Chapter 5: The Sufferings of Mica, Part 1

Merkury's log102 days out

I've passed the 100 day mark and oh-I have a long way to go; at least another 60 days, more if the Darkstream experiences disturbances. I'm so lonesome I could cry. Ronnie is here which is a huge relief. It seems that he's basically along for the ride, he's happy to go to Wentworth or any other interesting place! It wasn't very long after we met at the viewport that I discovered that the buzzing, grinding, and whirring sounds that he emitted were his language. I'm not sure what he made of N'English but he did chuckle and grimace when he heard me speaking it.

Now we enable our Thytongue translators on our skintabs. They claim to work on all languages, although I've met some heat and pulse idioms that I think would prove challenging. It works in our case.

Ronnie has doubled in size and today looks like a large brown rough-haired dog with a long narrow snout and down-curving shiny ivory tusks. Now he's probably forty-five cenirmeters tall. I sweep away his cup and fetch him a refill of coffee. His small wiry haired elbow is leaning on the red fold up table in our galley.

"I can understand your wanting to go to Wentworth, I think, but I can't figure out how you got aboard Merkury.

"It wasn't hard at all," he rattled. And as I watched, he seemed to get shorter and spread on the seat until he disappeared beneath the table's edge. I jumped out of my bench and swung over to where had been. He had liquefied into a brown and pink polymer looking goo which now was forming into a plain-looking cylindrical tank. He rounded his ends and changed to a military green. You'd never give it a second glance especially When he finished off with official-looking black block lettering along his new body: Emergency O2Under pressure.

"Wow, Ronnie, I'm convinced. I'll bet you could be a box or anything." The green tank giggled slightly and spread again and sharpened into edges and corners. A box.

I sat back down and Ronnie edged into his former seat and more or less normal state. I could tell he was smiling.

"Is that hard to do?"

"Not hard, but takes fuel." He held out his cup.

Ronnie observed me later in the chartroom as we watched our navigator and I did a little checking on it. I made some calculations in my head and jotted them down in my personal Notbook.

"Mica, I'm curious why do you do all that figuring in your head? I mean it's so much faster to use Math Voice on the screen."

"I don't want to forget how to do things by relying on a tool when I can do it myself. I want to keep m brain working and trim. If you never flex your muscles, how do you know you can?"

"I trust the tools, they serve me well, and It's not as though we're going to have to fight against monsters."

"Well I don't completely trust the tools and I like to use my brain to check them fairly often, make sure that they're still dependable. Besides what if the monsters are more like laziness allowing you to become weak and fragile. ON Marble we kind of idolize our hardships. We relish shivering in polar cold and being subjected to desert heat and aridness, it makes us feel alive. I mean it's like when you fast you know when you fast?----"

"No."

"Mmmm-I mean when you deny your desires to achieve clarity?"

"No."

"Well, hell don't you ever exercise you know work your muscles when you don't really want to, just to show yourself you can and increase your strength?"

"No. Mica I feel all the things you're describing as irrational and a waste of time. But perhaps they are more in the area of philosophy or spirit. Do all the people on Marble share thisway of thinking? Do they all revere suffering? I thought suffering was something to avoid-by definition."

"You're kind of right. But the first people to arrive on Marble had a very rough time and many of them didn't make it. We see embracing pain as almost like insurance-That we can take it so we too will be able to survive. So we like to see blood, not a lot but some. It reminds me of something important about life.

"But things are changing there. Many people scoff at "doing things the hard way." They maintain that doing things that hurt is sick; that altruism is phony. They say that selfishness is the only truth and that if something feels good you should do it."

"Hmm," buzzed Ronnie. "I'm not really arguing with you, I just wondered why you do some lf the things you do."

"Right now, the anguish I'm trying to appreciate is my craving for contact with other human beings."

"Well you have me!" he cried out, and I thought he sounded a little hurt.

"Yes. And I can't tell you how glad I am that you are here.

A couple of days ago I was looking into the velvet blackness through which we travel and I suddenly became aware of Olive and her black hair. It is so black against her pale skin; skin that is warm, pitted skin like the white shell of a bird. Skin that I have found is often naked beneath one or two layers of clothing. Her naked front as we lie facing each other, especially down by her hips is like a wide area in a smooth sandy, dry canyon floor with a small pond in the middle from upwelling water as the stars are beginning to appear on Marble. No, she has this shirt that has sparking jewel like stones across the swell of her beautiful breasts-ah!Oh, and once I saw Olive in a dress, I guess it was actually a skirt. Women on Marble only wear them on special occasions. I barely knew her then. There was a whole row of people sitting in front of me-I don't remember why. When they all stood up, she was wearing this skirt that came above her knees. I saw the backs of her knees together and her pale shapely legs and I almost fell over.I love to lie there and just stare at her pale nakedness.She doesn't even say, "What?" She has wrinkles by her full wide lips. Her lovely eyes are a deep lavender blue which change to rose sometimes. When she smiles, she has a chip in her front tooth where she bit into a hard mando horn out of curiosity. Which she is; about everything. She spends a great deal of time finding out everything she can about the mysterious philosophies on different planets. She laughs some; quite a bit. She likes to walk everywhere and usually goes out armed, if she remembers, for which I'm glad. I would so much like to hear her voice.

As I was thinking about Olive, I recalled a conversation with Ronnie in which he asked me Why I was going to Wentworth and I described my love and longing for Olivine. I asked him about love among his people (who don't have a name I could translate except "meus"). As much as I could understand, intimacy is preceded by extensive wooing generally; not that it is never casual, but that casual is unnecessarily difficult. When two partners crave each other they meld together in a full body joining. The greater the sense of love and intimacy between the two partners, the greater the likelihood of permanent bond; in which case the two actually can become one individual.

An idea occurred to me and I asked him if more than two could mingle. He looked at me as if he suspected that I was not taking him seriously. He said No, intimacy between more than two, too distracting. Very unlikely.

After our conversation, I was looking at Darkstream history and geography on my Notbook, feeling extremely blue and lonesome. My attention was snared by a notation about an Eddy. When I looked up "Eddy" itturned out that they are what they sound like: a place where parts of the Darkstream experience turbulence and form a whorl of matter and energy which create a sort of island. These whorls are not extremely rare and some are inhabited.

Would they be stable? Just a jumble of rocks and force?

I had been relishing in a bitter way my loneliness for human companionship. I had tasted daily the gall of this bitter deprivation and was actually feeling rather righteous about my strength of character.

"Mica, my friend and preserver, what have you done? I noticed a radical change in Merkury's course."

"Well, ahem, yes. I'm just heading for this Eddy I've found. I read about it. I just want to investigate it, "I pointed out a little vortex shaped object on screen 2.

"Why? There are all kinds of mysterious matters out here----. Look at you, I bet you found out about their reputations as being fleshpots and dens of iniquity.Hey, you're actually blushing! And I thought that your brave acceptance of loneliness was some sort of spiritual discipline."

"I think I'm going there, Ronnie, don't harass me."

"Do you have plenty of money? It's not going to be free you know."

"I have some," some, not much.

"Well, I don't think this is such a good idea."

I shivered with excitement, "What can go wrong? I'm just going to pop in and look around and we'll take off again. Stay on the flute and relax.Or- come ashore if you're feeling curious."

"Oh I'm going to stay with the ship- someone needs to watch over things."