To Storm Heaven - Esther Friesner [98]
“He’s dead{” Alexander cried. “Father, Fido’s dead!” “batlh-gobbogh-ylH,” Worf corrected his son automatically as he scooped up the still little form. Hands that had the strength to shatter bone handled the tiny creature with amazing delicacy and care. One finger lay lightly against the furry side until— “He is not dead,” Worf announced. “He is still breathing.” “What’s wrong with him?” Alexander asked plaintively, for the moment forgetting that he was a young Klingon warrior-to-be.
“I—I don’t know what to say,” Avren stammered, frantic over what had happened. “I assure you, none of those plants are poisonous.” “Not to you,” Worf said. “You had no business allowing my son’s companion to ingest them.” “I swear, I didn’t think any of them would harm him! I think the poor creature must’ve eaten some of the shepherd’s herb. It’s stupefied him the same as it does the Ashkaarians.” “Father, please can’t we do something for him?” Alexander pleaded. “Maybe Dr. Crusher could help him.” Lt. Worf began to say, “It is not appropriate to trouble Dr. Crusher with a sick hamster,” but before he had uttered the fourth word he saw the tragic look in his son’s eyes. “It is not—Oh, very well,” he said at last, and with the dazed batlh-gobbogh-ylH in one hand and the hangdog Avren lagging after, he led the way to sickbay.
Dr. Crusher examined her extraordinary patient with as much professional efficiency as she could muster without bursting into laughter. The hamster lay on its back, all four paws curled up, a vacant, amiable expression on its face. “Almost as if it’s smiling at me,” she observed aloud.
The hamster’s whiskers twitched into a lopsided expression that was very like a drunken grin and a minuscule spasm shook its body.
“I do believe he’s got the hiccups,” Dr. Crusher opined. She looked up at a very worried Alexander, “What have you been feeding him?” “I didn’t do it,” Alexander said.
“I’m afraid it was me.” Avren stepped forward, fiddling with his hatbrim. “I didn’t do it on purpose, though. The plant isn’t poisonous to Ashkaarians.
Even the sheep eat it with no ill effects, though it does slow them down pretty much if they find a big patch of it on the mountain. If I’d known it would hurt the animal—,’ “You’ll be happy to know that you haven’t poisoned Alexander’s hamstor,” Dr. Crusher reassured him. “But you have gotten him drunk as a lord.” “Drunk as a what?” Avren was puzzled by the alien figure of speech.
“What I’d like to know,” Dr. Crusher continued, “is where you got the plant you say you fed him. You don’t appear to be carrying anything with you.” “Oh. That. Well, you see, it’s like this.” Avren plucked the sprig of dried vegetation from his hatband and held it out for Dr. Crusher’s inspection. He was explaining the properties of the various healing herbs with the enthusiasm of someone who enjoys hearing himself talk, but he was doing it for the benefit of an inattentive audience.
Dr. Crusher wasn’t listening to Avren run on. Her attention was elsewhere as she studied the dried bouquet very closely, with a scientist’s rapt concentration. One by one she separated the species comprising Avren’s modest frippery on the examination station in front of her. Worf observed the process with both interest and perplexity. The individual samples of dried herb all looked pretty much the same to him.
Not so to Dr. Crusher. When she had gotten them all separated she selected one bunch in particular and held it up for more painstaking scrutiny. “That’s the one the creature got a hold of,” Avren said, eager to be heard. “Shepherd’s herb, that’s the stuff.” Dr. Crusher broke off one of the tiny branchlets of the plant, placed it in a clear slipcase, and dropped it into sickbay’s specialized analytical unit. “Computer, DNA of sample submitted, evaluate,” she directed, gazing intently at the display screen set into the wall above the input port.
“Working,” came the disembodied voice of the ship’s computer. There was a brief silence, followed by a detailed breakdown of the sample’s genetic makeup, all of