Into The Belly Of The Beast
Storvik had given
T'Sorvik liberty to wander freely around the
USS Murgatroid while it was docked at
Starbase 668, but required her to have an escort if she left the ship to visit the station. She spent the majority of her time exploring the ship, while Storvik and T'Vit worked on the Murgatroid's repairs and resupplying, and the crew had been given explicit instructions (and warnings) about what she was allowed to do, and what anyone else was (or, more vehemently, was not) allowed to do with her.
T'Sorvik found where Counsellor
Lothar was standing guard outside the hydroponics lab, immobile. Of all the Murgatroid's crew, it was Lothar who had intrigued her most when she read the ship's logs while growing up on the Ankh. Lothar was currently in a dress, and sporting makeup which was almost, but not quite, color-coordinated with his purse and shoes. The ship's botanist,
Alabama Picard, had been inadvertently but permanently switched from male to female by an anomaly; and was still trying to get used to "his" new gender. Apparently, he had been using Lothar to practice on.
T'Sorvik decided to see whether or not she could get Lothar functional again. She had read all of
Mib Khan's reports, and knew that, for one thing, his " insides are bigger than his outsides". She theorized that, if she could but find the access hatch to open, she might be able to climb inside and examine his mechanical implants. His dress was very loose-fitting, so she was able to get underneath and find the panel that Khan had discovered earlier. She ignored his demands that she get away and not touch him (although he finally commanded "At least stay in your female form! I don't want a little boy climbing up under my dress!") and managed to squeeze into the space inside.
An adult would have never been able to get inside, which was why it had never occurred to anyone else to try; but a small seven-year-old Vulcan girl was able to fit inside with ease. She turned on her flashlight, consulted Khan's logs (which she had already heavily annotated) in her PADD, and began to look around…