I got him!" The worm called to his friends as he tugged the cart

around the crumpled agents and to the middle of the room. It had

taken forever to get into Elle's room to collect the cat, but it had

been worth it.

"Orion, we need your help." another of the worms said as Orion

leaped off of the pillow and onto the floor with a sniff when he

realized that the worm wasn't taking him to the fish that he could

smell in the aquarium.

Orion almost rolled his eyes at the worms. Of course they needed

help. But they were worms, after all, and how was he supposed to

help them? It isn't as if he could tell them how to change

themselves into cats. Something was wrong, though, he realized after

a moment when he spotted the crumpled heaps, and on closer inspection

saw that there was a human and in a few cases an alien tucked under

each blanket. And wasn't that his human servant over in a corner?

The cat frowned and his whiskers twitched. Elle was a good servant,

even if she brought that giant green scratching post by for a fun

filled afternoon of yelling as he was trying to nap. Orion padded

over and started to nudge her with his head. He had already been

forced to replace one servant. He had no desire to lose this one too.

"X is going to get something to fix all of the agents up." one of

the worms said as the group came over and clustered around the cat.

"But we need your help!"

They had trusted the scratching post to get help? Oh, these worms

were almost beyond assistance, but what else was a decent cat

supposed to do? With a kitty sigh, he turned and looked at them,

waiting to hear what they expected him to do about the situation.

"The Fmecks are in the building, and they're going to hurt the

agents if we don't stop them. You know what a Fmeck is, right?"

another worm said.

Did he know what a Fmeck was? His last servant had been an

Arquillian. Of course he knew what those nasty little things were,

and really he didn't know why in the world the Arquilians put up with

the situation. Sure they were pacifists, but there were ways around

that. Orion would have been happy to trot off to the Fmecks' home

planet before they got it blown up, to deal with them, and he was

sure that any number of cats that he could find would be happy to

drop in on the horrible things too. And there were Fmecks loose in

the building? This was perfect. He had always been curious about

what one would taste like. He was sure that they had to be like

chicken. With a spring, he darted away from the worms, nose

twitching as he jumped onto the Twins' console and them back to the

ground as he caught the scent of the Fmecks.

"What are they doing?" Aileen murmured as the worm that had been

missing armed himself with a spatula that one of the other worms held

out and then they clustered together in a group, spinning, trying to

figure out what way the cat had went.

Before she could try to figure things out any further, though, the

screams started and first one Fmeck and then another came racing out,

waving and shouting, their little weapons tumbling to the ground in

their haste to get away as Orion appeared, claws out, racing after

them and swiping at them with his claws.

"Tell me that the cat doesn't have a Fmeck in his mouth." Aileen

said as the sounds of twacking, swishing, and scooping filled the air

as the worms swooped down on the Fmecks fleeing Orion's claws and

teeth. Zed was going to have a heart attack if he survived the

poison. Would the Alien Rights Commission buy the notion that cats

would be cats when they heard about the eaten Fmecks?

"And stay in there!" the worms shouted together as they dumped the

last of the battered, smooshed, and in a couple of cases bitten

Fmecks into the fish tank and slammed and locked the lid down several

minutes later. Orion settled down by it with a hiss. He couldn't

believe that he hadn't been allowed to eat just one of the Fmecks.

But maybe they would make a break for it, and he would be waiting.

"Aileen?" a worm called. "We got rid of the Fmecks! Everything's

okay now!" At least she wasn't crying anymore. Kay was going to be

so upset if he ever found out that she had been crying.

"I don't know about okay. Do you think that Zed's going to notice

this?" a second worm said as he held up the broken fishing rod. He

was awfully attached to all of his fishing gear.

"I'm sure we can find him another one." Aileen told them, relief

washing over her as she realized that for the moment Kay was safe

before the fact that he was still critically ill from the poison hit

her. How much longer could he last without help?

"Let me talk to them, okay?" Zara said as she motioned for Aileen

to hand her the communicator. She would need the closer view if she

was going to try to walk the worms through assessing the poor

humans. "Worms? Hey, worms?"

"Yes?" one of the worms said as he picked up the communicator that

was at Kay's side and held it up so that he could see the Jeedangian

better.

"Hey, my cousin's on his way back with the stuff to fix up everyone,

but he's having to find a detour so it might be awhile. Do you think

the four of you can do something for me while we're waiting for him?"

"Sure thing!"

"Can do!"

"We got rid of the Fmecks, didn't we?"

"Okay, do you see that thing my cousin used to scan the humans to

see what kind of poison was used on them?"

"You mean this?" one of the worms called as he spotted the device

and scooped it up, bringing it over to where his friend was holding

the communicator.

"That's it." And thank heavens X hadn't turned it off. That would

make things much simpler. "I need you to point it at Agent Kay and

hit scan, okay? And then hold it up to the communicator so I can see

what it says."

"That sounds simple enough."

"Sure it won't blow him up? Zealtor's made some wierd things before."

"Well, it didn't blow Elle up, did it?"

"What sort of doctor did the MIB get stuck with?" Zara murmured to

herself as the worm held the scanner up and she looked at the

readout. It was what she was afraid of. The poor agent's heart

rhythm was shaky, sliding towards cardiac arrest. "Okay. What about

the rest of the humans? How are they? Are they as bad as Agent Kay?"

"Well, Zed doesn't look good."

"Or U."

"Here are a couple more." a worm called as a couple of them

scurried around the room to look at the others before coming back.

"Kay looks really bad, though. That's odd."

It was odd, Zara knew, for someone who was relatively young and in

good health to get hit so strongly by the poison, but she would leave

that to her cousin, the peacekeepers and everyone else to work out.

Her problem was figuring out how to keep the poor human alive. "Can

one of you take the communicator and go down to the medical lab? I'm

going to need to see about finding some medicine for that poor thing."

Medicine? How bad was it if Zara was taking a chance on trying to

walk the worms through giving out medication? Aileen closed her eyes

for a minute, blinking hard to hold back tears. She couldn't lose

Kay now.

"Medicine? Shouldn't we wait for your cousin?" The worms had

handled the Fmecks, true, but the idea of giving the humans,

especially someone like Kay actual medicine was way more than they

thought they could manage.

"I think my cousin might be taking a long detour. Don't worry.

This won't be hard." At least Zara hoped that she could work it out

so that it wouldn't be hard.

"Well, okay." the worms finally agreed and one of them picked up

the communicator.

"How bad?" Aileen whispered as they waited for the worm to reach

the medical lab. "How long?" Had Kay heard her when she told him

that she loved him? If he had heard nothing else, she prayed that he

had somehow heard that.

"It's fixable. It's still fixable." Zara tried to reassure her,

and hoped that she didn't think to ask if she had ever actually

treated humans before. Surely what they showed in the textbooks

couldn't be that off about the species. "Okay." She said as the

worm reached the lab, and waved the communicator around so that she

could see. "It ought to be in that cart on the far left. I'm not

sure of the exact name that they use there, but it should start with

digi. Think you can find that?"

"Can't be harder than finding the cream after everyone's been in the

kitchen." the worm said as he trotted over and started to dig

through the cart that Zara had indicated. A moment later he held up

and injector with an orange label. "Is this it?"

"That's it." And thank heavens, it came with the injector preloaded

with what looked like a configuration suitable for the average human

body weight. This wasn't going to be as hard as she thought.

"Okay. This isn't going to be a problem. Get those injectors. How

many are there?"

"At least a couple of dozen."

"Okay, that ought to work for now, then. And there are probably

more stuffed away somewhere. Get all of them, and take them down to

the main room."

"If you say so." the worm said as he gathered the injectors up and

dumped them in a box, after a moment adding Zealtor's pet bacteria

Lucy when she let out a roar. Were there any other pets that they

would need to worry about, that might need to be fed while everyone

was poisoned?

"This isn't bad. All I have to do is to tell them how to use the

injector. The drug's pre-measured. This is going to be fine." Zara

tried to reassure Aileen. "And hopefully that cousin of mine will be

there soon to take care of everything else."

Aileen nodded but didn't trust herself to speak at the moment. She

just watched on the main screen as the worm came into the room and

dropped the box down by Kay.

"All right. This is simple." Zara said. "All you do is pull the

seal off of the injector, and then press that end against bare skin.

The neck would probably be the easiest. Then push the button on the

end. There's nothing to it."

"Are you sure that we shouldn't wait for your cousin?" What if they

did something wrong? Zed would use them for fishbait if they hurt Kay.

"I wish we could. But trust me, this isn't going to be a problem.

The medicine's pre-measured. It's just a matter of injecting it."

Zara said.

"If you say so." And the injector did look a whole lot easier to

use than an espresso machine. Kay was trembling so much, though.

"You're absolutely sure?"

"Absolutely sure. Just trust me."

"Okay." The worm slowly stretched out a hand, and before he could

have time to really think it through, pressed the injector to Kay's

neck like Zara said and injected the contents