Officer Luru waited for me to lock the shop doors. Bajorans have the family name first. Calling him Officer Sarke would be disrespectful. If we ever became close friends he might ask me to call him Sarke instead of Luru.

  The doors to the shop had been blacked out and noises of shifting furniture came softly from within.

  “Is someone inside your shop?” Officer Luru asked.

  “No but I have a few mixing machines doing food prep. I told the truth with a heavy seasoning of lie to make it go down easier. It's not like I can say that my magic cart was redecorating. “ Care to see?”

  “Actually yes. Please open the doors and let me do a quick check.”

  I complied. As the doors opened I got my first glance at the changes the cart was in the process of making.

  My wood panel flooring, leftover from a home renovation project, was now partially layered over the damaged floor.

  A blue screen visible only to me hovered in the doorway.

  [ 23% complete. Please exit for progress to continue.]

  “Oh, you've put in a lot of work here.” Officer Luru said as he walked to the back of the room. His eyes scanned the room carefully looking for the source of the earlier noise.

  The sudden disappearance of which was making the situation worse.

  “ Cart, I need a reason for the noises heard earlier, what can we do?” I said under my breath and into my left elbow.

  My blender appeared on a countertop behind the security officer. It pulsed on and off blending some mandarin oranges I had been saving into a pulp. Sadly the oranges were unpeeled. I might be able to bake an orange bread with the slurry later though.

  “Is it safe to leave this running?”

  “I was only going to step out for a few minutes, but if you think things at the medical office will take awhile, I'll shut it off."

  “Yeah, you better shut all your equipment down. I don't know how long things will be. What is that fruit? it smells nice.”

  “Mandarin Orange. They are tasty too. When all this is done come by and you can buy one of the pastries I'll bake them into.”

  I made a show of unplugging the mixer and left the shop with Officer Luru. I entered a number sequence onto the screen next to the doors and a Cardassian ‘locked’ icon appeared.

  My ability to read any language applies to symbols as well, and a good thing it does too. Every screen or computer display here uses iconography that is completely alien to me. Even the star feet computers. Imagine trying to explain the save icon to someone from 1949. Barely one hundred years ago and the symbols we use everyday might as well be Greek to that person. There are three hundred years of language differences and visual culture that I have no knowledge of.

  How do I read anything? Subtitles. Just like waving a translation app, a blue screen with words appears and explains the icons in front of me.

  I am telling you all of this because the walk to, and time in the med bay was absolutely boring.

  —

  POV Julian Bashir.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Medical log Julian Bashir

  This is probably one of the most intriguing medical exams I have ever done. The patient is one hundred percent healthy. There are no signs of parasites, infections, or scar tissue. His body should still have remnants of the vaccines and inoculations from yesterday. However, there is no sign of them. The only foreign material in his system are the plant cells in his bloodstream.

  I had no reason to hold him any longer, so I released the patient and went back to the mystery of the plant material. The patient claims no knowledge of why its there.

  Hawthorne tree cells. I used a micro transporter to filter some of them out of his blood sample and placed them under the micro scanner. They were not just present, but alive.

  Plant cells living in a bloodstream with no signs of immune response or damage to the host.

  I placed the plant cells in a growth medium. I will monitor the samples. One has been placed in a dark incubator to mimic soil conditions, one stimulated with cycles of grow light, and one given a few drops of the patient's blood in addition to the growth medium.

  Theory: patient has undergone some new medical treatment and the Hawthorne cells are somehow key to or side effect of his amazing recovery.

  Alternate theory: patient is some kind of bioengineered assassin who was created to be immune to a plague and disrupt the station.

  “Computer, delete that last paragraph from my log. It's utter nonsense. Grinosian flu isn't even deadly. Some master assassin is going to plant a device to give a mild illness to Quark?

  Quark would just come to sick bay I would give him the vacc…”

  Julian jumped out of his office chair and tapped his comm badge.

  “Julian to Sisko”

  “Sisko here.”

  “Commander, I think someone is trying to frame us for murder!”

  —

  Earlier.

  My time in the med bay was, I repeat, incredibly dull. It was two hours of laying on a table getting poked, scanned, and having blood drawn.

  Officer Luru was standing nearby. His eyes moved from the doctor, the entrance to the medical office, and myself on regular rotation.

  Attempting conversation with him was less fruitful than talking with the wall. In star trek the walls might actually give a response from the computer.

  The doctor was in his own little world of medical bafflement and puzzle solving. While my biology was for some reason absolutely intriguing to the man, the words I was saying were completely ignored. The only responses I got from him were the idle thoughtless grunts of affirmation, or a random “interesting” said to no one in particular

  So, I plotted menus. Burgers and dogs for the first few days to launch the restaurant. Crepes for breakfast tomorrow. Perhaps a slow smoked ham with Jumja glaze and a corned beef vegetable soup as a side.

  Tonight for dinner with Rom and Nog, I would like to serve some earth dishes that I think might be palatable for Ferengi. The main climate depicted on the show was a humid marsh and swamp. Many of the foods spoken of were preparations of insects and invertebrates. Tube grubs, slug steak and beetles are some examples I can recall.

  Earth has a lot of insect cuisine. Not a lot of it was popular in the United States. I’ve tried a few. One of Erin’s chef classes had them explore insect recipes from around the world. I powered through taste testing her homework. Some of the flavors really weren't that bad. It was very difficult to get over the stigma of eating insects. It helped a lot to imagine them as tiny lobsters, or to puree and avoid the imagery all together.

  I might also season with a variety of edible mosses or a particularly fragrant cheese.

  “There, you’re all set, Mr. Egman.” said Dr. Bashir as he put one of my vials of blood in a machine and proceeded to ignore me again.

  “So, I’m free to go? No medical concerns?”

  “Yes, yes,... interesting”

  “Well, looks like I’m all done here Officer Luru. I'm going to finish up at the shop. Feel free to stop by and give me your opinion on some new recipes I'm going to try once we open.”

  “When do you think that will be Mister Egman ?”

  "Hopefully tonight if I can get everything finished. Assuming of course they don't send you to fetch me for more medical scans. I have an idea for some dishes using Bajoran produce I really would appreciate opinions on. "

  "Fair."

  "Peldor Joi Officer."

  "Peldor Joi Chef."