Somebody said I missed the second part of this story, but I
checked my other net account @polari, and it was there, too, so I assume
it got lost along the way. In any event, here it is, complete in one
episode. Enjoy.
Journal Entry 013/0081 I gritted my teeth and walked in the one-fifth gravity to the
stepping disk and ordered it to take me home. The sudden increase in
weight slugged me, and it simply fed my anger. GODDAMN HER! I stormed past some people in the hallway as I walked towards my
home. I heard a voice behind me: "Ken..." Paul. Go The Fuck Away. The door slid open and I walked through, settling into the couch,
still seething. Damn damn damn damn. I do not need this! There was a knock at the door. "What?" I snarled. "Ken?" It was Paul again. I took a deep breath, sighed, and said "Come in Paul." The door opened again, and the Centaur walked in and looked around.
He stepped carefully over to the other side of the coffee table and
settled onto the floor, folding his legs under him. "Are you okay?" "No, I am not okay, but thank you for asking." I looked down at my
hands, which felt cold, and rubbed them together. "What's up? Last I heard, you were up at Alpha with Miss Traken." "Yeah, last you heard. And last you're gonna hear about that," I
said, angrily. "Getting on your nerves?" he said. "Look, Paul, I know you don't like her. I know M'ress doesn't like
her, but I need her. She's the most qualified Centaur obstetrician on
the Ring. She's a bitch, a pain, but I need her." "She's not a Shardik." "No, she's not. We've never really settled on what that means,
though, but she definitely does not qualify. Look, right now I'm more
than a little steamed." "What happened?" "We were in Alpha again, and she started complaining again." "About?" "Paperwork. Look, you know how much of the original Centaur design
is simply notes scattered around in a couple of notebooks I have.
They're carefully put away, but that's not good enough for her. Paul,
when I made you, I got it right, but Carroll is... sterile. I can fix
it, I know I can, but I need the help of someone who isn't a
microbiologist, someone who understands the big picture. She's it.
P'nyssa Traken is the best, recommended by Rhys himself, but Rings,
kiddo, I did perfectly well without hypertext. She wants everything
hypertexted, and I just don't have that. I work up here," I pointed to
my temple, "and she doesn't understand that. She's got a complete
biocybe link in her head. She could do research all day just by sitting
down and thinking. I can't. I'm a hands-on person. If it isn't
bubbling away in Alpha somewhere, if it isn't made up of paper and ink,
it isn't mine. I can't handle that kind of abstraction. I like using
keyboards and mice and joysticks." I paused, took another deep breath,
and said "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to rant and rave like that." He smiled. "I haven't got my wife's common sense, Ken, but I can
see two choices here. I mean, it is your project, after all. You can
either get her to accept your methods, or dismiss her." "Then who have I got?" "There's always Brieanna." "Rhys recommended her second, but he also said it was quote a
distant second unquote." "Your only option, then, is to talk to her." "Not an option." He nodded. "Where is she now?" "Dave?" I said, addressing the ceiling. "Miss Traken is still on Alpha. According to Hal, she is having a
comprehensive cross-index of your notes made up." "Well, maybe that'll keep her happy," I said. But eventually, I
made up my mind.
A few hours later, I walked back to Alpha. When I stepped into the
lab, she was standing a few meters away over a desk, a b/r headband
around her temples. She was about 170cm tall, dark blue fur and large
elfin ears. I like Tindals, because for once they're not based on
anything classical. Miss Traken was a little different, because she had
distinctive patches of fur without any tint to them around her eyes.
They gave her a slight 'racoon' look I found it attractive. Her arms
were tentacles, like all Tindals, and she deftly handled the custom
keyboard with her mittens. One pad and opposable thumb. Soft and
dextrous. "Dr. Traken." "Dr. Shardik," she said, acknowledging my presence. "Dr. Traken. I invited you to help me on a rather difficult
project that I sensed I could not manage on my own." This was a rather
over-rehearsed speech, and I think it sounded that way. "Unfortunately,
I now find our personal differences too large to make us an effective
research team. While you are welcome to take notes and consult with Hal
as you see fit, I'd like you to not return to Alpha labs in the future."
Without waiting for a reaction, I turned on my heels and walked out.
I spent the next five hours at home, fretting and fuming over my
decision. Damn it, I had reasons other than just the professional for
not wanting Brieanna as a research partner. I had a lot of personal
reasons. I reviewed records. There was Hl. T. C. Rhys himself. There
was Dr. P. Vaughnnel. There was a Dr. T. T. Mittleson, another Tindal.
All competent, but none of them really had Dr. Traken's skill, and this
was brought home to me over and over as AI Dave, AI Jean, and I reviewed
the records. I sighed and leaned back in the couch, lying down and
closing my eyes. I awoke to hear a pounding at the door. "Ken!" The pounding grew
more insistent, and I said "Dave, let them in." The door opened to reveal Chelsea, an older Unczia female who I'd
been friends with for years and years. She stood over me, her furred
ears flared to their full width and her upper lip drawn back into an
unpleasant snarl. "I heard what you did to Dr. Traken today." "Chelsea..." "No, Shardik. You listen to me, and you listen carefully. Right
now that young lady is throwing her life down the tubes over at
Michael's, and if you have any interest at all in saving one of the
Tleil Centuries, you'd better get over there right now!" I sat up and said, rather dumbly, "What?" "Ken, as far as anyone can tell, Dr. Traken is trying to drink
herself into a drug-induced coma. Mike's being careful and keeping her
on the edge of consciousness, but she could go over any second and she's
a doctor! She's got access to plenty of things she could use, some of
them a lot more unpleasant than just plain alcohol. Get up and get over
there." I blinked. "Chelsea. If she wants to kill herself, that's her
perogative. But I can't have her as a lab partner, and I don't think
there's much chance of my going back on my word." "Listen to you. Do I have to get Miss Flanders in here?" The mention of Brieanna got my attention. "No, Chelsea. Okay,
I'll go get her." I sighed and rose. Chelsea followed me as I walked
quickly to the internal SDisk and teleported over the Michael's. I walked in to find the place nearly empty. Empty that is, except
for Mike, tending bar, Rhys, who stood at the far edge of the bar with
his arms folded and his equine bulk leaning up against the railing, and
Dr. Traken, who was sitting at a booth with eight or nine empty beer
glasses sitting around her, all of them with a slight white residue.
Milk laden with some sort of heavy sedative or depressent, I'd wager.
Apparently, nobody else wanted to watch someone self-destruction. The bar looked the same, lots of heavy stone and glass windows with
leaded alloy frames, notoriously easy to break. There was a burning
firepit in the center, arranged with a cone grated center to allow lots
of air in, and reflect heat out into the room. The cone-shaped chimney
above was still painted a kind of puke-green color, but the place was
exquisitely clean, as always. I walked over to the bar and said,
"What's she been drinking?" Mike, a tawny Felinzi, looked at me, said "Secobarbital." I
nodded, looked up at Rhys, who turned his head away. I walked over to the booth and slid in opposite her. It was one of
those round booths that slid all the way, with a "D" shaped table in the
middle. Her head was down on the table, and she didn't raise it when I
sat. So I got her attention; I picked up one of the glasses and threw
towards the firepit that burned in the center of the bar. The glass
flew across the radius of the firepit, mysteriously shattered in mid-air
and all of the glass fell into the pit with a loud crash. A good
display of forcefield for effect. She looked up. "Wh'dd'ya wan?" she
said. "Come home with me, Dr. Traken." "Nizza," she said, lowering her head back to the table. "Excuse me?" I said, not quite catching it. "Nyssa. Tha'z m'name. Silen' 'P' en-wi-es-es-ey. P'nyssa.
Other'n th' 'P,' yu ga' me tha' name, Shardik. Yu shud know tha.'" Her
voice was very slurred. "Come on, P'nyssa." I rose and grabbed ahold of her shoulder. She
tried to push me away, but I held on tight. "Leave me alone!" she shouted. "Why?" I asked. "Because you don' wan' me. I can tell." I bent down and balanced on my toes. "P'nyssa..." She looked up and cast about for a second, I guess trying to see me
clearly, then focussing finally at where I knelt on the floor. "No, you
lissen to me, Shardik. Working wit' you is suppozzed to be the high
poin' of my carr... carr... work. Bein' thrown ou' by you, I'll never
be able to do m'job without somebody pointin' a' me an' sayin' 'She's
the one Shardik threw out.'" "P'nyssa, you're the best. That's why you I asked you to Alpha in
the first place." She looked up again and said "Tha' doesn' help. Ni'er does Mikey,
there, keepin' me stinkin' drunk and na' given' me 'nuff to finish it." "Dr. Tr... P'Nyssa, I don't want you to kill yourself. I am not
worth killing yourself over." "Wha' else? Wha c'n I do?" "You can come home with me. Sober up." "I don' wan' soberrup. Ah'm fine." "Come on." "No!" I figured there was no helping this argument, so I left her and
went back to the bar, shrugging my shoulders. Mike poured another drink
and left it at her table. She drank it down in a few short gulps and
keeled over. I walked back and picked her up, carrying her towards the
door. "Thank Mike," I said. He nodded. I was just about out the door when I heard "Hey, Ken!"
It was the first thing the previously impassive Rhys had said to me all
day. I turned and looked at him. "You take care of her. She's my best
kid. A little on the high side, but still my best. You hear me?" I nodded and backed out of the bar. Despite the load in my arms, I
got back to the Castle with little or no trouble.
It took six hours for the Mickey Mickey had slipped her to wear
off, and when she came to on my couch she groaned and put her mitts to
her temples. "Tell the Ogre to knock it off," she said. I smiled and handed her a glass of orange juice. She accepted it
impassively and drank it all. "What's in this? It tastes odd." "B-Complexes. Quite a few of them, in fact. You need it." She looked at me, nodded. "I should leave now," she said. "I don't think so." "What do you mean, 'You don't think so?' You told me to leave,
isn't that enough? Why do you keep coming back to it, Shardik? Just
let me be." "P'nyssa. Brieanna Flanders would not let me kill myself, or have
you all forgotten that little incident in Pendor's recent past? I'm not
about to sit around and let you try the same stunt, for equally stupid
reasons." She stared out the window to her right, looking out over the ocean.
"When your father kicks you out of the house, what do your brothers and
sisters think of you?" "Depends on the individuals. Look, Nyss, to be honest, I don't
understand why we argue over something as stupid as paper." "Because you're disorganized. I can't work with that kind of
disorganization. Your notes are a perfect example. I mean, how am I
supposed to know that the genecode for enzyme 5054 starts in the green
notebook, but you scribbled the RNA code for it on the flap of the red
notebook?" "You're not. I get ideas at random, and they go onto the nearest
notebook or surface, not necessarily the best place for them." I
paused, and said, "Did you really want to kill yourself?" She looked away and said, in a small voice, "Yes." "Still want to?" "No." "What's the difference?" "I changed my mind. That's all. Look, if this is over, I'd like
to go." "If you want." She took that as a 'yes,' rose and headed for the
door. I walked behind her and as the door opened I said, "Nyss..." She turned. I don't know why, don't ask me, but as she did I was
filled with this crazy idea. We weren't far enough apart to be social,
weren't close enough to be intimate: dangerous space. I had two
choices: back off or advance. The first was unacceptable, so I took two
steps towards her, backed her up against the hallway wall and pressed my
lips to hers. She struggled for a few seconds, then I released her,
backed away into that dangerous space again. She looked at me, her
expression impossible to read, then turned and ran for the SDisk. There
