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Oops! - Chapter 5
Time: CY 10086 - AD Oct 5163Location: Blackwell's World
“It's all your fault,” Trance's accusation aroused Beka from what had promised to be a pleasant dream.
“What are those two arguing about now?” thought Beka as checked the time. Her thirty minute nap had turned into a five hour siesta. Rubbing sleep out of her eyes she got out of her bunk to referee another argument.
"What do you mean my fault?" responded Harper. "You're the one who dropped the box."
"If you hadn't stepped on my tail I wouldn't have dropped it."
"If you had kept you tail out of the way I wouldn't have stepped on it."
"If you watched where you put your big feet I wouldn't have to worry about my tail."
"My big feet? Have you looked at yours lately?"
"Enough," said Beka as she walked into the ship's common room. "What's this all about?"
Her two crew members were sitting at the table that dominated the common room. There was a broken wooden box on the table and a pile of sand beside the box. Both Harper and Trance were giving each other angry looks.
"Harper made me drop my box of sand weevils," explained Trance.
"Sand weevils?" asked Beka "San-Ska-Re sand weevils?" There was an anxious tone in her voice
"That's right" said Trance "I ..."
"The two of you get out of the common room right now!" ordered Beka stepping back out of the common room. "Seal the compartment and come with me to the airlock staging area. We all need to do an immediate complete personal decontamination. Then we'll have to give the entire Maru a class Alpha interior decontamination. Please tell me you haven't left the ship since you dropped the box."
"But, Beka," argued Trance . "The weevils are still in their dormant stage and anyway the Chichin on Winnipeg Drift who sold them to me assured me that they can't lay their eggs in mammals."
Beka relaxed slightly at Trance's statement that the weevils were still in their dormant stage, but only slightly. "That's not quite true, Trance. The weevils can lay their eggs in mammals, they just don't hatch."
"Oh," responded the purple girl, "Then why are you angry?"
"The problem, Trance is that while the eggs don't hatch they produce a severe allergic reaction in most warm blooded species, including humans. Harper and I, and most likely you, would be covered in a rash that would itch so much that some people have scratched their skin off trying to relieve the itch. Other than the Than, the Chichins are one of the few species that aren't allergic to the eggs."
Harper gave Trance a hostile look. "You told me they were harmless when you brought them aboard," he said.
"That nice Chichin who sold them to me said they were," objected Trance.
"What I want to know , said Beka interrupting the argument before it resumed "is why you brought them aboard in the first place. And you didn't answerer my other question. Have you or Harper left the ship since you dropped the box?"
"They're for George and Martha," explained Trance. She pointed to two plants sitting in one corner of the room. "They can't make babies without help from the weevils. And no we haven't left the ship."
"Thank the Divine for that," said Beka relaxing a bit more but still remaining outside the common room.. "We won't have to report a biological contamination incident. The Blackwell's World government doesn't take kindly to such things. But I'm afraid you're going to have to tell George and Martha that they're just going to have to adopt." Her tone of voice changed becoming much more serious. "Trance, I've told you before you that you're not to bring any living things aboard the Maru with out checking with me first. This is precisely the reason. If the weevils had gotten off the ship we would have been heavily fined and the Maru could have been confiscated. After we've gone through personal decontamination you're still going to do a class Alpha decontamination of the Maru. Oh, and consider yourself restricted to the ship for the next two port visits."
A gotcha smile started to appear on Harper's face only to disappear at Beka's next words.
"Harper, you knew my rules about bringing anything alive aboard the Maru. If you knew Trance was bringing some crawly things aboard you should have stopped her and contacted me. You're just as much at fault as she is So you can help her with the decontamination and keep her company at our next two port visits. Now let's get deconed then you both can start to work cleaning up the Maru."
As she began to walk towards the decon station she heard the argument start up behind her.
"This is all your fault..."
Location: the Andromeda Ascendant
Ugh! Sand weevils," said Andromeda disgustedly. "I had an outbreak of them aboard me one time. My entire crew had to be evacuated and a special decon team had to be called in to clean me up. Nearly a quarter of my crew ended up requiring medical treatment. They even made me itch."
"Rev kept telling me not to worry about their bickering," said Beka. "He said that it was a sign that they cared for each other, but there were days when I wanted to tell them to go play outside, sometimes while we were in deep space."
"I can imagine," agreed Andromeda. "Harper sometimes drives me to distraction. Tell me, of all the things the two of them got up to what was the one that surprised you the most?"
"That's easy" said Beka. "The time they surprised me the most was when the two of them came into my room to tell me they had something important to say. We were on Kingfisher having delivered some medicinals to Rev Bem's hospital and had taken him up on his offer to spend the evening in the hospital's guest quarters. I was reading a horror novel when they knocked at the door..."
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