Wyrm-Nip
"Moongara, when did Sula get a pet?" Levaran, my bases main healer and alchemist (chemist) stuck his head in my office.
"Glad to see you are back from your latest plant gathering and exploration mission." I said, looking up from the never-ending pile of paperwork that is the curse of my job, "and technically Reth is my pet but he has attached himself to Sula."
"Oh, okay." Levaran said with a shrug. "So I am assuming that Reth is one of these wyrm creatures I have heard about."
"Yes."
Levaran shrugged again, not terribly concern that I had added yet another species to the menagerie that the base had become.
"Find anything interesting?" I asked. "I would hate a 3 month mission to have been a waste." Levaran is the sort of alchemist who loves to play with new plants and see what they are good for and being that we are (now) a space based species, he has taken to going on 3 month expeditions every year to find new plants to make new medicines (and/or other useful things).
"A few things." He said, reaching into his shoulder bag. "Mostly the usual, things that I was told are good for pain, upset stomachs, headaches, etc." He pulled out a cloth pouch and dropped it on my desk. "And this, a local shaman on a planet I visited said it was good for repelling biting insects. I thought it would be interesting to see why."
"Interesting." I said.
"I also thought the smell was nice, at least." Levaran said. "If nothing else, I can probably extract something that would make the laundry smell better and, hopefully, act as a bug repellent at the same time."
I gave the bag a good sniff. It was subtle, complicated and pleasant, almost mint like. It would be an improvement on the current bug repellents which stank...assuming Levaran's plan worked.
"Anything else interesting?" I asked.
"Nope." He said. "But lots of work to do and lots of medicines to make to make up for my absence."
"Okay, let me know if you need anything." I said. "Dismissed." He picked up the bag, shedding a few dry bits of leaves onto my desk in the process, turned and left my office. I swept the bits of leaves into a pile and swept it into my desk's trash can.
*15 minutes later*
I heard a russling from my desk trash can...that's odd I thought as I looked into the trash can. Hatsheput was in my trash can, rolling around in the leaf bits I had swept into it.
"What are you doing?" I asked. The response was a bunch of incoherent squeaks. I watched her for a moment more, struck by how much like a cat on catnip she was acting. Then I picked Hatsheput up and looked at her. She was covered in the leaf bits and whatever all else was in my trash can that could possibly get caught in fur...used staples, lint, etc. I brushed the leaf bits out of her fur and set her down on my desk, in her basket. She continued to roll around for a minute and then seemed to regain her composure.
"What just happened to you?" I asked looking at her.
"I am not sure, I just couldn't resist the smell, it smelled so good, I just had to roll in it." She said. I stared at her curiously...this bares investigating (and it beats the pile of paperwork that was going to be my day).
After picking up a small bag, no bigger than my palm, from Levaran, I went off in search of my remaining wyrms. I was trying to decide if I could send someone up the Tesla nest in orbit above the base to see if/how the Teslas react to the strange plant. I didn't think they would but one has to check.
"I don't think he is interesting." Sula commented. Reth was hiding in the collar of Sula's shirt, having taken one sniff of the strange leaves, snarled and then retreated.
"Okay. Sorry, Reth." I said. I made a note of his behavior in my notebook and headed to the stables where my other wyrms were, playing with my two adopted children.
"It smells horrible." Tiri said.
"I agree." Shadowdancer said, having also taken a sniff. They resumed their perches...on my children's heads. Shar'sha is another matter. She took one sniff and had commenced doing flying maneuvers that had two nearby fighter pilots turning green just watching. She also had lots and lots of little balls of magic rolling off her wings. One of them hit my hand, exploding into a cloud of glitter (that, later I would discover, took dang near de-furring my hand with soap to remove).
"That isn't cat-nip." Floofball said and returns to intently watching Shar'sha, in a very catly way. My two, newly added to the squirm, canine wyrms are uniquely disinterested. I wasn't surprised about that. The same couldn't be said of the new Growler, Indigo, that had also joined the squirm. She had been a very laid back Growler when I got her but when she got a sniff of the strange plant, she turned crazy, playing "nip at ankles and go hide"...which wasn't terribly effective around my base, we all wear leather riding boots.
My three mules, meanwhile, were rolling around, much like Hatsheput had been, in the leaves I had sprinkled on the hay pile. I made a mental note, the strange plant would hence-forth be known as "Wyrm-nip" for it's cat- nip like effects on wyrms.
Later, in the evening...
"The Teslas didn't react to the ." Shar'keth (Sula's second in command) said, handing me a report of his observations. "They are fun to watch though." He said with a smile.
"Thank you. That is the last set of observations I needed." I said. I was about to tell him that he could go when...
"Where can I get a wyrm?" Shar'keth asked. He was playing with Hatsheput, who had squiggles her way out of her basket and into his hand.
"At any of a number of conventions on Earth." I said...then an idea hit me. "Lets see, since I only have a hand full of Wyrm breeds, to have a thorough set of observations on its effects I would need to see how it works on other breeds of wyrms." I said, half to myself.
"I guess you would need to go to some of those conventions then." Shar'keth said.
"Yes and hand out the packets of the Wyrm-nip and then ask them to record the effects and send them to us." I said, now in full planning mode.
"Can I come along?" Shar'keth asked.
"Sure, why not." I said.
....
I handed out packets of Wyrm-nip at the convention. On the front of each packet were the words
"Wyrm-nip = Catnip for wyrms, a newly discovered plant found on a distance planet.
Please introduce this to your wyrms and report your observations.
Thank you."
By: Year 
