The Czarship Penterprise entered orbit around the planet Trip6 in the SageNebula System. Captain Revolt was confident of success, although the Science Officer, Astronio, was less certain. Trip6 was inhabited by a race of brilliant medicinal herbalists and farmers. Among their advanced hybrids were ParaParsley, VerySage, PrimeRosemary, and HyperThyme, which were now dietary requirements for the TripSixians. They even synthesized Latticeborg, a cubic lettuce variety in demand by the Vegan Trekkers. First Officer GothicQueen was expected to negotiate the commercial treaties needed.
The pilot, ExpletiveDeleted, and engineer, TiffanyRose, ensured the safe docking of Trip6's Pea Pod carrying their Ambassador Nhyne, and the representatives of the other two inhabited planets of the system, Wot4 and Hie5. All were brought to the conference chamber by the telepath, KIRAN. The meeting began after the human Universal Unknown translator was set up by aNNA, the communications expert.
And disaster struck. Ambassador Nhyne fell ill after eating a Herozian Thyme salad, specially prepared by the ship's cook, cornflake. Space Command had obtained the now-extinct PreThyme, IsoThyme, and PostThyme mixtures when the Czarship Penterprise visited Heroze through a temporal discontinuity several centuries previously, and provided it for this important diplomatic mission. Because Nhyne showed extreme photosensitivity and pupillary paralysis, the Trip6 government said their ambassador had been poisoned, and threatened to wipe out the ship and crew, as they had the previous eight missions. Revolt realized that an immediate solution had to be found, and called upon their famous xenobiologist, Xanid, to treat the ambassador.
Xanid said that he had never encountered a malady he couldn't diagnose and cure. His analysis of the Second Hand Shop and Workout logs revealed that cornflake's herbal supplies from Heroze were beyond any reasonable expiration date. The ambassador's poisoning could be explained by a Thyme-dilation reaction to one of the outdated Herozian herbs in the salad. The Pea Pod was dispatched to Trip6, the proper curative herb, HyperThyme, was retrieved, the ambassador recovered, and the universe was saved.
A switch in Thyme saved Nhyne.
Funny, Easter Eggs
