"We'll be landing on Planet Nim-8 shortly," Captain Leela announced. Basil and Ratigan sat at their ease in the ship, looking out the portholes to space. The professor had been right; they'd barely finished loading the several dozen boxes into the ship's cargo hold and settled themselves before they were already halfway done with the errand.
"You see, Ratigan? It's not so hard to just do the right thing," Basil said. Ratigan rolled his eyes.
"Hey fruitcakes, instead of making goo-goo eyes at each other, why don't you go back down and prepare the hold for offloading?" the robot named Bender said, playing a game of poker with the human Fry, and cheating excessively.
Both men scowled, but got up and moved below without complaint. The boxes were a hard material, somewhere between metal and stone, with small holes poked along the tops of them. They all had 'FRAGILE' written on the sides, and severe locks keeping the lids in place.
"What sort of creatures are they transporting?" Ratigan asked, turning one box a little and putting his ear to the rustling sound inside. "I can't imagine they're for a zoo, with so many of them and the beasts inside sounding so small."
"Maybe they're for a pet store," Basil hypothesized, shifting a pile. "Rabbits or something." There was the clicking of something metallic, and Basil whirled. "Ratigan! You can't open someone else's mail!"
Ratigan didn't respond, staring into the box.
"Put it back already!"
"They're not rabbits," he said quietly.
"What?"
"They're not rabbits." He tilted the box toward Basil. "Look." Inside, in an unsorted mass along the bottom of the box, were rats and mice. As small as they normally were to humans, they crowded in the corners and slid against the smooth walls.
"Perhaps rats are popular pets on this planet," Basil said slowly. "I'll just pop upstairs and double-check who we're delivering these, these boxes to."
"They're for some big lab," Captain Leela answered, once Basil and Ratigan were in the main cabin again. "You know, for experiments and stuff? They're going to do science to them."
The two men took several steps away. "Look, even you can't seriously expect me to just hand these rodents over," Ratigan said in hushed tones.
"No no, I know, I… I'm not sure I can do this in good conscience either."
"Well then, boy scout, what should we do?"
"I'm thinking!" Basil patted desperately for his pipe, and struggled for a moment to light it.
"If you want my opinion, we were only strictly told to come along to help with the delivery. If the rodents we're delivering just so happen to escape as soon as they land on the planet, then it's no fault of ours, and Farnsworth said he would have the temporal locator ready for us by the time we returned, so…"
Basil grappled at his hair. "Ratigan if we get caught—"
"Then we simply won't get caught." Ratigan leaned in closer. "Do the right thing, Basil. Don't let our fellow rodents be subjected to a life of torment and experimentation."
Basil held his gaze, the tobacco burning low in his pipe.