|| -------- -- -----  A E R I E   O B L I V I A N A . singular book of text wandertainment by Frank Edward Nora ------------------- ----------- WEAVER--CUP 12--"MARTHA WAS NOWHERE" <-------  ||  Severe Repair  ||  Weaver  ||  -------> (Cup SRwv012, Created v2 (6/7/99), Copyright 1999) = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = I lied back down, and was motionless, trying to take it all in. It occurred to me that I was in way above my head, but then I considered my royal heritage, and knew that I would get through it all somehow. I was just worried--about a lot of things--like how Booze would react to the crew of the Urbander--would she want to seduce all of them, even the monsters? And when we got back to the others--a lot of the Primates are naive and impressionable. She'd have a field day with Injure Bodoni! So wouldn't it be better to strand her? I think it would, but Daptin was clear as to his intentions. He wanted her for his "devil". Great. So I'd be delivering the ultimate force of evil to the ultimate force... Wonderful. I growled in frustration. Why me? Then I remembered that day, it seemed like so long ago, when the Polants came over, and I drove them down to the Hay-Hengren Seaside in the Balsativan. There was some kind of political tension going on between us and Imcre Sound, but the cable cars were still running, over the sea... It was weird. I just sort of lost it and left the Polants. Martha was nowhere. I don't know what it was. I guess it was the nervewracking drive down the mountain--I hated driving that thing. But just having to talk to the Polants--the polite chit chat--I couldn't stand it. So I just walked away, got lost in the seaside amusement crowd. And a little later, I was sucked into my P-Vest by Supple Jake, and offered membership as a Primate in Overwhelm Associates. Huh. It seemed like the perfect thing for me, at the time. I left my parents a cryptic message about having to go away on a trip, and ran away with Overwhelm. Look where it got me. But I guess I would have been killed in the reality crash like everyone else if I never got involved with Overwhelm. But I have to ask myself--was reality really destroyed, or was it only Overwhelm that was destroyed? I mean, wouldn't that make sense? It was mostly Overwhelm folks who "survived". Ah, I don't know. What am I gonna do? Take the first step. The first step back to coherence. Reluctantly, I got up and headed to the cockpit. At the central shaft, I looked down and saw the submarine. Now that I was on water, I could try it out--but should I? It was pretty dark outside, so I don't know what I could see. Ah, I'll leave for later. For the daytime. We'd be travelling be sea for a week or two straight--I figured there'd be more than enough chance to check it out then. As I climbed the ladder, I looked at the speedboat and wondered why we couldn't just leave that with the Urbander crew. It had a comm, didn't it? Nah--it probably depended on the Warhome's main comm, so it'd get out of range at some point... Why am I worrying about this crap now? I entered the cockpit, got into the driver's seat, and began fiddling with the vector display, trying to get a map of the coastline and a reading on where the girls were. After about a minute, I got what I wanted--and I saw that Treyess and Booze were still on the beach, near my crater. Nice of them to go looking for me, y'know? -------> ------------------- ----------- -------- -- -----