View source for Store Trek/ideas/Mysterious New Worlds

It was another beautiful spring day on board the SUS<ref>Stellar Union Ship</ref> ''Private Enterprise'', flagship of the fleet and the Corporation's very finest, and I was very much looking forward to some much-anticipated store-leave with my good friend and superior officer, Captain Sherluc Poirot. After recent events in which Poirot had been abducted by a simply frightful and ghastly alien species known only as The Fourg, his famous grey matter very nearly reprogrammed to commit deeds of unspeakable heinousness, it was generally agreed that some recuperation was very much called for. The crew as well had suffered considerable casualties during the incident, and the ship itself was expected to be in spacedock for quite some time undergoing repairs to numerous plot-holes inflicted upon it by those fiendish and notorious alien beings.

I was in my quarters packing up a travel valise when I received a call on my chest badge. I reflexively tapped it and said "Yes?", and was greeted with Captain Poirot's clear, firm voice and oddly perfect upper-crust British enunsciation.

"I say, is that you, Number One?"

"Why yes, indeed it is!" I said, pleased to be recognized so quickly by my friend even without any visual cues.

"Splendid! You must come here at once; there has been a development."

I at once dispatched myself to the nearest turbo-lift and hailed a cab. Thirty seconds later, I found myself being greeted by Poirot's imperturbable automatic door attendant, Mr. Homme, who escorted me at once into the chamber.

"Ah, there you are, Mr. Rikings. Tell me, what do you think of this?" he said, handing me a newspadd.

Reading the contents with slowly widening eyes, I gasped out "But this is extraordinary, Sherluc! Twelve thousand gigatons of self-stealing stem-bolts, simply vanished?"

"Non non, mon ami, ce n'est pas ça. Look further down on the page", interrupted Poirot with a vaguely impatient wave of the hand. 

I let our a small gasp of astonishment as I finally observed that to which my friend was referring. "Eleven storeship captains of industry indicted on charges of wage theft and improper use of corporate funds? My God!"

Poirot, casting his eyes briefly heavenward, quickly corrected me: "Ah, mon cher Rikings, you have always the mind of a simple mass-media consumer. This is, naturallement, the reason why I, as you say, give you the big credits. These fine captains are, shall we say, too large to fail. The cases against them, though truly damning, will of course disappear once the news outlets have had their fun.  Non, aussi ce n'est pas ça. I refer, mon ami, to this particular item here." Grasping the padd firmly in his captainly hands and pointing slowly and carefully at one particular section of the page, his shining green eyes looking carefully into mine in order to make sure I actually saw it this time, he added "Do you see? This, if it is as reported, is... truly quite astounding."

My eyes having already been widened to their maximum by the previous two items, I could feel them rapidly drying out and starting to become rather itchy as I read the indicated paragraph; I determined that after our meeting was over, I should make a brief detour by Sickbay and inquire as to the availability of eyedrops and perhaps a sedative.

"Silicon Megacorp agrees to allow workers to sit down whilst doing computer work," I read aloud.

"Yes!" ejaculated Poirot. "Do you see how truly astonishing this is?"

I stood for a moment, taken somewhat aback. "But surely," I replied, "this is a positive if rather minor development, don't you think?"

"Ah, parbleu!" replied Poirot. "I see that once again, and fully as I expected, you do not grasp the very obvious implications. Mon ami, think back for a moment! Use your tiny grey matter! When was the last time a large corporation allowed its workers any concession, no matter how small, no matter how reasonable?"

After a few moments, I began to see what he was driving at. "Why, indeed, that would have been quite a long time ago! During the dark ages of the twentieth century, if I'm not mistaken!"

"Clearly, mon ami, something is deeply amiss here! This interests me greatly, and we must investigate at once."

==Footnotes==
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