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Of Mhysse and men Broadcast February 3rd 1968

Mission date 3601, it is nearly a year since the Endeavour returned from Tellus. It spent most of that time in Earth orbit whilst the crew was extensively debriefed and has only just been returned to active duty. The Commonwealth has been on high alert expecting a Tellurian invasion but so far there has not been a sign of any Tellurian vessel although long range scouts occasionally report finding wrecked Rhihannaun vessels and the Klingons have reported that there has been no activity on the Rhihannaun side of their border for several months and that they are thinking of sending an expedition into Rhihannaun space to find out what is happening.

The Endeavour which is undertaking a shakedown cruise is called to CSS QEII, a Deep Space Station, by a distress call. It is near Stuart's Planet, a world whose ownership had been one of the very few disputes between the Commonwealth and the Klingon Empire. On arrival, Decker becomes annoyed when he finds out the reason for the distress call, which was made by William De Vere Carlton-Browne (guest star Terry-Thomas ), the under-secretary of agriculture for the sector: Carlton-Browne wants someone to guard the shipments of grain bound for Stuart's Planet, since the harvest has failed on two successive years and the station had picked up intermittant sensor signals which do not correspond to any known Commonwealth or Klingon ship. Slightly mollified on hearing this, Decker assigns two crewmen to guard the grain, but afterwards he finds out the Commonwealth share Carlton-Brownes' concerns.

Meanwhile, an independent trader, Tom Bergerac (special guest star Sid James), arrives on the station with some mhysse, small furry continually purring animals. He gives one to Lt. McKenzie (Carmen Monroe), who brings it on board the Endeavour, where it and its quickly produced offspring are treated as adorable pets. The animals purr a relaxing trill that the crew find soothing.

Doctor Fynely (Richard Gaunt) is concerned that the increasing numbers of mhysse threaten to consume all the onboard supplies. It is discovered that they are entering ship systems, interfering with their functions and consuming any edible contents present. Decker realizes that if the mhysse are getting into the ship's stores, then they are a threat to the grain aboard the station. He examines the holds but learns that it is already too late. The mhysse have indeed eaten the grain, and Decker is literally buried in grain-gorged mhysse when he opens a grain hold with an overhead hatch. Holmes (Ian Richardson) and Fynely discover that about half the mhysse in the hold are dead and many of the rest are dying, alerting them that the grain has been poisoned.

Carlton-Browne stubbornly holds Decker responsible for this apparent fiasco. However, the mhysse incidentally give away the identity of an alien agent surgically altered to resemble a human: Featherstonehaugh-Smythe (guest star Leslie Phillips), Carlton-Browne’s aide. Although purring contentedly near humans, they shrill as if in pain near Featherstonrhaugh-Smythe. The antipathy is mutual he can’t stand being near the mhycce. He confesses to infecting the grain with a virus that becomes an inert material in an organism's bloodstream which eventually prevents the organism from taking in enough nourishment to survive.

It turns out that he is actually a Kardassan, a race that inhabit a couple of star systems near Stuart’s planet who had had the idea of letting the Commonwealth and /or Klingons successfully make the planet habitable and then kill off or drive away the settlers so that they could take it over.

After Featherstonehaugh-Smythe’s exposure and arrest, Tom Bergerac is ordered to remove the mhysse from the station (a task that Holmes estimates will take 17.9 years) or he will be imprisoned for 20 years for transporting a dangerous life form off its native planet. He resignedly starts collecting up the mhysse on the station. Meanwhile Scotty had managed to get a sensor lock on the intermittent signal picked up by the QEII. it was a Kardassan ship so Scotty beams over all the mhysse from the Endeavour to that ship.

Edit Both Robert Heinlein and Ellis Parker Butler (the author of "Pigs is Pigs") were credited with the original idea.