This concludes our highly irregular broadcast from the good ship Voyager. My apologies to those characters who didn't see any action (and I'm afraid a Tuvok/Kim/Henley/Kes story as an encore is beyond me).

All of these folks are the property of Paramount, except for my agents Bernstein and Siegler. They were off duty during the activities described herein, which in no way represent the opinions, policies, or business practices of Paramount Pictures. This story is intended for the private enjoyment of adults.

Epilogue

The direct effects of the substance wore off in about twelve hours. The Chief Medical Officer prepared a detailed report. The primary consequences for the affected crew members seemed to be exhaustion and dehydration due to overproduction of certain bodily secretions. In addition, Kes reported that numerous members of the crew, including the captain, seemed to be experiencing some discomfort in walking. Seventeen individuals had sought treatment for minor vaginal and anal tears, bite wounds, and other injuries directly linked to the effects of the substance. There had also been a few cases of blisters. An enhanced three-dimensional image of Lieutenant Paris's penis was appended to the C.M.O.'s report to Starfleet Medical, a fact which rather added to that officer's ambivalence about the desirability of returning to the Alpha Quadrant. He hadn't felt able to refuse permission, but he privately suspected that the doctor wanted the image so that he could incorporate it into his own programming. The most severe injury had been a broken nose suffered by Ensign Parsons as a consequence of making a pass at Kes in the presence of Neelix. In Sickbay, Parsons had found consolation in the arms of Ensign Kyoto, giving the doctor the opportunity to add a few further details to his report. There had actually been very few fights, competition for partners having in most cases been resolved by amicable sharing. Ayala and Dalby had come to blows over Ensign Geron, but when Geron, who'd had the purple stuff, made it clear that he wasn't interested in the attentions of either one of them in their present condition, they had patched things up and spent a pleasant evening together.

Janeway granted herself and Chakotay coffee from the replicator in her quarters before they went forth to face the world. With the computer's assistance, Chakotay reached his own quarters unseen and took a good long shower. Janeway went to the mess for breakfast, feeling that the proper thing to do was to maintain her usual routine and act as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Torres, who was on her way out, stopped by.

"Good morning, Captain," she said, adding in a low voice, "I'm sorry about the table."

"That's quite all right, Lieutenant," said Janeway, sending a mixed message with her warm smile and the formal style of address. Torres understood her perfectly.

Janeway looked around her at the others. They seemed relaxed- -well, sleepy, actually--and happy. Behind the counter, Neelix was busy stir-frying something or other. He avoided her gaze. She realized that she ought to be exceedingly angry with him, but somehow she couldn't quite manage it. She finished her eggs, successfully avoiding speculation about what they might have hatched into, and headed for the bridge.

Janeway and Chakotay exchanged a private smile as she took her position next to him, and the ship's business proceeded in its usual fashion, though there were a few unfamiliar faces around the bridge as the members of the purple-stuff crowd who'd been called back to duty on the night shift were now off. At 1050, Torres called up from Engineering with the news that the plausibility generator was back on line, and soon Ayala reported that plausiton levels had returned to normal, though there was a slight plausiton leakage into one of the shielded areas of the ship, Transporter Room 2. A repair crew was dispatched to investigate.

Fortunately, given that most of the personnel on duty were operating at a state of significantly decreased efficiency due to lack of sleep, the sector through which Voyager was traveling was quite boring. They passed a few Class M planets, but none showed any evidence of civilizations, let along menacing spacefaring races. They passed a nebula, but it was a perfectly ordinary, nonliving nebula. The atmosphere on the bridge was relaxed and happy. Paris reported for his shift whistling some inane melody.

Not everybody on the ship was happy, however. Ensign Siegler, who was eating lunch, was so distracted by private concerns that the vaguely amphibious appearance of the entree didn't even register. She really ought to be asleep at this hour, but she'd awakened at 1030 and been unable to get back to sleep. Her concerns did not revolve around the episode with Chell, Tom Paris and the Delany sisters. That affair was a cause of concern principally for Jenny Delany, who was trying to figure out some way to get the blue stains out of her bedding without any replicator credits. Rather, Siegler's discomfort was due to an event which had transpired later in the night, when she was back in her quarters. She had been alone, her roommate being on duty. She had sat down at her computer console and....She cringed to think of it. She had written a poem. A sonnet. A bad sonnet. She hadn't even managed to get the meter right--it depended on "lovely" being accented on the second syllable, which it manifestly was not. It wasn't a very good rhyme for "Maquis," anyway. But what made it far, far worse was that she had actually *sent* the poem to Deborah Bernstein. Just thinking about it made her want to crawl into the bluish abdomen, if that was what it was, of whatever was on her plate. If she hadn't been so hungry, she wouldn't have come to lunch at all and risked running into Deborah, but the longest she could hope to avoid her was until their shift started. She had never in her life been so tempted not to show up for duty.

She finished her meal quickly and slunk out into the corridor, walking quickly, wanting to minimize the amount of time she spent outside her quarters. She even took a Jefferies tube instead of the lift. But when she rounded the last curve on the way to safety, there was Deborah. Siegler had occasionally wished she were a shapeshifter, but never quite so vehemently as now.

"Oh, there you are, Birke," Deborah said brightly. "I just got off--I had to work a double shift. I stopped by my quarters and checked my mail and found your poem. Birke, that was so sweet of you. I never knew..."

She caught the fainting Siegler tenderly in her arms.

The End