#junk planet seven

[askbensolo]

Hey! I was wondering, how did you and your parents first find, or find out about your little sister?

About seven years ago, my mom was doing relief work on a planet called Jakku. It’s a pretty nasty place—just desert, mostly. There was a big battle there once, around when I was born, but that’s like the only significant thing that has ever happened on Jakku.

While Mom was there, she met this scrawny little kid who was indentured to a junk trader. The locals called her Anklebiter, and she was living all by herself in an abandoned AT-AT walker. Mom took her home. It was never the plan to keep her for long. We were hoping to find her parents, who had left her there some time ago. Rey said they were coming back.

They never came back.

For a long time, Rey held out hope that her parents would find her. But eventually, she let go, and we formally adopted her. My mom was adopted, so it was personally meaningful to her to become a mother to someone who needed one the way her own mother did for her.

I guess Rey’s parents must be dead. Or, maybe they just decided they didn’t want her anymore. It didn’t seem like they were great people.

...Sometimes, though, I have dreams. Where they come back, and take her away.

[amoebaforce]

WIP Folder Game

Rules: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous and tag as many people as you have WIPs. People send an ask with the title that most intrigues them, then you post a snippet or tell them something about it!

Tagged by @vaya-writes. Thanks for tapping me in for the game! I'm curious to see if any particular WIP piques anyone's interest.

Current WIP series:

The Devil's Bind (dark monster romance, found here)

"Thrice Undone" (ThancredxWoLxG'raha poly smut series on AO3)

WIPs yet unposted:

Paper Perfect (sci-fi arranged marriage novella)

Mouse/Trapped (a Cat/Mouse sequel! surprise!)

The Conference (short story destined for an anti-fascist anthology)

Back-burner WIPs:

Under a Glittering Moon (the second novel in the Daeus setting)

Obsidian Slopes 2.0 (a rehash of an old, partially-written novel)

Unwritten ideas:

cyborg bodyguard x frail alien charge on a sci-fi colony planet

space-junk salvager lesbian wives search for missing friend

six or seven more romance novels on the Continent of Daeus

Thanks for giving me a reason to soft-launch the fact that there WILL be a Cat/Mouse sequel! Title is not set in stone, but I like it enough that it might stick. Also! I promise I haven't forgotten about "Thrice Undone," I just haven't been feeling the FF inspo as strongly these days.

On to tagging! Here are a few writers I'm curious about. If you've already been tagged in this game by someone else, just ignore me!

@eruden-writes @moonlitramblings @bucketsofmonsters @monstersandmaw @momolady @love-and-monsters @atlasspade @mkw-writes

[goddessalthena]

UsaMamo Week 2024 - Day 3/6 - Inspired by a Song/Coffee

Late again, and it's tough to say how late because this is technically two prompts in one. I was originally planning to write this as a song fic, but wasn't really feeling it leading up to the event week. Then last night I read @caelenath's awesome song fic and felt inspired to take another look at my outline.

This is not the whimsical lark that my other UsaMamo week pieces have been (which is why I was torn about writing it) but it's an idea that's been nagging at me for a while now. This is only the first part of three, but I thought it would be nice to post it for the event.

Title: Happier Summary: Mamoru wants a cup of coffee. Rating: T (for language) Words: 1722

“Thirty eight!”

Chiba Mamoru is not a melodramatic person. He is not given to histrionics. Flagrant displays of emotion are simply not his thing. Indeed, he is a calm, composed, and exceedingly rational human being. Life is stressful—his arguably more so than most—and he prides himself on his ability to ‘rise above’. But if this beanie-wearing, mouth-breathing barista doesn’t call his number in the next sixty seconds he might just lose it.

“Thirty nine!”

Mamoru stares down at his receipt and wills the numbers to change. Unsurprisingly, they remain the same. He can transform into a superhero in the blink of an eye, but he can’t change a number on a piece of paper. It may be the caffeine withdrawal talking but this seems…unfair. Unjust. Unacceptable. He is a reincarnated prince, the rightful heir to the planet beneath his very feet, and yet he cannot get a simple cup of coffee.

“Thirty seven!”

Are they counting fucking backwards now? He takes a breath and stuffs the receipt in his pocket so he can run a hand through his hair. He needs to calm down. He’s just tired. He’s had another rough night of precious little sleep and this is just a bad morning. That’s all. One bad morning. At the end of a bad week. At the end of a bad month. He just—

“Forty!”

He just really needs some coffee. It’ll be ready soon. So long as they serve him in the next—he checks his watch—four minutes he can still make it to the hospital before his shift starts. He thinks. He’s only just started at UoT and he’s still not used to the bus transfers. Getting to Keio was much simpler. He didn’t have to get up so early, and the coffee shop across the street was much faster. Not to mention better. He misses that coffee. He misses Keio. He misses sleeping. He misses…a lot of things.

“Forty one!”

Lucky number forty one strolls up to the counter to claim their prize. They walk away with a tall plastic cup full of frothy green liquid that looks like it was poured directly out of an infected nostril, and Mamoru can’t help but shudder when they take a long, noisy sip from the straw. Who comes to a coffee shop and orders…whatever that is? This is apparently a trend now—ordering non-caffeinated beverages at coffee shops—because the last ten people who have walked away from the counter have had similarly ridiculous drinks. Why does everything have to be dessert, or snot, in a cup nowadays? What’s wrong with a regular cup of coffee?

He needs to find another coffee shop.

“Forty two!”

He needs them to call his number.

He pulls out his phone to distract himself and scrolls through a list of notifications: weather, junk mail, update reminders—up to forty five now, he’s got to get around to doing that—and one text. His thumb hovers over the blue bubble for a moment or two before he eventually presses down.

Training session Fri or Sat ppl. LMK work schedules ASAP. No ghosting Chiba. Ur old ass is getting rusty. 👴

As Mamoru rolls his eyes three little dots appear at the bottom of the screen. He holds his breath.

“Forty three!”

He doesn’t look away from those three little dots, doesn’t blink, doesn’t breathe. He just watches them, transfixed, until finally—

I’ve got a shift at the restaurant Friday night, but I can do AM Sat wide open

He releases the breath he’s been holding in a quiet sigh. Just Makoto. Not— His thumb hits the back button of its own accord then scrolls down through the list of chats, until…there, near the bottom. Sandwiched between an old banking verification and a number he doesn’t even recognize. He reads the date to the right of the name and winces. Again, his thumb hovers.

“Forty four!”

He taps. A string of texts populate his screen. He doesn’t need to read them again, he knows them by heart. But he reads them anyway. Like he always does. He can’t help it. He’s weak; in these moments at least. When no one can see. He should stop looking now. Should close the window. Should delete the whole thread while he’s at it. But he won’t. He can’t. He can do a lot of things—has done a lot of things—but he can’t delete those words.

I love you, Mamo-chan.

“Forty five!”

I’ll always love you. Even if you’ve stopped loving me back.

“Forty five!”

I wish I knew why though. I wish you would tell me what I did wrong.

“Forty five! That’s four five, people. Four five!”

I’m sorry, I get it now, I won’t bother you anymore. Be happy, Mamo-chan. I want you to be happy.

“For the last time, forty five! Going once, going twice��”

Mamoru’s head snaps up. Forty five. Fuck. That’s his number.

He stuffs his phone in his pocket and rushes up to the counter and beanie-boy does not look happy. Mamoru begins to mutter an apology then stops as the barista shoves a large mug topped whipped cream, caramel, and chocolate shavings toward him. Mamoru looks from the mug to the mouth-breather and back again as his brain tries to comprehend what is happening. After an eternity of waiting they finally called his number and yet…this is not his drink.

The barista is staring at him with a bored, somewhat vacant expression and Mamoru can clearly see that he is wondering why Mamoru isn’t taking the mug and walking away. Apparently the barista can’t tell from Mamoru’s assumedly apoplectic expression that he has no intention of taking the mug. This mug is not his. It’s not what he ordered. It’s not what he wants. Apparently that’s just his life now. An endless string of miserable disappointments that he’s supposed to suffer through silently. But he’s fed up with being silent.

He wants his damn coffee, and he wants it right fu—

“Oh, hello, uh, hey, sorry, excuse me but…I think that’s mine actually.”

Mamoru blinks as a cheerful man with sandy blond hair steps up beside him. He points to the confectionery concoction on the counter and shoots Mamoru an apologetic smile before turning to the barista. “Yes, chocolate macchiato with caramel, right? I believe that’s mine and not this gentleman’s.”

Beanie boy looks from Mamoru to sandy-hair and blinks.

Sandy-hair glances at Mamoru and shoots him another overly apologetic look. “Right, umm, well, if it’s all right, I’ll just grab this and get out of your way.” Mamoru steps to the side and sandy-hair takes the mug and hurries away. Presumably to overdose on sugar.

Mamoru turns back to the barista.

Barista scratches his temple. The beanie must be itchy. Mamoru hopes it is.

“So…what was your order again?”

“Large. Black. Coffee.”

“Right. That’ll take a couple of min—” Beanie boy must have just learned to read facial expressions because his eyes widen and he takes a step back. “I’ll go get it now.”

Mamoru feels a little bit of the tension ease in his shoulders and he breathes a weary sigh. He’s being an asshole. He’s doing that more and more often now. He keeps telling himself it’s the long work hours and the lack of sleep, but he knows what the real problem is. It’s her. He misses her. But there’s nothing he can do about that so he needs to find a better way to cope than being rude to baristas. And co-workers. And neighbours in his apartment building.

The barista comes back with his to-go cup and Mamoru tries to smile and thanks him for the drink. The guy nods but appears otherwise unaffected and that’s fine. Mamoru’s not looking for a new friend, he’s just trying to be a decent human being. A tinkle of bells sounds as he reaches for his cup. A gust of air follows, and a familiar tingle between his shoulder blades compels him to turn. He follows the innate instinct before his mind can warn him against it.

The unmistakable sight of blond odangos makes his heart soar before the inevitable sensation of crushing gloom comes down hard upon his ribs. Just when he thought his morning couldn’t get any worse. He can’t handle this. Not right now. Not again. He’s not strong enough to face another awkward meeting, another painful interaction, another agonizing opportunity to break her heart. Why are they always bumping into each other? Why, in a city as big as this, can he not get through one single week without running into her? Why?

Mamoru knows why. Because they’re soul mates.

He looks around for an alternate exit, a side door, a window, anything so he can avoid being seen. Before he can consider hiding in the bathroom he realizes she’s not approaching the counter where he stands, she’s rushing over to a table. She’s out of breath, her cheeks are pink, and she’s spouting a string of apologies. He’s seen her look exactly like this countless times before, and he can’t help the smile that spreads across his face as the memories replay.

His smile disappears as a new memory implants itself in his mind.

Of Usako, rushing up to a table where a man with sandy blond hair is standing in wait. Where a man with sandy blond hair is taking her hands. Where a man with sandy blond hair is pulling her forward. Kissing her cheek. Making her blush.

“Don’t worry,” sandy-hair says, “your timing is perfect. Your drink just came out. I wasn’t sure if you wanted a muffin, a danish, or a doughnut, so I got one of each.”

Usako laughs with delight.

Usako laughs with delight.

Usako laughs with delight.

Mamoru heads for the door like the building is on fire. He doesn’t hear the barista calling after him, telling him that he’s forgotten his coffee. He doesn’t hear the tinkling of bells as he shoves through the door or the loud rush of traffic as he hits the sidewalk. All he can hear is Usako’s laughter play over and over in his head.

When was the last time he heard her laugh? When?

Mamoru doesn't know when. He can’t remember.

***

Ain’t nobody hurt you like I hurt you But ain’t nobody love you like I do Promise that I will not take it personal, baby If you’re moving on with someone new

***

Happy Birthday, Mamoru! Sorry bud, this is a breakup fic. What can I say? I both love and hate the breakup arc. The song that inspired this fic is Happier by Ed Sheeran.

Thanks for reading! ❤️

Be sure to follow @usamamoweek for all of this year's content!

Many thanks to our awesome hosts @random-mailbox and @lilliebellfanfics for making this possible. 😘😘

[willinglyviolentlycanthrope]

Understanding Recycling Codes: What Can Be Recycled?

Recycling is more than just a buzzword; it’s a lifestyle choice that can significantly impact our environment. But how do we know what to recycle? The answer lies in understanding recycling codes. Each code, usually found at the bottom of plastic items, signifies the type of material and its recyclability. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore the different recycling codes, what can be recycled, and the importance of proper waste management.

Understanding Recycling Codes: What Can Be Recycled?

Recycling codes are numerical identifiers assigned to products made from various types of plastic. These codes provide crucial information about how to handle materials once they’ve reached the end of their useful life. The numbers range from 1 to 7 and indicate different resin types, each with unique properties and recycling processes.

The Importance of Recycling

In an age where waste is accumulating at an alarming rate, recycling serves as a beacon of hope. It helps conserve natural resources, reduces landfill waste, and decreases greenhouse gas emissions. Through effective junk removal strategies and education on hauling services, we can all contribute to a cleaner planet.

The Seven Recycling Codes Explained 1: PET or PETE (Polyethylene Terephthalate)

Commonly found in drink bottles and food containers, PET is one of the most widely recycled plastics. It’s lightweight yet strong, making it ideal for packaging.

Recyclability: Yes Uses of Recycled Material: New containers, clothing fibers 2: HDPE (High-Density Polyethylene)

This type is often used for milk jugs, detergent bottles, and some plastic bags due to its durability.

Recyclability: Yes Uses of Recycled Material: Pipes, plastic lumber 3: PVC (Polyvinyl Chloride)

PVC is commonly seen in pipes and vinyl siding but isn’t typically accepted in curbside recycling programs.

Recyclability: Limited Uses of Recycled Material: Flooring tiles, new pipes 4: LDPE (Low-Density Polyethylene)

Often used for shopping bags and some food wraps, LDPE isn’t widely accepted in curbside pickup but can be recycled through specific programs.

Recyclability: Limited Uses of Recycled Material: Floor tiles, shipping envelopes 5: PP (Polypropylene) junk removal Rapid Haul Away LLC

Used in yogurt containers and straws, polypropylene has a higher melting point compared to others.

Recyclability: Yes Uses of Recycled Material: Brooms, bins 6: PS (Polystyrene)

Commonly known as Styrofoam, polystyrene is not recyclable in many areas due to its lightweight nature.

Recyclability: No Alternative Disposal Methods: Junk pickup services for large quantities 7: Other (Various Plastics)

This category includes various plastics that don’t fit into the other six categories. Their recyclability varies widely based on local regulations.

[fake-guns-blazing]

Got any music recs for me?? Any genre is fine! ✨

GREAT question. i will always happily share my music #myMusic

POSSESSION OBSESSION — DARYL HALL & JOHN OATES

i will ALWAYS fw this. my favorite thing about hall & oates is how they always gotta go on ad libbing for like seven minutes at the end of every song

SATELLITE — ICEHOUSE

this is a smash hit to me actually. it's just so fun, especially the lyrics in the verses, and "space junk inside her head" is a bar 🤷

got a little carried away so i'm adding a cut for everyone's sake... much more below

++

EVEN THOUGH — INHALER

i really should be posting about inhaler more often especially considering i'm listening to them this year at the same insane rate that i was listening to hanoi rocks/MM last year. i saw them live about two months ago and they were fab

DON'T SPEAK — LOADED HONEY

i am the biggest jungle fan on the planet so naturally this speaks to me... it's so smooth

THE HOLY SHANGRI-LA — FOSTER THE PEOPLE

so before i listened to this album, the only foster the people song i knew was pumped up kicks and i just did not know they made music like this. the chorus HITS

ISLANDS — KAJAGOOGOO

i really fw kajagoogoo lately. maybe because i am strangely attracted to 80s bands that had a falling out at some point (skid row). i'm listening to the music. i'm learning the lore. i'm actually in love. he don't bother me... he keep me company.......

MORNING IN AMERICA — DURAND JONES & THE INDICATIONS

THIS SONG. i think everyone needs to sit down and really really listen to this song. i always picture it in the opening sequence to a movie. i wish i was talented so i could write what happens in my head when i hear this. the lyrics are so GOOD. "it's morning in america / we're mourning in america" my GOD.

THE PASS — RUSH

speaking of lyrics. this is one of the most important rush songs to me. just blows my mind

LIES IN THE EYES OF LOVE — PART TIME

one of those that sounds older than it is. really nice.

PORTRA 400 — ARLO PARKS

a core henry track... i feel like if you understand this you will understand me

GOODNIGHT SONG — TEARS FOR FEARS

i also didn't used to know that tears for fears could sound like this and it's so special to me

TALES OF ENDURANCE, PT. 4, 5 & 6 — SUPERGRASS

i LOVE songs that change up a few times like yessss keep us guessing

[oatstheartificer]

Adrift Chapter 2

Jacob tentatively approached the fizzling datapad and slowly picked it up off the ground, trying to turn the machine back on. Of course, it didn’t work. The internals were most likely fried, and he was very happy that they hadn’t used lithium batteries, or it would have blown up. But still, it was junk now.

“Hm. That’s seriously suspicious.”

He turned the broken datapad over in his hands, inspecting it. No external machines, no receivers. Which had to mean that whatever he had tried to open, had the kill switch embedded in the code. Not that he knew how to bypass that. He was an engineer, not a coding expert. Furrowing his brow, he sat down and began to think, really think. The only other person with him was Evelyn, and as far as he knew, she didn’t have anything to hide. On the other hand, seven thousand years was a long time by yourself, and maybe she just went crazy. Then again… if she had gone crazy, why leave him alive? Why bypass the lock to let him in here at all? Why help him so much if it was going to let him onto her scent and possibly become an obstacle? Wouldn’t it just be easier to kill him, and run the ship entirely with her clones? It didn’t add up.

Sighing, he picked up the datapad and stuffed it into his pocket. If he can get it working again, maybe he can get some answers. Of course that was harder said than done, datapads were not something he was familiar with, and from what he did know they were very, very compact. And he had fat fingers.

Opening the airlock back into the hallway, he shook his head and looked up at the ceiling- behind him, the drone that had detached and followed behind disappeared into another crevice in the wall. Of course, Jacob just continued on, having not seen what happened just a few feet behind him.

With a hiss and a clunk, the door sealed behind him as Jacob cautiously spoke out, looking to the wall and thinking of his next move.

“Hey, Evelyn, anything on where we are?”

The answer wasn’t immediate like before, but it was swift.

“Currently no. I’m trying to chart these stars and they just aren’t lining up with our galaxy maps of the Milky Way. Though I did find some information on our immediate surroundings.”

Jacob tapped the wall and started following the guide bands back to the mess hall. After all that, he needed a drink. Something with a kick.

“And that would be?”

He asked, running his hands over the tools in his tool belt. He still didn’t know if he should trust Evelyn after what happened in the server room, but he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt. He didn’t really have a reason to be suspicious of her, and letting him into the server room in the first place wouldn’t have really been a good move if she really had nefarious intentions.

“We're hardly using any of our fuel, since we’re orbiting a red giant. So that’s one thing. The star system has six planets, three being gas giants. One almost had enough mass to become a second star, but failed. It’s one of the few Brown Dwarves we have documented. The other three are barren, with no magnetosphere and no tectonic activity.”

Jacob turned a corner and paused, looking into the mess hall. There were several drones, all security, floating around the tables.

“Evelyn, what’s up with the drones?”

He asked, looking warily around the mess hall. The drones all turned, their camera flashing red and blue for a moment before they vacated the room.

“Routine patrols. For some reason every single programmer put the mess hall on these things's routes, so they all end up here at the same time sometimes.”

Jacob raised an eyebrow before slowly walking over to one of the food printers. Punching in his order, he listened to the mechanical whirrs of the machine Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the cup rose from the plate as the printer finished making his drink. With a woosh, the amber liquid filled the cup waiting below.

“Jacob, please tell me that’s coffee-”

Evelyn said disapprovingly as Jacob grabbed the cup and took a sip. It burned delightfully as the fluid made its way down his throat.

“Nope, but it does have caffeine.”

He gave one of the cameras- or what he thought was a camera- a wink as he took another drink. It was a concoction he snuck into the printer database while no one was looking, a real special concoction of Energy Drink and bourbon. No he didn’t have a drinking problem.

“Uh huh…. I’m just gonna take a look at what you- JACOB!”

Evelyn’s voice boomed from the speakers, shrieking as they reached their highest frequency, making him wince.

“That can’t possibly be good for you! I’m taking it away.”

Jacob watched as a medical and security drone made their way towards him, the medical drone’s hanging arms splitting into several tendrils as one dipped into his cup and siphoned away the contents.

“You’re no fun Evelyn. I’m the only crew member, not like I can hurt anybody…”

He sighed, but didn’t put up a fight. The medical drone floating away, one of the tubes hidden in its undercarriage barely visible- and full of his mystery drink.

“Damn…”

He shook his head, before punching in a new code into the food printer. This time, straight black coffee filled a new cup, steaming hot and bubbling still as he grumbled. Sitting down at the table, he shot the security drone a dirty look as it floated away.

“I saw that. Look, I know you can’t hurt anyone, but you’ll hurt yourself. WE only have each other and i can’t have you chasing the bottom of a bottle.”

Evelyn’s voice seemed…sad. He looked down into his coffee cup and bit his lip. He had been so busy thinking about how she could have been hiding something, and stealing his drink he hadn’t stopped to think about what she might be feeling. Even though she was an artificial intelligence, she was still a person. She was probably just as worried, if not more so, about ending up alone. At least with him, his suffering would end eventually. She… was practically immortal.

“Sorry, Evelyn. I didn’t think about it. I’ll drink in moderation only.”

He sighed, giving the security drone a smile- before the lights abruptly shut off. Only the red glow of the Red Giant outside illuminated the mess hall as Jacob looked around.

“Evelyn?”

He asked, standing- and launching himself into the ceiling. With a heavy thunk, he collided with the metal and winced, rubbing his head. He felt a pretty large lump where it had struck the ceiling, and cautiously pressed the button on the side of his helmet. With a hiss, it sealed into place, his breath briefly fogging up the visor before his vision cleared again.

“Fuck, no gravity. Which means no power. Evelyn must be in power save mode..”

Grunting, he pushed off the ceiling, heading into the hall. Carefully making sure he didn’t put too much force behind his legs and slam into the floor. He succeeded and gazed at the guide bands on the wall- all now slightly off hue. He carefully read each one before tapping the red band. Carefully, slowly, he pushed off in the direction of the band. He didn’t need to get lost, and although he did help design the ship, so had every other crewmember. So he knew less than he thought, and he knew that. He just needed to mitigate his own confidence in knowing the ship and he would be fine.

Entering a hallway without light from the star they were orbiting, Jacob slowed himself. Red blinking lights floating ahead only told him that something was in his path. Most likely, drones that had no central intelligence to guide them, so they shut off in the middle of whatever they were doing. And hitting one of those while barreling down the hallway would suck, so he slowed himself and began to gently push the machines out of the way. Not that they could feel, he just didn’t feel like fixing them if they got damaged. Eventually, and it was eventually, he got through them all. A lot of them had clumped up, probably due to the weak gravitational pull between them- or maybe they just all happened to be near one another when the power went out.

“Alright engine room engine room…”

He looked to the wall as the light of the red giant poured back into the ship through the windows, searching for the red band- and found that both of the bands in this hallway were red.

“Well that’s not good.”

He tapped his chin, before shrugging and randomly choosing one- pushing down the hallway and quickly making a left as the band split in two. Truthfully, he was probably following the wrong band, but if he was he could just have to- he paused, grabbing onto one of the many latches in the walls and walls, meant for this very possibility. The ship was getting colder, he could see ice starting to form on the windows as the condensation within the ship cooled. He wasn't going to be able to double back like he had hoped if he was wrong. Pushing himself forward with a grunt, he shot forward, deftly avoiding another floating drone. Barreling down the halls now at full speed, he nervously watched as ice formed all over the ship, the glow of the star making the ice crystal shimmer iridescently as he shot past. He was sweating, the droplets condensing in his hair before the suit siphoned it away.

As metal and glass, and now ice, whizzed by, something grabbed his gut. It felt…wrong, like something was very wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He went to wipe his forehead, hand clunking against his helmet and chuckling to himself as the gut feeling grew stronger. Though he had to ignore it. He didn’t have time for gut feelings, he had an engine to get back online. Or he’d freeze. Most likely.

Bursting into a large room, he pumped his fist as he saw the familiar shapes of the engine. The large pipes carrying hydrogen to the reactor all funneling into the massive central metal and concrete beast at the center. Warning labels and radiation symbols covering the area as he pulled out his wrench, slotting it into a lever and pulling slowly. A section of wall peeling away as the emergency door is opened. The watertight tube holding the control rods in the center of the- wait. Something wasn’t right, the room was covered in small round balls. Or most of the room, since the only light in here was from the red giant behind him, from the hallway. It was actually quite dark.

“Shit, it’s too dark to really see in here… there has to be a flashlight or something in the engine room.”

He backed away from the door- almost relieved, as he didn’t really want to know what those round balls were. Maybe the control rods had broken, and that was the radioactive fuel leaking out in globs. He shuddered and began digging through the containers laying around. Mostly, it was tools, but eventually-

“Aha! There you are.”

He crooned, pulling out a heavy looking flashlight. While it was clunky, the moment he turned it on it became apparent why. It flooded the entire engine room with light as if it were trying to emulate the red giant looming outside. Carefully keeping the light pointed away from himself in the interest of not going blind, he stood in the doorway into the reactor once more. And froze.

“Oh come on.”

He muttered, teeth grinding together as his eyes darted around the room. Plastered all over the reactor room were small, fleshy sacks. They almost looked like muscle that had been taken off the bone, rolled into a ball, and slapped onto the walls and left there. Wet, dripping with some sort of mysterious red liquid, and pulsing. There were hundreds of these little sacks, connected together with long strings of what looked like more flesh or maybe just some sort of ooze. And he did not like the look of them. If he wasn’t about to die of hypothermia he wouldn’t be stepping foot into this nightmare, but he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.

“Fuck this, fuck that-”

He whispered, pushing off whatever clean edges he could find, avoiding the fleshy nodes as best he could. So far so- All of a sudden, the ship lurched, spinning. Jacob didn’t move, but the entire room around him spun like a top on its head, slamming his right arm into one of the pustules with a squelch. Screaming in pain, he tried to yank his arm out of the fleshy mass, but the bulb seemed to expand, engulfing the entire limb. He could feel bone cracking, bits of his environmental suit flying everywhere as flesh was ripped from his arm- it hurt.

“Get the fuck off me!”

He screamed, pushing off the floor, trying to rip the beast off his arm. The other flesh bulbs seemed to be wiggling, like they were laughing at his predicament. The room, still spinning, was hard to navigate, especially with this thing ripping into his arm. Distracted, he tried to grab one of the rapidly moving handles on the wall with his good arm, blood spraying out from his other limb. Turning his head, he only had a few moments to watch as the bar he had been trying to grab rapidly rushed towards his face.

Jacob groaned as he lifted his head off the mess hall table, hair sticking up in all directions. Jumping to his feet, he began to check himself over. No rips in his suit, no pain in his arm. He didn’t even look like he had moved from his spot at the mess hall table.

“Evelyn!”

He yelled, her voice quickly popping up from a speaker.

“Yes Jacob? Your heart rate is elevated, what’s wrong?”

Jacob whipped around towards the voice, grabbing the edges of the speaker on the wall and staring into it.

“Turn on all the cameras, check the engine room, check everywhere, I think there’s something on the ship.”

He panted, wiping away the cold sweat on his forehead. There were a few seconds where the only thing that could be heard was Jacob's heavy breathing.

“Jacob, there’s nothing in the engine room. There’s nothing anywhere on the ship.”

Evelyn answered, worriedly. A medical drone moseying its way into the room and stopping as it’s armed unravelled into its several different tools, taking his temperature, checking vital signs, heart rate, chemical imbalances-

“Show me.”

He said coldly, taking out his datapad- and sighing as it sparked and smoked the moment he tried to turn it on. Growling, he turned, the various tools popping off of his skin as he stormed away, towards his room. Only glancing at the wall to make sure he was going the right direction

“Jacob! What has gotten into you. Nothing is wrong with the ship-”

Slapping his hand onto the scanner to his room, he listened to Evelyn try and calm him down through the speakers

“Shut. Up. I know what I felt and what I saw, why are you pretending you don’t know what I'm talking about?!”

He yelled, storming into his room and ripping open his locker. Pulling out his backup data pad, he tapped a few buttons and connected to the ship's cameras. Flicking through each room, he paused at the engine room. It was working normally, the emergency door closed tight as it should have been.

“I- i saw it, i felt it!”

He shouted, gripping the data pad tightly in his hands. He opened the door to his room and bolted out, not hearing what Evelyn had to say as he bolted down the halls. No ice crystals, no evidence of any collisions between drones… and as he burst into the engine room, he saw all the crates tightly closed. Not even the one he had pulled a flashlight out of was open. Frantically grabbing his wrench from his belt.

“Jacob, what are you doing? JACOB DON’T OPEN-”

Ignoring Evelyn, he grunted as he pried open the emergency door, the large door slowly opening- and saw the reactor, the control rods all in place, blue light illuminating the entire room. And no pustules. No fleshy tendrils connecting anywhere. Nothing.

“What- “

A security drone’s cold grasp grabbed his shoulders, yanking him away from the reactor. Dragging him out of the engine room as another drone closed the emergency door, sealing it in place while Jacob was pulled away.

“What the fuck was that Jacob?! You know that if the engine is running the reactor is active, you could have just absorbed enough radiation to kill you!”

Her angry, synthetic voice reverberated through the halls as Jacob was pulled into the medical bay. The drone throwing him onto the tough bed, the scanners above, like metal arches with small bulbs, immediately getting to work.

“Now you’re going to need to go through radiation treatment! You could have DIED, Jacob!?”

Jacob stubbornly stared up into the ceiling as Evelyn ranted.

“X-ray my arm.”

He muttered, pulling out his working datapad. Evelyn only getting angrier.

“You had a bad dream Jacob! There’s nothing wrong with your arm!”

One of the machines began to slowly pan over his entire body, statistics being given to Evelyn as she redirected them to his datapad.

“See? Nothing is wrong with you besides having a LOT of radiation in your body.”

Jacob looked over his X-rays as the medical bed powered down, its job done. He panned over all the pictures, the data. There was his bone…the muscle… nothing was out of place. He could have sworn that something had happened, it had been so real. He hadn’t ever had a dream that vivid but…he supposed there was a first for everyone, and this was his.

“Now since you so stupidly ran into the reactor, you’re going to be taking a lot of pills. And you’re gonna need to flush your system.”

Jacob sighed and covered his eyes with his arm. The darkness was nice.

“I know. I know. It was dumb, I'll take whatever you give me Evelyn. Just- don't make it taste awful.”

Evelyn huffed, before a tube lowered from the ceiling, and dumped out several tubes. Each one contained a different bottle of medicine. One read ‘Potassium Iodide’, another seemed to be a thick red liquid, and the last one almost looked like vitamins. Carefully, Jacob picked them up off the floor and gave them a look over.

“That's it? You said a lot.”

He asked, turning to one of the cameras in the room.

“Yes, well these are for the moment. I need to observe you for a couple days to see just how badly you fucked yourself over. Then I can give you more. Your suit took most of the radiation, so you probably only have mild radiation poisoning. Most likely.”

Jacob scratched his chin as she spoke, listening best he could. He glanced down at his suit and slowly began stripping it off- pressing the button by his helmet to release the tightened fibers.

“-and one more- JACOB! WHY ARE YOU STRIPPING?!”

He paused and looked up, the entire suit almost entirely off his body.

“Well- if the suit took most of the radiation I should take it off right? It's irradiated now.”

He could almost hear her grab the bridge of her nose, if she had one. He didn't think it was unreasonable, but maybe she-

“Jacob. did you pay attention, at all, on earth? The environmental suits siphon the radiation into small beads of lead and then drop those on the ground. The suit is fine.”

He sheepishly pulled his suit back up, pausing as he saw his arm. While the X-ray had shown him he was entirely fine, there was a small red line around his bicep, almost like a seam. But the closer he looked the more it just seemed like it was from the suit. Like an impression from your bed from laying wrong.

“Right. Uhhh… Hey i'm starving, can my medicine be taken with food? I'm very hungry.”

sealing his suit back up, he opened and closed his fingers. He really was starving, he felt like his stomach was eating itself. Made sense, he hadn't eaten anything when he woke up, and then he's been working for who knows how long. Maybe that's why he passed out at the table.

“Well then head to the mess hall. And yes, you can take them with food. Just not caffeine.”

Jacon groaned as he found the magenta band, and began to follow. Behind him, the security drone from before seemed to be burning something. Its arm modified into a flamethrower, it was blasting flame into a small, charred ball on the ceiling…

In the mess hall, Jacob tapped the top of one of the printers. He didn't know what he wanted to eat, so he let his stomach decide. Just letting his hand tap away at the keyboard.

“Wow, you really are hungry. A whole ham, a pound of mash potatoes and sausage gravy.”

Evelyn said, surprised at the sheer amount of food he was printing.

“Oh, Yeah, I mean I haven't eaten anything today, so I figured why not get a large meal. If I don't finish it I'll have leftovers.”

Watching as a steaming ham was printed before his eyes, his mouth watered- and his arm shot out, grabbing the still steaming hot unfinished ham and shoving it into his face. With a yelp, he dropped the ham with a splat.

“ow!”

He looked down at his hand, and flexed his fingers. He must have been hungrier than he thought, if his hands were moving before his mind could stop them.

“Just…just wow.”

Evelyn teased, making Jacob roll his eyes. Punching in the code again (the nozzle stopped if the print was interrupted) he had to wait again for the ham to finish. This time, keeping his hand in check as the mouth watering smell of honeyed ham filled the room again. Well, doubled, since the ham on the floor also smelled delicious. But that one would need to be cleaned up, this one was for him.

When it finished, he carefully picked it up by the plate and carried it to the table. The moment he set it down onto the metal top, his hand grabbed a fistful of ham and shoved it into his mouth. His eyes watering as the heat hit his face again, he chewed. It was delicious, and took another bite. and another. And another. Taking sips from his red liquid (it tasted AWFUL, like liquid cherry medicine all the while.

By the time he finished the ham, his potatoes were done. His hand shot out and grabbed the plate again, shoving more food down his gullet. The gravy spilled from the nozzle onto an empty build plate as he licked his lips.

“Okay, increased appetite…not really a symptom of radiation, I hope that's just because you skipped your- breakfast?”

Jacob gulped down the last of his potato, holding up a hand while he did. fingers Twitching a bit

“Well it helps that it was delicious. Someone must have gotten top of the line printers because hot damn- that was amazing.”

He patted his stomach and glared at the rest of his medicine, before sighing and picking one up- and tossing it across the room.

“Huh?”

“Huh?”

Both of them spoke in unison, as the orange bottle hit the wall and rolled around on the ground. Jacob looked at his arm, then the bottle, as he stood- walking to the bottle and picking it back up. Again, his arm moved on its own and tossed it across the room.

“Jacob, stop messing around.”

Evelyn said, irritated as a medical drone floated into the room.

“I'm not doing that on purpose. Maybe I have nerve damage?”

He asked worriedly, flexing his fingers as he tried again to pick up the medicine bottle- this time, he didn't toss it.

“Uh-huh. Totally.”

[dnschmidt]

Seven Sentence Sunday (Monday)

Thanks to @gioiaalbanoart for tagging me. It looks like I'm supposed to share a snippet from a WIP? If so, here goes. (Keeping the title a secret until the book is released.)

The planet Hesperos was cold and wet, like stepping in a puddle in your socks. The natives of the planet were the Gordians. They resembled bipedal tree frogs, but worked in inane office jobs instead of just hanging around in a tree all day.

Hesperos mostly produced junk that no one needed: fake designer clothes, plastic figurines of unpopular fictional characters, and electronics that burst into flames if you were foolish enough to risk turning them on. Gordian infonet programs were some of the worst entertainment in the known universe. They were particularly fond of gameshows like Price Gouging, Win Your Neighbor’s Car, and Gunpoint Trivia. They also exported food that was absolutely disgusting to anyone that wasn’t an insectivore. Even the Gordians wouldn’t eat their native cuisine unless they were dared to.

[maguro13-2]

Darkness Reborn ~ Origins of the Ink Demon Final Chapter Pt. 5 ~

*Keyboard Typing*

Cid : Come on, you piece of junk! Don't go ballistic on me, you piece of crap! This has gotta be the database the Time Eater has left something from Soul World. Now we can finally live up to this Soul Eater garbage and give the real world a piece of their mind. I can't wait to see the secrets of going behind the scenes of the manga itself.

Aerith : Whatever there is, there's plenty of database within computer memory space. I'm sure anyone will might know that this Shinigami had to cover up a few secrets.

Cid : You sure know how to feel like a genius that knows about computers and data, but I wouldn't mindly recommend Merlin of calling myself a smart ass.

Merlin : Language!

Cid : Sorry!

Sora : So, Tron. Did you find anything the Kusakabe database?

Tron (as the computer) : Hmm, I did find any database within the Kusakabe's data, but I believe that there are no evidence of Shinra's involvement with the Heartlesses. It's what the Time Eater has left something for after it destroyed the Ohkuboverse in half, only to make sure that Shinra died and one person that was executed, Shinra and his beloved Iris died before the last one was executed and has recorded some footage about a pink-haired witch who was a chained to a chair during the execution video. The men of his influence does like to keep truth out of the public eye and the witches their selves.

Sora : So who was the witch from the Ohkuboverse that the time Eater executed?

*SA2 SFX : ALARM BLARING*

[Black Noise (Space Colony ARK ver.) - Kenichi Tokoi]

Sora : Hey, what's happening?!

Cid : What the hell's going on?! What's happening?! What's all this?!

Squall : Sora! I just found out that something must've happened from the Space Colony ARK! The computer in the Central Control room, has been activated by the seven items.

Sora : How did you know that seven items have activated the control room? What are those items that Sonic was talking about? Is it the seven lights or, the seven dwarfs, I wonder what were those seven items? *DING!* Of course, the Chaos Emeralds! Some "one" or Some "thing" managed to use the Chaos Emeralds to activate the machine in the ARK's Central Control, where a mass weapon of destruction that is capable of destroying a planet. Codename : Eclipse Cannon!

Cid : Excellent idea, Genius! Why would some "one" or some "thing" used a bunch of jewels to activate the machine and caused a virus to make the data go haywire!? Maybe I bet it's the DWMA'S fault that is causing their problems on us! Tch! The bastards and their stinkin' weapons can all just suck my nuts and see if they like it.

Tron : (yelling in pain)

Sora : Tron! Tron! What's wrong?! Are you okay!

Tron : HRRRRGHHH!!! THE...THE EVIDENCE! I FOUND THE EVIDENCE! It's the footage that I found within the Kusakabe database, this is what made the heroes and villains of Soul World , I meant the humans and witches hating each other! It's this! (Shows the same of footage Inca chained to a chair) I found that the remaining survivors of the Ohkuboverse's attack, it's the pink-haired witch that originated the Majo Order in Soul World!

Cid : Well, I'll be a son of a gun. If it ain't the ancestor of Kimial Diehl, Inca Kasugatani. AKA the true mother of all witches that ruled over witchkind. But is still a thrill-seeking nutcase to Shinra after his 1000 years of death.

Sora : Now I that I officially explained to everything. I'm beginning to think that Kimial Diehl has a long lost relative and she's actually a descendant to the Japanese. Now I'm getting to the point of these plot twists that solves a great mystery and puzzles to figure it out. Smart move for a detective like her. Now I understand why the witches of Soul Eater existed in the first place. The Time Eater was using a copied footage of Gerald's Execution, and for that safety measures, it really is up to something that no one has ever done it along time, If Kimial Diehl was really a witch that was orginated from pink-haired japanese clutz who is a seeker of thrills and violence. I don't know why she went crazy just for Shinra.

*RUMBLING*

Cid : Oh, EFFING SON OF B*TCH! NOW WHAT THE HELL'S GOING ON!?!

Sora : Guys! Look! It's the footage! It's making a broadcast that will spread across the globe! I think this must've been the Time Eater's doing!

[Madness - Kenichi Tokoi]

Cid : That crazy bastard...

[People mumbling]

Inca Kasugatani (seen from Footage) : Shinra-Kun, my dear. I am giving you this message to all of Real World AU. Listen to my voice carefully. I am giving Real World AU a warning that this will be their death sentence to every heartlesses that have scattered around the planet. So if my theories and caculations are correct, the Ohkuboverse will shatter the Real World in about 1000 years from the Ohkuboverse before the Time Eater destroys it all! You hear me, Shinra-kun? Both you and your foolish family will pay for your transgressions and your influece shall be vanished and destroyed in Real World AU, along with their great planet earth!

Shinra (Devil Chaos Chao) : No way...Inca. You're finally here to see me again.

Inca Kasugatani (Broadcasting) : I'll be waiting for you to see me again, Shinra-Kun. Don't forget about the platonic love we've created. Just hope that I wish that we could've find a different way for us to handle the pain and suffering that we did.

Shinra (Devil Chaos Chao) : No...Inca...It can't be...Inca, what happened to you? Why were you chained up? I'm sorry that even if you failed, I...I still had my chance of you making me chase after you! If I only wanted to save you, I could've saved both you and Iris. I tried...I tried! We all died...We all died and had our 1000 years of death, all because of you! (looks up into the sky, screams in rage) INCAAAAAAA!!!

*DBZ SFX : POWERING UP+RUMBLING*

"Shinra-Kun. At long last, I can finally hear your voice once more."

" I'm finally glad that you finally remembered me, the world you created shall cease into nothingness or end in Total darkness."

"Whatever fate shall holds, You will never forget me and I'll be there by your side."

"I gave my promise to you, Shinra."

"That is what I wished for."

Inca Kasugatani : Gomenne...Shinra-kun.

*TV BUZZING*

~ Eighty-First Scene : Love of a Witch ~

[askbensolo]

Do you have a preferred ship or maybe a dream ship you might want to fly? If you're into that.

me and my ex—what? huh? who said that

Hmmm. Okay, don't read too much into this, but I've always thought it would be super dope to fly a TIE fighter. Do not interpret this as a pro-Imperial statement. I am just saying that TIE fighters look really cool, and they look like they handle really tight, and that “e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e” sound they make in holofootage is kinda sexy.

Although? Isn't there no sound in space? Now I'm wondering if the “e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e” noise was just a sound effect added to holofootage in post-production... Oooh I'm heartbroken.

...Still, though, my favorite ship will always be the Millennium Falcon.

Don't get me wrong—she's a piece of junk. But she's our piece of junk.

When I was growing up, we moved from planet to planet a lot for Mom's job. But we always had the Falcon. Always. Now that my parents have stayed on Hosnian Prime for seven years, I guess Hosnian Prime sorta feels like home…but for a long time, the Falcon was more like home to me than any other place we've lived.

[theapacheviking210]

Finite Resources and The Exponential Growth Problem

So some time in the 1970s, a group of scientists from MIT got together and asked themselves a couple of very important questions, “say guys, what is going to happen if we keep fucking like rabbits while we also continue to treat our finite resources like a junkie trying to score a fix?” Well despite my normally sunny disposition, I think it’d be safe to say that a lot like a dog that chases cars and finally catches one, the situation doesn’t end well for the fucking dog. But in this hypothetical situation, our finite resources are the car and humanity is the dog.

So these D&D nerds used computer models to predict what would happen if we kept up our current lifestyle. The variables in question were five key things: population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion. Basically, all the shit were not paying attention to because we’re far too distracted by trivialities like who Taylor Swift is fucking. And a lot like my chances of getting Schwifty with Miss Swifty, the outlook wasn’t exactly good.

In most scenarios, the prediction models estimated we would run out of resources by at best the late 21st century, but that was being overly generous. Their more reasonable predictions estimated we would be running dangerously low by the early to mid 2030s. And a lot like when you feel your ballsack nearing the bandsaw, that unwelcome breeze from the forthcoming spinning blade by one's nether regions is more than enough to fill anyone with a sense of overwhelming dread. So think of Mad Max, but more starvation and less action sequences and cool cars.

To understand why these predictions are almost as grim as my recent credit report, you have to understand exponential growth. Have you ever heard the Persian tale of the king who paid for a chessboard with grains of rice? The deal was to pay one grain for the first square, two for the second, four for the third, and so on. Doesn't sound like much, does it? That is until it turns from a tiny snowball to a fucking avalanche. When he got to the 15th square, the king owed him 32,768 grains of rice. By the 20th square he owed the man 1,048,576 grains of rice. The 25th square, 33,554,432 grains of rice.

By the time they finally got to the 64th fucking square, the king owed more rice than existed in the entire kingdom. Which is this number shown here. (Show on the screen). 2(⁶⁴)= 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. That is eighteen quintillion, four hundred and forty six quadrillion, seven hundred and forty four trillion, seventy three billion, seven hundred and nine million, five hundred and fifty one thousand, six hundred and sixteen god damn grains of mother fucking rice!! That’s exponential growth for you – it starts slow, but then it goes off the rails faster than me after too many shots of tequila at the neighborhood cantina. Let the unwelcome and drunken ass grabbing begin!

One of these scenarios these MIT scientists ran showed that if we continue to treat things as business as usual, it would be a lot like a drunk driver distracted by his cell phone. Basically we’re careening for a head on collision with the wall that is our own consequences. Population overshoot, resource depletion, and pollution are creeping up on us worse than an ex-significant other who keeps ignoring restraining orders and shitting in your mailbox. Which reminds me, I need to renew that restraining order against Helga, The Hungarian Hooker who I paid to slam my junk in the toilet seat. Don't stick your dick in crazy guys, fun as it may be. From one who knows.

Now don't get me wrong. I’m not a total doomer type. The scientists suggested that if we had made serious changes, we could still possibly stabilize things. Like switching to renewable energy, cutting down on unnecessary waste and not treating our planet both like a pantry and a fucking toilet. Spoiler alert, we did absolutely none of that shit. But hey, we want our iPhone 53 that tickles our taints with a feather and distracts our insufferable curtain clutchers with Skibidi toilet, brain rot content. We want it. We want it right now, and we don’t care if we destroy the entire fucking planet in order to get it!!

But douchebag, you gallant, giftful gabber of the last gasps of a global goonery gone wrong, you now say. How did people in the 70s react to this information? Wasn't this the wake up call we all needed? Why didn't they take these dire warnings more seriously? Well my dearest viewers and gullible gobblers of finite foolishness, the general reaction was, ‘meh… no big deal. It comes out of the ground, and nothing that comes out of the ground ever runs out. Get a job, you lazy, pot smoking, tree hugging hippies!’

So like the natives of Easter island on a global scale, we will continue to reproduce exponentially and consume resources until all of them run out completely. We never want to apply the breaks until we’re already seconds away from plummeting off the cliff. We lack the ability to see long term results due to our innate inability to comprehend exponential growth. We are only able to see no more than just an inch or so past our own smug and stupid faces. I will now close with an old Cree Nation proverb, “Only when the last tree has been cut down, the last fish been caught, and the last stream poisoned, will we finally realize… we cannot eat money.”

[rjalker]

“https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v60n05_1958-01_dtsg0318/page/n7/mode/1up?view=theater”

Unwillingly to School by Pauline Ashwell

Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction magazine, January 1958

The copyright was not renewed, leaving this story in the Public Domain.

20K words long. Let me know if you find any typos, they're likely from my errors in transcribing, and not the original story. I don't think it's supposed to be a horror story but it kind of is.

___

Liz was sure to be an influence; for the protection of Mankind, that young miss had to be trained!

___

This may look like a movigram of Brownian Movement but no such luck; it is Russet Interplanetary College of Humanities Opening Day, four thousand three hundred twenty-seven other freshers milling around and me in the middle with a little ticket on my chest says Lee, L. because my given name is something not to mention; they say these kids came from one hundred twenty-four planets just to study at Russel but personally of all points in the known continuum this is the one I would rather be any place But.

Freshers come in all sizes, all colors but a fair number are girls so there is one thing we will be finding in common anyway.

This may come as a surprise, that I am a girl, I mean. My tutor at Prelim School says my speech is feminine as spoken but written down looks like the kind of male character who spits sideways.

I reply that I talk like my Dad he is a character all right, male too but does not spit, if you spent your formative years with a filter in your kisser neither would you.

He says my flair for seeing the functional significance of the minutiae of behavior is obviously what got me chosen for the Cultural Engineering course.

Huh.

I know what got me into that all right I am not so dumb as I look.

You think I flatter myself? Brother, by what goes on I look dumb indeed. Maybe this is because of my hair, curly and pale colored—all right, blond. My eyes are blue as they come which is by no means sky color whatever books say, my skin is pink some places white others when washed and a visitor we had once said I had a rosebud mouth.

I am seven then, I do not hold it against her right away there are no roses where I grew up; when I landed here on Earth I hunt one up to see was it a complment.

Brother.

I find later they come other colors but this one is frostbite mauve, and the shape!

I wish to state here my mouth has two lips like anyone else.

Where I grew up is Excenus 23, how I got hauled off it is due to a string of catastrophes but the name of the biggest is D. J. M’Clare.

Excenus sun is what they call a swarmer, ninty-seven small planet in close orbits plus odd chunks too many to count, Twenty-three is the biggest, gravitation one point oh seven Earth diameter a fraction less, if you ever heard of the place it was because they mine areopagite there. Ninty-four per cent production for sale in the known volume of space comes from mines on Twenty-three; but for that reason to live there at all.

My Dad started as a miner and made his pile, then he took up farming and spent the lot, he has it all back again now.

Areopagite forms only in drydust conditions meaning humidity at ground level near above two and one half per cent rainfall None, hence from this farming on Excenus is something special, but miners are like other people they have to eat too.

When Dad started there was him and Uncle Charlie and their first year they fed two thousand men, nowadays the planetary population is eleven thousand three hundred twenty and there are seven other farmers, most of them started working for Dad and graduated to farms of their own. Nobody on Excenus eats trucked concentrates now.

Unclue Charlie is Hon as in secretary meaning no real relation. He is an engineer, when Dad met him down on his luck but able and willing to build diggers, harvesters, weathermaker for ten thousand acres out of any junk to hand. Had to be done like that because Excenus Haulage Company, the big company did all the shipping in and out of the planet, sold food concentrates. No competition welcome therefore no shipments seeds, agricultural, machinery, all that, would have been allowed through.

It takes Charlie two years to do his job, meanwhile Dad bones up the agricultural side. Nowadays there are a lot of books on drydust farming, they cover soilmaking, microbiology, economical use of weather, seed selection, plenty more; at that time there were fewer and Dad read them all.

If he has sent for the usual texts E. H. C. might have caught on and had a little accident in transit, so Dad gets them in as books, I mean antique style, chopped in pieces and hinged together down the side. They are labeled Curio Fascimiles and disguised with antique pictuer covers mostly show the damndest females you ever saw, dressed in bits and pieces mostly crooked; some of them dead. People collect these things for some reason. Dad has one or two put on top with texts to match the outside, rest are textbooks on agriculture like I said.

Charlie offers to make reader-reels from them but Dad turns it down. He still has all those books packed in a row, when I was little he used to tell me how he learned all his farming studying that way, without using machines, it just showed you could still do it if you had to. Dad never had any education and it bothers him; I used to think that was why he kept on telling me this.

* * *

Well there are plenty of troubles not least with E. H. C. but Dad is not the type to give up; reason he started farming in the first place was he caught on E. H. C. were making it impossible for anyone to do just that; Dad does not like people who try and stop him even if it was not what he wanted in the first place.

I am born soon after the farm is really set, my mother walked out when I was three. She was fresh out of college with an agricultural degree when he met her, maybe the trouble was Dad caught on she knew less about drydust farming than he did, maybe other things. Excenus 23 is no place for a woman they say.

It is O.K. by me but I was born in the place.

Dad and Charlie raised me between them like the crops, this is to say carefully.

There are plenty more people now in Green Valley where the farms are, thirty or so and they change all the time. People who come out farm for a bit make their pile then go. We even get women some times. People’s wives from Town come out to board sometimes, Dad lets them because he thinks they will Mother me.

Well mostly I manage to steer them off and no hard feelings, it is my home after all they got to be reasonable about if if they want to stay. Seems they do as a rule, Town is kind of tough to live in. Several stayed a year or more. So it is not true to say I grew up in a wholly masculine environment, I knew up to seven women for quite a while.

Green Valley is outside the mining area and about six hundred miles from Town. This has to be, Town gets most of its water combing the air and so do the weathermakers for the farms; anyway mining and farming do not mix so good. The Valley is twenty miles each way hedged by hill ridges up to seventy feet high. Outside is stone flats, dust bowl and tangle-mats of Gordianus scrub. Forty miles round about I know it pretty well but the rest of the planet is about the same, except for Town.

This is where I was born. I was all set to stay there till Dad had his accident, first catastrophe on the way to this place.

I am up one day in a helivan watching the harvest on a thousand-acre strip at the edge of the farm, there is a moderate wind blowing from over the hill, so we are keeping the weather-lid over each row until just before the harvester gets there so as to keep the dust out of the grain. I am directing this.

Here at the edge the weather-lid is just above the corn, it runs from the weather-maker in the middle of the farm in a bi cone like a very flat tent, fifty feet high in the middle and four miles across. You cannot see it of course unless the wind blows dust across, or there is rain inside; the lid is just a layer of air polarized to keep dust one side, water vapor the other; just now you can see plainly where puffs of dust go skittering across.

The harvester gets to the end of a row on the far side from the road, I signal Biff Plater at Control and he draws the weather-lid in twenty yards. The harvester lifts its scanner at the end of the strip, wheels, and comes through the next swathe, with the big cutter pushing six inches above ground, stalks sliding back into the thrasher bagged corn following on the trailer behind.

Then I see Dad come along the road riding the biggest kor on the farm. Kor are Pseudocamelopus hirsutinaris part of the indigenous fauna we started taming to ride on about a year ago. Dad does not really enjoy it, he cannot get used to having no brakes but he will not give up.

I see right away he is having trouble, the kor slipped its bridle and navigating on its own, long neck straight out and Dad slipping to and fro in the saddle; his mouth filter is bumped out and waving behind.

The harvester is half up the field. I do not want the kor to be scared I yell to Biff, Turn it off quick! But the controls are the other side of the shack from the weather ones.

Then the kor sees the scanner rearing on its stalk, it is not frightened at all thinks this is the great great grandfather of the species and charges straight across to say hello.

I am yelling to Biff and got my eyes shut, then he is yelling right back, I have to open them and look down.

The kor has gone straight into the second before it stopped. Dad has been thrown and the harvester stopped with one tread a foot from his head and a corner gone over his arm.

I bring the heli down yelling for help on all frequencies.

Dad is breathing but flat out; fractured skull, ulna and radius like a jigsaw puzzle, multiple injuries to the chest; the kor is in three pieces mixed up with the machine.

We call up the hospital in Town and they direct first aid over two-way visiphone while the ambulance comes. It takes seventy minutes and I am swearing to myself we will hire a permanent doctor if we have to shanghai him, after this.

The ambulance arrives and the doctor says we have done as well as can be expected, fortunately Dad is tough but it will be a two-month hospital job at the least.

They crate him up in splint plastic and load him into the ambulance. Buffalo Cole has packed me a bag, I get in too.

I am out again first thing, passengers not allowed.

* * *

I get out the long-distance heli and go straight to Town, I am waiting in the hospital when they arrive. I wait till they have Dad unpacked before I start to inquire.

These hospitals! It is all they will do to let me look at him, when I do he is lying in a kind of tank; his chest is the wrong shape, there is a mass of tubes round his head running to a punk, this is for resorption of blood clots in the brain; more too the other end for external aeration of the blood, he is not going to use his lungs for a bit.

I think this does not look real, Dad in all this plumbing, then I hear my breathing goes odd, next thing you know the doctors steer me outside.

They say it will be a week before the blood clots go and Dad wakes up but they will report by visiphone every day.

I say No need they can tell me when I visit each day.

They are deaf or something, they repeat they will call Green Valley each morning at thirteen o’clock.

I say Is that when they would prefer me to call in?

At least they have got it, they say Surely I will not fly six hundred miles every day?

I say No I shall be stopping right here in Town.

Then they want to know what friends I am stopping with, I say at a hotel of course.

Consternation all around No place for young girls to stop in this town, they make it out the toughest hellhole in the known volume.

I say Nuts there are hotels for transients and their wives too.

They flap wildly in all directions and offer me a bed in the nurses’ hostel which is men only ordinarily but they will make an exception.

I say thanks very much, No.

In the end they tell me to go to the Royal Hotel it is the most respectable of the local dumps, do not on any account go to the Royal Arms which is a pub in the toughest quarter of the town; they tell me how to go.

I put my luggage bag in my pocket; for some reason I have clutched it throughout; and I go.

Way I feel I do not go to the hotel straight off, I walk around a bit. I have been into Town of course shopping with Dad, maybe twice a year, but I do not seem to know it so well as I thought.

Then I find I have got to the Royal Arms or just near it anyway.

It is now late evening the sky is black except for stars, planets, and meteors crashing through every minute or two. The town is lit up but there are a few in the streets, quiet folk are home in another quarter the rest still fueling up indoors. Way I feel is some toughery would suit me fine to take my mind off, because taming kors was my idea in the first place. Maybe I will get a chance to try out that judo kick I learned from Buffalo Cole.

So I slip through the noise-valve doors one after another and go into the pub.

Brother.

The noise trap is efficient all right, outdoors no more than a mutter so there is a real wallop inside. Every idea in my head is knocked clean out of it, even th thought I might go away. Among other things are three juke boxes in three corners going full blast and I cannot hear them at all.

Part of the decibels come from just conversation, part is encouragement to a three-way fight in the middle of the floor. I am still gaping when two of the parties gang up on the third and toss him all the way to the door. I dodge just in time, he rebounds off the inner valve and falls right at my feet.

Everyone turns and sees me, and the juke boxes all become audible at once.

I go down on my knees to see if the character I have just missed meeting is still breathing or not. His pulse is going all right but his face is a poor color wherever blood lets me see, I yell for water but competing with the juke boxes get nowhere. I am taking breath to try again when someone turns them off at the main, silence comes down like cotton-wool.

I ask for water in a whisper, someone brings it and tries to take me away.

I find I am clinging to the guy yelling He is hurt he is hurt! There is blood balling in little drops on my evercleans and smeared over my hands, I am trying to wipe it off with a disposable; not suited to this of course it crushes and goes away to dust and then the cotton wool feeling in my ears spreads elsewhere.

Then I am lying on my back with water running down my chin and a sensation of hush all round.

I try to sit up and something stops me. Someone murmurs soft nothings that fail to make sense.

I keep quiet till I have it sorted and then I figure I have fainted clean away.

Me, Lizzie Lee.

* * *

I sit up and find I am on a couch in a sort of backroom and there are faces all round. Half of them seem knocked out of shape or with knobs on, bashed recently ore previous.

The faces all jostle and I hear they are telling those behind She is sitting up! and the glad news getting passed along.

Someone pushes through the faces carrying a tray with food for six, I deduce they think I fainted from hunger or something.

I would put them right on this when I realize the feeling in my middle is because I last ate ten hours ago.

I weigh in and they appear pleased by this.

So I feel an explanation is owed them and I tell them my Dad is in hospital with an accident, you would not think they could get so upset about a perfect stranger, sure this will not last but it is genuine feeling just now for all that.

There is more buzzing and a kind of rustle and I find they are taking up a collection.

I am horrified, I cry No, no, they are very kind but I truly cannot accept.

And they think this is proper pride or something, they start to mutter again and someone says Well then no need to worry, Knotty will give me a job as long as I need it, won’t he? Knotty is in the crowd somewhere, seems he is keeper of this pub. He seems to agree and I figure out he’d better.

I do not see why they are so sure I am indigent until I happen to glance down. I am still in my work evercleans I was wearing when Dad got hurt; also it breaks on me suddenly this is the worst quarter of the town no girl would come here if she could afford to be elsewhere, even then not into the Royal Arms unless full of sweet innocence or something.

And I cannot speak.

When a bunch of strangers are mooning over your problems because you are a poor young thing you cannot tell them you walked in to look for a fight.

Truly, I could swear out loud.

In two shakes of a vibrator they have it fixed, Knotty will give me a job as long as I need one and I can have a room above the pub and at least fifty husky miners have sworn a personal guarantee no one within miles will lift a finger in any way I could not wish.

So what can I do?

I thank them and I walk out into the bar and when I get there I find the laws of human nature are not wholly suspended, there is a fight going on.

My bodyguard behind me gives a concerted roar and the fight stops and they look sheepish at me.

It is so clear that they expect me to look shocked and sorrowful that I cannot help it, this is just what I do.

I ask the cause of the fight and they shuffle and the bigger one says he is very sorry and would like to apologize Miss.

It turns out he has come in since I arrived and wished to get drunk with the minimum delay, the assembled party tell him Damsel in distress back of the bar and he says to hell with that, she is probably faking it anyway; he see this was error and regrets it very much.

And I have to make a production over forgiveness, he will never believe me unless I do.

So I am stuck.

* * *

You think all this will wear off in a day or too? Brother, so do I. At first, that is. But it does not. I have reformed the place overnight.

I begin to think getting drunk each night and working it off by fighting are not really their personal choice, all they need is a little stimulus to snap them out of it such as the influence of a good woman maybe and looks like I am elected.

I get so busy listening to assorted troubles and soothing fights before they come to the boil, apart from any job Knotty can give me such as putting glasses in the washer and dishing the drinks, I hardly have time to think about Dad except at the hospital each day.

He is dead out for seven days just like they said, while the blood clots get loose from his brain; also they set his ribs and arm and tack up things inside. My miner friends all cheer me up they say This is a good hospital and tell me all the times they have been put together again themselves, I say Oh and Ah so often I am quite tired it seems to please them anyway.

Then Dad comes awake.

He does not do it while I am there of course, but I am allowed to sit with him two hours the day after, they have shifted him out of the tank into a proper bed, and taken the plumbing away. Towards the end while I am there he comes round and says Hello Liz how have you been?

And I want to cry but I am damned if I will, I say, I am fine. And he is already asleep again.

I ring home like I do every day. Charlie is out so I leave a message, then I go back to the pub. I feel truly I could sing all the way, I do not notice until Knotty says so that I am singing anyway. Knotty is in a sour mood but when I tell him about Dad he fetches out half a smile and says will I be leaving them?

I say No Dad has another one month and twenty one days in hospital to go.

At this his face falls under three gravities and he says All very well for me. I say why? can he not afford to pay me?

He says what troubles him is the pub. Since I came liquor drinking is down two fifths, if anybody starts to get drunk the rest stop him in case something occurs to sully my pure girlish mind, it becomes clear that to Knotty this sobriety is not pleasing at all.

Well it is far from being my wish either, at least I think that at first then I think again Do I really want my pals back to the old routine drunk every night dead drunk Friday to Monday? This do-gooding is insidious stuff.

I go on thinking about it when I have time, this is not often because the boys are so pleased to hear Dad is better they allow each other to get quite lit, I have to head off one row after another.

I begin to think anyway this situation cannot last long, the pressure is building up visibly something is going to blow they need outlets for aggression and getting none just now. Also I must do something for Knotty. I could tell him Dad will pay back his losses but Knotty’s head is solid bone; if I once got into it I am not a dear little down-and-out, he would let it out again at the diagrammatic wrong time.

Things have got to end but they have got to end tidy with no hard feelings, I shall need help for this.

* * *

I got out that night as soon as Knotty is in bed and get to a public visiphone. I dial home, never mind it is one in the morning I want Uncle Charlie.

What I get is Buffalo Cole looking sleepy, he lets out the yip he learned from an old stereo and asks where I am and where I have been so long and so loud I cannot tell him for quite a while.

Then he tells me Charlie is here in Town.

He has assumed I am staying at the Hospital. They phoned today as usual, he asked for me and found I was somewhere on my own; he busted into town straight off like a kor calf into a corn field and been hunting for me all over tearing out hair in bunches.

He is staying with a friend the far side of town, I ring.

Brother.

Now he has found me he has no wish to talk to me I am to stay in the visiphone booth and not move till called for well I suppose I can wiggle my ears if I like.

Charlie arrives in a heli four minutes later and mad enough to burn helium, he gives me the kind of character my pals sketch for each other when I am not supposed to be by.

He is not interested in excuses, he will get me out of whatever mess I am in for my father’s sake; I will come to a bad end some day but I can have the grace to keep it till the old man is on his feet again.

I have learned something these last few days, I do not yell back. I say I have been very foolish and I need advice.

Do not think this fools him but he is taken aback slightly. I get something said before he recovers and in the end I tell the whole thing hardly interrupted at all.

At the end he gives me a peculiar look like when one of his hatcharia gave birth to a parrot and says nothing at all.

I say Look Charlie my idea is this; he says Liz your ideas are the start of this trouble in the first place, you have been getting ideas ever since I knew them and every one worse than the one before, just let me think about this.

Then he says Well if you leave without explanations I suppose we will have these desperate characters hunting for you all over Town and if the truth gets out there will be a rumpus because of that, I guess you better go back there for tonight anyway, but how are you going to get back in?

I say I have a key, does he think I crawled out the window? From his look I rather gather he does, Men are children at heart.

All the same I go back quietly and sleep like a tombstone.

* * *

In the morning I see Charlie at the hospital and he says he has an idea but seems he prefers to sit on it and see how it will hatch, I do not tell him what I think of this.

Then Dad wakes and says a few words and things look brighter and afterwards Charlie swears he has a real idea how I can get out of this without any hurt feelings, it just needs a but more work on it.

I go back to the Arms thinking my troubles are half over, Brother what error, this is where they begin.

That evening I am chinning to some types who cut up yesterday, I tell them how shocked I am how surprised how sad because they have backslid, they are always sure I feel like this. If I do not say it they get upset because they suppose my feelings too deep for words; I can do this sort of thing no hands now.

Just the same it takes some concentration, when the stranger comes in I hardly notice him at all.

He is a tall chap in the usual evercleans with filter mask over his shoulder, all that is strange is I have not seen him before, men stick to their own pubs as a rule.

He slides into a corner and swaps words with the regulars and I forget him altogether.

The clock strikes twelve, two hours to midnight closing, enter a tall dark stranger.

Short hair and big shoulders and the face that launched the campaign for Great Outdoors Shampoo, maybe twenty-two years old, he takes a quick look round and I guess he does not think much of the place.

Well he should have seen it a week ago, now there is only one single juke box going and people are just chatting over drinks, not a fight in the place.

He comes up to the bar and taps someone on the shoulder to make way; try touching someone a fortnight back and stand well clear! This time the fellow stops his fist before it goes six inches and then moves over an inch or two and I am face to face with the stranger over the gap.

He looks at me and registers more surprise than I thought his face could hold, I say What are you drinking sir?

He swallows hard and says Beer please; something is displeasing him like mad but I cannot see how it is me.

I give him his beer and he gives me an unloving look and moves away, he horns in on one of the gatherings and starts to chat.

I am busy but I keep an eye on him and it seems to me the chat is getting too emphatic for health, I beckon over a miner called Dogface and ask what goes on.

He says That character been annoying you Liz? I say No is he annoying anyone else? Dogface says he asks too many damn questions someone will paste him any minute now.

I sign for another miner called Swede; these two are the steadiest around; I say Ride herd on this character and keep him out of trouble.

They say How? I say get into conversation and stop him talking to anyone who is prone to get mad.

They look doubtful so I tell them to talk to him, he is asking questions well tell him answers, tell him about life on Excenus you can see he is a fresh-out Terrie, tell him about mining; that will be instructive for him.

Next time I look Dogface and Swede are one on each side of him talking away, the other types have all drifted off.

* * *

The stranger stays for an hour and they stick by him all the while, when he leaves no one has laid a finger on him, I have done a good deed this day. Dogface and Swde say they never knew they had so much to talk about, just the same the stranger did not look grateful to me.

Next day I go to the hospital as usual wondering if Charlie has hatched his idea.

Halfway there I feel eyes on the back of my neck. I look round and there he is again, the tall dark stranger I mean.

He strides up and says he wants to speak to me.

His tone is such that I think of Buffalo’s judo trick but he looks the type to brush it off with a careless reflex, I could wish there were more people around.

I say What about?

He says I know damned well what about, this is poaching and he will not stand for it, he will complain to something I do not catch.

I say he must be thinking of somebody else.

He sizzles behind his teeth and says I need not think I can get out of it by playing innocent because he will be able to trace me perfectly well. I obviously come from that establishment for muddy minded morons Pananthropic Institute of Social Research; everybody knows Excenus is Russet’s field-work place and no other school would crash it, let alone horning in on a practical that way.

Furthermore the dodge I am using was corny in the Ark or earlier.

I am much perplexed but more angry and ask what is he proposing to do?

He says Don’t worry I will find out later, I can guess he does not know either; but before I can say so he goes striding away.

I walk on getting madder as I go, this mystery on top of everything else is enough to drive me round the fourth dimension, and he will catch on to his mistake and I shall never hear it explained; however when I arrive I forget him because Dad is awake and fit for talking to.

Several times I wonder Shall I tell him the whole thing? but he is still sick, this is no time to tell him I am serving in a bar in the toughest part of the town.

We talk quietly about the farm and plans for the next year and things we did when I was little, all of a sudden I want to cry.

Then Charlie comes. One visitor at a time I have to go, Charlie needs some instructions about the farm.

I think I will go out and walk around, I do not like waiting in the hospital they think women belong some other place. I am halfway down the outside steps when there is a shadow over me and a voice says Excuse me, Miss Lee?

I turn and stare.

Brother what is this, are they making a stereo on Excenus, this is the handsomest man I ever came across. He makes the one this morning look like a credit for twenty all from one mold, I am certain I never saw him before.

He says We met last night though that was hardly an introduction, he is glad of an excuse to make my acquaintance now.

I think No this cannot be, yes it is, this is the gink I hardly noticed last night; same face same voice same hands and I never looked at him twice, how in Space is it done?

Brother, he called me Miss Lee!

I say there must be some mistake and turn toward the hospital again.

He says the hospital clerk told him my name and he saw me come out of the Royal Arms this morning.

Sing Hey for the life of a hunted fawn, now I am good and mad, just crazy. He says he thinks a talk would be mutually profitable, what I think is something quite different and I say it out loud. He has a way of doing things with his eyebrows to look amused, men have been killed for less.

He says What would the clientele of the Royal Arms think of that?

I say what the hell is that to him?

He says he will be delighted to explain if I will give him the opportunity but this is hardly a suitable place to talk.

There are no suitable places and I tell him so.

He says he has a helicar there, if I would care to drive it anywhere I like he will give me the key.

* * *

I begin to see what will happen if this specimen opens his face to Knotty and Co; I must know what his game is; I say O.K.

We are just getting into the heli when the air is sundered, Liz! here is Uncle Charlie and my reputation in pieces again.

He charges across and my companion says, Mr. Blair? which is Charlie’s name though I hardly remember, and he hands over a card which a name and some words on it.

Charlie reads it and looks baffled but not mad any longer.

I sneak a look at it, it says D. J. M’Clare and a string of initials, Russet Interplanetary College of Humanities, Earth, it has Department of Social Engineering in little letters lower down.

Charlie says Liz what in Space are you doing now?

M’Clare says he has to make Miss Lee a rather complicated apology, this being no place to do which he has suggested a ride, it will be much better if Mr. Blair will come along too.

I do not know how it is done but ten seconds later Charlie is inviting him for a drink to the house where he is staying and I am tagging along behind.

The house is close to the hospital and well to do all right the air is humidified right through, I never cared for alcohol much and I am more tired of the smell; when Charlie has done bustling with drinks M’Clare begins.

He says he understands Miss Lee had an encounter this morning with his pupil Douglas Laydon.

I say Great whirling nebulae not the lunatic who called me a poacher? He says Very likely, Laydon came here to do a practical test and finding I had anticipated him was somewhat upset.

He explains that students in Cultural Engineering have a field work test after two years, this one had to make a survey of the principal factors leading to violence and try out short-term methods for abating some in a selected portion of the community on Excenus 23 namely the Royal Arms pub.

M’Clare says Excenus 23 is a very suitable spot for this kind of field work, the social problems stay constant but the population turns over so fast they are not likely to catch on.

Charlie nods to show he gets this, I get it too and start to be angry, not just mad but real angry inside, I say You mean that dumbbell came out here to push people around just for the exercise?

He says field work is an essential part of the course for a Cultural Engineering degree, I say Hell and hokum nobody has any right to interfere with people just for practice, he says Not everybody possesses your natural technique Miss Lee.

I say Look that is different, I was not trying to find out what makes people tick then fiddle with the springs and think I done something clever.

Charlie says Shut Up Liz.

This man does not believe me, well I did not start this one purpose but now I remember all the times I listened to someone tell me his troubles and thought What a good girl I am to listen to this poor sucker, how wise how clever how well I understand; I do not like thinking this.

Then I find Charlie has started to tell M’Clare the whole thing.

I will say for Charlie he tells it pretty fair, he does understand why I cannot just let my pals find out I have fooled them, whatever he may have said; but why does he want to tell it to this character will not see it at all?

Then he says Well Professor, if I understand what Cultural Engineering stands for this is a problem right in your line, I would very much welcome advice.

* * *

M’Clare says nothing and Charlie says it is a very minor matter of course, M’Clare says There he does not agree.

He says if these tough types caught on their their dear little down and out was really rich it would not stop at personal unpleasantness, the whole relation between the mining and farming communities might well be upset.

I would like to sneer but cannot because it is perfectly true, Dad is pretty rich and has a big effect on local affairs; if the miners think his daughter been slumming around making fools of them no knowing what comes after.

M’Clare says However it should be easy enough to fix things so no one can catch on.

Charlie says it is not so simple, Liz has to be got away where no one will chase after her; fortunately very few people in Town are in a position to recognize her, but where can she go now.

I say Look that is easy give me a job on the farm.

Charlie says Suppose they take a fancy to visit you, you think Buffalo Cole is going to remember you are the hired help came here last Tuesday? That is the one place you can be certain someone will give you away.

Besides just as present they know your name but have not connected it with Farmer Lee. No, Liz we have to get you a job as companion or something to someone here in Town, a respectable woman the miners will keep right away from.

I say Charlie there are maybe three respectable women in Town; if you park me on one all my pals will come round to make sure I have not hired into a brothel by mistake. How will your lady friend care for that? Charlie says What worries him is where to find a woman anyone could believe had voluntarily saddled herself with a hellcat like me.

M’Clare makes a little cough and Charlie says What does he think?

M’Clare says our solutions are too prosaic and too partial, this is a classic example of the fauntleroy situation and should be worked out as such.

I say What the hell is a fauntleroy?

He says this means a situation in which one younger and apparently weaker person exerts influence over a group of adults by appealing to their protective instincts.

Appeal hell! he says Unintentionally, no doubt. He says the situation can only be properly resolved if the subject appears to be in no further need of protection against the trouble, whatever it may be, in this case financial.

Charlie says You mean we should tell them Liz has come into money and moved to a hotel?

M’Clare says that again would be only a partial solution, he thinks it would be better if Little Orphan Liz and her sick father were rescued by a Rich Uncle arriving next Wednesday from Earth.

Charlie says Why is Liz short of money if she has a rich uncle ready to assist? M’Clare says he is also a long-lost uncle only recently made his pile and just managed to trace the one remaining relative he has looked for ever since.

I say Why is this better than, he died and left me the cash? He says Money for nothing morally unsatisfactory and a bad ending, this way you give something in return; also your lonely uncle can take you and your father straight off to Earth and leave nothing for anyone to ask questions about.

I do not believe anyone will swallow this hunk of cereal, too convenient all round.

* * *

According to M’Clare that does not matter, it is the right kind of improbably event for this situation. My pals will think it quite right and proper for their little ray of sunshine to be snatched up into unearned affluence and cheer the declining years of her rich relative and bring him together with his estranged brother-in-law; right ending to the situation Statistical probability irrelevant to the workings of Destiny.

Charlie says Where will we find an uncle? He himself is too well known, to hire an actor means going off the planet. M’Clare says as it happens he has to leave the planet this afternoon and will be returning next Wednesday himself.

Charlie says You mean you’d do it? That’s really wonderful what do you say Liz? What I want to say is, I will not have this cultural corkscrew add himself to my family, but the lemonade tangles in my epiglottis; people have died that way but Do they care?

M’Clare says of course he must get Mr. Lee’s permission for this masquerade, I just thought of that one now I am left with nothing to say except Hellanhokum I ought to be back at the bar.

I do not trust M’Clare one angstrom I could see he was thinking of something else this whole time, probably What interesting opportunities for field work if the whole thing got given away; if Dad is really over his concussion he will put a stopper on the whole thing.

Does he hell!

Charlie takes M’Clare along, never mind visiting hours are over, they spill the whole thing to Dad before the professor catches his ship.

Well I will say they made a job of it. When I go along in the morning absolutely no bites in the furniture, Dad is still weakened of course.

He says Liz, girl, you are as crazy as a kor-calf, you got as much sense as a shortened servo, the moment I take my eyes off you you stir up more trouble than a barrel of hootch on a dry planet. It is a long time since I was surprised at anything you do; here he goes off into ancient history that is not relevant to this affair.

This business, he says, has put the triple tungsten-plated tin top on it, even you must know what could have happened to you going into a place like that, Liz girl how could you do such a thing?

I say Dad I know it was crazy but you have it all wrong, miners may be tough but those types were real good to me.

He says Liz your capacity to fall on your feet is what scares me the worst of all, one of these days the probabilities will catch up with you all in one go. Look at this Professor M’Clare probably the one man in the Universe would know how to get you out of this with no-one catching on, and he turns up here and now.

Well I was all set to get out myself with Charlie helping, but it seems to soothe Dad to think about M’Clare so I let him. That smoothy put himself over all right.

It develops where he has gone is Magnus 9 in the next system to let an examinee loose on some suckers there; he has left a list of instructions with Charlie, and Dad says I am to order myself according to these and not dare to breathe unless so directed.

They are all about what I am to do and say, Charlie stands over me while I learn them by heart, he does not seem to trust me but Hellanall does he think I want to fluff in the middle of a script like this?

* * *

Tuesday evening is when the scene starts, my pals ask What is on my mind they hope my old man is not worse is he?

I say I have had a message from a ship just coming within communicator distance and is landing tomorrow. I am to meet someone, whose name got scrambled, at the Space Gate at five thirty a.m.; I cannot think who this can be and it worries me a little Dad has so many troubles already.

At this my pals look grim and say If it is debts I can count on them and if it is anything else I can still count on them, I feel ashamed again.

Five thirty is a horrible time to start. I am yawning and chilled through, the night breeze is still up and dust creeping in among the long pylon shadows in little puffed whirlwinds; the three ships down on the field got their hatches down and goods stacked round and look broken and untidy.

First a little black dot in the sky then bigger and bigger covering more and more stars, it does not seem to come nearer but only to spread, then suddenly a great bulging thing with light modeling its under side and right over head, I want to duck.

It swings across a little to the nearst pylons. They jerk and the arms come up with a clang, reaching after the ship. There is a flash and bang as they make contact just under the gallery where it bulges, then a long slow glide as they fold and she comes down into place like a grasshopper folding its legs.

I find my breath hitched up, I take a deep lungful of cold morning dust and start coughing.

My pals rally around and pat me on the back.

I thought there were only three present but there seem to be more, I cannot see the passengers get off until half are into the Gate, M’clare is not in sight hell did he not see me perhaps he has ditched me.

They speaker system make with a crack like splitting rocks and says Will Miss Lee believed to be somewhere around the Gate come to the manager’s office at once please?

I take another deep breath more carefully.

My pals seem to think it is sinister, I now have seven on the premises and they wish to come too. In the end they elect Swede and Dogface bodyguards and the rest wait outside.

I cannot remember one single word I ought to say.

In the office is a man in uniform and another one not, I guess I look blank but not as blank as I feel the human face could hardly, how has he done it this time?

It was several seconds before I recognized him at all. He looks older and kind of worn you would guess he had a hardish life and certainly not cultured at all.

I say I was called for, my name is Lee.

He says slowly, Yes, he thinks he would have known me, I am very like my mother, and he calls me Elizabeth.

Every word is clean out of my head, fortunately my pals take over and wish to know how come?

M’Clare looks at them with a frown and says neither of them is James Lee, surely?

I say No they are friends of mine, does he mean he is my mother’s brother because I thought he was dead?

This is not the right place for that the script is gone to Coalsack already.

M’Clare says Yes he really is John M’Clare, he brings out papers to prove it. My friends give them the once over several times and seem to be satisfied, then they want to know sternly Why had he not helped us before?

M’Clare brings out letters from a tracing firm that cover two years and a bit, I will say he is a worker he has vamped all this stuff in three days with other things to do, I suppose Cultural Engineering calls for forgery once in a while.

My pals seem satisfied.

I say Why was he looking for us seeing he and Dad never got along? This is the script as originally laid down.

M’Clare alters the next bit ad lib and I don’t take it in but it goes over with my pals all right, they tell him all about Dad’s accident which they think happened prospecting, and about me and the bar; just then in comes M’Clares acquaintance well to do in business locally meaning Uncle Charlie, apologizing for being late though M’Clare told him how late to be.

My pals shuffle and say Well Miss Lee you will not want us now.

I say what is this Miss Lee stuff you have been calling me Lizzie for weeks. I had to tell them my name or they will call Bubbles or something.

M’Clare says he has a great deal to discuss with his niece and Dad, not to mention Charlie, but he wants to hear all my doings and I will want to tell all my friends; maybe if he calls around to the Royal Arms in the evening they will be there?

They shuffle but seem gratified, they go.

* * *

Charlie sits down and the manager goes and Charlie says Whew! I sit down and do not say anything at all.

Well Knotty will be pleased to get rid of me that is one life brightened anyway.

I do not want another day like that one, six hours doing nothing in a hotel. I see Dad about five minutes, he uses up the rest of the visitor’s time with M’Clare or Charlie in and me out, then Charlie flies back home to get something or other and I want to go too, I want to go home! I will never come to this town again, I can’t anyway until my pals have all left the planet. I wish all this lying were over.

Evening M’Clare and I go out to the bar.

Knotty had a letter from me all about it and of course everyone knows, minute we get inside the door I see everybody is worked up and ready to fight at the drop of a hint, fauntleroy situation or not if they think my rich uncle is trying to snoot them all the trouble missed during the last fortnight will occur at one go.

Then M’Clare spots Dogface and Swede at the back of the crowd and says Hello, five minutes later it is drinks all round and everything Joblock smooth, I could not have done it better myself.

Then he is making a speech.

It is all about Kindness to dumb creatures meaning me, I do not listen but watch the faces, judging by them he is doing good. I hear the last words something about Now he has found his niece and her father he does not want to lose sight of them and his brother-in-law has consented the whole family goes back to Earth in two days’ time.

It occurs to me suddenly How am I going to get off the ship? They have found some sick cuss wants to get to Earth and will play my Dad ten minutes to get a free passage, but my pals are bound to turn up to see me off how am I to slip away?

Then I stop thinking because Dogface says slowly So this is the end, hey Liz?

And someone else says Well it was good while it lasted.

And I cry, I put my head down on the table among the drinks and cry like hell, because I am deceitful and they are kind to me and I wish I could tell the truth for a change.

Someone pats me on the back and shoves a disposable into my hand, I think it is one of my pals till I smell it; nobody bought this on Excenus! I am so surprised I wad it up and it goes to dust so I have to stop crying right away.

I even manage to say Good-by and I will never forget them. They say they will never forget me.

We say about ten thousand goodbyes and go.

* * *

Next day the hospital say Dad overtired, they have sedated him, seems he was half the night talking to M’Clare and Charlie what the hell were they thinking of to let him? My uncle will call for me. I expect Charlie what I get is M’Clare.

We are to go shopping buying some clothes for me to wear on Earth, it seems to me this is carrying realism too far but I do not want any more time in the hotel with nothing to do.

Fortunately the tailoring clerk does not know me, we have a machine out at the farm; he takes a matrix and slaps up about ten suits and dresses; they will be no use here at all, no place for condensers or canteen I cannot even give them away.

However I am not bothered so much about that, M’Clare is all the time trying to get me to talk, he says for instance Have I ever thought about going to College? I say Sure, I count my blessings now and then.

We are somehow on the topic of education and what teaching have I had so far? I say Usual machines and reels, I want to get off this so I start to talk about Excenus he cannot compete there. I tell him about our manners, customs, morals, finance, farming, geography, geology, mining of areopagite, I am instructive right back to the hotel I hope now he has had enough of it.

In the evening they let me see Dad.

They say You really ought not to be allowed in he has had his quota of visitors today already, I say Who? But need I ask, it was Mr. M’Clare.

The nurse says I am allowed to see Dad because he refuses to go to sleep until he has told me something, but I must be careful not to argue it will retard his recovery if he gets excited again.

Dad is dead white and breathing noisy but full of spirit, the nurse says You may have five minutes and Dad says No-one is rationing his time for him when he is ready he will ring. The nurse is a sturdy six-footer and Dad is five foot four, they glare it out. Dad wins in the end.

Well I intend to keep it down to five minutes myself, I say Hello Dad what cooks?

He says Lizzie girl what do you think of this M’Clare?

I think quite a number of things but I say He is very clever, I think.

Dad says Sure he is clever, Professor at a big college on Earth gets students from all the planets in the known volume, I been talking to him and he says you have a flair.

I say Huh?

Dad says I have a flair for this cultural engineering business, Professor M’Clare told him so.

I say Well I promised you already I will keep it under control in future.

Dad starts to go red and I say Look two minutes gone already, what did you want to tell me? say it straight, and he says Going to send you to college, girl.

I say What!

Dad says Liz, Excenus is no place for a young girl all her life. Time you seen some other worlds and I cannot leave the farm and got no one have an eye to you, now M’Clare says he will get you into this College and that is just what I need.

I say But—!

Dad says They got schools on Earth for kids like you, been on an outback planet or education restricted other ways, they are called Prelim schools; well you got the Rudiments already; M’Clare says after three months Prelim you should be fit to get into Russet College of Humanities, he will act as your official guardian while on Earth. Do not argue with me Liz!

The nurse comes back and says I must go in thirty seconds not more, Dad is gray in the face and looks fit to come to pieces, I say All right Dad of course you know best.

He says Kiss me Lizzie, and good-by.

Then the nurse chases me Out.

* * *

This is M’Clare’s doing playing on Dad when he is mixed in the head, he knows damned well this thing is impossible if he were only in his right mind. I go tearing back to the hotel to look for M’Clare.

I find he is out.

I sit there seething one four twenty-seven minutes until he comes in. I say I have to speak to him right now.

I do not know if he is looking bored or amused but it is an expression that should be wiped off with a rag, he says Certainly, can it wait till we reach his room?

We get there and I say Look what is this nonsense you have talked Dad into about taking me to some college on Earth or something? Because it is straight out crazy and if Dad were right in the head he would know.

M’Clare sits down and says, “Really, Lysistrata, what a spoiled young woman you are.”

Who the hell told him, that name is the one thing I really do hold against Dad.

M’Clare goes on that he did not understand at first why my father refused to have me told about the scheme until it was all fixed, but he evidently knew the best way to avoid a lot of fuss.

I say I am not going to leave Excenus.

M’Clare says I cannot possibly avoid leaving Excenus I have got to go on the ship tomorrow haven’t I?

I say then they can send me back by lifeship, he says it is far too late to arrange that now.

He says he officially my guardian from the moment we leave the planet and he cannot allow me to travel alone, reason for all this rush is so he can see me to College himself, What is the matter with me don’t I want to see the World anyway?

Sure, some time, but I don’t have to go to College for that.

M’Clare says that is my mistake, Earth had such a rush of sight-seers from the Out Planets entrance not permitted any more except on business, only way I can get there is as a student except I might marry an Earthman some day. I say Hell I would rather go to College than that.

Just the same when I have had enough of it I am coming straight back home.

M’Clare says I will do no such thing.

Great whirling nebulae he cannot keep me on Earth if I want to go!he says Pn the contrary he has no power to do anything else, my father appointed him my guardian on condition I was to do a four-year course at Russet. Of course if I am determined to return to Excenus home and Dad rather than make the effort to adjust myself to an environment where I have not got everyone secretly under my thumb there is an easy way out, I have to take a Prelim test in three months and if I fail to make it no power on Earth could get me into Russet, and he would have to send me back home.

We have to start early in the morning so Good night.

I go to my room, if there was anything I could bite holes in that is what I would do.

I will pass that exam if it takes twenty-eight hours a day, no this is to be on Earth well all the time that they have; I will get into M’Clane’s class and make him Sorry he interfered with me.

What does he think I am? Dad too, he would have sent me to school long ago except we both knew I would never make the grade.

I am the next thing to illiterate, that’s why.

Oh, I can read in a way, I can pick up one word after another as they come up in the machine, but I cannot use it right; Dad is the same.

Dad used to think it was because he learned to use it too late, then when I was old enough to learn he found I was the same, some kink in the genes I suppose. Both of us, we cannot read with the machine any faster than an old-style book.

I did not know this was wrong until I was eleven. Dad hid the booklet came with the machine then one day I found it, part of it says like this:

“It has sometimes been suggested that the reading rate should be used as a measure of general intelligence. This is fallacious. The rate at which information can be absorbed, and therfore the rate at which words move across the viewer, is broadly correlated with some aspects of intelligence, but not with all. Mathematicians of genius tend to read slower than average, and so do some creative artists. All that can safely be said that people of normal intelligence have reading rates somewhere above five thousand and that it is exceptional for anyone to pass the ten thousand mark; the few who do are usually people of genius in a narrowly specialized field.”

My reading rate is so low the dial does not show, I work out with a stop watch it is eight hundred or thereabouts.

I go and ask Dad; it is the first time he let me see him feeling bad, it is all he can do to talk about it all all, he keeps telling me it is not so bad really he got on all right and he cannot read properly any more than me; he shows me those old books of his all over again.

After this we do not talk about it and I do not want to talk about it now. Not to anyone at all.

That is the longest night I remember in my life, nineteen years of it.

* * *

In the morning we got to the Gate. My pals are there seeing me off, I do not cry because I have just found something makes me so mad I am just waiting to get in the ship and say what I think to M’Clare.

Then we go into the ship.

I cannot say anything now we have to strap in for takeoff. The feeling is like being in a swing stopped at the top of its beat. I cannot help waiting for it to come down, but after a bit I grasp we are up to stay and get unhitched.

In the corridor is a crewman, he says Hello miss not sick? I say Ought I to be?

He asks am I an old traveler? When I say First time up he makes clicking noises like I am clever or lucky or both.

We are getting acquainted when I feel eyes on my backbone and there is M’Clare.

M’Clare says Hello, Lizzie, not sick?

I say I do not have to pretend he is my uncle any more and I prefer to be called Miss Lee, I will not have a person like him calling me Lizzie or in fact anything else, as of now we are not speaking any more.

He raises an eyebrow and says Dear him. I start to go but he hooks a hand round my arm and says What is all this about?

I say I have been talking to that poor sucker come out of hospital and pretending to be my Dad. He is a heart case and thinks he will be cured when he gets to Earth able to get around like anyone else, I know if he could be cured on Earth he could be cured on Excenus just as well, he will simply have to go on lying in bed and not even anyone he knows around, it is the dirtiest trick I ever knew.

Well he is not smiling now any way.

He asks have I told the man he will not be cured I say What does he take me for?

He says I could answer that but I won’t. You are quite right in thinking that it would do very little good to take a man with a diseased heart to Earth, but as it happens he will not be going there at all.

Close to Earth, M’Clare goes on, there is a body on the Moon with approximately one-eighth the gravitational pull, there is a big sanatorium on it for men like this one, the rare case not curable by operation or drugs: and if he cannot live a quite normal life he will at least be able to get out of bed and probably some sort of job, this has been explained to him and he seems to think it good enough.

Sweet spirits of sawdust I have heard of that sanatorium before, why does the deck not open and swallow me up.

I say I am sorry, M’Clare says Why?

I say I am sorry I spoke without making sure of the facts.

I do not beg his pardon because I would not have it on a plate.

M’Clare says my uncle gave him a letter to deliver to me when the ship was under way, he shoves it in my hand and goes away.

It is written with Dad’s styler, he fell on it during the accident and the L went wobbly, what it says is this.

__

Dear Liz,

About this college, I know you said I know best but did not mean it at all, just the same I reckon I do. You got to look at it another way. When they got the readers out at my old school and found I could not use them they reckoned I was no good for learning, but they were wrong. There is more to being educated than just books or you could sit and read them at home.

You and I are handicapped same way so we have to use our heads to get over it. All that is in books came out of somebody’s head, well you and I just got to use our own instead of other people’s. Of course there is facts but a lot of books use the same facts over and over, I found that when I started to study.

There is another thing for you, they told me at school I would never be any good for studying but I reckon I did all right.

It is high time you saw some other worlds than this one but I would not send you to College if I did not think you could get through. M’Clare says you have this Flair. We will look forward to seeing you for years from now, don’t forget to write. Your loving father, J. X. Lee. PS. I got a list of books you will want for Prelim School and Charlie had Information Store copy them, they are in your cabin.

J. X. Lee.

__

Poor old Dad.

Well I suppose I better give it a try, and what’s more I better get on with it.

There are reels in my cabin, a whole box of them it will take me a year to get through, the sooner the quicker I suppose.

I jam one in and sit down in the machine put on the blinkers and turn the switch.

There is the usual warmup, the words slide on slow at first then quicker then the thing goes click and settles down, the lines glide across just fast enough to keep pace with my eyes. I have picked myself something on Terrestrial Biology and Evoluion, I realize suddenly I will be among it in a couple of weeks, lions and elephants and kangaroos; well I cannot stop to think now I have to beat that exam.

Most of those weeks I study like a drain.

They have cut day-length in the ship to twenty-four hours already, I have difficulty sleeping at first but I adjust in the end. Between readings I mooch round and talk to the crew, I am careful not to be the little ray of sunshine but we get on all right. I go and see the man with the sick heart a few times, he wants to know all about the Moon so I read up and relay as well as I can.

It sounds dull to me but compared to lying in bed I can see it is high-voltage thrill.

He thanks me every day for the whole voyage, I keep saying we only did it because we wanted someone to impersonate Dad. I think there ought to be ways for people like him to get enough money to go to the Moon how can you earn it lying in bed? he agrees with this but does not get ideas very much. I think I will write about it to Dad.

We stop at the Moon to put him down but no time to look round, M’Clare had to be back at Russett day before yesterday, I suppose he lost time picking me up; well I did not ask him to.

Dropping to Earth I am allowed maybe half a second in the control-room to look at the screen, I say What is all that white stuff? they say It is raining down there.

More than half of what I see is water and more coming down!

When the Earthbound ask what interests me most on Earth I say All that water and nothing to pay; they do not know what it means getting water out of near-dry air, condensing breath out of doors, humidity suit to save sweat on a long haul: first time on Earth I go for a walk I get thirsty and nearly panic, on Excenus that would mean canteen given out rush fast for the nearest house.

They told me it was raining; all the same when we walk out of the ship I think at first they are washing the field from up above, I stand there with my mouth open to see; fortunately M’Clare is not looking and I come to quite soon.

Seems all this water has drawbacks too, round here they have to carry rainproofing instead of canteens.

I spend three days seeing sights and never turn on a book.

* * *

Prelim school.

Worst is, I do not have a reader of my own now, only reading rooms and I have to keep it private that I read more than two hours a day or someone will catch on and I will be Out before I have a chance to try if what Dad says will work out.

There is more to teaching than books for one thing Class Debates, these are new to me of course but so they are to the others and these I can take. Man to man with my tutor at least I can make him laugh, he says The rugged unpunctuated simplicity of my style of writing is not suited to academic topics even when leavened with polysyllables end of quote, but it is all these books are getting me down.

In the end I get a system, I read the longest reel on each topic and then the other one the author doesn’t like, that way I get both sides to the question.

Three months and the exam; afterwards I keep remembering all the things I should have said till I take a twenty-four hour pill and go to bed till the marking is over.

I wake up and comes a little blue ticket to say I am Through, please report to Russett College in three days for term to begin.

Well, what am I grinning about?

All this means is four years more of the same and M’Clare too added on.

It comes to me as a notion I may not get through Russett term without telling M’Clare all about himself, so I get round and see as much of Earth as I can; more variety than at home.

So then three days are up and here I am in Russett entrance hall with more people than I ever saw in my life at one time.

These are the speaker mechs which are such a feature of Terrestrial life all around the room. One starts up in the usual muted roar like a spacer at a funeral, it says All students for Cultural Engineering Year One gather round please.

This means me.

Cultural Engineering is not a big department, only fifty of us coagulated round this mech but like I said they come in all kinds, there is one I see projecting above the throng so brunet he is nearly purple, not just the hair but all over. What is the matter with him looks like the longest streak of sorrow I ever did see.

Well there are other ways to get pushed into this place than through basic urges thalamic or otherwise, just look at me.

The mech starts again and we are all hanging on what drops from its diaphragm, it says we are to File along corridor G to Room 31 alpha and there take the desk allotted by the monitor and no other.

This we do; even by Terrie standards it is a long hike for indoors.

* * *

I wonder what is a monitor, one of those mechs without which the Earthbound cannot tell which way is tomorrow? Then we are stopped and sounds of argument float back from ahead.

That settles it, Terries do not argue with mechs and I am conditioned already, it is a way to get no place at all; there is someone human dealing with the line.

We go forward in little jerks till I can hear, it is one of those Terrie voices always sound like they are done on purpose to me.

We came round the corner to a door and I can see this Monitor is indeed human or at least so classified.

Here we go, it is only me this could happen to.

Each person says a name and the monitor repeats it to the kind of box he carries and this lights up with figures on it. I wonder why the box needs a human along and then I remember, one hundred twenty four different planets and accidents to match, I guess this is one point where Man can be a real help to Machine.

I am glad I saw him before he saw me: I tell him Lee, L. and he looks at me in a bored way and then does a double take and drops the thing.

I pick it up and say Lee, L. in cultivated tones, it lights up just the same, Q8 which means the desk where I have to sit.

The desks are in pairs. When I track Q8 to its lair Q7 is empty, I sit and wonder what the gremlins will send me by way of partner.

I do not wait long. Here she comes, tall and dark and looksl ike she had brains right down her spinal column, she will have one of those done-on-purpose voices in which I will hear much good advice when the ice breaks in a month or so. Brother this is no place for me.

She looks straight past my shoulder and does not utter while she is sitting down.

I cannot see her badge which is on the other side. She has what looks to me like a genuine imitation kor-hide pouch and is taking styler and block out of it, then she looks at me sideways and suddenly lights all over with a grin like Uncle Charlie’s saying as follows, “Why, are you Lizzie Lee?”

I do not switch reactions fast enough, I hear my voice say coldly that my name is Lee, certainly.

She looks like she stubbed her toe. I realize suddenly she is just a kid, maybe a year younger than I am, and feeling sky. I say quick that I make people call me Lizzie because my real name is too awful to mention.

She lights up again and says So is hers, let us found a society for the Prevention of Parents or something.

Her brooch says B Laydon, she says her first name will not even abbreviate so people here get to call her just B.

I am just round to wondering where she heard my name when she says That stuffed singlet in the doorway is of course her big brother Douglas and she has been wanting to meet me ever since.

Here Big Brother Douglas puts the box under his arm and fades gently away, the big doors behind the rostrum slide open and the clock turns to fourteen hours and Drums and Trumpets here comes Mr. M’Clare.

B Laydon whispers I think Professor M’Clare is wonderful do not you?

Brother.

I know M’Clare is going to deliver the Opening Address of the Year to Cultural Engineering students, it is my guess all such come out of the same can so I take time off for some thought.

Mostly I am trying to decide what to do. Prelim school was tough enough, so this will be tough², is it worth going through just to show M’Clare I can do it?

Sure it is but can I?

I go on thinking these lines, such as what Dad will say if I want to give it up; I just about decided all I can do is wait and see when suddenly it is Time up, clock shows 15.00 hours exactly just as the last word is spoken and Exit M’Clare.

Some thing I will say.

I look round and all the faces suggest I should maybe have listened after all.

B Laydon is wrapt like a parcel or something, then she catches me looking at her and wriggles slightly.

She says We have been allotted rooms together, sharing a study, do I mind it?

I assume this is because we come together in the alphabet and say Why should I?

She says Well. On the form it said Put down anyone you should like to room with and she wrote Miss Lee.

I ask did she do this because mine was the only name she knew or does she always do the opposite of what Big Brother Douglas tells her, she answers Both.

O.K. by me anyway.

Our rooms are halfway up the center tower, when we find them first thing I see is a little ticket in the delivery slot says Miss Lee call on Professor M’Clare at fifteen thirty please.

Guardian or no I have seen him not more than twice since landing which means not more than twice too often; still I go along ready to be polite.

* * *

He lets me sit opposite and looks thoughtful in a way I do not care for.

He says “Well, Miss Lee, you passed your qualifying exam.”

I say Yes because this is true.

He says, it was a very economical performance exceeding the minimum level by two marks exactly.

Hells bells I did not know that, marks are not published, but I swallow hard and try to look as though I meant it that way.

M’Clare says the Admission Board are reluctant to take students who come so close to the borderline but they decided after some hesitation to accept me, as my Prelim Tutor considered that once I settled down as a student and made up my mind to do a little work I should get up to standard easily enough.

He says However from now on it is up to me, I will be examined on this term’s work in twelve weeks’ time and am expected to get at least ten per cent above pass level which cannot be done by neglecting most of the work set, from now on there are no textbooks to rely on.

He presents these facts for my consideration. Good afternoon.

I swagger out feeling lower than sea level.

It is no use feeling sore, I took a lot of trouble to hide the fact that I did a lot of work for that exam, but I feel sore just the same.

The thing I want to do most is get one hundred percent marks in everything just to show him, I got a feeling this is exactly how he meant me to react, because the more I think about it the more sure I am very few things happen by accident around M’Clare.

Take rooming, for instance.

I find very quickly that most people taking Cultural Engineering have not got the partners they put in for, this makes me wonder why B got what she wanted, meaning me.

Naturally the first thing I think of is she has been elected Good Influence, this makes me pretty cagey of course but after a day or two I see I must think again.

B always says she does not look for trouble. This may be true, she is very absent-minded and at first I get the idea she just gets into a scrape through having her mind on something else at the time, but later I find she has Principals and these are at the back of it.

First time I hear about these is three nights after Opening, there is a knock at my bedroom window at maybe three hours. I am not properly awake and do not think to question how somebody can be there, seeing it is five hundred feet up the tower; I open the window and B falls inside.

I am just about ready to conclude I must be dreaming when B unstraps a small antigrav pack, mountaineering type, and says Somebody offered her the beastly thing as a secondhand bargain, she has been trying it out and it doesn’t work.

Of course an antigrav cannot fail altogether. If the space-warp section could break down they would not be used for building the way they are. What has gone wrong is the phase-tuning arrangement and the thing can be either right on or right off but nothing in between.

B says she stepped off the top of the tower maybe an hour ago and got stuck straight away. She stepped a little too hard and got out of reach of the tower parapet. She only picked that night for it because there was no wind, so she had no chance of being blown back again. She just had to turn the antigrav off, a snatch at a tie, and drop little by little until the slope of the tower caught up with her. Then she went on turning it snap on and snap off and kind of slithering down the stonework until she got to about the right floor, and then she had to claw halfway round the building.

B says she was just going to tap at the window above mine and then she saw that frightful Neo-Pueblo statue Old Groucho is so proud of, then she came one farther down and found me but I certainly take plenty of waking.

Well I am wide awake now and I speak to her severely.

* * *

I say it is her career, her neck, neither of them mine, but she knows as well as I do that jumping off the tower is the one thing in this University is utterly forbidden and no Ifs.

B says That’s just because some idiots tried to jump in a high wind and got blown into the stonework.

I say Be that as it may if she had waked up Old Groucho — Professor of Interpenetration Mechanics ninety last week — she would have been expelled straight away, I add further she knows best if it would be worth it.

B says she is a practicing Pragmatist.

This turns out to mean she belongs to a bunch who say Rules are made mostly for conditions that exist only a little bit of the time, e.g. this one about the tower, B is quite right that it is not dangerous except in a high wind — not if you have an antigrav I mean.

B says Pragmatists lead a Full Life because they have to make up their own minds when rules really apply and act accordingly, she says you do not lead a Full Life if you obey a lot of regulations when they are not necessary and it is a Principal of Pragmatism not to do this.

B says further it is because Terries go on and on about obeying regulations unnecessarily that Outsiders think they are Sissy.

I say Huh?

B says it is not her fault she never had any proper adventures.

I remark If her idea of an adventure is to get hauled in front of the Dean why did she not go ahead and wake up Old Groucho instead of me?

B says the adventure is just taking the risk, everybody ought to take some risks now and then and breaking rules is the only one available just now.

This causes me to gawp quite a bit, because Earth seems to me maybe fifteen times as dangerous as any planet I heard of so far.

There are risks on all planets, but mostly life is organized to avoid them. Like back home, the big risk is to get caught without water; there is only about one chance in one thousand for that to happen, but everybody wears humidity suits just the same.

On Earth you get a sample of about all the risks there are, mountains and deserts and floods and the sea and wild animals and poisons, now it occurs to me Terries could get rid of most of them if they really cared to try, but their idea of a nice vacation is to take as many as possible just for fun.

Well later on it occurs to me I should never have understood this about Terries but for talking to B, and I look round and find a lot of the Terries got paired up with Outsiders for roomates and maybe this is why.

I say to B some of what I think about risks and it cheers her up for a moment, but she goes on getting into trouble on Pragmatic Principals just the same.

Me, I am in trouble too but not on principal.

* * *

The work at first turned out not so bad as I expected, which is not to say it was good.

Each week we have a different Director of Studies and we study a different Topic, with lectures and stereos and visits to museums and of course we read Books.

Further we have what are called Class Debates, kind of an argument with only one person speaking at a time and the Director to referee.

Terries say this last is kid stuff, the Outsiders met it mostly in Prelim School if then so they really study hard so as to do good. Next thing you know the Terries are outclassed and trying hard to catch up, so a strenuous time is had by all, I begin to see there is a real thing between the two groups though no one likes to mention it out loud.

Class Debates I do not mind, I been used to arguing with Dad all my life, what gets me is Essays. We do one each week to sum up, and all my sums come wrong.

Reason for this is we get about fifteen books to read every week and are not allowed more than three hours a day with a reading machine, this is plenty for most people but I only get through a quarter of the stuff.

If you only know a quarter of the relevant facts you get things cockeyed and I can find no way around this.

My first essay comes back marked Some original ideas but more reference to actual examples needed, style wants polishing up.

The second has Original!! but what about the FACTS style needs toning down.

More of the same.

After three weeks I am about ready to declare; then I find out B gets assorted beefs written on her essays too and takes it for granted everybody does, she says Teachers always tell you what you do wrong not what you do right, this is Education.

I stick it some more.

I will say it is interesting all right. We are studying Influences on Cultural Trends, of which there are plenty some obvious some not.

Most of the class are looking forward to becoming Influences themselves, we have not been taught how to do this yet but everyone figures that comes next. It seems to me though that whatever you call it it comes down to pushing people around when they are not looking, and this is something I do not approve of more than halfway.

There is just one person in the class besides me does not seem to feel certain all is for the best. This is the dark fellow I noticed on Opening day, six foot six built like a pencil. His name is Likofo Komom’baraze and he is a genuine African; they are rare at Russett because Africans look down on Applied studies, preferring everything Pure. Most of them study Mathematics and Literature and so on at their own universities or the Sorbonne or somewhere, seems he is the first ever to take Cultural Engineering and not so sure he likes it.

There is a bond between us and we become friendly in a kind of way, I find he is not so unhappy as he looks but Africans are proverbially melancholy according to B.

I say to Komo one time that I am worried about the exams, he looks astonished and says But, Lizzie, you are so clever! turns out he thinks this because the things I say in class debates do not some out of any book he knows of, but it is encouraging just the same.

I need the encouragement.

Seventh week of term the Director of Studies is M’Clare.

Maybe it makes not so much difference, but that week I do everything wrong. To start with I manage to put in twice the legitimate time reading for several days, I get through seven books and addle myself thoroughly. In Debates I cannot so much as open my mouth, I am thinking about that Essay all the time, I sit up nights writing it and then tear the stuff up. In the end I guess I just join up bits that I remember out of books and pass that in.

B thinks my behavior odd, but she has caught on now I do not regard M’Clare as the most wonderful thing that ever happened.

* * *

The last debate of the week comes after essays have been handed in, I try to pay attention but I am too tired. I notice Komo is trying to say something and stuttering quite a bit, but I do not take in what it is about.

Next day I run into Komo after breakfast and he says Lizzie why were you so silent all the week?

What we studied this time was various pieces of Terrie history where someone deliberately set out to shape things according to his own ideas, I begin to see why Komo is somewhat peeved with me.

Komo says, “Everybody concentrated on the practicability of the modus operandi employed, without considering the ethical aspects of the matter. I think it is at least debatable whether any individual has the right to try and determine the course of evolution of a society, most of the members of which are ignorant of his intentions. I hoped that the discussion would clear my mind, but nobody mentioned this side of it except me.”

I know why Komo is worried about this, his old man is a Tartar by all accounts has the idea he wants to re-establish a tribal society in Africa like they had five hundred years ago; this is why he send Komo to study at Russett and Komo is only half sold on the idea.

I say “Listen Komo, this is only the first term and as far as I can see M’Clare is only warming up, we have not got to the real stuff at all yet. I think we shall be able to judge it better when we know more about it, also maybe some of the stuff later in the course might be real helpful if you have to argue with your Dad.”

Komo slowly brightens and says “Yes, you are a wise girl, Lizzie Lee.”

Here we meet B and some others and conversation broadens, a minute later someone comes along with a little ticket saying Miss Lee see Professor M’Clane at 11.30 hours please.

Wise girl, huh?

Komo is still brooding on Ethics and the conversation has got on to Free Will, I listen a bit and then say, “Listen folks, where did you hatch? you do what you can and what you can’t you don’t, what is not set by your genes is limited by your environment let alone we were not the first to think of pushing people around, where does the freedom come in?”

They gape and B says Oh but Lizzie, don’t you remember what M’Clare said on Opening Day?

This remark I am tired of, it seems M’Clare put the whole course into that one hour or so Why we go on studying I do not know.

I say No I did not listen and I am tired of hearing that sentence, did nobody write the lecture down?

B gasps and says there is a recording in the library.

* * *

It was quite a speech, I will say.

There is quite a bit about free will. M’Clare says Anyone who feels they have a right to fiddle with other people’s lives has no business at Russett. But there is no such thing as absolute freedom, it is a contradiction in terms. Even when you do what you want, your wants are determined by your mental make up and previous experience. If you do nothing and want nothing, that is not freedom of will, but freedom from will, no will.

But, he says, all the time we are making choices, some known and some not: the more you look the more you see this. Quote, “It has probably not occurred to you that there is an alternative to sitting here until the hour strikes, and yet the forces that prevent you from walking out are probably not insurmountable. I say ‘Probably’ because a cultural inhibition can be as absolute as a physical impossibility. Whatever we do means submitting to one set of forces and resisting others. Those of you who are listening are obeying the forces of courtesy, interest or the hope that I may say something useful in examinations, and resisting the forces that draw your minds on to other things. Some of you may have made the opposite choice. The more we consider our doings the more choices we see, and the more we see the better hope we have of understanding human affairs.”

Here are examples how people often do not make the choice they would really prefer, they are got at for being sissy or something. Or social institutions get in the way even when everyone knows what should be done, Hard cases make bad law and Bad law makes hard cases too. M’Clare says also You are always free to resist your environment, but to do so limits all your choices afterwards, this comes to Make environments so they do not have to be resisted.

There is lots more but this bit has something to do with me, though you may not think so yet.

If I have any choices now, well I can throw my hand in or try to work something out; all I can think of is telling M’Clare how I cannot use a reading machine.

I m not so sure that is a choice, when he said Inhibitions can be absolute, Brother no fooling that is perfectly true.

Right now I can choose to sit here and do nothing or go and get some work done, there is a Balance of forces over that but then I go along to a Reading Room.

I have a long list of books I ought to have read, I just take the first, dial for it and fit it in the machine.

I think, now I can choose to concentrate or I can let my mind go off on this mess I got into it and What Dad is going to say, no one in their senses would choose that last one. I set my chronoscope for twenty past eleven and put the blinkers on.

I switch the machine on, it lights and starts to go.

Then it goes crazy.

What should have warned me, there is no click. There is the usual warm up, slow then faster, but instead of a little jump and then ordinary speed it gets faster and faster and before I realize it I am caught.

It is like being stuck in concrete except this is inside of me, inside my head, and growing, it spreads and pushes, it is too big for my skill it is going to burst

and then I have let out a most almighty yell and torn out of the thing, I find later I left a bit of hair in the blinkers but I am out of it.

There is no one around, I run as though that machine had legs to come after me, I run right out in the campus and nearly crash with a tree, then I put my back to it and start breathing again.

Whatever I have done until now, judging by the feel of my rbs breathing was no part of it.

After a bit I sit down, I still have my back to the tree, I leave thinking till later and just sit.

Then I jump up and yell again.

I have left that crazy machine to itself, someone may sit in it this minute and get driven clean out of their head.

I run back not quite so fast as I came and burst in, someone just sitting down I yell out loud and yank him out of it.

It is a Third Year I do not know, from another class, he is much astonished by me.

I explain.

I guess I make it dramatic, he looks quite scared, meanwhile a small crowd has gathered around the door.

Along comes Doc Beschrievene expert at this kind of machine to see Why breach of the rule of silence in this block.

He trots straight in and starts inspecting the chair, then he says Exactly what happened, Miss Lee?

I say My God I have to see Mr. M’Clare!

I have been scratching my wrist for minutes, I now find the alarm of my chronoscope is trying to make itself felt, once again I am breaking records away from there.

I arrive one minute later but M’Clare has a visitor already so I can even get my breath, I also catch up on my apprehensions about this interview; seem to me the choice is get slung out as a slacker or get slung out as moron and I truly do not know which one I care for less.

Then the visitor goes and I stumble in.

M’Clare has a kind of unusual look, his eyes have gone flat and a little way back behind the lids, I do not get it at first then I suddenly see he is very tired.

However his voice is just as usual, not angry but maybe a little tired too, he says, “Well, Miss Lee, they say actions speak louder than words, and you certainly have given us a demonstration; you’ve made it quite clear that you couldd o the work but you aren’t going to, and while it would be interesting to see if you could gauge the requirements of the examiners so exactly this time I don’t think it would justify the time taken to mark your papers. What do you want to do? Go back to Excenus straight away or take a vacation first?”

I simply do not have anything to say, I feel I have been wrapped and sealed and stuck in the deliver hatch, he goes on, “It’s a pity, I think. I thought when I first saw you there was a brain under that golden mop and it was a pity to let it go to waste. If only there were something that mattered more to you than the idea of being made to do what you don’t want to—”

It is queer to watch someone get a call on a built-in phone, some do a sort of twitch some shut their eyes, M’Clare just lets the focus of his side out through the wall and I might not be there any more, I wish I was not but I have to say something before I go away.

M’Clare has been using a throat mike but now he says out loud, “Yes, come over right away.”

Now he is not tired any more.

He says “What happened to the reading machine, Miss Lee?”

I say “It went crazy.” Then I see this is kid’s talk, but I have no time to put learned words into it, I say “Look. You know how it starts? There is a sort of warm up and then a little click and it settles down to the right speed? Well it did not happen. What I think, the governor must have been off or something, but that is not all—it got quicker and quicker but it did something else—look I have not the right expression for it, but it felt like something opened my skull and pasting things on the convolutions inside.”

He has a look of wild something, maybe surprise maybe just exasperation, then Doc Beschrievene comes in.

He says “Miss Lee, if it was a joke, may we call it off? Readers are in short supply.”

I say if I wanted to make a joke I would make it a funny one.

M’Clare says, “Ask Miss Lee to tell you what happens when you start the reader.

Beschrievene says, “I have started it! I connected it up and it worked quite normally.”

Now the thing has gone into hiding, it will jump out on someone else like it did on me, I have no time to say this; M’Clare says “Tell Dr. Beschrievene about the reader.”

I say “It started to go too fast and then—”

He says Start at the beginning and tell what I told before.

I say “When you sit in a reader there is normally an initial period during which the movement of the words becomes more rapid, then there is a short transitional period of confusion and then the thing clicks audibly and the movement of the words proceeds at a set rate, this time—”

Here Doc gives a yell just like me and jumps to his feet.

M’Clare says What was I reading in the machine?

I do not see what that has to do with it but I tell him, then he wants to know what I remember of it and where it stopped.

I would not have thought I remembered but I do, I know just where it had go to, he takes me backwards bit by bit—

Then I begin to catch on.

M’Clare says “What is your usual reading rate, Liz?”

I swallow hard, I say “Too low to show on the dial, I don’t know.”

He says “Is your father handicapped too?”

I lift my head again, I am going to say that is not his business, then I say Yes instead.

He says “And he feels badly about it? Yes, he would. And you never told anybody. Of course not!” I do not know if it is scorn or anger or what. Beschrievene is talking to him in a language I do not know, M’Clare says Come along to the reading room.

The chair has its back off, M’Clare plugs in a little meter lying on the floor and says “Sit down, Liz.”

There is nothing I want less than to sit in that chair, but I do.

M’Clare says, “Whether or not you have a repetition of your previous experience is entirely up to you. Switch it on.”

I am annoyed at his tone, I think I will give that switch a good bang, I feel I have done it too.

But the light does not go on.

M’Clare says patiently, “Turn on, please, Miss Lee.”

I say “You do it.”

Beschrievene says, “Wait! There is no need to demonstrate, after all. We know what happened.”

Then M’Clare’s fingers brush over mine and turn the switch.

I jump all over, the thing warms up and then click! there is the little jump and the words move steadily through.

And you know, I am disappointed.

Beschrievene says He will be the son of a bigamist, I jump out of the chair and demand to know what goes?

M’Clare is looking at a dial in the meter, he turns and looks at me with exactly the same expression and says, “Would you like to repeat your previous experience?”

Beschrievene says, “No!”

I say, “Yes. I would.”

M’Clare bends and does something inside the machine, then he says again, “Sit down, Lizzie Lee.”

I do. I hit the switch myself too.

There it is again, words slide across slow and then quicker and quicker and there is something pressing on my brain, then there is a bang and it all goes off and Beschrievene is talking angry and foreign to M’Clare.

I climb out and say Will they kindly explain.

M’Clare tells me to come and look, it is the reading-rate dial of the machine it now says Seven thousand five hundred and three.

Beschrievene says How much do I know about the machine? seems to me the safest answer is Nothing at all.

He says, “There is an attachment which regulates the speed of movement of the words according to the reaction of the user. It sets itself automatically and registers on this dial here. But there is also another part of the machine far more important although there is no dial for it, unless you fit a test-meter as we have done: this is called the concentration unit or Crammer.”

I did know that, it is what makes people able to read faster than with an old-style book.

He says, “This unit is compulsive. When the machines were first made it was thought that they might be misused to insert hypnotic commands into the minds of readers. It would be very difficult, but perhaps possible. Therefore in the design was incorporated a safety device.” He pats one individual piece of spaghetti for me to admire.

He says, “This device automatically shuts off the machine when it encounters certain cortical wave-patterns which correspond to strong resistance, such as is called forth by hypnotically imposed orders; not merely the resistance of a wandering mind.”

I say But—

He looks as though I suddenly started sprouting and says “M’Clare this is most strange, this very young girl to be so strong, and from childhood too! Looks are nothing, of course—”

M’Clare says “Exactly so. Do you understand, Miss Lee? One of your outstanding characteristics is a dislike of being what you call pushed around, in fact I believe if somebody tried to force you to carry out your dearest wish you would resist with all your might, you are not so set on free will as you are free won’t. The Crammer appeared to your subconscious as something that interfered with your personal freedom, so you resisted it. That isn’t uncommon, at first, but not so many people resist hard enough to turn the thing off.”

I say “But it worked!”

Beschrievene says that the safety device only turns off the Crammer, the rest of the machine goes on working but only at the rate for unassisted reading about one tenth normal rate.

M’Clare says, “You, my girl, have been trying to keep up with a course designed for people who could absorb information seven or eight times as fast. No wonder your knowledge seemed a bit sketchy.”

He sounds angry.

Well hells bells I am angry myself, if only I had told somebody it could all have been put right at the start, or if only the man who first tried to teach Dad the reader had known what was wrong with the way he used it, Dad would have had ordinary schooling and maybe not gone into prospecting but something else, and—

Then whoever got born it would not have been me, so where does that get you?

Beschrievene is saying, “What I do not understand, why did she suddenly stop resisting the machine?”

M’Clare says Well Liz?

It is a little time before I see the answer to that, then I say “We cannot resist everything we can only choose the forces to which we will submit.”

They look blank, M’Clare says Is it a quotation?

I say “Your speech on Opening Day, I did not listen. I heard it just now.”

This I never thought to see, his classical puss goes red all over and he does not know what to say.

Beschrievene wants to know more of what was said so I recite, at the end he says “Words! Your students frighten me, M’Clare. So much power in words, at the right time, and you are training them to use such tools so young! To use them perhaps on a whole planet!”

M’Clare says “Would you rather leave it to chance? Or to people with good intentions and no training at all? Or to professional ax-grinders and amateurs on the make?”

I say How do I stop doing it?

Beschrievene rubs his chin and says I will have to start slowly, the machine produced so much effect because it was going fast, normally children learn to read at five when their reading rate is low even with the Crammer. He says he will take out the safety but put in something to limit speed and I can have a short session tomorrow.

I say Exams in four weeks three days why not today?

He laughs and says Of course I will be excused the exam—

M’Clare says Certainly I will take the exam, there is no reason why I should not pull up to pass standard; work is not heavy this term.

Beschrievene looks under his eyebrows but says Very Well,

After lunch I sit down in the doctored machine.

Five minutes later I am sick.

Beschrievene fusses and gives me anti-nauseant and makes me lie down one half hour and then I start again.

I last twenty minutes and come out head aching fit to grind a hole, I say For all sakes run it full speed it is this push and drag together turns me up, this morning it only scared me.

He does not want to do this, I try all out to persuade him, I am getting set to weep tears when he says Very well, he is no longer surprised my will was strong enough to turn off the machine.

This time it comes full on.

The words slide across my eyes slow, then quicker, then suddenly they are running like water pouring through my eyes to my brain, something has hold of me keeping my mind open so that they can get in, if I struggle if I stop one microsecond from absolute concentration they will jam and something will break.

I could not pull any of my mind away to think with but there is a little corner of it free, watching my body, it makes my breath go on, digs my nails in my hand, stops the muscles of my legs when they try to jerk me out of the chair, sets others to push me back again.

I can hear my breath panting and the bang of my heart, then I do not hear it any longer, I am not separate any longer from the knowledge coming into me from the machine.

and then it stops.

It is like waking with a light on the face, I gasp and leap in the seat and the blinkers pull my hair, I yell What did you do that for?

M’Clare is standing in front of me, he says Eighty-seven minutes is quite sufficient come out of that at once.

I try to stand and my knees won’t unhinge, to hear M’Clare you would think it was his legs I got cramp in, I suppose I went to sleep in the middle of his remarks anyway I wake tomorrow in bed.

In the morning I tell it all to B because she is a friend of mine and it is instructive anyway.

B says Lizzie it must have been awful but it is rather wonderful too; I do not see it this way I say Well it is nice it is over.

Which it is not.

Four weeks took a long time from the front end but not when it is over and I have to take the exam.

I have made up my mind on one thing, if I do not pass I am not asking anyone to make allowances I am just straight off going home, I am too tired to think much about it but that is what I will do.

Exam, I look at all the busy interested faces and the stylers clicking along and at the end I am certain for sure I failed it by quite a way.

I do not join any post-morten groups I get to my room and lock the door and think for a bit.

I think That finishes it, no more strain and grind and Terrie voices and Please Tune In Daily For Routine Announcements and smells you get in some of this air, no more high-minded kids who don’t know dead sure from however, no more essays and No More M’Clare, I wish they would hurry up and get the marks over so I can get organized to count my blessings properly.

However sixty four-hour papers take time to read even with a Crammer and M’Clare dose them all himself, we shall get the marks day after tomorrow if then.

There is a buzz from the speaker in the study and B is not there, I have to go.

Of all people who should be too busy to call me just now it is Mr. M’Clare.

He says I have not notified him of my vacation plans yet.

I say Huh?

He says as my guardian he ought to know where I am to be found and he wants to be sure I have got return schedules fixed from wherever I am going to as to make certain I get back in time for next term.

I say Hell what makes you think I am coming back next term anyway.

He says Certainly I am coming back next term, if I am referring to the exam he has just had a look at my paper it is adequate though not outstanding no doubt I will do better with time. Will I let his secretary have details of my plans, and he turns it off on me.

I sit down on the floor, no chair to hand.

Well for one thing the bit about the vacations was not even meant to deceive, he did it just to let me know I was Through.

So I have not finished here after all.

The more I think about studying Cultural Engineering the more doubtful I get, it is pushing people around however you like to put it more fancy than that.

The more I think about Terries the more I wonder how they survived so long, some are all right such as B but evne she would not be so safe in most places I know.

The more I think—

Well who am I fooling after all?

The plain fact is I am not leaving Russett and all the rest of it and I am so pleased with this, just now I do not care if the whole College calls me Lysistrata.

The end.

[fanfictrashdump]

Max couldn't place the end of the world in their timeline.

One moment, they were walking home from work, indulging themselves with wallowing in the hopelessness of capitalism and the menial job that neither paid them enough to live nor gave them the skills to find one that would, and the next, they woke to a land of dust and darkness.

The local grocer's they had woken inside of still had power. Nothing really seemed amiss in the frozen vegetables aisle, save for the smearing trail of blood that looped from the end of the chilly corridor into the frozen meal aisle on the other side. The sound of crunching had caught them, next. Once the shrieking nothingness of tinnitus had ebbed away, leaving only a headache in their wake, the gentle crackling and slurping of what must be the world's messiest eater told Max they were not alone. Max had not had enough time to process what they had missed before the smell of sulfur filled their nose and they were face to face with seven-foot-tall-worth of demon.

Max had never seen a demon–they were quite sure that all that faff about demons was a tall tale to scare children. And while this creature did not look like the story book illustrations of a demon–no red skin, fangs, hooves, etc–they knew it was a demon, at once.

Funnily enough, the demon looked just as surprised to see Max as Max was to discover the existence of demons while being face to face with one. The demon raised one solitary dark brow and waited, as if Max was meant to be apologizing for the confusion and didn't even bother to wipe away the brain matter clinging to the very edge of their lip. "How the fuck did you survive that?"

"S-survive what?"

"Survive wh–what do you mean? The Apocalypse. How did you survive the fucking Apocalypse?" Max opened their mouth to protest but was abruptly cut off. "No matter. I'll, um, I'll take care of you now and–" A long, shiny black blade materialized within dexterous digits and was promptly swung.

"Wait!" Max raised their arms, pleasantly surprised when the demon paused, his all-too-pretty face twisted in what they could only assume was confusion. "A deal. You guys make deals, right? I mean, I don't fiddle, but…"

"Will humans ever stop making that reference?" The demon paused and smirked. "Well, I guess now they will, but it really is very annoying. You don't have to fiddle, but I do require a soul." The blade disappeared. "If you keep me well-fed, I will let you get cozy in whatever's left on this pebble. If not, you'll do me just fine."

The first two were flukes.

Max, not really knowing what they were going to do to avoid their fellow humans' fate, had piled junk into an old backpack. The demon, whose name they had attempted to pronounce once before being told that if they did it again, they would meet the business end of a knife, rolled his eyes (a startling shade of pumpkin orange) and chalked it up to beginner's luck.

The next day Max returned with another soul.

And the next.

And the next.

And the one after that.

After a month, the demon was at the end of their rope. Sure, they were well-fed and more than a bit entertained, but how? How did this human, this feeble thing that lurked in their chosen castle of the grocer's to steal whyphi–whatever that was–and eat cookies keep finding souls on a dead planet?

The demon turned an old brass pocket watch in his hands, the metal bubbling and curdling at his intensely hot touch. It was a piece of junk for all intents and purposes, but they could feel it, the sweet, heady thrum of a soul lingering within. "Where the fuck do you keep getting these from? Are there more humans still alive? And how do you trap them in these things."

Max smiled to themselves, taking another bite of an Oreo before responding. "No other humans, that I know of. I've checked everywhere."

The demon almost felt guilty for their companion's loneliness.

"I don't have to lock them anywhere. They're already in there." Max leaned forward, tapping at an inscription on the back of the watch that read Carry me with you, always. "The soul is in the intention. In wanting to be close. In the connection. I just need to find them."

Expression crumpled in thought, the demon turned the watch several times over before carefully placing in on a pile of shiny trinkets he had hoarded near his throne that he thought were pretty. The desire to consume that soul was… no longer pressing.

"You want a cookie?" Max offered quietly, sensing the demon's hesitation. "They're really good."

After a long breath, the demon reached out, talons closing around the chocolate and crème sandwich. Fingers appreciated the texture before twisting the sandwich apart, just like his human was showing him and eating the crème inside. He watched Max for a long moment before finally eating the chocolaty biscuit.

That single bite tasted like a bright, sweet soul.

“Where do you keep getting these from!?” The demon asked the last person in the universe, frustrated and confused as he was paid with a soul that had no right to exist.

[cleverhottubmiracle]

 Since a red-sailed junk, full of posh guests toting a wide variety of emotional baggage, arrived on the shores of Koh Samui, Thailand seven weeks ago, HBO’s The White Lotus Season 3 has captivated audiences with relentless mystery, drama and intrigue. The third installment of the buzzworthy series has introduced us to a new ensemble while also bringing back faces from the past, and all the while, we’ve been left wondering who will make it out alive. You may have also found yourself wondering what you’d do if you were in the same shoes as White Lotus Maui spa manager Belinda Lindsey or whether or not you’d hit it off and become besties with big-hearted Brit Chelsea. For the best sense of which character you’d be, consider looking to astrology. Here, the White Lotus season 3 character you are, based on your zodiac sign. (Be sure to read your sun sign as well as your rising sign, if you know it. If you don’t, you can find it in your birth chart or by using this CafeAstrology calculator.)  Aries: Chloe Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Born under the sign of the Ram? You’re Chloe, played by Charlotte Le Bon. Although Chelsea identifies the model as a Libra rising, Chloe, the French Canadian current girlfriend of Greg, exudes characteristics of the first sign of the zodiac, associated with the First House of Self. An action-oriented, fun-loving go-getter, she has no time for nonsense and is all about living in the moment. She may not be a romantic like her insta-BFF Chelsea, but she’s fairly fearless, just like anyone born under the cardinal fire sign ruled by Mars, the planet of energy, sex and taking charge.    Taurus: Kate Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you’re a Taurus, you’re much like Kate, portrayed by Leslie Bibb. The Texas resident is deeply loyal to her two best friends—Jaclyn and Laurie—whom she’s known since childhood, and being up for lifelong friendships is very much a Taurean trait. A fixed (aka resolute) sign ruled by Venus, the planet of relationships, Taureans appreciate creature comforts like luxurious massages and time spent chilling poolside as well as hitting the hay early, which Kate has proven herself to be a fan of. They’re also social butterflies, which explains why she was so interested in connecting with Victoria—someone she’d met once at a baby shower years ago.    Gemini: Victoria Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the mutable air sign, known for being bubbly, chatty, social and fashionable, you’re the Ratliff matriarch, Victoria. It bears noting that someone born under the sign of the Twins is often quite sensitive to their surroundings. After all,  they’re constantly picking up on all the information—and energy—around them, much like Victoria, who is iconically portrayed by Parker Posey. As a mutable sign, Geminis are also highly adaptable and can quickly—like their ruling planet, Mercury—shift from one mode to the next. She might gripe about it, but Victoria has shown herself to be a pro at going from couch-lock to mixing and mingling at the party du jour.  Cancer: Belinda Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born with your sun (or rising) in the cardinal water sign, you likely identify with Belinda, a nurturing and caring aspiring entrepreneur and a proud mom to her son Zion, played by Natasha Rothwell. In White Lotus season 1, Tanya gravitated to Belinda because of her warm, maternal, compassionate energy, which Cancers can’t help but exude as natural-born caregivers. Deeply intuitive and loyal, Belinda is now piecing together what happened to her once potential investor, as anyone born under the emotionally intelligent moon-ruled sign would.  Leo: Jaclyn  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the charismatic fixed fire sign, ruled by the confident sun, you know that soaking up the spotlight or feeling absolutely adored by, well, just about anyone and everyone, as actress Jaclyn, portrayed by Michelle Monaghan, is a major trait of the Lion. Leos often gravitate to acting as they love to be on stage, are fiercely ambitious and can be competitive, and they’re also in love with love or at least romance and fiery chemistry—all traits Jaclyn showcases while vacationing with her childhood besties. And as a fixed sign, Leos tend to lock into relationships for the long-run, which speaks to Jaclyn’s attachment to Laurie and Kate. Virgo: Amrita  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Amrita, the meditation instructor and wellness specialist at the White Lotus Koh Samui, portrayed by Shalini Peiris, is deeply invested in helping others bolster their self-awareness, cultivate inner peace and feel more centered in their sense of self. (That’s all too clear when she’s working with guarded Scorpio Rick.) Associated with the Sixth House of Health, Virgos are on a perpetual mission to do exactly this, which is why if you’re a Virgo, you’re most in sync with this wise, caring character. And although the sign of the Maiden is ruled by messenger Mercury, which can cause them to deal with unwieldy mental energy at times, the earth sign also has it in them to exude the calm, grounded vibe that Amrita brings to this otherwise frenetic, drama-filled crew.       Libra: Mook  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Born under the romantic cardinal air sign? You’re most like Mook, the graceful, elegant, sweet and diplomatic health mentor and dancer played by Lalisa Manobal (who also happens to be a member of the wildly popular K-Pop group Blackpink). Ruled by Venus, the planet of beauty and pleasure, Libras are lovers of art, music, fashion and old-fashioned romance. Associated with the seventh house of partnership, Mook expects to be swept off her feet by Gaitok, because people born under the sign of the Scales know they’re basically royalty.    Scorpio: Sritala Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the fixed water sign, you identify with Sritala (Patravadi Mejudhon), the co-owner of the White Lotus Koh Samui who is fiercely magnetic and even a little intimidating—Scorpionic traits owed to the sign’s co-rulers: dynamic Mars and control-seeking Pluto. Scorpios are drawn to and can easily command power, like Sritala. And as the sign associated with the Eighth House of Transformation and Intimacy, they are also invested in caring for their mind, body and spirit in meaningful ways—which means they’re absolutely the type to launch a premiere wellness program at a luxury resort.  Sagittarius: Piper  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection The middle Ratliff child, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, is on a mission to explore her spirituality—specifically, Buddhism—and to work toward moving to Thailand for at least a year, a goal that speaks to her being aligned with Sagittarius, the mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter, the planet of philosophy. If you were born under the sign of the Archer, you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, understanding cultures outside of your own and burning wanderlust. Simply studying religious studies at a university stateside just won’t cut it for this go-big-or-go-home fire sign, which is why Piper is so deeply invested in landing at the Wat Phu Khao Thong meditation center to study under a famous Buddhist monk.  Capricorn: Laurie ©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you’re an industrious, pragmatic and no-nonsense Capricorn, you’re most like Laurie, the hardworking lawyer on a vacation with her two childhood besties portrayed by Carrie Coon. People born under the sign of the Sea Goat, ruled by taskmaster Saturn, are pros at putting their noses to the grindstone but often overwork and, in turn, desperately need to cut loose like Laurie. And putting up with pretenses is just not something the grounded cardinal earth sign is interested in, which is why Laurie has no qualms calling a spade a spade when her friends aren’t exactly being forthcoming. Aquarius: Tanya  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Sure, Tanya is technically not in White Lotus Season 3, but hey, the specter of her very much is, as her death in Season 2 is a shadow over Belinda and Greg. And just like social, humanitarian air sign Aquarians, Jennifer Coolidge’s beloved character was able to hit it off with various guests, staffers and locals all over the map. Quirky, personable and marching to the beat of her own drum, Tanya was truly unique and even a little out there at times as Water Bearers tend to be, thanks to their modern ruling planet, Uranus, the planet of electrifying change.  Pisces: Chelsea  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the mutable water sign, symbolized by the Fish, you’re most like Chelsea, the romantic, idealistic eternal optimist played by Aimee Lou Wood. (Although Chelsea says she’s an Aries, it’s pretty clear she has a good deal of Pisces in her natal chart!) Pisceans, co-ruled by dreamy Neptune and lucky Jupiter, are drawn to the spiritual side of life, can be psychic, wear rose-colored glasses as a rule and hope to heal not only themselves but anyone they’ve opted to swim beside through life, just like Chelsea with her troubled boyfriend Rick. As empathic as they are, Pisceans often need to remember to put their own oxygen masks on first, as they’re all too quick to take on other people’s emotional pain as their own.  Source link

[norajworld]

 Since a red-sailed junk, full of posh guests toting a wide variety of emotional baggage, arrived on the shores of Koh Samui, Thailand seven weeks ago, HBO’s The White Lotus Season 3 has captivated audiences with relentless mystery, drama and intrigue. The third installment of the buzzworthy series has introduced us to a new ensemble while also bringing back faces from the past, and all the while, we’ve been left wondering who will make it out alive. You may have also found yourself wondering what you’d do if you were in the same shoes as White Lotus Maui spa manager Belinda Lindsey or whether or not you’d hit it off and become besties with big-hearted Brit Chelsea. For the best sense of which character you’d be, consider looking to astrology. Here, the White Lotus season 3 character you are, based on your zodiac sign. (Be sure to read your sun sign as well as your rising sign, if you know it. If you don’t, you can find it in your birth chart or by using this CafeAstrology calculator.)  Aries: Chloe Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Born under the sign of the Ram? You’re Chloe, played by Charlotte Le Bon. Although Chelsea identifies the model as a Libra rising, Chloe, the French Canadian current girlfriend of Greg, exudes characteristics of the first sign of the zodiac, associated with the First House of Self. An action-oriented, fun-loving go-getter, she has no time for nonsense and is all about living in the moment. She may not be a romantic like her insta-BFF Chelsea, but she’s fairly fearless, just like anyone born under the cardinal fire sign ruled by Mars, the planet of energy, sex and taking charge.    Taurus: Kate Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you’re a Taurus, you’re much like Kate, portrayed by Leslie Bibb. The Texas resident is deeply loyal to her two best friends—Jaclyn and Laurie—whom she’s known since childhood, and being up for lifelong friendships is very much a Taurean trait. A fixed (aka resolute) sign ruled by Venus, the planet of relationships, Taureans appreciate creature comforts like luxurious massages and time spent chilling poolside as well as hitting the hay early, which Kate has proven herself to be a fan of. They’re also social butterflies, which explains why she was so interested in connecting with Victoria—someone she’d met once at a baby shower years ago.    Gemini: Victoria Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the mutable air sign, known for being bubbly, chatty, social and fashionable, you’re the Ratliff matriarch, Victoria. It bears noting that someone born under the sign of the Twins is often quite sensitive to their surroundings. After all,  they’re constantly picking up on all the information—and energy—around them, much like Victoria, who is iconically portrayed by Parker Posey. As a mutable sign, Geminis are also highly adaptable and can quickly—like their ruling planet, Mercury—shift from one mode to the next. She might gripe about it, but Victoria has shown herself to be a pro at going from couch-lock to mixing and mingling at the party du jour.  Cancer: Belinda Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born with your sun (or rising) in the cardinal water sign, you likely identify with Belinda, a nurturing and caring aspiring entrepreneur and a proud mom to her son Zion, played by Natasha Rothwell. In White Lotus season 1, Tanya gravitated to Belinda because of her warm, maternal, compassionate energy, which Cancers can’t help but exude as natural-born caregivers. Deeply intuitive and loyal, Belinda is now piecing together what happened to her once potential investor, as anyone born under the emotionally intelligent moon-ruled sign would.  Leo: Jaclyn  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the charismatic fixed fire sign, ruled by the confident sun, you know that soaking up the spotlight or feeling absolutely adored by, well, just about anyone and everyone, as actress Jaclyn, portrayed by Michelle Monaghan, is a major trait of the Lion. Leos often gravitate to acting as they love to be on stage, are fiercely ambitious and can be competitive, and they’re also in love with love or at least romance and fiery chemistry—all traits Jaclyn showcases while vacationing with her childhood besties. And as a fixed sign, Leos tend to lock into relationships for the long-run, which speaks to Jaclyn’s attachment to Laurie and Kate. Virgo: Amrita  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Amrita, the meditation instructor and wellness specialist at the White Lotus Koh Samui, portrayed by Shalini Peiris, is deeply invested in helping others bolster their self-awareness, cultivate inner peace and feel more centered in their sense of self. (That’s all too clear when she’s working with guarded Scorpio Rick.) Associated with the Sixth House of Health, Virgos are on a perpetual mission to do exactly this, which is why if you’re a Virgo, you’re most in sync with this wise, caring character. And although the sign of the Maiden is ruled by messenger Mercury, which can cause them to deal with unwieldy mental energy at times, the earth sign also has it in them to exude the calm, grounded vibe that Amrita brings to this otherwise frenetic, drama-filled crew.       Libra: Mook  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Born under the romantic cardinal air sign? You’re most like Mook, the graceful, elegant, sweet and diplomatic health mentor and dancer played by Lalisa Manobal (who also happens to be a member of the wildly popular K-Pop group Blackpink). Ruled by Venus, the planet of beauty and pleasure, Libras are lovers of art, music, fashion and old-fashioned romance. Associated with the seventh house of partnership, Mook expects to be swept off her feet by Gaitok, because people born under the sign of the Scales know they’re basically royalty.    Scorpio: Sritala Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the fixed water sign, you identify with Sritala (Patravadi Mejudhon), the co-owner of the White Lotus Koh Samui who is fiercely magnetic and even a little intimidating—Scorpionic traits owed to the sign’s co-rulers: dynamic Mars and control-seeking Pluto. Scorpios are drawn to and can easily command power, like Sritala. And as the sign associated with the Eighth House of Transformation and Intimacy, they are also invested in caring for their mind, body and spirit in meaningful ways—which means they’re absolutely the type to launch a premiere wellness program at a luxury resort.  Sagittarius: Piper  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection The middle Ratliff child, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, is on a mission to explore her spirituality—specifically, Buddhism—and to work toward moving to Thailand for at least a year, a goal that speaks to her being aligned with Sagittarius, the mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter, the planet of philosophy. If you were born under the sign of the Archer, you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, understanding cultures outside of your own and burning wanderlust. Simply studying religious studies at a university stateside just won’t cut it for this go-big-or-go-home fire sign, which is why Piper is so deeply invested in landing at the Wat Phu Khao Thong meditation center to study under a famous Buddhist monk.  Capricorn: Laurie ©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you’re an industrious, pragmatic and no-nonsense Capricorn, you’re most like Laurie, the hardworking lawyer on a vacation with her two childhood besties portrayed by Carrie Coon. People born under the sign of the Sea Goat, ruled by taskmaster Saturn, are pros at putting their noses to the grindstone but often overwork and, in turn, desperately need to cut loose like Laurie. And putting up with pretenses is just not something the grounded cardinal earth sign is interested in, which is why Laurie has no qualms calling a spade a spade when her friends aren’t exactly being forthcoming. Aquarius: Tanya  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Sure, Tanya is technically not in White Lotus Season 3, but hey, the specter of her very much is, as her death in Season 2 is a shadow over Belinda and Greg. And just like social, humanitarian air sign Aquarians, Jennifer Coolidge’s beloved character was able to hit it off with various guests, staffers and locals all over the map. Quirky, personable and marching to the beat of her own drum, Tanya was truly unique and even a little out there at times as Water Bearers tend to be, thanks to their modern ruling planet, Uranus, the planet of electrifying change.  Pisces: Chelsea  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the mutable water sign, symbolized by the Fish, you’re most like Chelsea, the romantic, idealistic eternal optimist played by Aimee Lou Wood. (Although Chelsea says she’s an Aries, it’s pretty clear she has a good deal of Pisces in her natal chart!) Pisceans, co-ruled by dreamy Neptune and lucky Jupiter, are drawn to the spiritual side of life, can be psychic, wear rose-colored glasses as a rule and hope to heal not only themselves but anyone they’ve opted to swim beside through life, just like Chelsea with her troubled boyfriend Rick. As empathic as they are, Pisceans often need to remember to put their own oxygen masks on first, as they’re all too quick to take on other people’s emotional pain as their own.  Source link

[chilimili212]

 Since a red-sailed junk, full of posh guests toting a wide variety of emotional baggage, arrived on the shores of Koh Samui, Thailand seven weeks ago, HBO’s The White Lotus Season 3 has captivated audiences with relentless mystery, drama and intrigue. The third installment of the buzzworthy series has introduced us to a new ensemble while also bringing back faces from the past, and all the while, we’ve been left wondering who will make it out alive. You may have also found yourself wondering what you’d do if you were in the same shoes as White Lotus Maui spa manager Belinda Lindsey or whether or not you’d hit it off and become besties with big-hearted Brit Chelsea. For the best sense of which character you’d be, consider looking to astrology. Here, the White Lotus season 3 character you are, based on your zodiac sign. (Be sure to read your sun sign as well as your rising sign, if you know it. If you don’t, you can find it in your birth chart or by using this CafeAstrology calculator.)  Aries: Chloe Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Born under the sign of the Ram? You’re Chloe, played by Charlotte Le Bon. Although Chelsea identifies the model as a Libra rising, Chloe, the French Canadian current girlfriend of Greg, exudes characteristics of the first sign of the zodiac, associated with the First House of Self. An action-oriented, fun-loving go-getter, she has no time for nonsense and is all about living in the moment. She may not be a romantic like her insta-BFF Chelsea, but she’s fairly fearless, just like anyone born under the cardinal fire sign ruled by Mars, the planet of energy, sex and taking charge.    Taurus: Kate Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you’re a Taurus, you’re much like Kate, portrayed by Leslie Bibb. The Texas resident is deeply loyal to her two best friends—Jaclyn and Laurie—whom she’s known since childhood, and being up for lifelong friendships is very much a Taurean trait. A fixed (aka resolute) sign ruled by Venus, the planet of relationships, Taureans appreciate creature comforts like luxurious massages and time spent chilling poolside as well as hitting the hay early, which Kate has proven herself to be a fan of. They’re also social butterflies, which explains why she was so interested in connecting with Victoria—someone she’d met once at a baby shower years ago.    Gemini: Victoria Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the mutable air sign, known for being bubbly, chatty, social and fashionable, you’re the Ratliff matriarch, Victoria. It bears noting that someone born under the sign of the Twins is often quite sensitive to their surroundings. After all,  they’re constantly picking up on all the information—and energy—around them, much like Victoria, who is iconically portrayed by Parker Posey. As a mutable sign, Geminis are also highly adaptable and can quickly—like their ruling planet, Mercury—shift from one mode to the next. She might gripe about it, but Victoria has shown herself to be a pro at going from couch-lock to mixing and mingling at the party du jour.  Cancer: Belinda Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born with your sun (or rising) in the cardinal water sign, you likely identify with Belinda, a nurturing and caring aspiring entrepreneur and a proud mom to her son Zion, played by Natasha Rothwell. In White Lotus season 1, Tanya gravitated to Belinda because of her warm, maternal, compassionate energy, which Cancers can’t help but exude as natural-born caregivers. Deeply intuitive and loyal, Belinda is now piecing together what happened to her once potential investor, as anyone born under the emotionally intelligent moon-ruled sign would.  Leo: Jaclyn  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the charismatic fixed fire sign, ruled by the confident sun, you know that soaking up the spotlight or feeling absolutely adored by, well, just about anyone and everyone, as actress Jaclyn, portrayed by Michelle Monaghan, is a major trait of the Lion. Leos often gravitate to acting as they love to be on stage, are fiercely ambitious and can be competitive, and they’re also in love with love or at least romance and fiery chemistry—all traits Jaclyn showcases while vacationing with her childhood besties. And as a fixed sign, Leos tend to lock into relationships for the long-run, which speaks to Jaclyn’s attachment to Laurie and Kate. Virgo: Amrita  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Amrita, the meditation instructor and wellness specialist at the White Lotus Koh Samui, portrayed by Shalini Peiris, is deeply invested in helping others bolster their self-awareness, cultivate inner peace and feel more centered in their sense of self. (That’s all too clear when she’s working with guarded Scorpio Rick.) Associated with the Sixth House of Health, Virgos are on a perpetual mission to do exactly this, which is why if you’re a Virgo, you’re most in sync with this wise, caring character. And although the sign of the Maiden is ruled by messenger Mercury, which can cause them to deal with unwieldy mental energy at times, the earth sign also has it in them to exude the calm, grounded vibe that Amrita brings to this otherwise frenetic, drama-filled crew.       Libra: Mook  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Born under the romantic cardinal air sign? You’re most like Mook, the graceful, elegant, sweet and diplomatic health mentor and dancer played by Lalisa Manobal (who also happens to be a member of the wildly popular K-Pop group Blackpink). Ruled by Venus, the planet of beauty and pleasure, Libras are lovers of art, music, fashion and old-fashioned romance. Associated with the seventh house of partnership, Mook expects to be swept off her feet by Gaitok, because people born under the sign of the Scales know they’re basically royalty.    Scorpio: Sritala Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the fixed water sign, you identify with Sritala (Patravadi Mejudhon), the co-owner of the White Lotus Koh Samui who is fiercely magnetic and even a little intimidating—Scorpionic traits owed to the sign’s co-rulers: dynamic Mars and control-seeking Pluto. Scorpios are drawn to and can easily command power, like Sritala. And as the sign associated with the Eighth House of Transformation and Intimacy, they are also invested in caring for their mind, body and spirit in meaningful ways—which means they’re absolutely the type to launch a premiere wellness program at a luxury resort.  Sagittarius: Piper  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection The middle Ratliff child, played by Sarah Catherine Hook, is on a mission to explore her spirituality—specifically, Buddhism—and to work toward moving to Thailand for at least a year, a goal that speaks to her being aligned with Sagittarius, the mutable fire sign ruled by Jupiter, the planet of philosophy. If you were born under the sign of the Archer, you have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, understanding cultures outside of your own and burning wanderlust. Simply studying religious studies at a university stateside just won’t cut it for this go-big-or-go-home fire sign, which is why Piper is so deeply invested in landing at the Wat Phu Khao Thong meditation center to study under a famous Buddhist monk.  Capricorn: Laurie ©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you’re an industrious, pragmatic and no-nonsense Capricorn, you’re most like Laurie, the hardworking lawyer on a vacation with her two childhood besties portrayed by Carrie Coon. People born under the sign of the Sea Goat, ruled by taskmaster Saturn, are pros at putting their noses to the grindstone but often overwork and, in turn, desperately need to cut loose like Laurie. And putting up with pretenses is just not something the grounded cardinal earth sign is interested in, which is why Laurie has no qualms calling a spade a spade when her friends aren’t exactly being forthcoming. Aquarius: Tanya  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection Sure, Tanya is technically not in White Lotus Season 3, but hey, the specter of her very much is, as her death in Season 2 is a shadow over Belinda and Greg. And just like social, humanitarian air sign Aquarians, Jennifer Coolidge’s beloved character was able to hit it off with various guests, staffers and locals all over the map. Quirky, personable and marching to the beat of her own drum, Tanya was truly unique and even a little out there at times as Water Bearers tend to be, thanks to their modern ruling planet, Uranus, the planet of electrifying change.  Pisces: Chelsea  Fabio Lovino/©HBO/Courtesy of The Everett Collection If you were born under the mutable water sign, symbolized by the Fish, you’re most like Chelsea, the romantic, idealistic eternal optimist played by Aimee Lou Wood. (Although Chelsea says she’s an Aries, it’s pretty clear she has a good deal of Pisces in her natal chart!) Pisceans, co-ruled by dreamy Neptune and lucky Jupiter, are drawn to the spiritual side of life, can be psychic, wear rose-colored glasses as a rule and hope to heal not only themselves but anyone they’ve opted to swim beside through life, just like Chelsea with her troubled boyfriend Rick. As empathic as they are, Pisceans often need to remember to put their own oxygen masks on first, as they’re all too quick to take on other people’s emotional pain as their own.  Source link

[bigcountryrecycling]

7 Reasons Why Aluminum Recycling Services in San Angelo Are Worth It

Aluminum is one of the most valuable and widely recycled metals in the world. Recycling it not only conserves natural resources but also significantly reduces environmental impact. In San Angelo, recycling services have made it easier for individuals and businesses to contribute to sustainability. Here are seven essential facts about Aluminum Recycling that everyone should know.

Aluminum is Infinitely Recyclable

One of the biggest advantages of Aluminum Recycling is that it can be recycled indefinitely without losing its quality. Unlike some materials that degrade over time, aluminum retains its properties, making it one of the most sustainable metals in existence.

2. Recycling Aluminum Saves Energy

Recycling aluminum uses only 5% of the energy required to produce new aluminum from raw ore. This means that every can or scrap metal recycled contributes to significant energy savings. This efficiency helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions and minimizes environmental harm.

3. Aluminum Recycling Reduces Landfill Waste

Millions of aluminum cans and scrap materials end up in landfills each year. By actively recycling aluminum, San Angelo residents and businesses can help reduce landfill waste, free up space, and prevent unnecessary pollution.

4. Recycled Aluminum is Used in Various Industries

Aluminum is a versatile metal used in numerous industries, including automotive, construction, and packaging. Recycled aluminum is just as strong and reliable as newly mined aluminum, making it a preferred material for many manufacturers.

5. Aluminum Recycling Supports the Local Economy

Recycling programs in San Angelo create jobs and boost the local economy. From collection and processing to manufacturing, the aluminum recycling industry provides employment opportunities and contributes to economic growth.

6. Recycling Aluminum is Quick and Efficient

Unlike other materials, aluminum can be recycled and back on store shelves within 60 days. This fast turnaround ensures a continuous cycle of reuse, reducing the need for excessive mining and production.

7. You Can Earn Money by Recycling Aluminum

Many recycling centers in San Angelo pay for aluminum scrap, providing an incentive for residents and businesses to participate in recycling efforts. Whether it’s aluminum cans, scrap metal, or old appliances, turning in recyclable aluminum can be both environmentally and financially rewarding.

We talk a lot about recycling and all its infinite benefits. However, it's also important to talk about businesses that are at the forefront of this mission. We know that recycling helps the planet, but let's talk about a business that helps with recycling in San Angelo. Of course, I'm talking about "Big Country Recycling", your friendly neighborhood recycler.

Big Country Recycling offers the best price for your metal scraps. They follow all the protocols mandated by the state and federal governments. They handle metal recycling with extreme care. If you live in or around San Angelo, you must check out Big Country Recycling. Please visit their website: https://metalrecyclingsanangelotx.com to find out more about the metal recycling services they offer. Big Country Recycling is a licensed recycling services company in San Angelo, and they are experts in recycling the following metal junks.

Copper

Aluminum

Stainless Steel

Brass

Tin

Iron

Scrap Cars

And many more such metals.

Conclusion

Understanding the importance of Aluminum Recycling can help individuals and businesses make informed decisions about waste management. By participating in recycling programs, San Angelo residents contribute to energy conservation, environmental protection, and economic growth. Start recycling today and make a lasting impact on the planet!

Got unwanted aluminum? Don’t let it go to waste! Just take your phone and search on Google Aluminum Recycling Services in San Angelo, and recycle them in the nearest center, you get top-dollar payouts for your scrap. From aluminum cans to industrial scrap, they make recycling easy, profitable, and eco-friendly! Visit the best recycling center at 5117 Armstrong Street, San Angelo, TX 76903, or Call them at +1(325) 949-5865 – Let’s recycle and make a difference today!

Source: https://bigcountryrecycling.wordpress.com/2025/03/01/7-reasons-why-aluminum-recycling-services-in-san-angelo-are-worth-it/