The Garden - Melissa Scott [26]
Janeway nodded, her attention already elsewhere, and Kim returned his tricorder to his belt. The breeze he had felt before was picking up again, ruffling his hair, and he could see faint puffs of pale yellow dust rising from the plumes as the wind took them. Pollen, he guessed, and was not surprised when Paris sneezed. The breeze strengthened further, bending the grasses into graceful arcs, the plumes nearly touching the ground. The sudden gusts sent a drift of pollen across the road's polished surface at his feet, and Kim held his breath as he stepped through it. Even so, he caught a whiff of a harsh, pungent odor- skunk and asafetida-and grimaced.
"Lovely stuff," Paris said, and Kim glanced back just in time to see the taller man stagger and sink to one knee.
"Captain!" Kim hooked his tricorder back on his belt and ran to help. Paris shook his head, hard, and Kim caught him by the shoulders, pulling him upright. "What happened, Tom?"
"Are you all right, Mr. Paris?" Janeway called. She was keeping her distance, Kim thought, and very properly, too. The last thing they needed was for the captain to be affected by whatever it was that had hit Paris.
Paris shook his head again, but took a step without falling. "Damned if I know. I smelled that stuff", the dust, and then, wham, I went down."
Kim shifted his grip on Paris's shoulders, freeing one hand to work his tricorder. "Nothing-no, wait. Hold your breath, Tom." He closed his own eyes for good measure as a spray of pollen washed past them, opened them again only as the breeze faded from his face. The readings glowed red in the tricorder's screen. "It's the pollen," he called. "It's not really harmful unless you breathe a whole lot of it, but it'll make you dizzy for a minute or two if you get a direct hit of it."
"Lovely stuff"," Paris said again, and freed himself from Kim's grip. "I felt like I'd been drinking with Klingons."
"Are you all right now?" Kim asked, and touched keys to switch the tricorder to medical mode.
Paris nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Report, Mr. Kim," Janeway called, and Kim looked quickly over his shoulder.
"He's fine now. The pollen seems to be very quick-acting-quick to wear off, too."
"Will filter masks block it?"
Kim glanced again at the tricorder. "Yes, Captain. It's a pretty big grain."
"Good." Janeway touched her communicator. "Janeway to Voyager."
"Chakotay here, Captain." The first officer's voice sounded tense, and Kim saw the captain's expression change.
"Is everything all right, Mr. Chakotay?"
"Everything's fine here, Captain. Are you all right? We've been picking up faint power fluctuations in your area, but we can't pinpoint the source."
"No real problems," Janeway answered, "just a plant with some-interesting-pollen. Beam down a set of standard filter masks, one for each of us. Get your fix from our communicators, we may be moving on."
"Aye, Captain," Chakotay said.
"Thank you, Chakotay. Janeway out." She looked at her team. "Come on, gentlemen, there's no point in standing here."
Maybe not, Kim thought, but I'll be glad to get those filters. He covered his nose and mouth with his hand as the wind shook another drift of the pale dust across the road, and heard Renehan cough and stumble. He turned back to help, but the other security man had already caught her by the elbow and was urging her along. Then the air shimmered, and a white-wrapped package appeared on the road surface perhaps a meter ahead. Torres-she seemed least affected by the pollen, Kim thought, maybe because of her Klingon blood-made a little noise of satisfaction and sprinted to retrieve it. The others hurried to join her, and Torres handed out the masks, folding the white wrapping into a neat packet that she tucked into her