"The death of cold"

Doctor Seth
Medical Officer USS Sulu
http://come.to/dr.seth


A chilling breeze brushed against Seth's neck.  
With a shiver, she rubbed her hands across 
her arms where they crossed and tried to warm 
them.   Exhaling, the Doctor could see her own 
breath condensing in the air that filled sickbay.

"Why is it so cold in here?" she asked of no 
one in particular.   Looking around the room at 
the patients laying in their biobeds, she was 
fearful that they would catch their death of cold 
because of the sudden change in climate.

"Computer, adjust temperature in room to 20 
degrees Celsius."  Seth ordered.

The computer responded evenly, "Temperature 
is currently at 20 degrees Celsius."

A lone eyebrow raised on Seth's brow, and 
remained there, even as she exhaled and 
watched her condensing breath swirl in the air.  
Reaching across her chest, Seth activated her 
comm badge.

"Engineering, this is Doctor Seth in sickbay.  
The environmental controls down here appear 
to have malfunctioned.  Can you send 
someone down to repair them?  I have patients 
here that could be harmed by the extreme 
cold."  Seth explained.  The cold air was 
chilling her bones.  She could feel it  tightening 
her lips and burning her throat as she spoke.  It 
reminded her of winter on the planet Vulcan, 
where it's thin atmosphere made for very 
severe weather with the changing seasons.

"This is Burton Doctor.  We are getting reports 
of the problem throughout the ship.  We are 
working on it." Came the reply over the open 
channel.

Seth continued to slowly rub her arms while 
she listened and thought.  There was no 
danger to herself.  The cold might be 
uncomfortable and inconvenient, but she 
wasn't in any danger from it.   During her 
periods of meditation at the temple of the 
Kolinahr masters on Vulcan Seth had survived 
much worse conditions than severe winter 
weather.   However her patients were another 
matter.  Several of them had serious injuries 
and were likely to suffer metabolic shock with 
the severe change in climate.  Something 
needed to be done.

"That is unacceptable.  I have some crew 
members here that will die of metabolic shock 
if they remain in this cold for more than a few 
minutes."  Seth explained with both urgency 
and authority in her voice.

"Okay Doctor.  I'll grab some portable heating 
units and set something up in sickbay until 
Engineering gets things straightened out.  How 
is that?"  Ensign Burton asked over the 
channel.

"That would be appreciated.  Please hurry.  
Sickbay out."" Seth closed.

The Doctor then moved over to the biobeds 
and started laying out some silvery thermal 
blankets over her patients.  She hoped they 
would keep them warm in the mean time until 
the temporary heaters could be set up as a 
stop gap measure against the bitter cold.