duty
We've been operating at high efficiency, running through to Miklund three times now for the same contact. It's a good run, not the kind that will make you soft, but with a familiar flight. How strange that these paths we tread become familiarized; a world in which rocket entry into a planet's atmosphere is as common as taking a walk. Will there ever be a time when there are new skies to scale?
Ice is pleased because we're making good coin, Kon is pleased because we're keeping out of trouble, Em is pleased because there are time and parts enough for her to bring the engine into flowing speed. The Doctor is pleased because he has a new patient. Caban is not pleased. He caught a bug the last time we were at Verisan's moon, and has been laid up in the Med Bay in a quarantine. For a man like him, quarantine is the cruellest punishment of all. We have to be cautious of these diseases...it's illegal and unwise to bring something new into the environment of another planet. And since the plagues of Africa those years back, we've learned that our antibiotics aren't as powerful as we'd like. Mostly we're kept healthy through the vitamins in our food, and the filtered air spacelings breathe. All of us visit Caban when duties allow, I've read to him from some of my books, and left him the poetry book he bought for me, in hopes he'll come to understand it. Even I cannot comprehend much of it, but everyone brings something new to the words, different verses speak to different experiences.
Mostly, Ice and I have been working side-by-side, making contacts and hauling in crates without a disparaging word passing between us. She keeps a firm grip on her status...she is in charge, taking on Caban's duties as well as her own. Only now is she seeing how much work I was putting into keeping us in order, and I think it grates on her. She doesn't trust me with power anymore, she doesn't trust me at her back. I've never once betrayed her. Have I? I try not to be bitter about the time she shot me, but mostly I try not to remind her of anything at all.
Ice is pleased because we're making good coin, Kon is pleased because we're keeping out of trouble, Em is pleased because there are time and parts enough for her to bring the engine into flowing speed. The Doctor is pleased because he has a new patient. Caban is not pleased. He caught a bug the last time we were at Verisan's moon, and has been laid up in the Med Bay in a quarantine. For a man like him, quarantine is the cruellest punishment of all. We have to be cautious of these diseases...it's illegal and unwise to bring something new into the environment of another planet. And since the plagues of Africa those years back, we've learned that our antibiotics aren't as powerful as we'd like. Mostly we're kept healthy through the vitamins in our food, and the filtered air spacelings breathe. All of us visit Caban when duties allow, I've read to him from some of my books, and left him the poetry book he bought for me, in hopes he'll come to understand it. Even I cannot comprehend much of it, but everyone brings something new to the words, different verses speak to different experiences.
Mostly, Ice and I have been working side-by-side, making contacts and hauling in crates without a disparaging word passing between us. She keeps a firm grip on her status...she is in charge, taking on Caban's duties as well as her own. Only now is she seeing how much work I was putting into keeping us in order, and I think it grates on her. She doesn't trust me with power anymore, she doesn't trust me at her back. I've never once betrayed her. Have I? I try not to be bitter about the time she shot me, but mostly I try not to remind her of anything at all.
posted by Scout | 6:23 PM
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