Falconi extended a hand toward her. “Yup. We found a company that breeds newts—”

“Fink-Nottle’s Pious Newt Emporium,” Trig helpfully supplied.

“—but we didn’t exactly tell them where the newts were going. No reason for the ITC to know what we were up to, now was there?”

“We didn’t even think to ask about a kill switch,” said Sparrow. “And by the time we sold them, it was too late to fix.”

“How many did you sell?”

“Seven hundred and seventy-seven … thousand, seven hundred and seventy-seven.”

“Seventy-six,” said Sparrow. “Don’t forget the one Mr. Fuzzypants ate.”

“Right. Seventy-six,” said Trig.

Kira had difficulty even imagining that many newts.

Falconi continued the tale: “As you’d expect, a bunch of the newts escaped, and without any natural predators, they wiped out a good chunk of Ruslan’s insects, worms, snails, et cetera.”

“Good god.” Without insects and the like, it was pretty much impossible for a colony to function. Worms alone were worth more than their weight in refined uranium during the early years of transforming sterile or hostile land to fertile soil.

“Indeed.”

“It was like a newt-tron bomb,” said Trig.

Sparrow and Nielsen groaned, and Vishal said, “That was the sort of pun we had to endure for the whole trip, Ms. Kira. It was most unpleasant.”

Kira fixed Trig with a look. “Hey. What do you call a really smart newt?”

He grinned. “What?”

“Newton, of course.”

“Permission to jettison both of them as punishment, Captain?” said Nielsen.

“Granted,” Falconi said. “But not until we reach our destination.”

At that, the mood in the galley grew more somber.

“So what happened after, with the newts?” Kira asked. The punishment for violating biocontainment protocols varied from place to place, but it usually involved heavy fines and/or jail time.

Falconi grunted. “What do you think? The local government issued warrants for our arrest. Fortunately, they were only planetary warrants, not stellar or interstellar, and we were long gone before the newts started to cause a problem. But yeah … they’re not too happy with us. They even ended up canceling Yanni the Newt because so many people were pissed off.”

Kira chuckled, and then she burst out into a full laugh. “Sorry. I know it’s not funny, but—”

“Well, it is a little funny,” said Vishal.

“Yeah, goddamn hilarious,” said Falconi. To Kira, “They retroactively nulled the bits we earned, which left us out food, fuel, and propellant for the whole trip.”

“I can see how that might have left you feeling … newtered,” she said.

Nielsen facepalmed. “Thule. Now we have two of them.”

“Gimme that,” said Falconi and reached for his holstered pistol, which was slung over the back of Vishal’s seat.

The doctor laughed and shook his head. “Not a chance, Captain.”

“Gah. Mutineers, the lot of you.”

“Don’t you mean, newtineers?” said Trig.

“That’s it! Enough with the punning or I’ll have you thrown into cryo right now.”

“Suuure.”

To Kira, Nielsen said, “We had a few other, smaller difficulties, mainly ITC violations, but that was the main one.”