Sumner had gathered five of his men in his office. Marines and Air Force personnel. He'd made discreet enquiries about who was having maintenance issues.

"I have heard rumours that you have been having trouble with your power and water supplies." He said. They just stood there at attention. "Well?"

"Yes, sir." They mumbled.

"Why haven't you approached the engineers to have the issues repaired?"

"We did, sir." One of the marines, Thompson, said.

"And?"

"Our techs fixed them up, sir. But the problems returned."

"Why haven't you spoken to the Science Department? Or Engineering?" Sumner kept his voice deceptively mild. "Our engineering corps are good, but maybe the other departments could fix what they can't."

"We did ask them!" Samuels, an Air Force Captain burst out. "But they..." He got a glare from Thompson.

"What?" Sumner asked.

"They don't seem to have time to see to our quarters." Thompson said mildly.

"Hmm. Well, they are short handed. I mean, you have heard about poor Dr McKay." There was a mumble of assent, and a couple of them dropped their eyes. "He's the Head of Science, and he very nearly died. It seems that he somehow got some citrus in his meatloaf."

"That's a shame, sir." Thompson said, face blank.

"Yes, it is." Sumner replied. "Let's get something straight. I've heard that some of the scientists have been harassed by some of the soldiers. I know the five of you were involved. I also know that the five of you haven't been part of the project for very long." He looked them over. Samuels looked especially guilty. "You have to understand that the scientists you bully today, may have your life in your hands tomorrow. It isn't a good idea to antagonise them. And as for doing something that might endanger the life of said scientist..." Sumner shook his head sadly. "The next time the world is in danger, you might seriously regret killing the one man who might just have been able to save us."

"Killing?" One of the marines gulped.

"Yes, killing. Dr McKay died and had to be resuscitated. He was very lucky that the oxygen deprivation didn't cause brain damage."

"Brain damage?" Samuels squeaked.

"Yes." Sumner said. "Whoever was moronic enough to poison our lead scientist very nearly ruined our chances of getting out of this galaxy. They nearly doomed this entire project."

"Poison? It wasn't poison." One of them said.

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing." The marine backed down after a glance at Thompson.

"What would you call it? Someone put a foreign substance, which it is well known that Dr McKay cannot ingest without an adverse reaction, into his dinner, knowing he would eat it. That's practically the definition of poisoning someone."

"It wasn't..." Samuels said. He trailed off and glanced at Thompson, who slowly shook his head. Samuels visibly steeled himself and continued. "McKay, he exaggerates things. And when someone says allergic, you think a rash, or sneezing. Not..." he swallowed.

"I see. So, you think this was a prank?"

"Yeah."

"You think they didn't know what they were doing?"

"Yeah." A couple of them said it this time.

"You didn't mean to really hurt him?"

"Yeah..." They stopped, realising they had just tacitly confessed.

"Idiots!" Thompson spat. "He deserved it. He's such an arrogant asshole. He expects us to wait on him hand and foot, and then he just complains about everything we do!"

Sumner called for some of his loyal soldiers to come and take them to the brig. They'd be court-martialled over this.


So, the mystery is solved.