thirty

Most of the day now I lie here in the Medical Bay, which is much improved since an actual doctor has taken up residence, but has also become the most boring place I've been since I escaped the classroom back in New South Wales.

I'm getting careless...I have never before written my origin on this Log. I fear that this could be found, used to trace me. But I know now that if I were to die, the only folk to go through my things would be Caban, Ice, and probably Em, and I suppose I don't mind that so much. So I have been lying here, thinking, doing some programming and record-keeping instead of any more active jobs. It hurts to stand, though the pain of breathing has mostly gone. This must be something akin to old age...no obvious infirmity, simply the ever-present knowledge that my body doesn't work. I'm turning thirty-one in a matter of days, with no remark but the wear on my bones.

All this thinking that I've been doing, it hasn't been about what I expected it would be about. I've thought about my home on Earth, wondered when the next time I'd see those hills again. But I've thought more about our next job, which is waiting until I'm back on my feet. I've thought about why Ice got so protective of my sleeping body and has barely visited since. And about what I heard Caban said, and the 'ponic fruit Kon and I made a mess of the Med bay while eating, and how he said Em screamed like rusty bolts as we scrambled out of Paquin.

I came so close to sharing the same fate as Lys, bleeding to death from pulse blasts, but there were folk around to help me out. He didn't have anyone but me, and I was so banged up that there was nothing I could do. It's not luck or fault, it's fact. The Doctor had to take off my necklace to operate on me, and it's still lying over on the counter, out of reach.

There are so many questions yet to be asked, and I'm not sure at all if any of the answers lie behind me.