Thursday, April 23, 2009

Conversations on the Fortune's Smile: Three



"You going to get that scan done?" Gerij asked. "Significance?"

Ricardo shrugged. "Have to, don't I? If I want to stay with the ship." He stacked the last of the dishes in the washer and kicked it closed.
 

Gerij hauled a pot out of its cabinet and paused. "Do you think it hurts?"
 

"Medics say not," Ricardo said, pressing the button to get the washer going.
 

"Medics always say not," Gerij pointed out.
 

Ricardo started taking the packs that held the ingredients of the day's main meal for alter-day crew out of the freezer. "All I know is, it means we don't die when the ship goes into little pieces out somewhere the back of beyond. I'm in favour of that."

"But we
 do die," Gerij said. He set the pot on the stove and turned. "That's the point of it. We die, and then they wake up the back-up."

"It'll be all the same to us. Lose a few weeks, maybe, depending on the timing." Ricardo cut open a packet and poured the contents into the pot, wrinkling his nose at the sight of the grey-brown slurry that the label claimed to be beef protein.
 

"I don't know if I want to," Gerij said. "I mean, the Amarr say, it means you lose your soul."

"Amarr say a lot of stuff," Ricardo said, adding so-called 'potatoes' to the so-called 'beef'.
 

"Maybe they're right. I don't think it's fair of Pilot to make everybody do it, whether they like it or not."

"Nobody's making you do anything. Hand me the spicer, will you?"

Gerij fetched the giant can marked
 Flavour and handed it over. "It's a condition of employment."

"So find another job. Or work dockside for her. You know she's said she'll put anyone on cargo crew who'd rather." Ricardo up-ended the spicer and banged the bottom several times.
 

"Still..."

"Look," Ricardo said, setting the spicer down with a thump. "Say you had a choice. You're going to get hit on the head. Would you like it to give you two week's amnesia, or kill you?"

"It's not the same," Gerij protested.
 

"it's
 exactly the same as far as you'll know," Ricardo said. 

"Maybe..."

"Just don't think about it too much. And pass me the 'onions', would you?"

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