Getting A Taste!

Posted on Sat Feb 23, 2019 @ 4:55pm by Civilian 'Key Holder' Yolanthe Ibalin
Edited on on Fri Mar 1, 2019 @ 11:05pm

2,048 words; about a 10 minute read

Mission: Doors of Perception
Location: Box of Delights
Timeline: MD05 1800

[ON]

After a day of unpacking and setting things up, Minara decided to check out what the station had to offer in recreational venues. Looking for a place to eat and drink that was a little less lonely than the replicator in her cabin, Minara picked the Box of Delights from an info on station haunts found on her console.

Walking in, wearing an evening gown rather than her work attire, Minara looked about. She was a bit early, before the evening rush, just perfect to get a feel for the place. Approaching the counter, she nipped a leaf off of one of the decorative plants and popped it in her mouth. She always enjoyed exotic tastes. "Hello?" she called.

A very tall woman, with violent skin and purple hair, handed a tray of drinks off to a very attractive young man, then turned to her from further up the wave shaped bar. "Welcome to The Box of Delights. What can I get you?"

"Surprise me", Minara said, moving closer. "I'm new here. What is it people usually come here for?" If she just ordered something random, she figured she'd be given something that was approaching the best before date, especially if people thought she was just passing through. But if they wanted to attract a new customer... "I've just moved in, I dig old things."

"If you like old..." The tall woman turned to the sparsely filled shelves behind her, and for a moment her entire body became shades of dark mustard, her hair almost tan. "I'd recommend this." She held up a delicate glass bottle, its neck made from two stems drawn from the main bulb and twisted together delicately. "Forty six year old Kanar. It packs a punch, so either don't drink too much, or cancel other plans for the evening."

Minara chuckled. "I'll try it. Cardassian cuisine is not something I've had much chance to enjoy." She was intrigued by the woman's chances in skin colour, and figured just asking straight out was probably the easiest way to get an answer. "Also, forgive me for being blunt... but how do you change skin colour? That's a neat trick."

The bar tender laughed, and her skin turned leriwinkle blue, her hair a shade or two darker.
She poured a generous two fingers of the kanar into a tumbler. "Chromataphores in our skin, influenced by hormones and the like. I didn't really pay attention in class to tell you more."

"Hm, maybe I should have been more precise in the question", Minara smirked. "It's not so much the skin that's baffling, it's more the hair. In most species, that's dead tissue. That's why we can cut it without feeling any discomfort. But how does dead tissue do something that seems alive?" She took the glass and took a small sip to savour the taste. "I suppose I'm just curious about anything and everything."

The tall woman shrugged. "Maybe for your species your hair is dead. I don't know. I flunked biology."

A risian waitress with long long legs flitted by, dropping off a pile of latinum slips and and picking up a bottle of wine the bar tender had set out. "And two Champagne supernovas and a bajoran brain death, table nine." And then she was gone again, sashaying off towards the table that had ordered the wine.

The bartender reached for two large bowl shapped glasses, and set them on a tray. "So, you're staying long? or just just here for flying visit?"

"I don't know", Minara said. "It all depends on what I'll find down on the planet. I'm setting up shop for the time being. I might be gone in ten years, might stay long-term. These things are never predictable." She had once had to abandon a promising archaeological site because of a Dominion invasion, only to return after the war and find the entire place vapourised. That was certainly not how she had planned things.

"Scuttlebutt is there's plenty to find down there." She tipped a couple of bottles of red liquid into the bottom of the bowls. "But someone isn't happy about it. Tried to sabotage parts of the settlement on its official opening."

Minara shook her head. "There's always someone who doesn't want others to be happy." She took a larger sip of the kanar, it was a taste that took some getting used to, but by no means unpleasant. "It looks like there is plenty to find up here as well, so I'll be staying a bit." She pointed the way of the waitress who had happened by a moment earlier. "I just hope nobody will set traps down there. I hate those. The last one I ran into, I got skewered right through the thigh. Took me half an hour to even get out of there and remove the bloody spike."

"Nasty." Yolanthe agreed as she continued adding the ingredients to the glass. "Just through straight muscle, or close to a joint? Severed tendons are a bastard."

Minara stepped back and indicated the point of entry mid-thigh. "In through here, and through there." Her other hand pointed at her behind. "Cracked the pelvis, I could hardly move. Ever since then, I very carefully scan everywhere I go on a dig site."

Yolanthe nodded. "Very nasty. So, Archaeology then. Hoping to get through a portal and see the past first hand?"

Minara shook her head. "No. No, that's very unpleasant. I've travelled through the Bajoran wormhole, those chronitons, they made me violently sick. I'm in no hurry to experience that again." She shuddered as she remembered it. "I'm very happy with my linear existence. Besides, who's to say that wiping the Borg from the time stream would actually lead to a better present, or future?"

It was a goal that some El-Aurians pursued. "No, seeing the past through the eyes of an archaeologist is different. It's not like the recent past, like a hundred years ago, where we've got a good amount of written documents, photographs or even video or holographic records. If you look at something truly ancient, beyond the reach of living memory, or even people who've known people who've known, and all you've got to go on was a few buildings with inscriptions and a more or less random assortment of objects that have survived, and you get to piece together a civilisation... how they lived, what rituals they observed, what they ate and how they thought, that's what it's about. Like, imagine what someone in ten thousand years might think if they find, say, a laser scalpel. They might conclude we carved patterns into our skins, or zapped people with it for punishment. They might not even realise it was a medical tool. But find an entire sickbay preserved, and it's much clearer."

"Beyond me", Yolanthe admitted. "I'm afraid my obsessions are slightly more basic." Finished with the bowl glasses, she added them to tray, and put a bottle of sparkling wine on with it. "A past so distant it's forgotten isn't very useful when mixing martinis."

"Oh, it's not about useful", Minara said. "If it were just about useful, we wouldn't be having bars, or holosuites, or sports combetitions or, well, entertainment in general, in its various forms. Knowledge is its own reward. Though, occasionally, we do find another civilisation that was more technologically advanced than our own, and even the engineers will marvel at what we dig up." She was using the plural of her profession, as she didn't want to reveal too much about what it was that she had found, in any great detail. "Now, could your basic obsession also deliver something acidic?" She had finished and enjoyed the kanar, but it left a lingering aftertaste which she figured some juice might clear.

"I do a mean martini. Dry as Vulcan." the bar tender offered.

Minara grinned. "A dusty Martini, very good. Make it a double. I think I'm going to enjoy coming to this place. You're open late into the night? I often work late, and like to come in for some company, or even just a drink or two, before bedtime."

"Open till 2am every night. And if you don't find company you like, we have a full range of holosuite programs, and I have someone who can write custom scenarios too."

"Custom scenarios?!" Minara perked up. "Oh, that is wonderful. I've tried to create some programmes myself, but that's not a skill that I've been able to master. Hiring a holo-programmer full time is expensive, but on a job-by-job basis? Yes, that is marvellous." She was clearly pleased, running a few ideas through her mind. "Something that lets me add new research data and do virtual experimental archaeology on a larger scale. I've got a holographic simulator in my lab. It's very similar to a holosuite, but hooked up to my other instruments."

"If you swing back in office hours, I'm sure Klia will be able to give you a quote." Yolanthe finished layering a shooter and added it to the tray. "Service!" She pulled a martini glass out from under the bar and a she scooped a clean shaker through the ice trough. "Very reasonable rates."

"I'm looking forward to trying out the various possibilities", Minara smiled. "Look at some of her work, see what she's capable of. You don't think I could look at a catalogue now?"

Yolanthe reached under the bar and brought out a padd. There were thousands of titles, neatly catalogued by genre, level of interactivity, number of players. Everything from ascetic meditation to team sports to historical recreation, lectures and seminars, and, of course, porn. From high octane action adventure with explosions a dozen, to slow burn romance. Intrigue, suspense, horror. It was a smorgasboard of entertainment and education.

Minara checked the programmed authored locally, to get a feel for the capabilities of the resident programmer, looking at preview images and the short descriptions. "This looks intriguing, I shall try a few of them, over the next couple of day, until they can give me access to the surface."

"The Pleasure Goddesses of Riix is a perennial favourite." Yolanthe poured vermouth and gin by eye. "Very popular." She stirred it carefully. "Science giving you the runaround, huh?"

Minara shook her head. "No, those pleasure goddesses... there are some things the holodeck can't simulate. Betazoids, or telepaths in general, what makes them particularly exciting can't be simulated at all. But I'll see what the top-rated programmes are like. I'm definitely trying out this one, it says it features Captain Simone Mont, of the Vespasian. I knew her, from a little over a century ago. Should be interesting to see how close to reality this one is." Minara could see the appeal for fans of the 23rd century, and Captain Mont had certainly been particularly attractive.

"I generally find people aren't interested in the reality at all." Yolanthe strained the martini out into its glass and dropped an olive on a stick into it. "If they wanted reality, they wouldn't be in my holosuites."

"Ah, but historical reality is different", Minara said. "Because that's something you can't get anywhere else. Well, to be perfectly honest, you can't get it in the holosuites either. But we're trying to get as close as possible."

"Close enough is good enough for me." She put the martini in front of Minara. "There you go. The classic martini, dry as dust."

"Thank you." Again, Minara exercised moderation by taking a small sip, rather than downing the entire drink. "I think I'm going to enjoy it here, for the time being."

"For the time being?" Yolanthe asked. "I'm offended," she was smiling, and didn't sound very offended at all.

Minara laughed. "Who knows what it will be like in a decade or two. But I'm always ready to be persuaded, if you're that keen on me staying."

"I'm keen on all my customers staying." Yolanthe held out a padd ready for Minara's thumb print. "Happy customers spend more money."

"Sound, infallible logic", Minara agreed. She emptied her glass and added the thumbprint. "Now I'll see if I can find the station's chief science officer."

[OFF]

Yolanthe Ibalin
Owner, The Box of Delights
DS5


Dr. "I lick the science" Minara
Xenoarchaeologist

 

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