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“Doc.”

“Si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime…”

“Doc!”

“Mais je t’aime, prends garde à toi!”

“Doc!”

The Doctor poked his head out of his office, wiping his hands on a cloth. “Yes?”

“When can I go home?”

“How are you feeling?”

“My head hurts and I’m cranky and I don’t think anyone is bringing me a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“This is not a mess hall, Mr. Paris,” the Doctor said, flipping open his medical tricorder.

“Precisely why I want to go home.”

Waving the device over Tom’s head, the EMH frowned. “Hmmm…” he hummed while consulting the display. “Self-absorbed. Churlish in a moderately amusing manner. Concerned only with your own feelings.” He snapped the tricorder shut. “You’re cured. Go home.”

Tom flipped the thin blanket off his legs and swung them off the side of the biobed. “Thanks,” he said. “Can you do anything about my headache?”

“Take two analgesics and call me in the morning,” he said, and returned to his office.

As Tom was sliding on his boots, sickbay’s doors parted and Harry stalked in looking unusually agitated. “Hey,” he said. “Feeling better?”

“I’m all right,” Tom said. “Just another sharp blow to the rear of my head.”

“That’s quite a collection you’re amassing. What is it about you that you’re always getting hit?”

“I assumed,” Tom said, lightly touching the still-tender spot, “that it has something to do with flying into the face of danger at a moment’s notice.”

“Or, possibly, being clumsy.”

“The Doctor has suggested as much,” Tom said. “Are you here to see me or to talk to the Doc?”

“Neither,” Harry said. “I was hoping B’Elanna was here.”

“She was here for a few minutes,” Tom confirmed, “then had an idea and wanted to go check it out. I suspect she doesn’t want to be bothered until she’s had a chance to work all the angles. Is this about the physics of the local space?”

“Yeah,” Harry said, distractedly skimming some notes on his padd. “I’m supposed to meet Seven down in astrometrics and begin working this problem, but wanted to check a couple things with B’Elanna first.”

“Because she’s so much more reasonable…”

Harry snickered appreciatively. “Depending on her mood, yes. If nothing else, she’s a touch less condescending.”

“True.” Glancing over Harry’s shoulder at his padd, Tom tried to make sense of the notes. “How could a planet’s magnetic field look like that?”

“Usually from extreme volcanic activity, but I haven’t seen any evidence of that so far. I’m telling you, Tom, nothing here makes any sense.”

Tom grinned. “So you’re enjoying yourself, then?”

Kim tried to hide his smile, but had to surrender. “Enjoying? That might be a bit extreme, but, is it interesting? Yes. And to think we almost flew past here without a backward glance.”

“And then you had to open your mouth.”

Before Harry could reply, the door opened and sickbay was suddenly packed full of broad-shouldered, thrumming, knuckle-walking Monorhans. Hearing the commotion, the Doctor emerged from his office and attempted to assert control, but it wasn’t until the captain was at the center of the room calling for quiet that Tom had a chance to study the guests. At first glance, all five Monorhans appeared very similar, but as he examined them more closely he detected subtle differences in face shape and hair color. Their leader, Captain Ziv, was the tallest and gave the impression of having the most self-control. The other four (the last one, accompanied by Neelix, joined the group just as the captain was explaining the examination procedure) were fidgety and nervous. Tom decided that the hollow clacks and thrums he heard were some sort of unconscious subvocalizations.

Once everyone was settled, Neelix and Chakotay took over and escorted first the Monorhan captain, then the others into the examination room. The tests were basic screenings and DNA scans, the sort of thing the Doctor would run on any visitor who arrived on a shuttle to make sure they weren’t carrying some dodgy virus or microorganism that Voyager’s environmental