Sorry, it was just over 20000 characters ---------------- "B'Elanna, report!" Janeway ordered. "Why, the weapon didn't hit us," noted Chakotay. "I know, but it sounds more dramatic when I do that. Give us warp factor 86." "But captain, I can't defy the laws of physics!" Janeway shook her head. "Come on, this is Star Trek, we do it all the time." She turned to Tuvok. "Mr. Tuvok, your analysis." The Vulcan raised his eyebrows, looking puzzled. "Why do you wish me to make a chemical evaluation of your urine. If you feel sick, you should see the Doctor." "Not urinalysis, I meant I want YOUR analysis." "I see." He scanned the balls, which kept being fired. "Their weapons appear to be made of a soft, sponge-like substance." "Then we won't have any problems. Keep shields raised, just in case, we don't want any surprises." The ship was rocked. "What's that?" Tuvok explained. " That' is a word used to refer to an object to which one is referring." He scratched his head. "I fail to see why you wished me to define that term at this time." Another Nerf torpedo rocked Voyager. "Never mind, just get us out of here, until we can talk to those creatures." Meanwhile, on board the Jupiter II, the group was still trying to figure out how to communicate with the beings. Will and the girls were starting to understand a few things. "Okay," said Penny, "we know e'o' means hello,' let's see, ooo...'who are you?' Dad, tell them who we are!" Mr. Robinson spoke. "This is the Jupiter II, we're a ship looking for Earth, we need to go through your space to get there." The creatures sound very perplexed. "It's no use, they can't understand what we're saying." Will had a thought. "If one of us spacewalks, we could go over and maybe talk to them, maybe seeing each other will help." "Good idea," spoke the major, "I'll go." He looked out the window. "We better be careful, Voyager is getting hit pretty hard." "Federation shields should be better than that, if they're over 3 centuries ahead like they say," noted Judy Robinson. "Is Voyager canon, though," inquired the major. "Yes," spoke John, "but not to itself." Meanwhile, as the Jupiter II and Voyager were stalled in space, Gilligan's Ship was sputtering toward the wormhole entrace. "5...4...3...2...1, contact. We're in," shouted the Skipper, "we figured it out!" He leaped up from his captain/pilot's seat, which looked like a beach chair - because it was a beach chair, and hugged Gilligan." "We're not out of the woods yet," spoke the Profesor from his engineering position. "There's trees in space," remarked a shocked Gilligan, "the science really *is* weird here." Skipper shook his head. "Oh, Gilligan, that's just a saying. Ginger, how does communication look." "Well, it looks like a big, big box with a bunch of dials and buttons, and there are lots of fancy colors, with things whirring and buzzing and beeping and flashing...huh, that's funny, that wasn't flashing before." Mrs. Howell walked over to her. "That's because there's an incoming call," she explained, pressing the flashing button. "E'o," came the voice over the intercom. "It's talking a foreign language," whispered the Skipper, "what do I say?" Gilligan hummed. "Maybe you could offer it some of Maryann's coconut cream pie. And we'd better get a thousand or so, because I bet there's a lot of them." "Good idea. Maryann," Skipper ordered, "use that processor thingy we discovered, and send them out a thousand coconut cream pies." He smiled. "The way to an alien's heart is through his stomach. At least I hope." Back on Voyager, the crew is in a strategy session during a lull in the attack. Seven has an idea. "Captain, if their talk truly is baby talk, perhaps we could get an interpreter." "Who would be able to..." The Captain stopped so suddenly, one would have thought she'd turned to stone. She held a hand to her head. "Oh, no, you're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?" "If what I think you think I'm thinking is what you think I'm thinking, then yes, I'm thinking what you think I'm thinking," 7 agreed. Tuvok held up a hand. "We must assess the possibiltiy, Captain, that she may not be thinking the same thing that you're thinking she's thiking, even if she says she's thikning what you think she's thinking, because she may just think she knows what you're thinking she's thikning." "On the other hand," Chakotay reported, "she could be mistaken in thinking what you think she's thinking, and still be thinking what you think she's thinking, even if neither you nor she think she's thinking you're thinking the same thing she's thinking." Tuvok agreed that was true. "However, the probability that she's thinking what you think she's thinking, but mistaken in what you think she's thinking, is less than the probability that she thinks she knows what you're thinking, but you're thinking it differently from what she's thinking you're thinking." B'Elanna agreed. "Perhaps we should hear what she thinks you're thinking, then you tell us what you're thinking." "I would rather hear what Seven's thinking," explained Kim, "then hear what she thought you were thinking she was thinking, because if the two don't match, then it really doesn't matter what you thought she was thinking." Janeway put her hand on the table. "By golly, this is the time when we need a commander who can make command decisions, and not just thinking them, even if everyone else is thinking what she's thinking. Seven, what were you thinking?" Seven turned and inquired "are you asking what I was thinking, or what I was thinking you were thinking I was thinking." Janeway held up a finger, hesitated for a moment, then said "the first one." "I was thinking we could ask Naomi to interpret," remarked 7 of 9. Janeway put a hand to her head. "That's what I was afraid you'd be thinking. And I was thinking it, too." "If it's any consolation, Captain, I was thinking you might be thinking that I was thinking that." Janeway spoke grimly. "Thank you, Seven, that may be a comfort to me once I can understand all of what what was just spoken. Phew, after that I wish we could just go back to our normal way of spitting out all that weird science." Paris (singing, to the tune of "Give me that Old Time Religion"): "Give me that old time technobabble/Give me that old time technobabble/It was good enough for James Krik/and that's good enough for me." "Don't quit the day job, Tom," deadpanned Janeway as she solemnly ordered 7 to get Naomi and bring her to the bridge. As Janeway meandered in her ready room, Chakotay asked to enter. "You seemed a little disquieted there, Captain. Is there anything wrong?" Kathryn shook her head. "No, I just hope all those who dislike Wesley will forgive me." Chakotay sat on a couch near Janeway's seat. "I don't think it'll be that bad; we've downloaded and looked at the Jupter II's logs, and Will saved them on the Jupiter II a few times." "What was the difference? I mean, I want to make sure that little girl doesn't have people not like her. I'm concerned about every one of the crew," emphasized Janeway, "from the biggest to the littlest." Suddenly, the door chimed. "Come." It was Neelix. "What is it, Neelix?" "Oh, nothing; the writer just realized they hadn't used me, and thought they ought to. I brought the holodoc along, too, so he could have a speaking line." The holodoc waved and said "hello." "We were about to share an intimate moment," snapped the captain. "Oh, I'm sorry. Well, we got our couple of seconds in, so we'll be leaving now. Bye." The door closed, and Janeway shook her head. "Anyway, you were saying about the crew." Chakotay hummed. "Will was a couple years younger than Wesley; I think the difference was he used some ingenuity, and he was...well, he was more of an everyman,' Wesley was made to be too smart." The captain nodded. "Go on." Chakotay explained that "what you're asking Naomi to do is just helping, like Will did with the robot and other times. Will isn't a geek, just a boy with some good common sense and God-given ingenuity, he solved things thsoe couple times mostly like the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew do, if you've read their mysteries. He never rebuilt plasma nacelles or repaired warp conduits...or is that rebuilt warp nacelles and repaired plasma condiuts?" The captain shrugged it off as they drew closer. "Either way, we've probably used both." "Anyway, everyone thought Wesley might be able to, he was that smart. If Naomi were even in the captain's seat, I don't think it would hurt her too much, because she's more humble, and it'd be cute if it happened once. She wouldn't be rebuilding the ship or reprogramming the computer. Plus, Wesley caused some of their problems that he had to save them from, if you've read Picard's early logs." "That's true." The captin rose from her seat. "Thanks, Chakotay, I really appreciate the talk." "Anytime, Captain," he remarked as he remained in the room for a moment, wondered why he was there, and then left to enter the bridge. Meanwhile, five of the aliens had spacewalked back on board the Jupiter II - one yellow, one blue, one red, one orange, and one green. The group sat around observing the Teletubbies. "You know," spoke Dr. Smith, "you're right to attack Voyager - you should attack Gilligan's ship, too, they're mean." Will put his hands on his hips. "We're NOT going to translate that for them," exclaimed the boy. "They can understand us pretty well, Dear," explained the mom, "as long as we talk on a chlidish level like Dr. Smith is sometimes." "I resemble that remark," protested Smith. Suddenly, the others became transfixed on a video being shown on the rectangle of the blue Teletubby. The picture was quite fuzzy, so the yellow one gave a signal to the orange one, who reached up and adjusted the antennae of the blue one. The picture came in clearly after that. "You realize you're watching that upside-down," Penny pointed out to the blue one, who spoke some sort of jibberish. "He said he can still see it." The video showed the Teletubbies on their home world eating the coconut cream pies prepared for them by Maryann. Suddenly, all eyes - and the robots' sensors - became fixed on the turquiose one. He held his tummy and began groaning. "Uh-oh, e er'i," spoke the orange Teletubby on board the Jupiter II. The oldest girl explained. "I think he said he's allergic." Shortly before this incident, Janeway had begun chatting through their four-year-old interpreter to the Teletubbies From Space. "We had no desire to injure you, our purpose was simply to communicate." Naomi interpreted in childlike language. "Hur' e'r, li' bu' no' wor'," spoke the one seemingly in charge of the ship. Naomi explained that "he said it hurt their ears when we opened a channel, I guess; something about buttons not working, makes me think they tried to understand and couldn't." "In other words, they thought we were the ones hurting them," guessed 7. "No, I think at that level," Naomi speculated, "it was more like a tantrum. They threw a fit because they wre upset something didn't work, and it didn't matter whose fault it was." Janeway nodded. "That makes sense." Boy, she understands these characters so well because she was a toddler so recently herself, the captain considered. I wish all aliens were so easy to understand. "Tell them we're sorry, ask them what we can do to help." Naomi did, and one of the creatures pointed to Gilligan's ship, which was progressing steadily through the wormhole. The one pointing said "o'o, o'o, mmm, mmm!" while rubbing tis belly. "What's he saying," Janeway wondered as she approached the viewscreen. "My first thought is," spoke the Vulcan, "that a mistake on the part of the occupants of that vessel tasted good to them. However, that is not at all logical." Naomi shook her head. "No,o'o is a food; maybe they gve them some sort of food." "Yeees," considered the captain. "O'o, o'o, what food could that be?" "Captain, it would be logical to progress through the alphabet." He stood straight and folded his hands behind his back. "Bobo, coco, dodo..." "Coco - for coconut," shouted Chakotay. "Yes," came Janeway's excited voice, "I bet they gave them some coconut cream pie! Ask them how many, we'll match it." The alien didn't know. "Okay, let's replicate a thousand and send them over. Neelix, you hear that?" He had. "All right, we've matched your friends' offer, now let the Jupiter II go first, and then us." "Captain," inquired Tom. Sjhe explained as Naomi interpreted. "It's not sporting to go while someone else is stuck here." Naomi clapped her hands. "They said okay!'" "Great, you did marvelous work, Dear," the captain praised her as the viewscreen remained on for a moment. Suddenly, the same video of the Teletubby becoming ill from the coconut cream pie began showing as Janeway prepared to take Naomi back down to her quarters. "Uh-oh," came the lead teletubby as they watched the end of the video. Naomi stopped. "Wait, that was a different sound." Seven shook her head. "I am sure that was just their way of thanking us for the coconut cream pies." "No, he wants to say something else," insisted the girl. The entire bridge crew watched as the creature said "'E er'i." Janeway asked Naomi to get them to explain a little better. The aliens all looked sad, and the lead one remarked "tu' hur'." "Tell me what," the captain asked. "No," complained Naomi, "he's saying his tummy hurts, see the sad look?" Suddenly, all the orange, green, yellow, purple, and turquoise aliens began to be sick. "Er'i, er'i..." "Allergic," guessed Kim. Naomi nodded slowly, then stated simply "we're in trouble." Chakotay shook his head. At least Naomi isn't to blame for this, he told himself. Of course, this just means it's all the captain's fault again.