he remained unconvinced that Malcolm would.
Lately Malcolm's "anything for the sake of Enterprise and her crew" attitude had become more of an "anything that will help me get my way," disposition. It had been a long time coming, Jonathan supposed. Malcolm had kept no secrets about disliking Jonathan's command style. He didn't seem terribly fond of Jonathan himself either. He didn't socialize, kept to himself, and avoided answering personal questions unless you literally pinned him to the hull plating with a spike. He'd never been a very good fit for Enterprise, lacking both curiosity and imagination, even aside from his appalling and crippling lack of social skills.
There was also something to be said for the fact that T'Pol and Trip were apparently agreed on the matter. The two of them saw things from entirely different view points, and seldom truly agreed on anything unless it was really right. It was part of why they made a good team. Both were capable, but their personalities and opinions were so violently at odds with each other that they couldn't reach a substandard compromise; they had to come to a genuine conclusion and solution.
And they'd both come up with the same answer: Malcolm Reed needed to leave Enterprise… or at least the Armory.