Redshirts Read Free Page B

eye contact with everyone else. “That poor bastard is this one’s friend. He’s tainted by association.”
    “The assault charge is trumped up,” said the first ensign. “The XO was high as a kite.”
    “On drugs you gave him,” said the second crewman, still not looking at anyone else.
    “No one can prove I gave them to him, and anyway they weren’t drugs,” said the first. “They were an offworld fungus. And it couldn’t have been that. The fungus relaxes people, not makes them attack anyone in the room, requiring them to defend themselves.”
    “You gave him Xeno-pseudoagaricus, didn’t you,” Dahl said.
    The first crewman looked at Dahl. “As I already said, no one can prove I gave the XO anything,” he said. “And maybe.”
    “Xeno-pseudoagaricus naturally produces a chemical that in most humans provides a relaxing effect,” Dahl said. “But in about one-tenth of one percent of people, it does the opposite. The receptors in their brains are slightly different from everyone else’s. And of those people, about one-tenth of one percent will go berserk under its influence. Sounds like your XO is one of those people.”
    “Who are you, who is so wise in the way of alien fungus?” said the crewman.
    “Someone who knows that no matter what, you don’t deal upward on the chain of command,” Dahl said. The crewman grinned.
    “So why aren’t you in the brig?” Duvall asked.
    The crewman motioned to Dahl. “Ask your friend, he’s so smart,” he said. Duvall looked to Dahl, who shrugged.
    “Xeno-pseudoagaricus isn’t illegal,” Dahl said. “It’s just not very smart to use it. You’d have to either study xenobiology or have an interest in off-brand not-technically-illegal alien mood enhancers, possibly for entrepreneurial purposes.”
    “Ah,” Duvall said.
    “If I had to guess,” Dahl said, “I’m guessing our friend here—”
    “Finn,” said the crewman, and nodded to the other one. “And that’s Hester.”
    “—our friend Finn had a reputation at his last posting for being the guy to go to for substances that would let you pass a urine test.”
    Hester snorted at this.
    “I’m also guessing that his XO probably doesn’t want it known that he was taking drugs—”
    “Fungus,” said Finn.
    “—of any sort, and that in any event when the Xeno-pseudoagaricus made him go nuts, he attacked and Finn here was technically defending himself when he fought back. So rather than put Finn in the brig and open up an ugly can of worms, better to transfer him quietly.”
    “I can neither confirm nor deny this interpretation of events,” Finn said.
    “Then what’s with the MPs?” Hanson asked.
    “They’re here to make sure we get on the Intrepid without any detours,” said Hester. “They don’t want him renewing his stash.” Finn rolled his eyes at this.
    Duvall looked at Hester. “I’m sensing bitterness here.”
    Hester finally made eye contact. “The bastard hid his stash in my foot locker,” he said, to Duvall.
    “And you didn’t know?” Duvall asked.
    “He told me they were candies, and that if the other crew knew he had them, they’d sneak into his foot locker to take them.”
    “They would have,” Finn said. “And in my defense, everything was candied.”
    “You also said they were for your mother,” Hester said.
    “Yes, well,” Finn said. “I did lie about that part.”
    “I tried to tell that to the captain and the XO, but they didn’t care,” Hester said. “As far as they were concerned I was an accomplice. I don’t even like him.”
    “Then why did you agree to hold his … candies?” Duvall said. Hester mumbled something inaudible and broke eye contact.
    “He did it because I was being nice to him, and he doesn’t have friends,” Finn said.
    “So you took advantage of him,” Hanson said.
    “I don’t dislike him,” Finn said. “And it’s not like I meant for him to get in trouble. He shouldn’t have gotten in trouble. Nothing in