Part II
The jungle's single path gaped at them, the trees along the outside beckoned them in, and Jean-Luc Picard had no intentions of following the trail. "I refuse to go along with this ridiculous plan of Lady Q's." He scowled at having to use the name of 'Lady Q.' To him, it felt like he were giving her a lofty title she didn't deserve, being Q. Though, once he thought about it, the Q probably assumed that they deserved such lordly titles.
Beverly, who had been contemplating the path before the captain had made his comment, turned to him. "You're refusing to save the universe?"
He opened his mouth then shut it, looking at her in askance as she crossed her arms and waited for his answer. Finally, he asked, "You don't think she was serious, do you?"
She arched an eyebrow.
"You do." Clearly, his friend had lost her mind. The corners of her lips quirked in response to some amusement he didn't share. The possibility that his friend was possessed crossed his mind. "So you'll go along with this charade?"
"I think you're just bitter about being the sidekick."
He gave her no response, unwilling to be drawn into a debate over being the hero or the sidekick. Not that he especially liked being the sidekick, as he was used to being the hero, as it were. He also really, strongly grated at being left to whim of a rather fickle Q.
Beverly heaved a long-suffering sigh, a sigh with which Jean-Luc was intimately familiar. She wanted him to realize something that she figured he was being purposely dense about. Which, had she asked, he would deny.
She didn't ask."Look. We're stuck with this until Lady Q decides otherwise. We can either sit here in the jungle and sulk, or go on a little adventure. I, for one, prefer adventure to sitting around doing nothing."
"I'm not playing along."
"Did you miss the part where it was described as an archeological adventure?"
His mind wandered back over the conversations, and after recalling them, he felt a twinge of want to solve the mystery. He tamped it down. He would not play along. "No."
"Jean-Luc. Days in a jungle with me, tramping through caves, looking for some ancient relics, which, as I recall, you love to look for in your spare time." Restlessly, she ran her hands through her hair.
He waffled. The sun overhead illuminated Beverly's hair as she brushed errant strands out of her face, and it automatically drew his attention. More than anyone or anything, she commanded his attention. She also made a good point, and not just about the mystery presented by Lady Q. In addition, there was Beverly. If he followed along, he'd be able to take advantage of the situation by taking another crack at solving the mystery who was Beverly. Though he hadn't thought possible, she'd become even more complex as of late, between the folly of their telepathic link, followed by the enigmatic kiss she'd bestowed on him in his ready room.
She stretched, and then bent over and hefted one of the packs left to them by Lady Q.
His eyes narrowed, wondering if his friend had done that on purpose, highlighting her curves like that.
He wondered just how many whims held him at their mercy.
She smirked at him. "Or are you really miffed about the cape? Is that it?"
That did it. The captain scowled, grabbed a pack, and slung it on his shoulders. "Fine. We'll go on this adventure of yours." He gestured at the path. "Lead on."
"Give me a second," she said, unfolding a piece of paper she'd somehow gotten ahold of when he wasn't looking. "Okay. This clue says to follow the trail to the first cave. From then on, it will be apparent for where to go next."
He reached for the paper. "Are you certain?"
She tucked the paper into one of her pockets—when had they been given appropriate clothing?—and glared at him. "You don't trust me?"
Picard sighed, a long-suffering sigh of his own with which Beverly was well familiar. She'd misunderstood him and he felt he had to prove he hadn't meant to offend her. "Beverly. I trust you implicitly. It's Lady Q whom I don't trust."
"Well, I do. So follow me." Without a backward glance, she started up the trail.
He stayed put, staring at her retreating backside, and recognized an advantage to being the sidekick—he could look at her rear all day and not feel badly about it. Well, not too badly. He wouldn't ogle, that would be demeaning. But he sure could admire and appreciate as he walked behind her.
So he followed.
The hour's hike passed peacefully. The lush trees around them lulled them into a quiet complacency, the quiet interrupted only by their breathing and the fluttering of animals in the canopy above. Soon enough, the dark entrance of a cave met them at a crossroads of two new trails. Beverly stood at the entrance, biting at her lip as she glared at each new trail in turn. A frown drawing her lips downward, she said, "I can't figure out which way to go."
He took off his pack and set it on the ground. "What? You mean Lady Q didn't bestow you with that information? You'd think she would have, given its importance."
"It isn't like Q told you right away what you were supposed to do to save the galaxy." The doctor drew the paper out of her pocket, unfolded it, and then held it at arm's length. "I'm sure the answer's on here somewhere."
As the cave breathed cool, damp air onto their backs, Picard stood at the entrance, patiently waiting for Beverly to decode whatever information the paper contained. A rustle made him glance over toward her. She'd rotated the paper to the left and had narrowed her eyes as she peered at it. In sequence, she glanced from the paper to the trails, rotated the paper again, and then compared them again. After five minutes of rotation and peering, the doctor crumpled the yellowed paper in her hands before hurling the ball into the jungle between the two trails.
"That's hardly productive," Picard said.
The doctor crossed her arms and spun to face him. "It made me feel better."
He lifted an eyebrow before turning toward the cave. Squinting into the inky darkness of the cave, he muttered, "Mission accomplished."
A pause followed his statement. Within that pause, he knew he should look back at his companion. At the same time, he could feel her glare burning into the back of his neck, hotter than any ray of the jungle's sun. Deciding to err on the side of his own safety, he didn't dare turn around.
Finally, Beverly said in an intensly controlled tone, "Let's just go inside and take a look around. There has to be a clue in there somewhere."
"That's the spirit," he replied, but still didn't dare turn around. Then he reached into his pack and pulled out a flashlight, grateful of Lady Q for that, at least. Shining light on the ground in front of him, he strode into the cave without a second thought. Somehow, the depths of the cave frightened him far less than Beverly's anger. When he saw another beam of light playing along the walls, he knew the doctor had decided to follow him. They maintained silence between them. The only sound was the crunch of gravel under their feet echoing on the stone walls.
After a few minutes, their flashlights lit up stalactites. Gazing at the giant teeth of the cave, the captain stopped paying attention to his footing. His next step didn't crunch. It squished. Before he had a chance to react, his other foot had slipped in whatever squishy substance littering the cave's floor. Both feet went out from under him, and instantly, the captain of the Federation's flagship found himself laying flat on his back in a pile of squishy... something. His eyes had closed as he fell, and he'd lost his flashlight on the way down. He didn't want to open his eyes anyway, unless he was safe and warm in his bed on the Enterprise.
A harsh light washed over his face. Carefully, he opened one eye only to find his best friend shining her flashlight in his face. Her lips were pressed together tightly, struggling mightily to cover what must have been a considerable amount of amusement. "Are you okay?" she asked, the edges of her mouth twitching in withheld laughter.
He stared at the ceiling. "I'm fine. Really. Fine. Though I seem to have lost my flashlight."
Beverly pointed a good ten feet away from them. "It's right there, illuminating a very stunning stalagmite."
"Lovely." Picard pushed himself to his feet, grimacing when his hands made contact with the mushy substance. He wiped his hands on his pants. "What is this stuff?"
"Guano."
His head snapped over to Beverly. "What?"
"Bat shit," she said. "You're covered in bat shit. Here's a towel."
When he took the towel and dourly began to wipe himself off, Beverly finally burst into laughter. Her laughs echoed off the cavern walls just as their footsteps had before. Leaving the captain to his guano removal process, she stepped over to where Picard's flashlight had landed. The captain watched her, trying to ignore the face that he was streaked with guano. Before Beverly bent over to pick up the flashlight, she kicked a rock out of the way. The rock skittered into the darkness. Just as the doctor's elegant fingers made contact with the flashlight's handle, they heard a rushing noise. Both of them studied the dark, looking for any indication of what the noise could be.
A cloud of bats zoomed out of the blackness. Whereas Picard was safely close to the cave wall, he was able to avoid the onrush of bats. Beverly, however, let out a scream and ducked, her hands flailing above her head in an attempt to ward off the flying mammals.
The departure of the bats left the cave with an empty quiet. Picard went back to fastidiously wiping the guano from his clothing. As he did so, he said, "I do believe you just screamed like a little girl."
"I did not."
He inspected his fingers once more, happy to find that they were now guano-free. "Oh, yes, you did. Yelped at a little swarm of fuzzy bats. Hardly behavior becoming of a Starfleet officer."
"And standing in a dark cave covered in bat shit is? You're hardly in a place to be casting aspersions, Jean-Luc." Standing in front of him now, she handed him his flashlight. "Also, guano is a vector of a whole host of diseases. So keep your hands to yourself, because I don't want to catch anything, and I don't want you to give yourself anything."
Just what was she insinuating? He had to know. "What do you mean, keep my hands to myself?"
Beverly was already heading deeper into the cave. "It means don't touch my stuff."
He frowned in the direction of her retreating backside, and then glanced down at the towel in his hands, wondering what the hell he could do with it. He'd left his pack outside. Scowling, he transferred the towel to his left hand and set about catching up with his partner. However, he took great care in stepping quite cautiously through the piles of guano. As he picked up his flashlight from beside what really was a beautiful stalagmite, Beverly called from ahead, "I found something!"
"I hope it's a shower," he said.
"Nope. Too bad."
"Damn." He took a step in Beverly's direction.
"Stay there. I'll come back to you."
"You were never with me in the first place," he grumbled to himself. Then he realized how close Beverly had gotten and could only hope she hadn't heard him.
As she walked, the doctor held up what looked like a very old book between her hands. "Our first clue!"
He held out his free hand so he could look at the tome himself. Beverly snatched it away before he could touch it. "Remember what I said?"
After he shot his friend a glare, he remembered that he had cargo pockets and shoved the towel in one of them. Then he shoved his hands in his upper pockets and strolled toward the exit, leaving the doctor behind. If he couldn't actively participate, there wasn't a point to his remaining in a guano-ridden, bat-infested cave.
"Just where are you going?" came Beverly's indignant voice from behind him.
"Outside."
"To sulk."
He didn't answer. She was right, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Instead, he stepped into the sunlight...along with the damp, murderous heat. If this was a real rainforest, rain would be falling soon enough. After all, it was late afternoon, the time when rain typically fell. And he wanted to be outside to catch it as he didn't exactly relish the soiled nature of his clothing. Though Beverly seemed to be reveling in teasing him about it. As he stood near the entrance of the cave, his face pointed up at the sky, asking for the rain, he heard the shuffle of a page being turned behind him.
"This one's the Madrid Codex."
"That's nice." Why couldn't it rain?
More paper shuffling. "I'm not seeing anything useful, though. Oh, here's a play."
He found himself utterly devoid of what he'd previously thought to be a vast repository of patience. "Perhaps you could perform it if we ever make it back to the ship."
"Ha. Ha." After minutes of perusing the Codex, he heard Beverly shut the book with a loud snap. "Not a single clue."
"In retrospect, throwing out that treasure map seems to have been a bad idea. Wouldn't you agree?" When Picard felt the doctor's glare searing across his back, he wondered if he'd gone a bit too far. In an attempt to save his life, he kept his mouth shut and remained looking plaintively at the sky.
Behind him, he heard some foot stomping, a pack being opened. Rustling as someone rummaged through said pack.
Picard wondered if there was some sort of weapon in the pack and if his life was about to end. Mentally, he shrugged. If he was going to die, at least it was going to be by the hands of a beautiful woman. More rustling, and then the distinct sound of a paper being unfolded. Was she going to murder him by paper cut? Was that even possible?
"I found another copy of the paper Lady Q gave me. So you can stop being so damn smug."
Paper newly found, he found the courage to speak. "I don't know if you've forgotten, but it's hard for me to be smug when covered, as you say, with bat shit."
More rummaging. "You have a change of clothes in your pack, Jean-Luc. You can at least get out of what you're wearing now."
"Maybe I will, maybe I won't. Is it so dangerous for me not to change? I mean, what sort of disease can bats and their refuse carry, anyway?"
Footsteps, and then Beverly's presence in front of him. He faced forward, finally making eye contact. Now that he was looking at her, he searched her eyes for a murderous glint. He found none and felt a moment of relief. Then he saw it—an incredible annoyance with him arcing insider her blue irises. Even though his best friend didn't want to kill him, he was in trouble anyway. And sometimes, death was preferable to being the object of Beverly's ire.
When she spoke, it was in her physician voice. "Histoplasmosis, for starters. It's a lung disease caused by inhaling the spores of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum." The doctor paused, and the annoyance was quickly replaced by realization. "Oh, dammit. Inhaled. I could just as easily catch Histoplasmosis as you could."
"You should be grateful, Beverly. At least you aren't covered in bat shit." On seeing the annoyance returning to the doctor's eyes, the captain quickly resumed looking at the sky.
It started to rain.