Meanwhile, in Lab Three, Ensign John Pettigrew was mixing chemicals again. His co-worker, T'Senca, had admitted that even though the rules didn't neccesarily allow such a thing, John's mixtures tended to produce results much better then those of more traditional chemicals used for plants in hydroponics. Commander Torres, who didn't always go by the book, had never reprimanded him for it, either. Several of his mixtures had made it to regular use through more private channels in the past, and most people simply didn't argue with success.
Ensign s'Lorena, an Orion girl, ducked her head in. "I need the oxygen output stats," she informed Pettigrew. "We're doing the weekly evaluation a little early:There've been odor complaints."
"Just a sec," Pettigrew said. "This solution will be done soon."
"Not that it's anything important," 'Lorrie' teased. "I mean, if life-support stops working, we can do without oxygen for a few weeks, right?"
"Just wait a second," he replied," and get the rest of yourself into this room before someone in the corridor does a wolf-whistle."
"They wouldn't dare." Lorrie got the rest of the way in.
"I didn't say it was your embarrassment I was worried about," John smiled.
"I forgot. You make friends of the experts in wolf-whistling, don't you?"Lorrie smiled evilly. "Wouldn't want one of them-" Suddenly, she waved a hand in front of her nose. "Now I know where the odor complaints are based. What is that, some new cologne?" she kidded.
"If you must know, I'm trying to make catnip grow better."
"What would you want catnip for? It makes cats crazy!"
"It also is said to have healing powers."
"For what, an overdose of..." Then a colored gas began to rise from John's beaker, and the banter stopped.
"What is that?" Ensign Pettigrew's voice only shook slightly.
"How am I supposed to know? It's your potion," s'Lorena pointed out evenly. She was one of the most level-headed people on the staff, second only to Lisa Manez when one excluded the Vulcans. "We should get out of here. Fast."
"Of course," Pettigrew agreed. He immediately ran toward the door and promptly smashed his nose on it. S'Lorena, in turn, bumped into him, and they fell to the ground. Realizing that the strange smoke seemed denser than the air and was sinking, they both got up quickly, but coughing.
"Why would the door be locked?" Pettigrew wondered.
"That gas of yours must be blocking the sensing system. The computer doesn't know we're in here, so it's trying to keep the gas from spreading."
"Which means the gas must be harmful in some way," Pettigrew finished Lorrie's line of reasoning.
"Yes, it does. Do you think the Jefferies Tubes..."
"No, you fixed it so gas wouldn't spread that way awhile ago, remember?"
"Right. Any other ideas?"
"Air vents," he said before he thought.
"Oh, puh-leeze."
Then Lorrie put her finger to her mouth. John understood. When they talked, they wasted their fast depleting oxygen and thus forced the gas up more quickly. They did everything they could, including hyperventilating, but the gas was up to their waists and rising fast.

T'Senca was exhausted. However, it would have been most improper to show it, so she walked down the corridor with her costumary stone face. She passed Stovok and exchanged appropriate greetings. Stovok observed she was late for duty.
"I overslept."
"Then it is logical to assume you were up late last night. Why?"
"It is a personal matter," she replied. It would not do to admit she was still having nightmares about the Romulan incident last year. She simply needed more meditating time. That was all.
"I see. Good day, Ensign T'Senca."
"Good day, Lt. Stovok."
She walked down the corridor and turned at the door marked 'Lab Three".
Her foot hit the door. If the door would not open, something was wrong. She peered at the blinking light on the wall. "Danger-Poisonous gas. Danger-Do not enter."
However, no team was coming, and no one was standing outside, coughing. Experimentally, she pounded on the door. Stovok was not out of earshot yet, and turned around to question her, but she put a finger to her mouth quickly and rested her ear against the door. There were two answering thumps. That probably meant there were two in there, she reasoned, though she had no idea who besides Pettigrew. Stovok was now making his way toward her. "Get the chief!" she told him. "It's an emergency! I need help!"
He nodded and quickly ducked into Lab Four. While he was gone, T'Senca tapped her comm badge and requested a medical team.
"Commander Torres!" he called over the spray. "It's an emergency! In Lab Three!"
The hose was shut off abruptly, and the two occupants of Lab Four marched through the garden and tracked mud into the corridor.
"What's wrong?" Torres asked, taking charge of her department.
"Pettigrew and someone else are trapped in there, with poisonous gas," T'Senca said quickly, indicating Lab Three with a tilt of her head.
"Is the force-field operational?" Torres asked Stovok, who had taken out a tricorder.
"Yes, sir," he replied, and anticipated her next question. "And yes, you can go through it with a light suit."
Torres nodded, pleased that he'd predicted her so well. She was about to ask Lisa to get two suits from Lab One, but she was already gone.
'I thought this was the Science Team, not the Psychic Team! ' Deanna thought proudly. Then Lisa came back with the suits. Torres signaled T'Senca as she yanked a pants leg over her uniform, knowing she would need someone who could pull a body without slowing down. Stovok, even if he wasn't admitting anything, had the Vulcan equivalent of a minor cold and wouldn't be up to it. All four managed to open the door when working together.
Now almost blending into the wall with their crinkly white suits, Deanna and T'Senca each grabbed a tricorder from wall storage and quickly went into the lab. The forcefield hadn't finished crackling from the disturbance when they were out of sight.
Lisa peered steadily into the maroon gas, hoping to see some sign of what was going on. All she could see, however, were clouds of maroon gas. They almost seemed to rear up against the wall like a horse trying with all its might to break out of the stable, the forcefield making small blue explosions when the gas got the upper hand. It seemed barely able to rein it in.
Several of her friends were in that mess.
Stovok had taken out a tricorder and was staring at it intently. "One human life sign closing in on an Orion one..."
Manez realized, "That's Lorrie!"
"If you are referring to Ensign s'Lorena, then yes, there is a high probability that is her. There is also a mixed life-sign closing in on the coordinates of another human one."
"Can't you just use their names?" Lisa complained. "You know who they are!"
"I most certainly can. The first human life-sign is now...Fascinating. That look on your face often precedes the exclamation 'I'm about to strangle you'. Yet, you never do. Why do Humans lie so frequently?"

Torres followed the beeping of her tricorder and eventually found the shape of a humanoid in the mist. She lifted it like one might a baby and struggled with it toward the faint shimmer of white light she knew to be the door. Two light red shapes entered her line of vision, heading toward the same target.
T'Senca had taken her charge and laid it across her shoulders, for it was too heavy to carry in her arms. She reasoned that Torres had Pettigrew, because though she understood his hair was unusually long for Human fashion, having been cut in such a way that it made it look shaggy, his hair wasn't anywhere near the length of the ponytail hanging over her left shoulder.
Both women felt a crackle against their suits...
And stumbled into the middle of a med-team, a bemused Vulcan, and a certain ensign shaking her head. Ensigns Pettigrew and s'Lorena were promptly put on stretchers and taken to sickbay.
The med-techs seemed optimistic that no permanent harm would result. They also wanted T'Senca and Deanna to come with them just in case there was a leak in the suits, and they obliged, albeit reluctantly.
They heard one of the med-techs whisper, "When I saw the look on that ensign's face, I thought we were coming in advance for that other guy!"
T'Senca raised an eyebrow. Deanna whispered, "I wonder what that was about."

"I still do not understand, Ensign Manez. What is it you find amusing?"
"It would take a long time to explain..." Manez said.
"I am naturally curious. Perhaps we would have dinner tonight? Dinner would take long enough to explain it?"
"Well, I'll try," Lisa said. "Meet me at my quarters after this duty shift?"
"I will do that," Stovok replied. It was a most agreeable arrangement.
"Okay, see you then," Lisa said, walking backwards back into Lab Four. The last thing she saw before the doors closed was Sanitary Specialist Stovok wiping up the mud that had been tracked on the floor earlier.
'Funny, I don't see him much, but for the longest time I was just thinking of him as Stovok rather then "The Janitor", like John calls him', Lisa mused.
Just before the end of the duty shift, Ensign Manez finished up the daily log...

"I suppose good comes from every situation. For a near-disaster, an awful lot came from this one. John probably will be even more careful when mixing chemicals, Lorrie is improving the sensors in Lab Three, the chief's in a better mood after seeing how her department worked together, and I learned never to mix up 'can't' and 'won't' when talking to a Vulcan. I'd go into more detail, but I have a rather 'fascinating' dinner date."

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