Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002
From: "Sharon Monroe" <sharonmonroe@hotmail.com>

Giles' Journal:  The Trouble With Trufflas

     None of us warriors like Sire Uri overmuch.
     He's arrogant, overbearing, obnoxious, and he thinks he's entitled
to preferential treatment.  How he ever got elected to the Council of
Twelve, none of us know.
     But there is one thing about that bloated excuse for a bureautician
that we don't mind.  Somehow, in the midst of the Destruction and the
evacuation, he managed to secure more delicacies than most of us had ever
seen in our lifetime, or even knew existed.  Special blend caffs, chocos
of all kinds, sugartreats, dried fruits, tosien twists, dipped trufflas,
bottles of vintage vinya, and some really old ambrosa.  All kept very
quietly in his personal stores and jealously guarded.
     Of course, *we* know about them, and every now and then we manage to
"liberate" a few of them.  For special occasions only.  We wouldn't want
to be too obvious.  And we certainly wouldn't want to get caught
liberating those treats.
     Which leads to what happened last night.
     I can't tell anybody about it, or I'll wind up with latrine duty for
a secton, and I'll probably erase this entry as soon as I've made it, but
I've got to spill to somebody or I'll burst.
     Brie's natal day is tomorrow, and some of us wanted to do something
a little special.  She's got a real sweet tooth, tho' you wouldn't know
it from her figure.  Anyway, Starbuck and I decided that this was just
the sort of occasion that dipped trufflas were meant for.  And the only
source in the fleet that we knew of was Sire Uri's secret sweet stash.
     Starbuck's the only one who knows when and where we can get into
that cache.   I don't know how he does it, or what he's got on somebody,
but....
     Anyway, we headed for the =Rising Star=, Starbuck and me.
     Now, a person has to understand, we haven't been just taking things
and leaving empty space.  That would be too obvious.  Uri or his people
would figure that out in a micron.
     No, we've been replacing anything we take - with anything we can
find that resembles it.  We've substituted some of his fine caff blends
with the ground nut stuff that passes for caff in the mess hall.  We've
exchanged fine vinya for sour vinyara.  We've filled his sugartreat
containers with rotted talonbar bits.  Anything that looks like the
original treat, but would taste ordinary or spoiled.
     If Uri ever does get around to sampling any of our exchanges, he'll
just assume his people messed up when they were loading his goodies, or
else that the stuff's gone bad over the trip.
     Well, like I said, last night Starbuck and me headed for the =Rising
Star=.
     And we nearly got caught.
     We got around his security guard with no problem - not like there
ever is a problem there.  We had picked out a nice selection of dipped
trufflas, enough to make Brie want to kiss us both for a long centon
each.  We cleaned him out, in fact.
     And then we headed back for the launch bay.
     Suddenly, behind us, we heard a bellow we'd each heard all too often
on IFB and at Council meetings.  "Gentleman, what are you doing in a
restricted area of this ship?"
     Wouldn't ya know it, last night Sire Uri decided to take a personal
tour of the ship.  We froze.  Uri wasn't alone, he never is.  He had
about half-a-dozen council security guys with him.
     We looked at each other; we looked at them; we didn't say a word.
     "Well?" Uri demanded after a centon.
     Starbuck got a worried look on his face, the sort of look that says
you're trying not to look worried, that you're trying to hide the fact
that you're maybe a little scared.
     "What is it, Lieutenant?" Sire Uri rumbled.
     "Well, um...."  We all know how Starbuck can hedge when he's trying
to look innocent and sound naive.
     "Lieutenant, don't play coy with me.  You have no right to be in
this part of the =Rising Star=, it's *restricted* to *private* parties." 
He emphasized "restricted" and "private" - no doubt his way of reminding
us he hadn't forgotten the way Apollo and Boomer burst in on his "private
party" when we first escaped from the Colonies.  "So what are you doing
here?"
     Starbuck looked hesitantly at the guard - I love to watch that man
scam - and then leaned in a little closer to Uri so they couldn't
overhear him.
     "Well, Sire," he began earnestly, "it's like this.  We're on
confidential assignment here to inspect for radiation."
     "What?" Uri said, looking annoyed.  "Do you expect me to believe
that?  If you were looking for radiation, you'd be checking out the
engines or the fuel storage areas, not the luxury levels.  I'm going to-"
     "Sire, shhh!  We don't want to alarm the residents!"
     Uri looked around like he expected somebody to jump out of the
walls.  "About what?" he demanded.
     "Well...."
     "Gentlemen," he began sarcastically - but I could tell he was really
curious, he wasn't calling security, "I insist that you tell me what's
going on."
     "Well," Starbuck, said, looking a little less doubtful, "you *are* a
former member of the Council of Twelve, you can be trusted with
confidential information....  I mean, even though Apollo doesn't like
you, he can't deny your position....  And you do reside on this ship, you
really have a right to know, you might even be able to help us...."
     Right.  I'd sooner tell Baltar - at least I'd know when it would
come back to haunt me!  But I kept my mouth shut about that and just
tried to look appropriately serious.  I could tell that bit about Apollo
had got to Uri.
     Uri actually smiled, that smarmy look he usually saves for
socialators, siresses, and other people he thinks are real idiots.
     Starbuck took a deep breath.  "Sire, we've had several reports from
Life Center of people suffering ... a form of radiation poisoning.  The
only constant vector is that each of them ... reported having been on the
=Rising Star= in the last few days...."  He looked around again.  "And
each of them reported having eaten ... trufflas."
     Uri looked a little baffled.  "Trufflas?"
     My buddy nodded vigorously; I nodded too, tho' I didn't have the
slightest idea what he was going to say next.
     "They all claimed to have eaten trufflas, on this ship, and reported
that the taste was off.  We've checked all the known mess stores, but we
can't find the contaminated food."  He took a deep breath.  "We suspect
... that somebody here may have had a secret cache of eithertrufflas - or
maybe just one of the ingredients - that was somehow contaminated, either
in the exodus or since then.  And those trufflas are now making people
sick."
     There was a look of growing horror on Uri's face that made
everything worthwhile.
     "Trufflas...." he repeated.
     "Yep," Starbuck nodded again.
     Uri looked like he was swallowing hard.  "And have you found these
... trufflas?"
     "No, sir, we haven't.  The people who've become sick either don't
know or won't tell where they got 'em.  But we're going to keep
searching."
     "Yeah," I finally piped up.  "We've got to keep looking.  It's our
duty.  There's too much at stake.  If there's poisoned food on this ship,
it could go anywhere in the fleet.  Who knows how many people could be
hurt by it?  Who knows what effect it could be having on the food stored
around it?"
     "We've got to keep checking for radiation, Sire," Starbuck repeated
earnestly.  "I don't suppose you'd...?"
     I swear, Uri was turning green by the time we were done.  He
couldn't get out of there fast enough.  He stuttered something about not
knowing anything, and us keeping up the good work, and then he fled.
     No, really!  He ran!  It was an awesome sight....
     "Ya know," I told Starbuck, "he's probably gonna dump the whole
lot."  That was a depressing thought.
     "Nah," Starbuck said cheerfully.  "He'll just check it for
radiation, he won't find it, and he'll figure it's somebody else's
problem."  He grinned.  "But he'll check the trufflas, to see how they
taste and just because he's there, and he'll discover they have all the
taste of ground talonfruit pits with sweetener!"  He started snickering. 
"And by the time it hits his system...."
     I nearly fell down laughing just thinking about it....  "Uri's gonna
spend days in the turboflush, I know it!"
     "Yup!  And he'll believe it's because his trufflas have gone bad! 
Now that's sweet revenge!"
     Of course, Brie would say there's no such thing as a bad truffla. 
And her party starts in a few centons.  We still might get kissed.
     Now, I'm gonna erase this entry.
     And then, I'm gonna see just how sweet those trufflas really are.

~~~~

Sharon