INDIGESTION

Scott Reeves



Captain's Log, Stardate October 23:

The Ennaprize, enroute to deliver a load of prophylactics to the inhabitants of the planet Laidemalot, has stopped off at an uncharted planet to determine whether it might be used for shore leave at some future date. I, Spook, and four of our boys from Security have beamed down to check things out.

"Spook!" Slim Jerk called out. "Where in blazes are you?"

"Here, Captain." Jerk turned in the direction of the voice. Spook, Jerk's Volcanian sidekick, was buttoning his pants as he walked toward the Captain and the rest of the landing party. "I was in those bushes over there, uh.... conversing with nature."

"Whatever," Jerk said. "Well, I guess it's time we--" Jerk was interrupted by a loud rumbling noise that came from somewhere just behind Spook. "What was that noise?"

Spook appeared slightly flustered for a moment, then said, "I believe that noise was the result of my boot slipping on a patch of damp grass."

Jerk nodded. "As I was saying, I guess it's time we--" Jerk stopped again and sniffed at the air. "Strange. Does anyone else smell that?"

"Smell what, sir?" asked Ensign Iki of Security.

"A sickly, spicy aroma. Kind of sulphurous."

The three Security men began sniffing noisily at the air. After a few moments of this, they said in unison, "Yes, now we smell it."

"It's tangy," Iki said.

"Pungeant," Smith offered.

"It makes my eyes water," said Harrybick, the youngest member of the landing party. He had graduated from the Starfleet School of Pupils only four months ago. The Ennaprize was his first duty assignment.

"Spook!" Jerk yelled suddenly, snapping his fingers. "I remember this smell! It's a monster I encountered long ago. After all these years, it's back! God help us all!" He turned to Spook and gripped the Volcanian's shoulders fiercely. He moved his head closer to Spook's, until their noses were only inches apart. "Boy oh boy are we in trouble!" Jerk managed to collect himself, and he let go of Spook, who was looking at him with raised eyebrows. "Mr. Spook, set your tricritter to scan for dicurillimuminum. Specifically, we're searching for a gaseous creature composed of that deadly element."

"Slim, dicurillimuminum exists only in laboratory experiments," Spook pointed out, looking nervous.

"Just set your tricritter, Mister!" Jerk barked. "The rest of you, phasers on `pulverize.' And fan out."


Hairybick and his squad cautiously roamed the area, phasers in hand. Hairybick was certain that the creature Captain Jerk referred to was the same creature that had killed Hairybick's father years and years and years ago. Slim Jerk had been on that mission with Hairybick's dad. Jerk, a lowly ensign at the time, was the only one who had escaped to tell the tale.

The terrors he must have seen that day, Hairybick thought to himself. Jerk must have worked himself up a major obsession with the monster by now. No wonder he was so intent upon finding it.

"I smell it!" Smith cried, startling Hairybick from his thoughts.

"Does it show on your tricritter?" Hairybick asked.

"No, but--" Smith tapped at his tricritter a few times, then looked up. "Holy cow, I forgot to turn the blasted thing on!"

"There it is!" cried Iki, pointing ahead.

A dense brown cloud was swiftly closing on them from behind a large boulder. Hairybick raised his phaser, but before he could fire, the cloud descended on them and he gagged. "It smells like-- like--" he started to say, but was unable to finish because he was too busy collapsing to the ground, a scream ripping from his throat.

Jerk and Spook, a few hundred yards away, heard the scream.

"That sounded like a scream," Jerk said.

"I believe it was," stated Spook.

They looked at each other. "Hairybick!"

They raced to the scream's source, where they found the four Security men lying in a tangled heap near a large boulder.

"Are they dead?" asked the Captain.

Spook scanned them with his tricritter. "Just barely. All but Hairybick."

Slim Jerk studied the men for a moment. Then: "What are those red spots covering their faces?"

"It appears to be acne." Spook consulted his tricritter again. "Odd. Every hair in their genital region is missing."

Jerk bowed his head. "It's happening just like it did all those years ago." He sniffed. "We better get Hairybick to Sickbay." Jerk opened his communicator. "Jerk to Ennaprize. Beam us up, Crotchy."

Jerk, Spook, the comatose Hairybick, and the two stiffs were snatched from the planet's surface by the Ennaprize's transporter beam.

Two hours later, on the bridge, Spook was stooped over his sensors. Jerk moved up behind him. "Any sign of it yet?" he asked.

"None, Captain."

"You are scanning for dicurillimuminum?"

"Of course." Spook straightened up and folded his arms behind his back. "Captain."

"Yes, Spook?"

"Slim, there is an urgent matter I must discuss with you. In private."

"Sure Spook. How about--"

Just then the intercom buzzed. "Dr. Mackey to bridge."

"Excuse me one moment, Spook." Jerk hit the intercom button. "Jerk here. Go ahead, Stones."

"Slim, Hairybick's awake now, if you'd like to question him."

"On my way. Jerk out." He thumbed off the intercom. "Spook, why don't you meet me in my quarters in about an hour. You can spill your beans there, okay?"

Spook winced slightly at Jerk's choice of words, then nodded. Jerked stepped into the turbolift and descended to Sickbay.


"He's nearly back to normal," said Mickey "Stones" Mackey, the Ennaprize's resident medical wizard. "He'll be fit for duty again in just a few hours. But the acne and hair loss will take a little longer to repair."

Jerk nodded. "And the other three?"

"Dead as doornails, just like Spook said."

"Well, you win some, you lose some." He sighed. "I'll see Hairybick now, Stones."

Mickey Mackey ushered Jerk into the recovery room, where Hairybick was sprawled out on a diagnostic bed. Nurse Chippy had her top off and was dancing at his bedside. Mackey picked her shirt up from the floor and handed it to her. "Thank you, Nurse, that will be all for now."

Nurse Chippy nodded and left the room.

Hairybick lifted his acne-covered face to watch her leave, then looked at Jerk and Stones. "Captain, it-- it--"

Jerk put his hand to Hairybick's shoulder. "Easy, ensign, easy. Just tell me what happened."

"It came up on us from behind a rock. We didn't even have time to fire. It just drifted on top of us, all smelly and brown and--" Hairybick began sweating profusely. He started to twist and turn on the bed. "--and-- the acne on our faces..... I'm a pimply adolescent again.... No hair where it counts.... The other three, dead.... Oh..."

"Calm down. You're all right now." Jerk gripped the ensign's shoulder more tightly, and stared intently at him. "We'll get it, Hairybick, I swear we will. It won't kill anymore as long as I live." He clenched his fists and giggled maniacallly. "Your father and all those who died on the Faggarut so long ago will be avenged! If it takes the rest of my life, by God! I'll hunt it across the universe if I have to! Why, I'll chase it--"

Stones tapped Jerk on the shoulders, interrupting his obsessive tirade. "You're starting to ramble, Slim. Care for a tranquilizer?"

Jerk shook his head. "No, no. I'm all right now."

"Captain," Hairybick murmured. "Captain, the smell of it! That awful, terrible smell!"

Jerk leaned close. "What, Hairybick? What about the smell?"

"It was so pungent and tangy, like-- like--"

"Like what?" Jerk prompted, growing irritated by Hairybick's stammering. "Spit it out, man!"

"Well, you know what it smells like in the ship, after-- after they serve beans for dinner? Like they did last night? It smelled like that, sir. Only worse. Oh God, much, much worse...."


"A fart?!" Slim Jerk cried incredulously. The Captain and Mr. Spook were in Jerk's cabin as per Spook's earlier request. "You mean to tell me I've lost three men and worked myself into such an obsessive state because you farted for the first time in your life-"

"It was the beans we had for dinner last night," Spook interjected.

"--And that your fart, made deadly by the dicurillimuminum your body manufactured to break down the beans, which were incompatible with Volcanian metabolism, is drifting around down on that planet, and could eventually drift to other planets, killing who knows how many people?"

Spook nodded. "I believe that is an accurate assessment of the situation."

Jerk's nostrils flared. "You should have told me at the outset, instead of letting me think it was the creature I encountered years ago. Why didn't you?"

Spook looked down at his boots. "I-- I was too embarrassed, I must say." He raised his eyebrow and cocked his head. "Fascinating. My first emotion. How exciting, in an emotionless sort of way."

Jerk threw up his hands in exasperation. "This will look great in my reports. For the past three hours, we've been searching for a free-floating dicurillimuminum Volcanian fart that my first officer accidentally...loosed...while surveying an uncharted planet. Meanwhile the natives of Laidemalot are about to exceed their planet's Population-Sustenation Ratio and are in desperate need of the rubbers we are supposed to deliver. Any suggestions, Spook?"

"Before we make the delivery, we must, of course, capture my fart. To do so, I recommend cheese."

"Cheese?"

"Cheese, yes. We Volcanians have long known that exposing a fart to cheese will cause the fart to dissipate."

"You're joking," Jerk said.

"I am not. Humans also were no doubt aware of this fact. You have heard the old Earth expression, `Who cut the cheese?' The original meaning of this saying was probably, `Someone farted, has anyone cut the cheese to get rid of it?' Over time, the meaning was twisted--"

"Just tell me how to catch the fart, Spook!" Jerk glared at him.

"Easily done," Spook said. "So far the ship's sensors have been unable to locate the fart. Therefore we must draw it out into the open."

"But how?" asked Jerk. "What attracts farts?"

"Why, people, of course. A fart thrives by letting people smell it. That's why it exposed itself to the landing party. I recommend that we set two people down on the planet with a piece of cheese. It should only be a matter of time before the fart shows itself to them. And then the cheese will do its work."


Jerk and Hairybick materialized on the planet's surface. Hairybick, who had been released from Sickbay just a few hours before with Mackey's assurance that the young ensign was as fit as he'd ever be, held a large piece of cheese in his right hand.

Jerk motioned to a rock at the far side of the clearing in which they had landed. "We might as well sit down there. It may be a long wait."

They settled onto the rock.

Just as Jerk was dozing off, Hairybick gave him a froggy in his upper arm. "Ouch!" Jerk yelled, rubbing his shoulder. "Why did you do that?"

"Here it comes," Hairybick said. "Woo! I can smell it from here!" He used his free hand to fan the air in front of his nose.

Jerk pinched his nostrils together and said in a nasal tone, "Quick! Throw the cheese into the cloud!"

The dense, brown fart was floating swiftly towards them. With a quick flick of his wrist, Hairybick tossed the cheese into the rampaging fart.

"I hope it works fast," Jerk said. "My eyes are watering and my throat burns."

Suddenly there was a loud, deafening thundering noise, as if thousands of people were breaking wind simultaneously. Then the brown cloud was gone, as if Spook had never let it loose on an unsuspecting universe.

Jerk and Hairybick sighed.

"It's over at last," Hairybick sighed.

"Yes," the Captain said. "And now, it's time we move on to other adventures. Right after we stop off at Laidemalot."


Jerk stepped onto the bridge and walked over to Spook's station. "Well Spook, things are back to normal."

"So it would seem."

"I trust we won't have any more problems of this nature?"

Spook crossed his arms on his chest and raised his eyebrow. "I don't think so, Captain. But, Slim, I believe I have acquired a taste for beans."

Jerk grinned. "Carry on, Spook." He left the Volcanian's side and seated himself in his command chair. "Batten down the hatches, Guru, and take us out."

"Aye, aye, sir. Hatches battened, seatbelts fastened, full steam ahead." Guru pushed a button. "Here we go!"

The Ennaprize warped out of orbit, heading for Laidemalot and then onward to seek out new adventures with, very possibly, strange life forms.