Shoot for Earth: MedSci Missions 3

Troy jumped. “You startled me,” he said.

Joe grunted, and passed by to get to the marijuana patch.

Troy watched as he made a careful count, then said out loud, “That’s what I thought.”

“What?” Troy couldn’t help asking, thought Joe had sounded like he was talking to himself.

“Hmm,” Joe said, then a minute later, “You were a government investigator for experimental science irregularities on Earth before you got sick, right?”

“Yes,” Troy said, slipping into his old no-nonsense tone. “You have a problem?”

“Teensy. I don’t want to tell the Security Sixers, they’d make too much of it.”

“Ok, I’m listening.”

“Ramone came on board to collect some belongings and some seeds for his experimental garden.”

“Yeah, everyone knows he’s on board. Through popular demand, he agreed to do a concert tomorrow night.”

“You going?”

“Of course – probably – I hope so.”

“Huh. You’re officially a patient on here. Don’t let your brother work you to death.”

Troy coughed. “I won’t. I’m more likely to do that myself.”

“You scared of dying?”

“For sure.”

“Me too. I’m in remission, though, and in a year, there will probably be a reversing vaccine. I s’pose you know that, though.”

“Yeah. I wasn’t going to last a year. I just worked on speeding things up.”

Joe studied him carefully. In his slow, purposeful way, he clicked off the video surveillance with his Pocod, then leaned back into the pot patch. After inspecting, he picked a small handful of buds. “These are what you want.”

“No,” Troy said quickly, “I don’t take . . .”

“These’re what you came in here for,” Joe said with certainty.

“What? Of course not.” Troy stared at the proffered herb for a long minute while Joe held them patiently. “Actually, maybe part of me did. Sucking blackness, I’ll take them. Thanks,” he added as he pocketed the pot.

“Welcome.” He switched on the surveillance again. “So that relates to the Ramone issue with his Fabarian garden.”

“Wait, I thought he was banned from research on Fabar for now,” Troy said.

“Yeah, except he’s allowed a small isolated garden to experiment with. No lab though. Just seeing what grows there, breeding new varieties and such.”

“Ok. So what’s the problem?”

“I told him he could take seeds from that heritage variety. I’m sure he also took some from a recent cultivar intended only for medicinal extraction in a lab. It’s too potent and full of side-effect chemicals to imbibe in traditional ways.”

“Ah,” Troy said. “Indeed, I’ll talk to him.”

“Great. Now go see Ramone before you need that stuff.”

“You got it,” Troy said, glad to have some orders to follow.