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"Because that illusion keeps you on our side."

THE RULES OF THE NEW ARISTOCRACY

It doesn't matter how much food costs increase, doesn't matter if you can only afford fast food, we will always be able to buy steak. And we will invest heavily in fast food stocks to ensure we make money off this. Doesn't matter how much gas costs, we will always be able to afford it.

In addition to poor food choices and health coverage, your kids will grow up without proper nutrition which will cause them problems on every level, from physical to educational difficulties. Our kids will grow up straight and true and healthy.

It doesn't matter how much an education costs, doesn't matter if your kids can't afford to go to college or come out with massive debt, we will always be able to send our kids to university. And because a lot of our income is derived from tax incentives and taxpayer-financed bailouts your taxes are sending our kids to school. But you do not have the right to any of our money to send your kid to school.

If you or your kids want to start a business, you will find that because we've sucked all the money out of the economy, there is simply no available cash around to help you finance your startup. (Unless you want to go to your friends online at sites like Indiegogo, and isn't that just cute?) We just cut our kids a check and tell them to go have fun.

Your kids are born with a glass ceiling above which they will almost certainly never have the opportunity to rise. Our kids are born with a marble floor beneath which they will never be allowed to fall.

If you accidentally provide incorrect information on your tax return, you could lose your house, your possessions, and your livelihood. We lie all the time on our tax information and none of us ever have to deal with this. We squirrel away trillions of dollars in overseas accounts and do all we can to ensure that your money never leaves our control because we'll doubtless need to scoop out more of it soon.

You live in a Company Town; we pay you to work for us, while making sure that we own all the stores in town that sell our goods, the doctors offices where you go in town, the restaurants where you eat, and that we charge you just enough to make sure that at the end of the week you don't have any leftover money to squirrel away, so you can never leave the company town, can never get ahead, and can never risk criticizing the company town. You work for us. We own the town where you live. We own you.

If one of you takes a hundred dollar bill from the cash register, you will go to jail. If we take billions out of the savings of ordinary people then crash the economy, costing thousands of jobs, not one of us will ever be prosecuted. Because the New Aristocracy is above such things. So we'll just keep on doing it. Enjoy the ride.

Your local police belong to us now. We have militarized them into soldiers who treat you like terrorists. If you speak against us, we will ensure that you are tear gassed and beaten and handcuffed and caged into "free speech zones" designed to make you forget that the whole country was supposed to be a free speech zone. But now you have free speech only when and where we say you can have it. Meanwhile, we can say and do pretty much anything we want, to you or anyone else, and get away with it.

If you happen to figure out our game and talk about it, we will accuse you of Class Warfare, in order to distract anyone from realizing that yes, there was a class war, that it was against you, that the war is over, and we won.

Yes, you get a chance to vote for congresspeople and senators and presidents. But only after we've decided, long before the first ballot is ever cast, which candidate we will finance. Those we like, those who will give us what we want first and foremost, we will finance and you will get to vote on one of the two pre-screened candidates we have given you. If we don't like them, if we think they will challenge us, we will not finance them and you will never have the chance to vote on them. Because you don't get a real vote in the New Aristocracy.

We own the White House. We own Congress. They pass the bills we write for them. They make the laws we want them to make, and make sure that they only limit you, never us. We own the courts. We own the lawyers. They are the club we use to beat you into submission.

There are no Democratic or Republican Senators, or Congresspeople or Presidents. Those parties have not existed for decades. There is only the Party of the New Aristocracy. The rest is Kabuki theater. It is Mexican Wrestling. It is the illusion of choice, of difference, of democracy. This is not a democracy. It is a monarchy of money. In that monarchy, we are the Aristocracy, the royalty, and what we say, goes.

If you dump trash illegally, you will be fined and potentially arrested. If we dump hundreds of tons of toxic waste into rivers and streams, none of us will ever be arrested and if we are fined, we will simply raise our prices so that you are the one to actually pay for what we did.

We are the New Aristocracy, and we do not pay fines.

We are the New Aristocracy, and we are immune from prosecution.

We are the New Aristocracy, and we find your poverty and your powerlessness and your struggles disgusting. You are beneath us.

Understand something: we don't want you to succeed. We don't want someone coming along to slice the pie into smaller pieces. We want to own all of it. If we really wanted more of you where we are, do you think we would have spent the last thirty years consolidating every major company into smaller and smaller groups owned by fewer and fewer people?

We are the New Aristocracy because we were born into it. We got our money the old fashioned, Medieval way: our parents gave it to us. We were born into the wealth that we stole from you and your family over the last fifty years. You were not born into anything other than poverty and struggle. You will never be us. You will never have our advantages. And we like it that way.

We like that you peer through the bars of your cage to all that we have. We like that you think you can have it yourself one day. Because that illusion keeps you on our side. But you will never have those things. We've made sure of that. Because what you're looking at is ours, and we do not share.

The world we have carefully constructed for you is like one of those boardwalk games of chance where if you knock down the big pins with a baseball, you win a huge prize. But the pins are weighted and positioned so that you will never, ever knock them down. Yet you'll keep paying anyway, and keep throwing, until you exhaust yourself and your wallet. And we like it that way.

We don't want you to have opportunities, we don't want you to have an education, we don't want you to have a voice in what happens to you, we don't want you healthy, we don't want you to do anything but be frightened, helpless, docile consumers who will eat and watch and buy what we tell you to eat and watch and buy while we keep all the good stuff to ourselves.

Because you're not in our club.

Because we are the New Aristocracy.

And you are the New Peasants.

And we very, very, very much like it that way.

I've been working harder since I retired than I did working. Maybe it's because it's something I want. I've spent the last week proofreading. I found that typos and other errors are far easier for me to find in a printed book than on a screen.

I finished yesterday, updated and uploaded the file and ordered a new copy. Still having writer's block with Mars, Ho! (which is only 20% done) I checked Amazon and Barnes to see if they had Nobots available. Not yet.

Fifteen years ago when I had the Springfield Fragfest I had a terrible plagiarism problem. Folks weren't just infringing my copyright, they were posting my own work under their name. Not a week would go by that I didn't have to issue a DMCA takedown notice to someone, usually a university (a different one each time) where a student was plagiarizing my work. So I googled for pages using Nobots in an infringing way.

I publish under the noncommercial GPL license. All I demand is that it's non-commercial and I get credit.

I ran across this German site. I was taken aback at first... DMCA doesn't apply to Germans. Then I realized they were displaying mcgrewbooks.com in a frame!

I don't see how it could harm me and do see how it might actually sell a book or two so I'm not going to hassle them.

I wish I'd learned German rather than Spanish.

NT

I've hardly logged on to the internet at all this past week, too busy correcting a mistake software houses frequently do: Trying to rush a project out the door. The fact is, I'm tired of The Paxil Diaries, but I don't want to ship a flawed piece of crap.

The first copy had a messed up cover; my printer's "cover generation wizard" has an interface almost as bad as GIMP. I fixed it and ordered a corrected copy, and a day later as I was converting the .odt to .html I discovered that some of the chapter numbers were wrong and there were no page numbers. I fixed it, resubmitted it and thought "This time it'll be right."

Number three showed up bright and early Thursday morning. I started going over it with a fine toothed comb. Almost halfway through and I started to think I'd be able to release it. The weather got really nice so I decided to read it in Felber's beer garden.

I discovered I was far better at proofreading when I've had a few beers than sober. When I'm sober what the words are saying distracts me from the words themselves, and I read too fast and miss errors.

It was full of errors, many of them whoppers. I marked them drinking, and finished correcting this morning while sober and sent for copy #4. It may be available in a couple of weeks depending on if I find more errors when it comes. I'll upload the book's HTML and PDF versions as soon as I decide I can release it.

Meanwhile, I can get back to Mars, Ho! this week.

Chapter One
Previously

Pirates
        Nothing happened in the last week that I didn't log in the ship's log. At least not what you want to hear, I get it. You don't need to know every time I take a shit or what I had for breakfast, right? Anyway, the whores pretty much behaved themselves. Like the log says, robots were trying to fix the busted generator but I knew they couldn't. They do what they're programmed to do no matter how impossible.
        Anyway, after a week there were some more little rocks in our way, but these were mapped; we could just go around them. The computers would do the actual steering but I have to sit in the pilot seat in case the four of them disagree about something and I have to make a decision. I've never seen that happen, though.
        While we were driving around the rocks, Wild Bill called over the MASER link. "John, Bill here. I'm about a light minute ahead of you and I'm standing still again, but this time it's on purpose. There's pirates ahead, and I can't outrun them on batteries. If your systems are all in good shape, run like hell. If you're having problems you should stop."
        Shit. I could out run them on one generator but what if the other one went out? Hell, I could just detour around them. Too bad Bill didn't have that advantage, batteries just didn't hold enough energy.
        I answered him back. "Pirates? This far out? Are you sure they're pirates?"
        It would be a couple of minutes before I heard back. I put the course correction into the computers' input console while I waited, then addressed the folks on board. "Passengers and cargo, attention. Prepare for unexpected gravity changes. That is all."
        Bill answered. "It's a fleet and they're not listed in the computer. Hell if I know what they're doing out here."
        Damn. Bill was a damned good friend who had helped me out of jams more than once. And he was hauling tons of different metals, a valuable cargo inside a valuable ship. His short circuit could have been sabotage; pirates have been known to infiltrate the company before. The company wouldn't too much mind pirates killing Bill but they'd hate to lose the ship and cargo, so maybe I wouldn't get in too much trouble for what I planned. I picked up the phone and addressed the ship's P.A. System. You can probably get a lot more detail from the computers, but anyway I got on the P.A. "Attention, ladies, this is the captain," I said. "Strap down, we're going to have some crazy gravity in a few minutes. That is all."
        I strapped myself into the pilot's chair myself. I turned the boat around and decelerated, shut down half the engines, made one look like it was sputtering, and informed Bill to get ready. Then I went toward the pirates while the computers figured out the trajectory for what I'd planned. I'm glad I have those computers, I could never do the math myself.
        They saw me, and I pretended I'd just noticed them and changed course. I wasn't kidding when I told the women gravity was going to be weird.
        They took chase. I went just slow enough to keep them the right distance and get where I was headed when I was headed there. From the radar it looked like they were steering those things by hand. Good, that raised my chances. Actually there wasn't any danger to me since I could outrun 'em easy and they can't shoot at me or anything that might damage the boat and cargo, which is what their goal is. But it raised my chances of saving Bill's ship.
        You know how the pirate fleets work, with a lead ship carrying an EMP. They don't know we designed these ships with pirates in mind and their EMP wouldn't stop us. And I didn't want them to know so I sent them a nice little present, fired from the rail.
        I hear the pirates still use gunpowder.
        The bastard's ship exploded and we were almost there –
        When I reached the right spot we took off like a bat out of hell. Ten seconds later the poor pirates got caught in the rain, as we say. They probably all died. I sure hope so, murderous bastards after my friend!
        I set the course back to Mars and addressed the ladies. "You can unstrap now."
        Time for inspection, since I'd pushed her hard on one generator.
        Like it says in the log, it was fine but a little warm. The engines were in good shape, too, but I shut down the one I made stutter for twenty four hours, just like the book says.
        This called for a beer. Hell, this called for champagne but I didn't have any. I started back to my quarters for a beer.

To be continued.

I've been a little busy this week, too busy to spend much time soylenting. I've only written about three more paragraphs of Mars, Ho!; I've been working on Nobots and The Paxil Diaries. The Paxil Diaries was waiting on my porch when I got home from Patty's Tuesday evening, and boy was it a mess. I've mostly been working on it. It's funny how much easier it is for me to notice mistakes on paper I miss on screen.

I finished editing it again last night and am waiting for another copy, which they haven't shipped yet. When it comes I'll go over it again, upload the revisions and buy another copy. It may be green outside before you can get a copy after all.

Nobots needed more sales outlets, so I worked on that, too. You should be able to get it at bookstores in a few weeks. If you bought a copy last year, you may own a rare book. If my name is on the bottom right of the front cover instead of right under the title, you have one of fewer than two dozen copies. It should be worth something in a decade or so.

I may work on the Mars book today, but then again I might just take the day off, take the computer to Felber's and watch Cosmos on Hulu since channel 55 was off the air last night; their web site said there was equipment failure. And drink beer in the beer garden and listen to music and enjoy the 65 degrees they're forecasting.

Or maybe sweep the floor... nah.

I'd planned on traveling to Cincinnati last Monday to visit my daughter and came down with the flu. I called Patty and told her it would be the next Monday; she works full time and is a full time student at Cincinnati State, and Monday is the only day she has off.

I looked her address up on Google Maps. It looked pretty easy to find. "Don't trust Google," Patty said. "They're doing road construction and it will try to send you down a road that's closed. Take the Hoppit exit, turn right and I'll meet you at the Shell station.

My nose was still producing copious amounts of snot, I was still coughing up lots of mucus but felt a hell of a lot better than I had last week. I woke up about 5:30 Monday morning, did my morning routine functions, especially coffee, one function of which was checking my phone. Three missed calls and a voicemail from Patty. I called, knowing she wouldn't answer because she's never awake that early and left a message that I was on my way and to call when she woke up.

I have a big laptop bag and a small laptop; the bag had cost me $5 and came with a broken laptop. I put spare clothing, charging accessories in it and loaded it, my battery jumper, and Patty's cat's ashes in the car.

I had a half tank of gas and figured it would get me to Indiana, where fuel would surely be cheaper. After all, it's a red state and Republicans hate taxes, right? No such luck, I was down to an eighth of a tank by the time I reached Bloomington.

It's a little frustrating that Cincinnati is southeast of Springfield, but you have to go northeast to get there unless you want to drive over three hundred miles of two lane road with 30 to 45 MPH speed limits and lots of stop signs and so forth. It would take forever that way.

Gas was a nickle cheaper than Springfield; $3.55. I put twenty bucks in, figuring I'd fill up in Indiana and started on my way again. I had my phone plugged into the car stereo for times there was no music and I'd heard all the CDs, which I'd neglected to change before I left. There was a rest area so I stopped to urinate and change CDs. I checked the phone; Patty had called. I called back, and again she warned me about Google.

Apparently people from Illinois aren't welcome in Indiana, as the usual "Welcome to [state]" sign was nowhere in evidence. The only way I knew I'd crossed state lines was that the pavement got a lot worse. I-74 had apparently been badly neglected for years in Indiana, except for a stretch by Indianapolis. Gasoline was more expensive than at home.

The sun was shining, the pavement was dry, and there was little traffic. "Welcome to Ohio!" the big sign proudly proclaimed in bright graphics as the pavement improved. I reached Cincinnati and the traffic was terrible. I-74 East split into I-75 north and south; I guessed south but wasn't sure. I pulled over to the shoulder and called Patty to make sure I wasn't going the wrong way. I wasn't.

The next exit was the Hoppit exit. I met Patty at the gas station. "You shaved!" she said.

"Yeah, my upper lip hasn't seen the sun since before you were born." Patty had never seen me completely shaven; most of her life I've had a beard, or at least a mustache when my chin hair went gray.

"I don't like it," she said, frowning."

"Neither do I. I'm growing it back this fall." I noticed the gas cap door on her car was open as she pulled out and was about to honk to let her know when she pulled over and shut it.

We got to her apartment and we hugged and I shook her fiance's hand an gave Patty the metal box and envelopes. I hadn't opened one of them, which had come from Coble Animal Hospital. I'd thought it contained Princess' ashes but they called a week later to inform me I could pick her up.

"Ooh, this is a pretty box," she said. "What's in it?"

I still can't believe I spent over three hundred dollars for a dead cat, part for the vet to tell me she was dying and part to have her cremated, since the ground was frozen and I couldn't bury her. I discovered that animals and humans are cremated in the same crematorium, which is why it's so expensive. If Little One dies in the winter I'm storing her in a deep freeze until the ground thaws.

Patty opened the unopened envelope and started crying. It was a plastic placard that read "PRINCESS" and had her paw prints in it. No, I guess I didn't spend $300 on a dead cat, I spent it on my daughter. "Put this with Calie under the tree," she instructed. "When you move, take it and Calie's grave marker with you."

Colby had planned on making Reuben sandwiches for lunch but the corned beef was still frozen. "Let's go to Chick Filet," he said. "OK," I replied,"but then Patty needs a phone." Her iPhone had been broken for months, its screen cracked. And she'd liked my phone and especially liked my low phone bill.

We had chicken sandwiches and went to Best Buy. The price of the phone was half what I'd paid for mine. She was trying to decide between it and a more expensive one with a front facing camera but decided she liked the idea of it being waterproof and resistant to shock.

"Lets buy a TV while we're here" she said to Colby. After they talked for a while she said "well, I'm buying a TV. I have the money." They have an old twenty two inch tube TV that doesn't work and a little nineteen inch widescreen.

But she didn't like the prices so we went to H.H. Gregg, whose prices were no better than Best Buy's. Best Buy's crack Geek Squad couldn't activate Patty's new phone so we took it home and did it ourselves.

I'd bought Gravity, which had come from Amazon amazingly the day before it was supposedly released for sale. It was a "combo pack" with a DVD, Blu-Ray and download. I'd brought the Blu-Ray for Patty, and we watched it using her Playstation and little TV set.

None of us had seen the previous night's Cosmos so she fired up Hulu plus on the Playstation. After watching it and an episode of Doctor Who I decided that I wanted Hulu Plus.

The next morning she gave me a big bowl of corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, and two T shirts. One was almost a joke; a St. Patrick's Day Reds shirt. The other was hawking some video game, a nerdy shirt I'll wear proudly.

She wanted to see how badly Google would have set me astray so I gave her my phone. She was amazed. "They got it perfect, that's how I told you to go." I loaded up the car, we said our goodbyes and I set off on the long journey home.

The trip home was as unpleasant as the trip there had been pleasant. First, I missed my turn to get on I-74. Five miles later I got on I-75, saw I was headed to Dayton and took the next exit. I stopped at a gas station, got gas, and consulted the map.

It would be nice of these things came with manuals. I think it ironic that everything used to have a detailed manual when technology was primitive enough you didn't need one, and now that interfaces have only icons and no way to discern WTF they mean, they don't. Let's see, looks like I go that way...

The radio was playing commercials so I switched it to the phone to listen to KSHE. The disk jockey started giving directions! "Go west on" whatever street the gas station was on "point seven miles and turn right." It wasn't KSHE, it was Google Maps. It easily got me back on I-74 north and it wouldn't shut up so I switched back to the radio.

Traffic was horrible; a semi that read "TARGET" zoomed past me doing at least twenty miles above the speed limit and almost made me miss my exit. Looks like it isn't just their IT that could use more training.

A little green sign with white lettering said "Welcome to Indiana". It started snowing. Twenty miles later visibility was poor, and twenty minutes after that the pavement was covered.

It was a miserable trip. The snow stopped around Indianapolis and the traffic was almost as bad as Cincinnati. Halfway to Illinois the wind started blowing. A couple of semis almost got blown off the highway.

Gas in Bloomington was $3.49.

When I got home there was a box on my doorstep; The Paxil Diaries had arrived. I'd screwed it up terribly. So you still can't have a copy yet...

If you're the owner of a copy of Nobots, you now own a rare book. Fewer than two dozen were printed. If you don't yet have a copy, the price is a little higher.

When I originally published I was brand-new to all of this. I guess I still am. Until now the only place it was for sale was Lulu; I hadn't properly registered its ISBN and the bar code on the cover was wrong (Lulu put it there).

When I was readying The Paxil DiariesI got better at navigating Lulu's interface and figured out how to add one of my ISBNs and get it for sale at Amazon, B&N, etc., and get it listed on Google Book Search. I fixed the front cover, too. It now looks like it does on my web site.

Those fewer than two dozen copies will be worth quite a bit in a few years. I worked with a fellow named (iirc) Dave Luttrell a couple of decades ago when computers were expensive. His sister won the lottery and fulfilled his dream of writing a book about his time in the Vietnam jungles. She bought him a computer for him to write it on, and a small local publishing house published it.

There was only a single printing, I don't know how big the print run was, but the local library had a copy. Interesting book, could have been better edited.

Years after I'd last seen Dave, Amy was telling me about her late uncle who had written a book about Vietnam and I realized that Dave was Amy's uncle. She was wishing she had a copy of his book and tried to find one.

The Elf Shelf, a used bookstore here, had a waterlogged copy for $250. So hang on to those books!

No sooner than I'd ordered a galley proof of The Paxil Diaries when I found a huge blunder -- a lot of chapter numbers were wrong and there were no page numbers. That's now fixed, and barring any further stupidity on my part you should be able to get a copy in a few weeks at the latest -- they shipped the galley proof three days ago.

Chapter One
Previously

Alarm
        The alarm went off when we were watching a movie; a real one this time, a modern holo rather than the ancient two dimensional ones we'd been watching. So of course I thought "damned whores."
        "Sorry, hon, we have a fire in the commons. I'll be back when I can." Damned whores.
        When the yellow light flashes over most doors, they can only be opened from the outside. When it flashes red outside it won't let you in, when it flashes red on the inside you'd better get the hell out of there.
        There were a few exceptions, like my quarters. It would only keep me in if there was a vacuum or a fire outside the door. It only flashed yellow as a warning.
        I went to the commons and another alarm went off. What the hell? This one was in the passenger section, apartment 12. Nobody should be in there. Whores? More electric problems?
        The commons was closer and I had to make sure the cargo had evacuated.
        There were no whores and no fire. My tablet reported it was a scheduled drill. That explained number twelve, sometimes they simulated more than one fire.
        It went off again. "Cargo section, #6." I laughed, the computer was posing a conundrum for me. And the cargo. If your quarters caught fire you were supposed to go to the commons but what if it were on fire, too?
        Number six... that was the Thai girls, wasn't it?
        There was screaming from the other side of the door. "Computer, open the door" I ordered.
        "Unable to comply. Danger to ship, passengers, other cargo, and crew."
        "Report."
        "Fire in cargo hold six. Fire suppression technologies deployed."
        The damned thing talks like it's went to college.
        "Let those girls out, damn it!!"
        "Unable to com..."
        "GOD DAMN IT!!"
        And then another damned alarm went off. Son of a bitch! "Computer, source of new alarm."
        "Meteor shower ahead." The door opened and the girles stumbled out, along with the fat blonde, coughing. Smoke billowed from the door before it closed.
        "Meet me in the commons, I have an emergency." I ran to the pilot room on my sore legs.
        This time, like most times, meteors meant slow down. I reduced gravity to 10%. This time I wasn't going to face the whores until it was over, we were already behind schedule.
        After the rocks all passed in front of us I sped back up and adjusted course to make up for the damned rocks.
        I checked the passenger quarters and sure enough it was a drill. What morons program this shit, anyway? Having emergency drills when there's a real emergency? That's dangerous. Stupid dangerous. Those bozos might have went to college but they were morons. God damned idiots!
        What? Yeah, yeah, just shut up and let me talk, I want to get this over. Anyway, the three girls were still sitting on the medic outside their apartment sucking oxygen. The door light was red but no longer flashing.
        "So what happened?" I asked them.
        "Don't know," the blonde said. I can never remember her name. Anyway, she says "we were just talking when that damned noisy maid burst into flames and the room locked us in! We were scared shitless!"
        It happened sometimes, but they usually smoked for a while before they started burning, and then only when they were old and worn out. I hoped the ship had a robot that made robots.
        The light went out, the door opened, the Thai women went in and the blonde went home. So did I.
        Destiny had fallen asleep, so I got a beer and put the movie back to where I'd left off.

Continues...

Chapter One
Previously

Pressure
        When I woke up, all my muscles were on fire. We would have had to turn the ship around today, and in fact that's what was scheduled, except for the meteors and the drama that followed.
        Destiny was sleeping peacefully. I got up, thankful that we weren't at Earth gravity but wishing we had turned around for deceleration then, because they have it plotted so that you start the journey close to the planet you're leaving's gravity, and reach your destination close to that planet's gravity. We were at half Earth gravity now and it would gradually be lowering to Mars' gravity.
        The girls didn't like half Earth gravity, they were going to hate Mars. I guess these girls were being well paid or something, they sure were paying me good. Except that from what I'd learned about these women they probably just promised free drops. Drops were the addicts' only motivation, only goal, only thing that mattered to them.
        God but my muscles were all on fire. I sat down on the couch and had the robot make a cup of shitty coffee, my legs hurt. I had it bring me water and Naproxin and drank the lousy coffee. Yech. Why can't they program those damned things to make drinkable coffee? I should have went to college and learned programming.
        I only drank half of the nasty brew and hauled myself painfully to the shower. A hot shower would do wonders for my aching muscles.
        The hot water felt as good as the coffee had tasted bad. I took a really long one. It helped ease the pain, and the pill had started working some, too.
        I took one sip of the remaining cold, nasty coffee and started a pot. Damned stupid robots.
        I was just pouring a cup when Destiny came in. "John!" she said. "You look like hell!"
        "I feel like hell. All that damned climbing yesterday nearly killed me. And I still have to check the instruments and inspect the boat."
        "You did inspection yesterday. I thought inspections were weekly?"
        "Yeah, normally, but yesterday wasn't the least bit normal. I have to inspect that busted generator since it would have cooled enough by now, and the other one, too, since it's working harder now that there's only one."
        "Poor baby!"
        "Well, at least I don't have to inspect cargo today. Want to watch a movie later?"
        "Sure. Isn't it almost time to check your instrumentation?"
        "Yeah, it is." I kissed her. "See you in a while."
        I went towards the pilot room, which was really just outside my quarters. Yesterday I'd been wishing for a bicycle, today I was wishing for a cane.
        All the readouts were normal except one – air pressure in the port generator was twenty kilopascal low. That wasn't a good sign at all, I was going to need a suit and tether in case a bulkhead blew while I was in there.
        I noted the log and stopped by our cabin... heh, "our cabin," how about that? Anyway I stopped to fill a bug mug and summon a medic.
        Medics are robots that look kind of like narrow tables with padded tops and appendages to measure bodily functions and administer medicine. Planetside they called them "gurneys" but everything is named different on a boat. Like port and starboard.
        I sat on the medic and ordered it to the port generator and got another robot on the fone to fetch the suit from the starboard hold where Destiny had gone out the airlock.
        After I'd suited up and tethered, the difference in pressure made it hard to get the hatch open. I tried a crowbar and couldn't even make it hiss. So I lowered the pressure where I was and the door popped open by itself. I took a floater with me to hunt for the leak.
        A floater is just a small balloon filled with helium with a small counterweight to make it gravity neutral. It goes where the air goes.
        I found where the air was escaping and patched it. Why can't they program robots to do that? Stupid robots, they could act as maids and medical doctors and all sorts of other functions but the damned things can't patch a hole or make a decent cup of coffee. At least they're cheap.
        The pressure was slowly rising so I sat on the medic and waited until it matched the rest of the ship so I could get out of the room. I hadn't needed the suit, but left it on just to keep my ears from popping.
        The gauge said pressure was normal so I tried the hatch. It opened easy, so I took off the suit and gave it to a robot and rode the medic back to my rooms.
        I was dying of thirst, even after downing that big glass of water when I took the naproxin. I said something to Destiny about it when I got back, taking another pill and drinking more water.
        She laughed. "You're dehydrated, dummy. You told me yesterday you thought you were going to drown in your suit from sweating. You probably need electrolytes, too."
        "And I'm hungry, I just didn't feel like eating when I got up. You hungry?"
        "I could eat. Robot eggs okay or do you want me to cook?"
        "No, robots cook okay as long as it doesn't involve coffee. How do you want your eggs?"
        "Ham and cheese omelette is okay, maybe with some hash browns."
        "Okay. Robot, a ham and cheese omelet, a Denver omelette, two hash browns and toast. No coffee!"
        Them damn robots suck at coffee, and they can't patch a hole at all. I'm glad they can cook.

Continues