“Curiouser and Curiouser: Naomi’s Adventures in Wonderland”

[alixtii]

 As part of the "describe 7 interests" meme, settiai assigned me, alongside 6 other interests, "Naomi Wildman." Which made me want to look up the fragments of drafts of Star Trek: Voyager--my real first fandom, long before Buffy, even if I never became enmeshed in fannish networks until much later--fanfics I still have saved. I must have been about fourteen when I wrote this.

“Curiouser and Curiouser: Naomi’s Adventures in Wonderland”

W^HAT I^S A S^TORY W^ITHOUT P^ICTURES O^R C^ONVERSATION?

“Be careful,” Janeway warned. “It’s hot.”

“Don’t worry,” said four-year-old Naomi Wildman, Voyager’s Captain’s Assistant, as she brought the black coffee back from the replicator. “I can handle it.”

“Thank you,” Janeway said as she took the mug of hot coffee.

“What are you doing?” asked Naomi.

“Reading reports,” Janeway said, sighing.

“What are they?” asked the curious Naomi. “A story?”

“In a sense,” said Janeway, “these reports tell the story of the entire ship and its crew. Medical reports from the doctor, morale reports from Neelix, engineering reports from B’Elanna, security reports from Tuvok. It tells the story of everything from plasma manifolds on deck eleven to a sick crewman on deck five.”

“Sounds boring,” said Naomi, making a face.

Janeway laughed, but it had made her think.

=/\=

“Good morning, Captain,” the Doctor said pleasantly as Janeway entered. “Before you ask, I’m all out of caffeine supplements. Neelix is going to see if he can acquisition some at our next trading stop.”

Janeway laughed. “How is the crewman with the Tirellian flu?”

“Ensign S’hrt? Recovering.”
“That’s good. What about Naomi?”

“Naomi Wildman? She’s in perfect health. Why do you ask?”

“I’m a little worried about her. She doesn’t have anyone to play with her own age, now that Mizoti’s no longer on board.”

“True,” said the doctor, “but she gets along well with the crew. She and Seven can be inseparable, you knew, and if she wishes to spend time with somebody closer to her own maturity level, there is always Mr. Neelix. And the holodeck, of course.”

“True,” conceded Janeway, “there’s that.”

=/\=

Captain Janeway bent over the holodeck console. “Come on,” she urged it. “I know I’m out of practice at this, but you should be working.” Maybe she should ask Mr. Paris for help, she thought.

But no, Tom was spending time with his pregnant wife B’Elanna, as he should be. Janeway didn’t want to make his life any more difficult.

“Invalid input.”

Janeway sighed with frustration. She’d ask Harry Kim instead.

“Here we go, Captain,” Kim said as he finished at the console. “It should work now. There seemed to be an imbalance in the submatrices of the holodeck main processor. I added a recursive algorithm which should compensate until B’Elanna can take a look at it—probably not anytime soon.”

Janeway had heard of B’Elanna’s morning sickness. “Thank you, Mr. Kim.”

“Any time, Captain,” Kim said politely. “Alice in Wonderland, eh? I had an Alice simulation when I was young. I would think it would be difficult to reconstruct, though.”

Janeway laughed. “I stole most of the elements from other programs, then hodgepodged them together, allowing the computer to throw in random numbers to fill in the rest. I’m afraid the effect is rather Lewis Carrol.”
Kim smiled. “Well, I’ll be on my way, then.”

=/\=

Naomi was taking a temporal physics class from Seven, but she didn’t quite understand. “But what if I go back and murder my grandfather? I would never be born, so I couldn’t murder my grandfather. But if my grandfather lived, then so would I . . .”

“Naomi Wildman to Holodeck Two.” The Captain’s strong voice rang out from the combadge.

“On my way, Captain,” Naomi said, grateful for the chance to leave.

=/\=

Naomi looked happy as she entered the holodeck. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything important,” Janeway said, not adding that she had worked out with Seven in advance.

“Just temporal physics,” said Naomi, wrinkling her nose with distaste.”

Janeway laughed. “I’ve often said that the best way to make sense of a temporal paradox is . . . don’t.”

Naomi laughed with her. “You wanted me, Captain?”

Janeway nodded. “Computer, execute program Janeway pi seven Alice four.” All of a sudden, a swirling vortex appeared in the middle of the holodeck.

“What is it?” asked Naomi. “Some type of anomaly?”

“Let’s find out,” suggested Janeway. “Just think of it as a 24^th century version of the looking glass.”