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| Disclaimer: All belongs to the Gods on the Mount--Paramount. I just get to play chess with them. All parts rated NC-17 to be safe. | |||||||||||||||
| Whispers & Echoes | |||||||||||||||
| by Lady Janus | |||||||||||||||
| Part 3b: Of Flute Song and Harp Strings (continued) | |||||||||||||||
| Kathryn smiled as he helped her plant the last plots of a small leafy cabbage-like star flower plant. It bore small, white star-shaped flowers on aerial stalks and later a sweet, delicate, yellow fruit. The leaves were good for salads as well--as nutritious as Terran spinach. | |||||||||||||||
| Chakotay had finished the greenhouse in record time--two months. Now they were almost finished stocking it with a combination of Terran plant samples from Voyager, some alien samples Neelix had provided from half the sector and some of the native plant staples they'd determined would be best adapted to grow in the greenhouse environment. | |||||||||||||||
| Her hands stopped their task as she stared lovingly, through the glass wall, at the house awash in silver moonlight. Manufacturing the glass panes had been a major undertaking, opting for old-fashioned silica based glass, but easily strengthened with mesoquartzite and a poly-aluminum alloy. She was sure it would be able to stand up to anything those plasma storms could throw at it. They'd used the shuttle engines to heat the moulds, but in all, the amount of power used was the equivalent of a good jaunt to orbit and back. Chakotay had also built the water reservoir, which serviced the house and her tub as well, into the back of the greenhouse so that it would be easier to cloak when the time came. It and it's atmospheric collector and recycler units took up almost the entire back wall together with the small generator and humidity regulator, but even that cool shadowed area had been put to good use growing edible fungi and other plants that thrived in the moist, dank shade. | |||||||||||||||
| As for her, she was almost at a standstill with the cloaking device, but not on any of the things she had expected to give her problems. In fact she could replicate almost all the components for the circuitry and the power-systems in less than a week. It would be little bit of a strain on the replicator, but they hadn't needed to use it except for the painkiller and medical supplies when Chakotay had burned his hands on one of the glass moulds over a month before. | |||||||||||||||
| No, what had stopped her dead in her tracks was what to use for the outer casing of the device and it's accessory components. There was no way the house replicator and the shuttle's small replicator together could manufacture even a tenth of the amount of duratanium they needed without both power systems being completely drained. The small trace amounts needed for the circuitry components would not be a problem, but that shell needed to be at least three centimetres thick, while the standard was five centimetres. She had thought that she could come up with a viable alternative, but so far she'd been frustrated at every turn. | |||||||||||||||
| To make matters worse, they had detected a ship at extreme sensor range passing through the system eight days before. It hadn't seemed particularly interested in the planet and in fact seemed to pay little attention to the system as a whole. But Kathryn and Chakotay had spent a tense hour and a half waiting with all power systems off, except for the shuttle's passive sensors, while the ship passed out of range. They hadn't been able to tell what type of ship it was, but Chakotay speculated that it had probably been a merchant or a transport ship by the way it had lumbered slowly through the system. | |||||||||||||||
| They had made passionate love that night, desperate to keep the darkness and all that lurked there at bay, to reaffirm each other and the love they would always share no matter what the future held. | |||||||||||||||
| She smiled now as he wrapped his arms around her from behind, and remembered another night of passion only a few days before that, a small celebration of sorts at the completion of the greenhouse. He had playfully put his hand over her eyes, and had guided her out that night, to a wondrous castle of light beneath a velvet canopy of stars. He?d taken her inside the greenhouse and they had feasted on their favourite dishes made entirely from native foods. Then they had danced their favourite waltzes mingled with the harmonies of the insects and other nocturnal animals. | |||||||||||||||
| Finally, as the sprinkler systems came on for the first time, drenching them with a fine mist, he had leaned her against the same glass wall she was now looking out of, removed their clothing, and together, they had performed a rite of blessing. They had made it a place of power and fertility, he said, a good place provided with nourishment from their souls that would in turn provide them with nourishment for their bodies. She laughed softly now as she sank deeper into his embrace; she was beginning to like his traditions more and more each day. | |||||||||||||||
| Kathryn felt like a newly-wed, even though they hadn't said any formal vows, made any promises other than their declarations of love, but every day affirmed that love and she didn't really feel that they had to. It had been over two glorious months since that first night, and although they were now a little more restrained about when and where they made love, there was nothing restrained about their lovemaking. His spontaneity and imagination knew no bounds. The games he introduced her to took her breath away and there were times when she found herself waiting in anticipation, breasts heaving, and all her muscles taut--waiting for his touch which would make her body sing an ancient song to the heavens. She laughed again; they?d blessed a dozen places along the river and half the trees in the forest. They ought to be very fruitful in the spring. | |||||||||||||||
| He kissed her gently with twinkling eyes. "Well, it looks like we're all done Kathryn, there's only the neo-potato stand left to move inside, and we can do that in the morning." | |||||||||||||||
| "Umm, and not a moment too soon," she answered tiredly as they washed their hands and returned to the house. "It's really starting to get chilly at night and the trees have turned rather quickly. I'm going to miss not being able to relax in the tub when it gets too cold," she said, accepting a cup of rich, hot tea he'd left steeping on the stove. | |||||||||||||||
| "I could build a shelter for it," he laughed. "We could start tomorrow after we stow the boat in the cave. The ground isn't frozen yet and I don't expect the first frost for another two or three weeks. It'd be a cold run to and fro?, but you could still have your baths." | |||||||||||||||
| She joined his laughter shaking her head, "I don't think so--that's a bit too much work just for a bath. I'll just have to make do with the sonic shower," she continued wistfully as she sat down at her console. "Besides, part of the charm was being able to bathe under the stars. No, I'll just have to bear it until spring. Anyway, I'd say we did a good job of getting ready for winter. We've got a great deal stored in the pantry and freezers, fresh fruits and vegetables and we're still getting fresh fish from the river, but it seems a little strange and quiet with the monkeys and most of the other animals gone farther south or getting ready for hibernation. I just wish I knew what to do about this cloaking device." | |||||||||||||||
| He leaned over her shoulders and kissed her cheek. "You'll figure something out," he encouraged. "I have great confidence in your powers of improvisation." | |||||||||||||||
| She shook her head in frustration, "Chakotay, this isn't something that lends itself easily to improvisation! It's not like taking a piece of wood and bonding it so that it's stronger. If the material in the casing isn't just right, we'll blow ourselves, and half this continent to kingdom come!" | |||||||||||||||
| In all the time she had been working on the mechanics of the device itself, she had also been trying to come up with a solution to the casing problem, but to no avail. Now she was just plain frustrated. As if in tune with her state of mind, her teacup slipped from her tired grasp and crashed to the floor. | |||||||||||||||
| "Oh damn!" she exclaimed angrily. It was part of the set of earthenware dishes he'd made a few weeks ago around the time he'd made the glass, and she'd come to cherish each piece as she cherished everything he'd made for her. | |||||||||||||||
| "Hey, don't worry so much," he said soothingly as he stooped to pick it up. "See," he said holding up the cup, painted with a bright, geometric Meso-american design. "Not even chipped--I made them strong enough to resist even the formidable Captain Janeway," he quipped and she laughed in relief as she took it from him. On a whim, she scanned it with her tricorder. | |||||||||||||||
| "Kathryn, why are you scanning that cup?" he asked in bemused exasperation. | |||||||||||||||
| She grinned impishly. "Just making sure it's all right--it's my favourite." | |||||||||||||||
| He looked dubiously at her. "They're all the same, Kathryn," he observed. | |||||||||||||||
| "Ah-ah. This one's special--see how the pattern sort of goes off-track here?" she replied, pointing out the flaw in the design. The eagle's wing looked a bit out of joint and he was touched. He hadn't expected her to be so observant about such a small thing. | |||||||||||||||
| "You're a nut," he whispered as she gazed lovingly at him. | |||||||||||||||
| After a moment in silence, he took the cup from her and placed it firmly on the desk. "Come on, why don't we turn in early, and you can start fresh tomorrow after we put the boat away. I don't have anything else planned other than moving the potatoes and roasting some blacknuts to make bread. Things have been hectic. You can even take the day off and relax, clear your head and come at it from a new perspective. Give your brain a rest and a chance to recharge its creative engines before taxing them again." | |||||||||||||||
| She stood and took his hand. "All right, you win." She looked at him speculatively and asked in her most playful voice, "Since I'm being good, will you give me a massage?" | |||||||||||||||
| "Yes," he answered laughing. "And if you're very good, I might even give you something more," he said pulling her up against him. | |||||||||||||||
| Kathryn could feel his passion beginning to stir, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, rubbing herself provocatively against him. "Oh I'm good," she purred seductively. "I'm very, very good." | |||||||||||||||
| **** | |||||||||||||||
| "Chakotay . . ." A gentle voice nudged itself into his consciousness. | |||||||||||||||
| "Go back to sleep Kathryn," he muttered still clinging to the vestiges of his dream. "I?m tired . . . make love in the morning." | |||||||||||||||
| He heard her distant chuckle as the dream reformed around him and she shook him a little more roughly. "Chakotay, wake up! Come on, get up." | |||||||||||||||
| He responded to the urgency in her voice and sat up quickly. "What's wrong Kathryn? Has there been another warning from the shuttle?" | |||||||||||||||
| "No, no, nothing like that," she replied impatiently and he frowned in confusion as she held out two teacups to him. "What are these made of, Chakotay? How exactly did you make them?" | |||||||||||||||
| He felt a spurt of anger and extreme annoyance well up inside him and before he could stop himself, he yelled, "For the love of god Kathryn! You woke me out of a sound sleep at two in the morning to ask about goddamned crockery? Of all the insane, irrational things--now turn off the lights and come back to bed!" he demanded officiously. | |||||||||||||||
| She blinked at him in surprise, and burst into a fit of giggles as she brushed a lock of hair out of his eyes. "I'm sorry, Chakotay," she apologised contritely as she looked at the chronometer. "I didn't think to look at the time, but if you'd stop your revving your testosterone engines for a moment and answer me, I'll explain what I'm doing up." | |||||||||||||||
| He muttered to himself as he heaved out of bed, "Not another word you--not until I wash my face and figure out my head from my ass." | |||||||||||||||
| Her laughter followed him into the bathroom. "Grouchy--are we?" she called with that infuriating note of mocking in her voice. "I'll get you some tea." | |||||||||||||||
| Chakotay found her at the desk busily running tricorder scans on her teacup. She handed him his tea absently, as he sat in front of the computer monitor full of formulas. "Ok Kathryn, what's this all about?" he asked as the aroma of the tea began to clear the cobwebs from his mind. | |||||||||||||||
| She grinned at him as she answered, "That is the formula for a ceramic based, aluminum-duratanium poly-alloy the Romulans used as a casing for one of their early, successful cloaking devices nearly two centuries ago. It's so bloody archaic, I just sort of glossed over the whole damned thing because the basic technology of the cloak itself stayed the same, but the major thing is that the ceramaic poly-alloy worked and it worked well. It was only when the Helstrom process, perfected within ten years of that device coming into use, and later, when replicator technology made manufacturing duratanium economically feasible for widespread use, that they stopped using it. Using duratanium at one quarter the thickness of the old casing still gave them the same amount of strength. Now compare their ceramic base to yours," she said excitedly. Two molecular representations appeared on the screen. His breath caught as she laughed gleefully. "Now do you see why I had to wake you?" | |||||||||||||||
| He laughed with her as he wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her between his legs. "You're amazing," he said softly as she kissed him. "See, I told you it would come to you if you just stopped thinking about it." He turned to study the monitor again, with her sitting on his lap. "It's similar, but not all that close though. Do you think that it'll be easy to transform it into the Romulan ceramic?" | |||||||||||||||
| "Nope," she giggled and he looked at her in confusion. "It's already better than what they were using, and in terms of what I have in mind, I suspect that it's going to be a lot easier to work with--but that all depends on exactly how you managed to make it this strong. I compared it to the readings we got from the clay in this region, but none of it matches Chakotay," she said in confusion. "Where did it come from?" | |||||||||||||||
| Chakotay grinned delightedly as he answered her, "Stumped you huh--well the clay is just the normal stuff that's down by the river." He kissed her and laughed heartily as she opened her mouth to interrupt him. "But I suspect what did the trick was the couple of handfuls of the silica-mesoquarzite mixture we used for the glass that I added to the clay." | |||||||||||||||
| She looked at him in stunned astonishment for a few moments before she croaked, "You added a couple of handfuls?" She looked at the computer screen again with new understanding. "Oh Lord--I'm a prized idiot. Why didn't I see it before? Exactly how much did you add?" | |||||||||||||||
| He laughed and pulled her closer. "I don't know really--I was just fooling around and I wanted to make the crockery a little more resistant to breakage during the plasma storms. I added maybe one hundred--one hundred and fifty grams for every five hundred grams of clay, mulched it all together till it was fairly uniform. Then I made the pieces, fired them, cooled them, painted and glazed them with a little of the glaze bond we made to coat the wood for the greenhouse frame, then fired them again in the oven we made for the glass moulds. I even have a little left over in the storage room." | |||||||||||||||
| She would have bolted from his lap but he held her firmly. "Oh no you don't," he admonished. "It can wait until morning." She pouted, then laughed and laid her forehead against his, planting a playful kiss on his nose. "Why don't you tell me what you have planned and then we head back to bed--surely you can't use it just like that." | |||||||||||||||
| "No," she answered bringing up another set of formulas on the computer screen. "We won't even be able to produce enough duratanium for the poly-alloy, but we do have an abundance of the next best thing--titanium. A titanium-aluminum poly-alloy mixed with a little neosteel together with your ceramic would be almost as strong. And since the grade of trialurite is like nothing the Romulans ever had, I don't think we'll have much of a problem getting away with using a fifteen centimetre thick casing on the device itself and ten to twelve centimetres on the emitters. However," she laughed as she shut off the console and rose out of his lap, leading the way to the bedroom. "We are going to have to characterise and standardise your formula beyond a couple of handfuls. I?ll need play with the proportions of the silica-mesoquartzite mixture, get rid of a lot of impurities and figure out just how much of a role that bond-glaze played Chakotay, because I didn't even detect its presence." | |||||||||||||||
| He nodded tiredly as he climbed into bed and pulled her to him. "All right," he said, smiling at her excited face. "We'll get to it first thing tomorrow--the bread making can wait a few days I suppose, but I want to get the neo-potatoes into the greenhouse as soon as possible in case I'm wrong about my predictions for frost. Now pipe down and go to sleep." | |||||||||||||||
| "Yes sir!" she rapped out and saluted him comically, before kissing him good night. | |||||||||||||||
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