"No, that sounds pretty sensible, actually. I'll have something to you in two days, maybe--it'll take me that long to research it and get it into some kind of shape. Speaking of which, I should be working on it now."
She's up and running. "I'll catch you later."
--M. J. Young
You finish your paper and get Kim's. It is obvious on the one hand that she is quite solid in her technical engineering background, but on the other hand that her skills at language composition are a bit weak. You electronically mark up her paper with many suggestions on how to say what she's trying to say more clearly.
She thanks you the night before your trip, and reminds you to be packed for it.
Which raises the question of what you're packing, and perhaps what you are assuming she will be packing.
--M. J. Young
My sheet indicates that you had this equipment "On Person":
- Cargo Shorts
Blue Boxers
Black Ghost Buster Shirt (Glow in the Dark)
Break the Silence Sweatshirt
Key chain with bottle opener on it
Cell Phone
GPS
Money ($150 in 20's and 10's and two quarters)
Ubercon Pin
Dice (Set of 7 and an extra d6)
This equipment was listed as separate:
- Other Equipment:
Pliers
Hammer
Hand Saw
Screw Driver
Screws (50 Count) in cardboard box
Nails (50 Count) in cardboard box
Laptop with charger
Ruler
Caliper
Flask of Whiskey
Pocket Knife
Backpacking Backpack
1 Person tent (7 lbs, very small)
Gaffers Tape
Electrical Tape
Duct Tape
That probably changed more than once, and I've missed the updates somehow (that looks like starter equipment, although I don't usually sort it that way on my sheets). I think you were making clothes in NagaWorld and probably obtained some in Warlock In Spite Of Himself, so we should probably get clear what you added when and where you put it. The stuff you were not taking with you at the time you versed out you left in a hidden location on the station before the ship departed, so you have pretty much whatever you were wearing when you versed out.
Now if we can remember what that was....
--M. J. Young
and the lower part of the outfit I got from the warlocks
Well, Medieval/Renaissance pants are probably mid-calf with laces top and bottoms, high socks with string garters--at least, that's how I see them. Does that sound likely to you?
And does that mean yes or no on the shorts?
--M. J. Young
Then I think we can start our excursion to the planet.
You pick up breakfast to go from the galley and meet Kim at the airlock passage to the station.
"Ever ride a skyhook before?" she asks. She hasn't, either, and it looking forward to the experience with some trepidation.
The inside of the transport looks like a cross between a passenger jet cabin and a carnival ride, and the gravity is minimal.
"Ladies and gentlemen please find seats," a voice says. "For certain parts of the trip you will have to be secured in safety harnesses, including our initial launch. Once we are underway, it will be possible for you to walk around, interact with others, enjoy the buffet in the rear, and otherwise make yourself at home, and the seats can be folded into the walls or drawn out as needed. I'm afraid there's not much to see, so we haven't installed windows, but we hope your ride is as comfortable and enjoyable as your journey to reach here has been."
--M. J. Young
The first three minutes are quite a bit like being on a roller coaster: the shift in directional vector at first gives you the weightless feeling of dropping, then the sudden increase as if you hit bottom, turned sharply, veered back, and then normalized to a stable position. After that, you are permitted to get out of your seats and walk around.
It takes a comment from Kim for you to realize that what you are feeling is one grav acceleration head down toward the planet, and that this may be part of the reason that there are no windows.
There is a lockdown at the halfway point, but that's almost two hours from now. Meanwhile the buffet is opened.
"I guess we didn't really have to pack a meal, did we?" Kim says. "I had no idea they did this, did you?"
One of the other passengers says, "Well, it is a four-hour ride. We'd probably get pretty hungry without it. But I'd eat either right now or after inversal; you don't want to have eaten just before inversal or landing."
There are other entertainments, but I'll let you suggest what you'd like to find and see if they have that.
--M. J. Young
There are two side rooms with movies, both of which start now and run until a few minutes before inversal. One is an action mystery, that is, some sort of crime solving with a lot of chases and violence, and the other what Kim calls an "idiot comedy", a story that's supposed to be funny because the main characters are stupid. If you want to watch either, she'll join you, but neither is really her preference. There is a romantic comedy after inversal (the after inversal movies run until a few minutes before landing), the sort of story in which the viewer knows the couple belong together but everything is going wrong for them. It is showing against an action-adventure. Kim says either of those would be good, and she wishes they were paired the other way so she could watch both of those and neither of the others.
There are also several thousand films which you can watch privately through goggles and headsets, but this is very much an individual activity. These will be paused a few minutes before inversal or landing, and if you are interrupted before inversal you can watch the rest afterwards.
Kim suggests that you might like one of the old board games--Mancala, chess, checkers, Chinese checkers, cribbage, backgammon, all available on a sort of touch-screen tabletop. She'd be interested in seeing how well you play any of them.
--M. J. Young
It sounds like you are an above average amateur, and we'll give you 1@10 at chess, which I'll put down as T0@2, and make a mental note to myself that strategy falls just below ambush as the use of the available tools to achieve an objective.
Neither of you play up to your ability. It's obvious that she is very nearly a match for you in this, but the interface gives you trouble (the aspect of not taking your fingers off becomes more difficult when the pieces are insubstantial). She manages to beat you in a long game which is barely finished by the time you are being sent back to seats for inversal.
Inversal is again like a rollercoaster ride. The way Kim describes it, you have been accelerating head-first toward the planet, although on an arc, not straight down, and now you have reached a tremendous velocity and are going to begin decelerating--which means they have to invert the transport so that "down" is still toward the floor. To do this, you hit a point in the tube where the "front" of the transport is slowed as the tube shape shifts irregularly to let the "rear" pass it, and then narrows to push the rear forward and the front back, and then widens again, this time slowing the "rear" (now the leading edge) back on the opposite side, and the "front" forward where the rear was; and the same engines that were accelerating the transport are now pointed toward the destination and start firing to decelerate, creating the feeling of one gravity as you descend.
The feeling begins with a sense of being tipped backwards and shifting toward weightlessness, continuing to rotate backwards but losing the sense of up and down, and then to have that sense restored as if you were righted, but without having felt that you traveled far enough around to be back where you started.
And that leads to the question of which movie you are going to watch.
--M. J. Young
"You're on. Rematch it is. I can do better."
*****
"Wow, going for the Galtale? Is that something you like, or did someone tell you that it makes for a better first date?"
But she doesn't disagree with your suggestion, and happily goes to watch the romantic comedy. She hits the ladies' room and picks up a drink and some snacks from the buffet on the way inside.
--M. J. Young
"I don't see why it can't be both"
"Which is not actually an answer, but it will have to do."
The movie theatre is something a bit more like watching a play, except that the room is small and the actors are all made somewhat diminutive by being on a small "screen"--actually more of a hologramatic box in which three dimensional images move and interact, and audio seems to originate from their individual points. It is also a partly lit room, more akin to a concert hall lighting than a movie theatre. The chairs are similar to the others, but slightly more comfortable and not designed with the same security features. She settles against your arm and offers you some of the cookie-like chips she secured from the buffet.
--M. J. Young
She settles back
It is a very good "galtale", and by the end of it Kim is snuggled rather comfortably against your shoulder.
As the credits are coming to an end, the announcement is made that everyone has to find their seats for arrival.
--M. J. Young
Kim is waiting in the station. There is a very brief sort of "customs" which asks whether you're carrying any weapons, any drugs or medications, any potentially hazardous items, and whether within the past year you've been exposed to any of a short list of apparently virulent diseases none of which sound at all familiar to you. Kim answers, "not to my knowledge" to most of the questions, which seems to satisfy them. They scan her hand to verify her identity.
Your hand also pulls up your identity, apparently transferred here from the ship.
--M. J. Young
"Oh--beach first, I think. After all, hiking will be hot, but we'll be under the cover of the trees mostly, so we won't burn. Lying on the beach in the afternoon sun--well, I've never been to this planet before, but on most planets, that's a good way to get a bad burn.
"Or do you think otherwise?"
--M. J. Young
Kim produces a colorful drawstring bag and says, "We'll have to find a bathhouse or whatever they use here, so we can get changed."
You head for the beach. It's not hard to find, mostly because the ground slopes down toward it noticeably from most points here, and when you look that direction you can see the blue waters of an ocean. On the other hand, it looks as if the terminal is a good two to three miles from the water.
"Any idea what they use for mass transit on this planet?" she asks.
--M. J. Young
Oddly, nothing is in site but some small cars already vanishing in different directions down the quaint stone-paved roads, and tourists who poured out of the building ahead of you clogging the street looking at guide books.
"We should have seen whether there was a guidebook on the ship," Kim says. "Oh, well, it looks like we hike first--the beach appears to be this way, or that way, or that way, but I think straight ahead is the shortest route."
--M. J. Young
It takes about half an hour to make it down the hill; Kim is fast afoot, apparently sufficiently athletic for the challenge.
The beach is not exactly crowded but at least well populated. Kim points to a building just off the road on the edge of the sand. "Those should be changing booths; I hope they're free. I don't really feel like changing under a beach blanket."
It might be moot, though--it appears that about half of those on the beach are completely naked.
--M. J. Young
It is not segregated by clothing preferences.
The booths are changing booths, but there is a nominal fee for using them. Kim pays to use one, and emerges in a moment attractively clad in what you would call a modest bikini.
"Sun first, or swim?"
--M. J. Young
Is there any reason for me to think that your running skill is better or worse than typical? I'll determine who hits the water first after you answer that.
In any case, the water is warm--probably 85 degrees, although the air is at least five degrees warmer than that. It's lightly saline, not the heavy salt of home but enough to taste, and it's clear and does not sting the eyes. The swells are mostly about three feet crest-to-trough, plus or minus up to a foot, and the sunlight shines through them brightly.
The sand is also warm already, despite being a light tan color (not pure white, but, well, sand-colored). The sky is a slightly deeper blue than you expect, and you can see a moon toward the horizon opposite the sun.
--M. J. Young