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Harry Mudd is one of our new vendors.

Harry Mudd.

If you're considering buying anything -- houseplant, pet, 'innocent decoration', from that man-- consider otherwise. He's a menace and he should be banned from being within twenty meters of livestock and produce let alone handling it-!

If he tells you it's neutered don't believe him, if he tells you it's 'not dangerous' remember that some systems only define 'dangerous' as 'predatory, noxious, or aggressive'. Gimlian moss barnacles aren't dangerous by that definition, and they've destroyed more ships with clogged fuel exhaust ports than I've had field rations.

Harry Mudd-!

[He cuts the feed with a wordless snarl of frustration]

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He could just have an unfortunate accident...

[For a long, long moment, Ben looks like he's considering it. Then-]

No. No, I'm not some frontiersman with a grudge, that's not how I do things.

...besides, I'm sure he has an insurance policy in place, because I can't imagine how someone that annoying has lived this long.

We could sabotage whatever he's selling, at least.

What he's selling is probably some fairly innocent animal. What I am going to do is try to get ahold of all the ones he sells and make sure they won't breed, at least.

I don't suppose you did a veterinary course with your potions?

No, but tell me what you were asking for anyway.

I see myself trying to keep a lot of environmentally shocked pets alive until we get a veterinarian. A lot of them will need supplements that a local diet just can't provide-- might be an opportunity for you to make a few credits.

But more importantly, the stuff that doesn't immediately do its best to die is going to do its best to breed and there are going to be a lot of random life-forms that need to be de-sexed.

If they work like the animals on my world I can figure that out.

[Her methods may be a little outdated, though. Or a lot.]

They just loooove the walking dead, of course, but I learned some before the plague to get by. Any chance there is a kind of universal bird-almanac for the species we might see?

Hopefully he isn't selling anything that the Institute doesn't have classified with at least a rough biological overview, but I don't trust him not to come up with something really exotic.

...if he does, we'll go from there. Also, I'll look away if anyone punches him in his smug face.

I don't have the wrists for punching, but I could make him throw up his stomach lining for awhile.

...Hmm.

[He contemplates this with his hand on a chin for just a little too long.]

...I mean no, that's probably not legal, don't.

Just enough to make him not want to come back~

[Emilia's tone goes sickly-sweet.]

...For security who may be listening in, I am only joking. I would never intend harm to another visitor.

[A cough.]

So do you mind if I contact you when he inevitably introduces something that needs medicated and-or desexed?

Eh, yeah. I'll do some research.

That sort of reputation, has he? It sounds like there is a story behind this...

[And yep, she wants to hear it. In detail.]

He's a one man ecological disaster. They should have a crisis protocol for him like they do for oil spills and meteor impacts. Harry Mudd is the reason that every station on the Klingon border supply chain has a feral tribble population. Harry Mudd once tried to resell rock debris from a Europan ice mining operation as 'decorative meteor stone'-- didn't decontaminate it, of course, figured the fact that it had been sitting in raw vaccuum had done that.

Well, Europan sea-blooms are extremophiles that can survive a range of pressures from the moon's liquid center out to the ice rim, they just curl up and go dormant.

The rock wound up in gardens and fish tanks and the Europan sea-bloom spores all came out of dormancy and suddenly there's an infestation all over the northern water-tables of Terra that puts native Aiptasia to shame.

Mudd is a menace.

Hm. Am I wrong in assuming he's the type that would do anything for a quick coin and moving from place to place hounded by easily avoided catastrophe? It sounds like he is a man tormented by demons, both of his own making and those that find him. Such people generally tend to be a blight on whatever society takes them in until they learn how to deal with their problems.

To my knowledge, the only thing tormenting Mudd is that people aren't making him rich, and the happy knowledge that every new scheme's going to be the one that pays off.

I don't know if pathological optimism is a real diagnosis, but if it is, he's got it.

It sounds like denial, at least. I wonder if he could be cured.

You're welcome to try. Just don't buy anything off of him.

An interesting challenge. If he sells me anything, he would truly be a first class salesman.

If you could just keep the more trusting people from getting saddled with a bunch of trade junk and a tribble infestation... [He's worried about Wander, all right]

I will see what I can do.

[Well, Ben looks absolutely livid about this Harry. Surely he can't be as bad as he makes him out to be.]

Maybe he doesn't realize how those barnacles can hurt ships! Didja ever tell him?

[Wander has a way of deflating Ben from an indignant state.]

He's not selling moss barnacles-- or, hell, I hope he's not. That was an example of the ways that the legal definition and the real definition of 'not dangerous' can be pretty different.

He's been told. I'll tell him to his face, next time I see him, but he thinks profit outweighs ecological disasters.

Well then! Maybe he just needs a good talkin'-to from a bunch people and he'll realize the error of his ways!

I can even come with ya!

[Obviously, this is going to help.]

[Ben considers Wander being within the area of effect of Mudd's effusively obfuscating salesmanship. It's horrifying.]

No, son. That's okay. I'll be fine on my own. You just steer clear of him, all right-?

[Tell Wander to stay away from somewhere? Sure, he'll listen.

For a while.]

You sure? Don'tcha think it'd be better if all of us go?

No, kid, that's all right. It'll just be a friendly scientific talk.

You know, I got a shit load of stories I could share about Jack Jeebs, too. Problem is they both are completely legal and they got the paperwork to vend here, as well as all the warnings.

We gotta catch 'em hip deep in shit here before we can do anything and so far they've been keeping their nose clean.

...Actually to be honest the one with the odd blacked out face seems like the most legit new guy there.

They say he's a Jovian, the other vendor. Nothing bad to say about him yet except that I don't know him.

Mudd always stays legal, somehow-- if he spent half as much time researching what he sells as he does intersystem law...

We'll be keepin' an eye on 'em. Pain in the ass as they can be. At least you can count on that.

I just hope we can nip it in the bud before we're hip deep in tribbles. Or worse.

He seemed like a good egg to me.

[Harry Mudd was friendly. And Bertie mistakes friendly for good.]

Edited 2014-11-07 05:28 (UTC)

Like a sandworm egg, more likely

You didn't buy anything from him, did you?

Alas, no. He was a nice chap, so I wanted to, but he did not have for sale the sort of apparel I was seeking.

But I gave him some money anyway, to help his poor sick mother.

...

[He probably just has to let this pass.]

That was kind of you. I'm sure he's grateful.

It is always a pleasure to give generously to a soul in need. As the Good Book says "He that gives to the poor...something something not lack."

Yes. That.

If you do buy anything from him, let me take a look at it, please.

Right-o, good chap. I am happy to share in my spoils, whatever they may be.

You're a very kind young man, Mister Wooster.

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