Caretaker - L. A. Graf [46]
"That's what the Ocampa call him. They live on the fifth planet."
Neelix leaned forward as though trying to crawl through the viewscreen, but was only rearranging himself on the floor, Janeway realized. She spared a fleeting thought about who--or what--had originally piloted that tiny vessel. "Did he kidnap members of your crew?" Neelix asked.
She sniffed a cynical laugh. "As a matter of fact, he did."
Neelix bobbed his head in sympathy. "It's not the first time."
"Do you know where he might have taken them?"
"I've heard they're sent to the Ocampa," Neelix told her.
"Nothing more."
It was more than they'd had before. "We'd appreciate any help you could give us in finding these Ocampa."
Neelix cocked his head as though listening to someone who wasn't really there, the sadness in his eyes warring with the curiosity of his hands on the lifeless equipment in front of him. "I wish I could help," he sighed, "but as you can see, there is so much debris to investigate today." He leaned forward again, this time in friendly confidence.
"You'd be surprised the things of value some people abandon."
If he'd been a Ferengi, she'd have been more sure that feral glimmer was entirely motivated by greed. Following her instincts, she offered sweetly, "Of course, we'd want to compensate you for your trouble."
The expression of utter innocence that flashed across his face convinced her even further that, wherever Neelix came from, his people had obviously escaped from the more moderate Ferengi generations ago.
"There's very little you could offer me," he assured her earnestly.
"Unless..."
He was doing all right until that qualifier. "Yes?" Janeway prompted.
"Unless," he repeated in the same oh-so-speculative tone, "of course, you had..." Dark eyes brightened eagerly. "Water."
She knew the surprise showed on her face, compounded by the fact that an instant later she didn't know why such a request had even startled her. The closest habitable planet--and Neelix certainly wasn't going very far, very fast in any of the rotted hulks around them--didn't even have enough surface water to support a brown savannah. That meant what she took for granted every morning in her coffee was probably the most valuable bargaining tool she could have hoped for. "If you help us find our missing crew members, you can have all the water you want."
Neelix dropped his jaw in dumb amazement, then jerked it shut with a snap too late to disguise the reaction. "That seems like a..." He stammered trying to find the words. "... reasonable arrangement."
More than reasonable, and Janeway had the advantage of knowing it.
"Good. We'll beam you over and tow your ship into our shuttlebay."
She had a feeling the little wreck wouldn't survive a tractor beam's stress without blowing every atmospheric seal.
"Mr. Tuvok, go to Transporter Room Two and meet our guest."
Neelix shifted uncertain eyes between Janeway and the Vulcan's retreating back as Tuvok turned without comment for the turbolift.
"Beam?" Neelix squeaked uncertainly.
Janeway lifted an eyebrow. So transporter technology wasn't the norm among spacefaring worlds on this side of the pond. That was something worth keeping in mind. "We have a technology which can take you instantly from your ship to ours. It's quite harmless," she hurried to assure him when something that might be either excitement or terror crossed his face. "May we?"
He lifted his arms in acceptance, marvelous wonder still lingering on his face as the transporter reduced him to sparkling atoms and ghosted him away.
* The first thing Tuvok noticed about their guest was his smell.
He might have postulated that Neelix's people exuded a protective musk, like toadlets on Rudolpha IV. Or even that the glandular secretions from Neelix's reproductive endocrine cycle only registered as unpleasant to a Vulcan's hypersensitive nose, while smelling positively