Tribble Love Song

Posted on 20 Jul 2014 @ 8:58am by Commander Andreus Kohl & Lieutenant Jared Nicholas & Commander Norvi Stace
Edited on on 20 Jul 2014 @ 8:59am

1,723 words; about a 9 minute read

Mission: Episode 06 - Legend of Souls
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 1, Bridge
Timeline: MD 07 - 1349 hours

[ON]

"When Tribbles are singing, what do you think they're singing about?" asked Andreus Kohl. He was standing beside his Bridge station, when he questioned a fellow science officer, Jared Nicholas. The Science II station to Kohl's right was split between long range sensor readings, and internal sensor reports about the whereabouts of masses of Tribbles. Singing Tribbles was what the sensor results brought to Kohl's mind.

Jared looked over at his fellow science officer with a small smile. "Given that Tribbles multiply faster than rabbits, I would say sex. Or possibly a lullaby. Why? That is a rather strange question to ask."

"Oh, I am filled to the brim with strange questions," Kohl remarked with a challenging, if lopsided, smirk. He crossed his arms over his chest, and he said, "I suppose what I meant to ask was: do Tribbles have language? Do they communicate with one another?"

"That is an interesting theory. I'm not sure how sentient a Tribble is. I mean do dogs or cats have languages? I would have to give that some thought."

"I was involved in a zoosemiotics study aboard Berengaria," Kohl replied, "and the answer is yes, they do. ...And no they don't." Kohl shrugged and he perched himself on the edge of the science console. "Like humans, animal vocalisations play a small role in their overall method of communication. They say a lot through body language and pheromones as well. I imagine, Tribbles must be reasonably similar?"

"I'm not sure about body language, I think that would be somewhat hard to observe. However, communicating by pheromones seems quite logical to assume."

Breathing out a heavy breath, Kohl rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, as he considered Jared's response. "Is there," Kohl asked, "a way we could use that? Use the Tribble notion of language to lure them all into the same compartment?"

Jared thought for a moment "That's a good idea. It would take some experimentation, but it would be worth it. Maybe we should call a couple of people tor take our shifts and go do that."

Kohl nodded thoughtfully at Jared's suggestion, and then took hold of Jared's wrist. Leading the way fore, Kohl pulled Jared behind him as he approached the large Science I station. "Norvi," Kohl said lyrically. "Have you ever read up on Tribble pheromones?"

Keeping her eye on the readout that was currently scrolling through the latest scans from the mining expeditions, Stace barely lost concentration as she answered somewhat detatchedly to her own number one. "I can't say that I have had any need to until this week," she replied almost coldly. But then she stopped looking at the screen and turned to face the two scientists with a frustrated smile. "But it is an avenue of thought, I have to admit. There's bound to be something in the database. Need a hand to look?"

"Of course," Jared mentioned flashing her one of his signature smiles, "the more the merrier."

"I've been engaged in research with our linguist here on the intersection between language and biochemistry," Kohl said, by way of explanation for his non sequitur of a hello to Stace. "I imagine it would follow that if we can't trick or trap the Tribbles, we should just try asking them to congregate in one compartment in a language they understand."

"Exactly. Mr. Kohl is either a genius or certifiable. Either way, it couldn't hurt to give it a shot."

Stace secured her station and then motioned over to one of the lurking teal-clad crewmen at the back of the bridge. "It's meant to be my day off from bridge duty anyway," she said, raising from her chair and nodding to the Bajoran who took her place. Speaking now to her, she added, "Continue with my work on the telemetry from the sensors. I need a full database of everything we have collected so far."

She then turned back to Jared and Andreus. "I haven't had a chance to grab lunch today either, so if we move to one of the labs, do you mind if I grab something from the mess on the way down?"

"I think we could all use some sandwiches, or something. I'm hungry too."

Leaving for the turbolift, she encouraged the others to follow. "We'll put in a working lunch order in on our way down and see that they can do for us in the name of Science!"

Deck 3 - Multipurpose Laboratory 4

Sandwiches and coffee strewn across the main table, the three scientists seemed deep in conversation and thought. "There must be some significant pattern with the tones, though," Stace suggested between mouthfuls of coffee and taking a bite out of her BLT. "There must. Have we check the counterpoint again?"

Perched on a stool, Kohl slurped on his iced coffee from a tall glass. As he did so, his free hand slid and swiped across the LCARS controls on the workstation. He stopped making so much noise --basically held his breath-- as he played one Tribble pur, and then another, over the communication nodes in the lab. "A singe Tribble at rest among a colony of Tribbles. A single Tribble while in the throes of labour," Kohl said. He played another recording, and explained, "A single Tribble with elevated cardiovascular activity in the palm of a humanoid." Kohl worked the LCARS controls again to overlap two of the Tribble tones.

"So," Stace interjected, the ringing in her ears now beginning to annoy her, "we have to ask the question... who are they communicating with? Fellow tribbles? Or like dogs barking, to anyone who will bloody listen."

Kohl tapped the control contact, and the Tribble recordings went silent. "One might presume," Kohl said tentatively, "If a Tribble projects a sound containing a subject, a Tribble must be capable of meaning-receiving, or at least meaning-carrying for something else in it's natural environment."

"They wouldn't even have to be especially sentient for that to occur."

"True," Stace concurred. "But it's that underpinning of communication that we're trying to get to. Each species of bird has a different mating call, but they almost all have them. It's whether or not they communicate on a more intelligent level. Much more conversation and intent. If they don't then we're heading down the wrong path." She sighed and took another drink of her hot coffee. "The issue isn't the mating call, though. As each tribble is born pregnant. Short of sterilising them, I'm not sure what else we can do."

As he considered Stace's words, Kohl took the time to finish off the half-sandwich he was working on, and he chewed the last bite, and he swallowed it. "What if we're over-thinking it? We're approaching it as sentient beings, and you're right, we can't assume that," Kohl said. "I wanted to communicate a message to the Tribbles. I wanted to offer them something they desired to lure them into one area of the ship..."

"Let's assume they can't understand a message," Kohl went on, "and let's aim for something more primal. Something basic. It doesn't matter what we say or what we do; it matters how we make them feel. Could we create an environment that causes the Tribbles to feel fear. Replicate that environment on every deck of the ship, except for one. Convince them to run away from... from whatever they might fear, and round them up in our cage."

"That could work," Jared said, "But what is it that Tribbles fear and how do we replicate that?"

Stace then smiled to Jared, a thought dropping from the darker reaches of her mind. Almost wagging her finger at him she then directed her thought to both of them. "We're doing it again. Over-thinking the scenario!" She stood up and placed her coffee down in front of her, a little excited. "Let's strip this all back. We don't have to work out what tribbles fear. They fear what we all fear. Harm to our own preservation. We just have to manufacture a threat to their existence." Dropping from her excitement another thought crossed her mind. "But we have to take into account their survival rate. If evolution has taught us something along the centuries it's that it's survival of the fittest. But with a production rate of ten tribbles per twelve hours, making it one hundred and ten in twenty-six hours then their survival doesn't need to be fancy. Almost like Earth mayflies. Their survival is numeracy." She sat back down in a slump. Looking up, her crest-fallen face was almost defeated. "Fire. Every bastard thing hates fire."

"Fire could work, but fire, unless it is illusory would be a cure with too severe consequences. Maybe we're going about this the wrong way entirely. Not just over thinking, but thinking wrong. Instead of thinking about what they fear, what about something they love. Draw them to something rather than away from something."

Stace's eyes widened at Jared. "That was a joke, Lieutenant," she mouthed quietly. "I would never knowingly destroy a creature. I'm no doctor but I still hold fast to the same ideals about life." She sighed and then relaxed back into her seat. "I'm out of ideas."

"I think," Kohl interjected, "that means it's time to stop talking. Time to start doing." --He swept his arms out wide, indicating the piles of tribbles all over the floor-- "We've got plenty of test subjects. I'll assemble a team of Life Science personnel to carry tribbles into a hololab, and see what sights, sounds, and smells make them react."

"Glad to see you weren't serious ma'am," he said to her. Then turning to Kohl, he said, "makes sense to me. Maybe reconvene this tomorrow around this time?"

"We're getting ahead of ourselves, once again," Kohl replied to Jared. He held up an open palm of let's-slow-down. "We can reconvene... if and when my Life Sciences team finds any conclusive results about what Tribbles sing about. Otherwise, we're just singing a song about nothing."


[OFF]

A joint post by

Lt. Jared Nicholas
Language Specialist
USS Galileo

Lt. Andreus Kohl
Assistant Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

Lt. Norvi Stace
Chief Science Officer
USS Galileo

RSS Feed