This was a much nicer planet than the last one Reed had been on… but he was infinitely less comfortable with it. After the shuttle landed, Commander Tucker had spent an inordinate amount of time talking with the Dolizet. The level of comfort Tucker and the Dolizet had around each other seemed unnatural for how short a time they'd been acquainted. Of course, it also bothered Reed that the Commander could keep not only a civil tone with the Dolizet, but seemed to be actively having a relaxing good time, when he'd spent the entire shuttle ride down here berating Reed for giving Captain Archer a hard time and making Tucker's life more inconvenient.
And as for the Dolizet…
"If they were any more mellow, they'd be comatose," Reed muttered aside to Travis.
He and Travis were seated at benches across from where Tucker and the Dolizet were excitedly conferring with one another, gushing over their shared spice infatuation.
"You're just saying that because you're always so uptight," Travis whispered back with a blithe smile, "You really should learn to relax."
Reed gave Travis a sharp look. He'd had an uneasy feeling ever since Travis had stopped showing up at mealtimes to discuss the research he'd done in his off hours. Not that they'd been coming up with anything, but even so… Reed had been harboring a bad feeling about it. Now he knew. However, he decided to test what he knew as if it were still only a theory, because he didn't want it to be true.
"How long does it take to talk about mushroom irrigation?" Reed asked, for this was the subject Tucker and a couple of the Dolizet had been banging on about for nearly half an hour.
"I dunno," Travis replied, shrugging indifferently, "But I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like we have anything better to do."
Sighing, Reed got up and walked some distance away to stare out at the thick jungle growth beyond the edge of the Dolizet village. Scans from the Enterprise indicated the Dolizet had a high level of technology, comparable to that of humans. The fact that there was no sign of it didn't surprise Reed in the least. What was happening on Enterprise had been going on here since time immemorial. The whole planet was about the spice and what was best for the mushrooms, meaning any technology went into the farms, or somewhere that wouldn't 'disturb' the mushrooms.
But he wasn't really thinking about the Dolizet. He was thinking about the fact that Travis wasn't really Travis anymore. Travis was starting to think and act like the others.
For a moment, Reed felt like he couldn't breathe. He recognized the panic settling in like a block of ice in his chest, but it took him a moment to realize why it was happening now.
Was it because he was down here, about to help bring more mushrooms on the ship? Was it the Dolizet? Was it knowing they had technology hidden beneath the surface of their green world which could be used to rip Enterprise apart? Was it because he'd just now realized that, at some point, he would probably join everyone else in the mushroom fan club without even realizing it had happened?
No. It was because Travis had been the last person on his side. And now… Reed was truly on his own.
He didn't try to fend off the panic. Now was as good a time as any to let it wash over him, and to come to terms with it. In a way, this was good. The fact he could be scared meant he hadn't given up yet. It was almost funny in a pathetic kind of way, to not even be really sure anymore if you were still fighting or actually just surrendering. But the fact that Reed felt this way about losing Travis as an ally told him that he still held out hope of getting Enterprise and her crew back… even though he still didn't see…
Wait.
Reed turned so suddenly he almost lost his balance, staring at Travis, who had become absorbed in the conversation between Tucker and the Dolizet. Nobody seemed to have even noticed Reed had walked away, so they had even less reason to notice that he'd abruptly gone very pale and was staring at them.
Comprehension dawned suddenly, but confusedly and uncertainly as Reed finally made the connection of what he and Travis had in common that nobody else on board did. Or something they'd had in common before, that they didn't have now. The JAK suppressing allergy medication they'd both been taking… until Travis had stopped.
But could it really be that simple? Even if it was, what good would that do? How was Reed supposed to get the drug into everyone on board? He'd have to go through Phlox, for one thing. The good doctor was nearly always in Sick Bay, and there was no way he would be willing to authorize it. Even aside from the side effects of the medication and his unwillingness to administer unnecessary injections, Phlox wouldn't treat patients who refused to be treated. Not unless he believed that their rejection of treatment was caused by some sort of medically induced mental imbalance… which he wouldn't in this case because the only person he suspected of being unbalanced was Reed.
Reed had one dose in his pocket, for one person. That person was supposed to be himself. Could he make it through this mission without it? Even if he could, what was he going to do with it? Inject it into someone else? Who? Who could he give it to that would fix all this? Would it even work with people so far gone, or was it only good as a preventative? He didn't have enough medical knowledge to even begin to guess. But he knew who did.
Phlox. But he didn't need to save the dose he had for that. It would be a minor matter to overpower the unsuspecting doctor during a regular injection and give Phlox the injection intended for Reed. There was no reason to preserve the dose in his pocket for that. In fact, there was good reason to take it. Being overdue for the medication would weaken him considerably, as was proven by what had happened on previous occasions. He'd need to be as clear-headed as possible to take the good doctor on.
And, assuming it was a cure and not just a preventative, was it quick, or would it take time? If the latter, Reed would wind up in the Brig, unable to help Phlox at all. Though normally Phlox had medical authority in situations like this, Reed was fairly certain Archer wouldn't accept that authority if he realized Phlox was no longer with the rest of them. And if Archer refused, then so would the rest of the crew. Phlox might be too easy to neutralize.
No, Reed needed to start at the top, and then work his way down if he got the opportunity. But when would he ever get the chance to inject Archer or even T'Pol in private, somewhere they could not immediately call for assistance if the medication took time to take effect? And which was the better target? T'Pol was the science officer, and sure to understand the situation more fully and immediately. But Archer was the true wielder of authority on the ship.
Ideally, Reed would be able to get Archer, T'Pol and Phlox… but he had a pretty good idea that he'd be able to get one of them, at most, before finding himself locked up in the Brig. Archer would be the only one with authority to release him afterword.
"Hey! Enterprise to Malcolm Reed? Are you awake in there?"
"What?" Reed blinked, and realized Tucker had been yelling at him.
"Are you gonna help us hunt mushrooms or just stand there with your mouth open?" Tucker asked, gesturing towards a path leading into the surrounding jungle area, "C'mon, Lieutenant, those mushrooms aren't going to find themselves."
"Right," Reed shook his head, and fell in with the landing party, "Of course."
But his mind was still elsewhere. Archer was the key. Somehow, Reed had to get through to him.
Following the path suggested by the Dolizet, Commander Tucker had marched them for almost an hour into the dense, rough wilderness, scanning as they went for signs of the mushrooms.
The hills were blanketed by tall, straight trees that grew in dense copses that in their turn made up a verdant forest. The trunks of the trees were thin, which might have been why they had to grow in tight clusters, in order to protect themselves from the wind. Between copses, which often numbered between one and five dozen, the forest floor was absolutely covered with greenery of one sort or another. So many shapes and shades of green that it was frankly disorienting to look at, and Reed found himself longing for even a small patch of that ugly sand from the other planet just to have something to ground himself with. The irregular shapes of green that all moved in the slightest breeze, catching sunlight filtered through the ceiling of leaves would have sounded pretty if Reed had heard it described, but the reality was that every leaf and branch and flower was just enough unlike Earth to be unsettling.
It would have been easier to stroll through a forest of igneous rock trees complete with limestone leaves, because that would have been overtly fantastic, instead of bordering on the mundane, yet strange enough to set the nerves on edge. It was like a quiet warning that this was a mere veneer. Just beneath the surface was something truly alien and incomprehensible… he just couldn't quite get more than a fleeting glimpse of it.
Birds, or something very much like them, chirped in the trees. Little skittering lizards or mammals or both went from shadow to shadow, branch to branch, all somehow out of sight or only at the periphery of his vision. Every sound was like something he knew, yet was clearly not that thing.
Of course, for Reed, the most undesirable part of it all was the god-awful humidity, an atmospheric condition that Commander Tucker seemed to find oddly invigorating.
Tucker and Travis had their scanners out, set to look for the unique chemical makeup of the mushrooms. But Reed wasn't terribly interested in that. He was looking for biosigns. He didn't trust the Dolizet -or this planet- one little bit, and he didn't want to be caught by surprise.
Unfortunately, this forest, like most forests, was so vibrantly alive that his scanner couldn't cope with it. Biosigns registered everywhere, overlapped and interfered with each other. There could have been a Klingon hiding behind that fallen log less than a meter from where Tucker was standing at the moment and Reed would never have been able to detect it through all the interference. Unless he narrowed the perimeters to looking for a specific species, so it would have some means of trying to thin out some of the noise, the scanner wasn't going to be much use to Reed. If anyone or anything was going to come up on them suddenly, he'd have to try detecting it the old fashioned way: eyes and ears.
He put the scanner away.
"You know, if I'da known you were gonna be this useless, Malcolm, I'd've left you with the shuttle pod," Tucker remarked, with a sour glance at the scanner Reed had put away.
"I can go back there if you like," Reed spat back, "I didn't ask to be here."
"And I didn't ask to have some stiff-necked, paranoid, gun-happy jackass constantly getting in the way of my work," Tucker practically shouted, turning on Reed and forgetting his scans, "And yet-" he waved both arms in Reed's direction as the end of that sentence.
"Gun-happy?!"
"Okay," Travis said, trying to gently intervene, "I think maybe we should all take a step back and-"
"No, let's have it," Reed interrupted snappishly, glaring at Tucker, "Let's have what you really think of me. Get it out of your system, Commander. After all, I wouldn't want you to go to your deathbed with regrets about things you wish you'd said."
"Is that a threat?" Tucker growled.
"What? Of course not!"
"Oh come on!" Travis tried again, stepping between them, "You're both being ridiculous. What would Captain Archer think of you two fighting like this, huh?" Travis looked frantically between one senior officer and the other, "He'd relieve you of duty and send you to your quarters," he gave Reed a more significant look as he added, "Again!"
"You think so?" Reed said, moving back just a little so Travis wasn't right in his face, "Well maybe he should," he looked past Travis ad Tucker, "At least that way we'd both be getting what we deserved for a change."
"You son of a bitch," Tucker hissed, looking as if he was contemplating going around Travis, despite all the reasons not to, and the thread thin reasoning behind this conflict with Reed.
Tucker had always been temperamental, and it was doing Reed no favors now, with everyone turned against him anyway. But Reed was tired, frustrated and angry. He was in no frame of mind to be calm or rational, or to continue taking a beating with equanimity. When one dog bites another dog and refuses to let go, it's only natural for that other dog to eventually turn and bite back.
More than natural, it was inevitable.
It had taken weeks, but Reed had finally reached the limit of his tolerance.
For a long second, the two friends glared at each other in furious silence. And then Tucker pushed past Travis, and went for Reed. All but forgetting what was hanging in the balance, and the fact that this might ruin any opportunity he might have to succeed in saving Enterprise and her crew, Reed was more than willing to meet his ragingly demented superior.