trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[from_scratch]

"Well, in my world it was known to only a few people for a long time and didn't become common knowledge till 2008. Maybe you skipped the 'become common knowledge' part."

[unmarred]

He shrugs. "Maybe we'll find out. Do demons sleep?"

[from_scratch]

"Can. Can also stay up, especially with the help of coffee."

[unmarred]

"I'm contemplating whether to go back to my own hotel room for the night or not, while we're waiting for the Ariel. We could go topside and wait in an orbitral transfer station, but it would take a nibble out of the budget for no especially good cause. I don't want you wandering Escobar unattended, but I can't sleep in the presence of people."

[from_scratch]

"What might happen if I wander Escobar unattended?"

[unmarred]

"Probably nothing. Potentially you do something that you don't know is going to be attention-getting until you do it, and end up with more attention than I want either of us to have."

[from_scratch]

"I think I can entertain myself wandering on public thoroughfares for eight hours drinking coffee without alarming anyone, but maybe I'm overestimating the universal commonality of human cultures. What counts as 'in the presence of', anyway?"

[unmarred]

"Same room, or observable by."

[from_scratch]

"If you feel very strongly that I cannot entertain myself for eight hours wandering public thoroughfares without alarming anyone, recommend me some local books and I can sit in the bathroom for eight hours reading?"

[unmarred]

"I don't like to risk it when there's another option. Sure, you can sit in the bathroom and read. Here." He calls up a list of books available for public access from a local library on the comconsole. "I have no idea what kind of books you like, besides the one."

[from_scratch]

"I read pretty omnivorously these days but have a longstanding soft spot for old Anglophone literature - old relative to my usual year, ancient relative to this one, I guess. But I was hoping for recommendations that would be more traveloguey and informative."

[unmarred]

"I'm sure they have both. I have no personal recommendations that qualify as traveloguey, and if you were interested in old Anglophone literature in the twentieth to twenty-second centuries I expect you've already read Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes."

[from_scratch]

"Yeah. I guess I'll browse this thing here, unless you want to go to sleep right now in which case I'll just go over my terraforming notes or something."

[unmarred]

"Browse away."

[from_scratch]

Cam browses. "I prefer to acquire my books in largish batches," he says, "so stop me whenever you want me to get out of your way for the night."

[unmarred]

Mark shrugs and goes to play with the map cube.

[from_scratch]

Cam browses. Eventually, he has enough books to last him a while and makes them on a format compatible with his computer and holes up in the bathroom for the night so Mark can sleep.

[unmarred]

Mark sleeps.

He politely knocks on the bathroom door after he wakes up in the morning.

[from_scratch]

Cam emerges. He's got a coffee cup but otherwise doesn't seem to have been much affected. "The market for terraforming is huge," he remarks. "I'm going to be very busy."

[unmarred]

"Maybe I'll get my brother a freshly renovated planet for Winterfair. If you don't mind doing an extra one on the side."

[from_scratch]

"As long as it's not too far out of my way, sure, why not. It shouldn't take me more than a few weeks to do basics on any rock that starts with adequate gravity."

[unmarred]

"We'll see. No point staying on the planet any longer; let's go up to the orbital transfer station and wait for Bel. Maybe it'll be early."

[from_scratch]

"Sure."

They go to the orbital transfer station.

[unmarred]

Mark spends the shuttle ride pondering exactly what he is going to say to Bel Thorne, over exactly what medium.

When they get there, he nips into a public comconsole booth and sends a text-only message to the Ariel:

Captain Thorne,

I will pay you fifty thousand Betan dollars for a one-way ride to Jackson's Whole, myself and one other passenger, departing immediately.

If interested, meet me in the public concourse of the orbital transfer station. I will recognize you.

There. The station's comm system will send it as soon as the Ariel appears within lightspeed shouting distance.

[whyexit]

And Thorne appears in the public concourse after the Ariel has docked, looking intrigued, accompanied by an ensign who's apparently there to watch its back.