Chapter 14: Patting Ronnie, Part 2

"Well, Slight People, what do you want of us?" I asked finally.

There was a sense of collective looking at one another and shrugging of shoulders. "We don't need anything, but we would like to look around if that's ok with you."

"That's alright, but please be careful of our vessel."

"Oh, we will." They scattered delightedly.

We could feel faint excited remarks and exclamations between individuals as they dispersed through the air and swept along Merkury's surfaces.

Meanwhile, Ronnie seemed overwhelmed by our visitors. His body sagged in my arms. I shifted him to Vuud and examined him carefully. The asphixfilm was shining dully and seemed to gave repaired itself in several places we thought we'd won back. It was very disturbing.

The Slight Peoples' mother ship hung alongside us unchanged keeping pace with us. Our visitors swam through the air and sat on cabinets upside down, sideways, shot off again.

In an hour or so they reassembled in the galley. They giggled and gasped and shrieked together, but after a couple of minutes they settled down, lying in the air and on and above the table. Two of them rested on my forearm like fresh, tender, weightless leaves.

"What is his name?"

"That's Ronnie," Vuud replied, "I'm afraid he is not well."

"What is the matter with him?"

"We're not sure how it started, but you can see that film on him, it's not normal, and it's growing. If it can't be stopped, it will choke him."

The slight people were silent for a few minutes, apparently consulting.

"I can see that you love Ronnie. May we try something, something that might help him?"

Vuud said, "Frankly, we've run out of good ideas. If you think you can help him without injuring him, please do."

"Oh, we wouldn't hurt," they giggled lightly some more. One of them floated over to our shipmate and settled on his neck like a piece of tape. In a second another settled farther down right at the edge of the film. A third followed and pasted itself to the back of his neck. Soon Ronnie's hated transluscent chokefilm was totally hidden by layers of Slight People. And tens and tens more followed until he was coated with these visitors from his eyes and mouth down to his stomach tightly adhering to him and soundlessly concentrating.

And so we sat, all evening and into the night, with just a few excursions to take care of chores. Periodically, some of the rectangles would peel off and others take their places. They scooted aside and let the ones on the bottom out, who did seem exhausted and sickly themselves.

As it got later, Vuud and I rustled up some dinner.

"What would you like to eat?" I asked.

"Oh, we're light eaters," they laughed. "We're interested in whatever you have."

Vuud and I whipped up about five things to share-muttn-hops, gray-v, cornup, graplum, and Norale to drink. We spread it out all over the table in as many dishes as we could find. Once we dug in, they did too. Sitting on the table with us, on our arms and shoulders, on the edge of dishes. You could not really see any individual eat, but they bent over the dishes delicately; somehow the food melted away.

"Thank you, it's very tasty."

At last we checked our position in the Darkstream, cleaned up the dishes. We examined Ronnie who looked very fragile but who managed a small grin. We asked the Slight People how much longer this cure would take. They seemed to think tomorrow afternoon would tell the tale. I staggered off to bed.

Vuud:

Mica is a good man. I am heartened to see his dedication to bringing Ronnie back to life. When we headed off to sleep, I checked Ronnie's breathing and nuclear function and although outwardly he did not appear to have changed, these signs and his blood circulation, content, and respiration indicated a significant improvement. Best of all, he winked at me; he seemed pleased to be covered with skinny little friends.

So, in the morning, I was not unduly surprised to see Ronnie sitting at his seat at the table, waiting for his goffee, tapping his cup. He was still covered with the Slight People but made no complaint about that.

By midday the last of the tiny healers had peeled off and Ronnie had no trace of the asphixfilm left on him. We all felt great relief and celebrated happily, Ronnie grinning from ear to fuzzy ear. Finally, he became a medicine ball and rolled under the table. It is amazing how attached one can become to a creature you didn't even know only days ago.

We thanked our new friends and they weakly cleared out, needing to rest and recuperate on their mother ship. They said that they would return tomorrow. We wished them well. Mica is a little unsure of their motives, but I believe they are just curious and happy to find a strange new people. Since they can slip in under the paint and through any joints, there is no way we can "close the door" so to speak. I do fear that they may prove something of a burden.

An anomaly that we have all noticed is that we have had tiny memory losses. It's as though minute slices of time have slipped away and we don't know where; as if we had dozed off for a second and don't know where that second went. It's not really upsetting, but certainly not normal. It seems always to happen when our slight friends are aboard; not often, but occasionally.

After a week we were tired of being observed; tired of being polite. We were within days of bringing Wentworth into view and we needed to concentrate on our work. We were very grateful to the Slight ones and they continued to help wherever possible. They kept the vessel clean, served as lookouts, and cheered us up. But we just wanted to be alone, to eat our food, do our physical exercises; we wanted privacy.

Also, I noticed that we seemed tireder than usual. Mica had decreased the time he spent doing his "workout"; once we sat down, we had to think about standing up. Small but important maintenance chores began to remain undone like checking the fuel reserves for docking, monitoring the ph of our water, cleaning the increasingly foul toilet.

Finally one morning it was all we could do to get out of our none too clean bunks. We wondered how we could be feeling so low. Mica suggested that we had "caught something" from the Slight People. I decided to check all of our vitals. I fetched my Medical kit-actually the ship's-and examined the three of us. We had no obvious infection, but our oxygen levels were alarmingly low. We took readings from the ambient air around the ship and the oxygen supply was critical. I retrieved the emergency O2 containers and each of us spent 2.5 minutes on it at 2 pounds. The change in how we felt was radical.

"I wonder if it's the air filters. I think the guys like eating whatever collects on them. I've heard them praise the flavor and freshness," Ronnie spoke confidently.

We checked. There are six filters and they all were completely wrapped up in blissful Slight People. We could barely get the filters off the mounting brackets. We couldn't tell if they were alive or not, but we peeled them off and replaced the filters. I observed immediately how much better we felt, the O2 level rose to almost 100% of normal.

"So how do we keep them off the filters," I asked.

"Really, how do we get them off Merkury altogether?" Mica wondered.

"Do you recall the other day when I got healed, you said I stank? In fact you compared my smell to something between a dead Chillean and vomit. Well, without waiting for me to bathe properly, you zapped me with methastat, and all the Slight friends abandoned me for the afternoon. I wonder if we could fill the air with a scent that would repel them and---"

"Send them packing!" whispered Mica wildly.

We didn't have enough methastat to spare, but we got into the nastier "fresheners" used to cover up biological episodes. We tried "Pinos Altos" first. The Slight People stirred uncomfortably, but when we soaked the air filters in "Coyote Sage", they quivered and scattered. They assembled quickly in a disorganized bunch in the galley. Coyote Sage was gagging us but we attempted to appear nonchalant. Our cloud of visitors looked at us and did not laugh, they seemed a little hurt even.

"We're going to our ship, friends. We don't blame you and we'll stay close until you reach your destination. Really, you have been wonderful hosts, very patient with our prying. Good-bye for now." And with a sigh like the last breeze of a dust storm, they exited trough the bulkhead.