A little gossip

Posted on Thu Sep 27th, 2018 @ 10:07am by Civilian Jessica Haugen & Lieutenant Helena Wells

2,175 words; about a 11 minute read

Mission: Negotiations and Apothecaries
Location: The lounge, Deck 3
Timeline: 15th feb 2395

ON:

It had been a quiet day in the lounge so far and Jessica had taken to meticulously cleaning the floor, a full bottle of synth wine had accidentally smashed earlier and and left a stain across a big patch of the floor that was so far refusing to come out.

HG headed to the lounge to continue to work on the bubble theory she had been working on. She spied the woman working away at cleaning. It was funny how the universe had a way of suddenly bringing two different things together and concerning the same topic. "You know if you put a bit of club soda on that stain then follow up with a bit of detergent you might get a bit further."

Jessica looked up towards the voice and saw HG standing there. "That was next on my list of techniques to try Miss Wells."

"HG please," HG replied and headed over the bar area to find some the aforementioned club soda. "Let me pitch in, it's not like I have a lot to do at the moment....Jessica if I remember aright?"

"That's right." Jessica said, still scrubbing at the floor. She saw HG go behind the bar and called out. "Should be some in the blue cupboard at the bottom."

HG found the bottle and returned. "Here we go, let's see if we can lift that stain a bit." She carefully poured a bit on the spot and watched it bubble. The math of the bubbles forming, merging and popping playing in her mind. "You know for all the randomness that it appears there is actually a fair bit of that is all explained by math. Funny I was just working on something like that. I sometimes wonder if the universe does not have some sort of path to it. I am hoping to one day peek under Mother Nature's skirts to find out." She laughed lightly at that.

"Never was very good at science." Jessica remarked sitting back on the floor as the soda worked its magic on the stain. "Too complicated, closest thing I get is the science of mixing drinks."

"Not complicated at all once you get the gist of the math behind it all. There is a certain elegance, a certain grace to it. First the foam rearranges its macroscopic structure as surface tension and the flow of air push the bubbles around until the foam settles into a stable configuration. Then liquid drains from the thin membranes, known as lamellae, that encase the individual bubbles until one of those lamellae is too weak to support the bubble. Finally, in the third stage, the thinned lamella breaks and the bubble pops, knocking the entire foam out of equilibrium and starting the process over." HG mused as she watched. She then looked up. "Well, did not mean to get into my lecture mode. I tend to get focused on something and forget everything else. Well let me start over here. What made you decide on bar tending and on a bloody space ship to boot?"

"Boredom repetitiveness of being on earth, adventure, serving all kinds of aliens all kinda bizzare drinks, stuff like that." Jessica replied. "Speaking of which." She got up and headed behind the bar and quickly pulled out a small bottle. "Want to try something I picked up on 54? I know you like scotch."

HG shook her head in the negative. "Not to say no, but I do tend to follow the same restrictions as the rest of the regular crew."

"Oh come now, I haven't had a customer in 5 hours and it's usually packed at this time of day." Jessica remarked then added. "One won't hurt you."

"Single malt?" HG inquired. "I don't really like blended very much."

"Single malt." Jessica replied passing HG the bottle. "Probably as old as Commander Tigrans symbiont."

HG made a face as she thought. It sounded good and scotch aged very well, got smoother. She wanted to try and yet she wanted to follow regulations as if she was signed up. It was a tussle in her mind but finally she nodded. "Couple of fingers only, I best not get too snockered."

"I think it would make a lot of these fleeters 'snockered' pretty quick. Most of them seem to have never had much real alcohol." Jessica pulled out a small glass and poured a couple of fingers of the scotch in.

"All to true. Maybe that is why when they get off the leash at a base security it always getting called. Well here's to Gemütlichkeit. Prost!" HG said but she did not down the drink instead swirled it, smelled it, and then just took a bit to savour the fine aged liquid. "Hmmm.....Speyside, I am almost certain of it."

"Certainly tasted like it to me, not much of a drinker myself though. Jessica sealed the bottle back up. "Being surrounded by alcohol kinda kills the attraction of it."

"I think you also learn the good and bad of it as well. That it can be a nice way to let people unwind but it also can be a way to let people get too maudlin or belligerent as well." HG savoured a bit more, this was not something one just tossed down, this was a drink to be admired, let the complex chemicals interact. She then said, "Sola dosis facit venenum, the dose makes the poison. All things are poison and nothing is without poison; only the dose makes a thing not a poison. Good old Paraceleus was correct in that observation."

"Or in laymans terms. Too much of a good thing is bad for you." Jessica said, she looked over Hg's shoulder at the pile of blubbling soda. "Looks like it is working." She headed around the bar towards the stain.

HG turned and looked at the spot on the floor. The fluid seemed to have a sort of fizzy reddish colour to it. She put down her not quite finished glass and followed Jessica over. "Can I help sop it up?"

"I think I've got it from here." Jessica replied. "You go finish your drink."

"Alright," HG was not going to argue. She did feel useless though. A thing she did not like but this was not a fight to get into. She savoured another little bit and watched Jessica and the stars sweeping by.

"Have you ever wondered just how slow this all is?" She waved a hand at the observation lounge windows.

"How do you mean?" Jessica asked. "From what I heard we are going pretty much as fast as the ship can possibly go."

HG smiled and waved the glass, not enough to spill an drop but the liquid came perilously close. "That is because the designers could not think beyound four dimensions and especially beyound more than one dimension of time. Imagine if you were a two dimensional creature on the surface of say a ball. You wanted to get to a spot on the other side. You could crawl across the surface, you could as we are doing sort of warp the surface and skip the waves to get there faster, you might even get lucky and find a tunnel going through the ball, but imagine if going into that third dimension, skipping all that, you could theoretically be there in basically no time."

"I think my head will explode and make an even worse stain than this wine if you keep talking science with me Miss Wells." Jessica said with a slight chuckle.

"HG please and if you do not then I will get into the real down and deep mathematics," HG looked hard for a moment before laughing and taking another sip of the fine whiskey. "Well I guess I should not offer to take place in some of my holonovel adventures. They are all based on my several times great grandfather's work. Always a bit of science in there but a lot of fun as well. Not sure the Traveler should have helped the Eloi over the Morlocks. Even in the extra chapter the 'Grey Man' I think even the Traveler realized that or my ancestor did."

"Haven't been on the holodeck for a while myself." Jessica said as she scrubbed at the stain. "Sometimes it's hard to get the time with all the fleeters wanting them."

"Thought things were on a even basis here. I have not utilized it much myself lately but as far as I know I have equal standing time as the rest. Well you are welcome anyway if you are interested."

Jessica smiled. "I may have to take you up on the offer one day." She shuffled back a little to check the stain. "Looks like that did the trick, she's nearly all out."

"Good, I would like to have another adventuress by my side. The guys tend to be all lets go barging in, guns blazing, shoot, shoot some more and if anything is left try to figure it all out. I like sleuthing and puzzle figuring first, then if need be blow the heck out of something." She laughed.

"I know what you mean, you hear a lot of tales here, most of the men's are about action, planes, fighting and suchlike. While for the ladies it tends to be more relaxed apart from the odd...... adventure with fine specimens of different species."

HG raised an eyebrow at that. "Ah now there is a subject I have not had a lot of time to explore though mostly for the lack of time. However there was this one Xelatian..." HG trailed off in memory. "Knew how to use those tentacles in a most delicious way."

"I prefer mine home grown." Jessica remarked. "Though the young Trills in my haboosian baths holoprogram, if they did stuff other than massages I don't think I could say no."

HG just laughed. "I can just imagine what sort of masseuse you conjure up. If you make it so they are tempting then it means that you are looking for something more then a massage."

"....Maybe." Jessica said. "They didn't need any adjusting to make them tempting." With the stain cleared up enough that you could barely notice it she stood up and joined HG at the bar.

"Still considering that they are in reality nothing more than code in the computer what goes in there is something picked up from you or how the computer's AI perceives what you wish." HG hummed just a little then lightly sang a song from a very old Earth movie:
'Give yourself over to absolute pleasure
Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh
Erotic nightmares beyond any measure'

"That seems familiar....." Jessica said, she pondered for a moment but couldn't think what it was.

"Rocky Horror Picture Show," HG smiled. "Not sure ever seen it or not. My brother used to say I could have easily played a part though he was never sure if Columbia or Magenta would have suited me the best."

Jessica laughed slightly, she'd seen the show a couple of times. "I prefer something like the Phantom of the Opera, don't quite have the voice to sing it good though."

"Ah," HG said and then made a bit of bow and sang:
"Sing once again with me,our strange duet..."

She made a bit of dramatic gesture like flinging a cape back. "Of course if you are interested, I think I could make you sing quite nicely." A little glint of lust in the eyes was there.

"You want to be my angel of music?" Jessica asked using another reference to the show.

"Or I can be quite the devil as well," HG then sang from a different song: "You've got to kiss an angel good morning and love her like the devil when you get back home."

Jessica smiled, she recognised the words and the genre but couldnt quite place the name of the song "Country music too, you do have some varied tastes miss Wells."

"Variety is the spice of life, it reminds us of what living is for. Oh equations and all that fascinate me but sometimes one has to realize there is more to things than lovely mathematical mysteries. There is nothing at all wrong with wine, chocolate and satin sheets." HG replied and raised her brows.

"I agree with you there, can't go wrong with a bit of chocolate." Jessica took Hg's glass and put it next to the cleaner. "Now speaking of chocolate I had best start cooking, it's shift change in an hour or so and I'm doing chocolate chip cookies for part of a dessert option."

HG laughed. "Well sounds like I am getting the brush off. No problem, just if you want to give it a go let me know." She nodded and headed on out.

"I will think about it, good day Miss Wells." Jessica said as Hg left.

OFF:

Jessica Haugen
Lounge manager
Npc Taliserra

HG Wells
Scientist

 

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