#findzeit

Have some Findzeit, as a treat.

Eckbo, a blazing figure in his white linen suit, looks up at the helicopter.  The lenses of his sunglasses are bright blue, almost the color of the sky.  He’s holding his Buddy in one hand, stylus in the other.  

Eckbo applies the stylus to the tiny input screen of his Buddy.  His movements are measured, leisurely.

The helicopter descends almost to his eye level.  He looks dispassionately into the freckled muzzle of the Fourier gun, and finishes his script.  He signals to Chance: two, then three fingers.  

Chance slides open his handheld and punches a few buttons.  At the same time,  somewhere deep within the IO, Annecue hits “enter.”  

I clear my throat, and speak into the radio.  

“You may have noticed,” I say, “that you don’t actually have control over your helicopter anymore.  We’ve also disabled your Fourier gun, but—“ there is a series of harsh, attenuated clicks, loud enough to hear over the sub-bass propeller hum—“but sure, go ahead and try it out for yourselves.”  

Eckbo, eye to eye with the denizens of the helicopter, gives them the finger.

“We’re going to, ah, suggest that you land your craft on the shuffleboard deck now,” I say.  “Please consider yourselves prisoners of war, as per the Mothra Convention agreements.”

The cryptographers just do not stop.  They may not actually ever sleep.  I find them at unique intervals everywhere at every possible time of night or day.  Now that I am their Rock God, they all greet me with big, loopy grins.  At one point, unspeakably worn out after an extended instrumental jam in MegaPhoenix, the tiny impromptu studio they set up on Deck Six, I asked Panda Friedman to explain how it all worked.  I had bluish circles under my eyes; Panda had a complexion whose dewy freshness was almost uncanny.  As I watched she applied her eye makeup deftly, with an unshaking hand.  

“Aw, sweetie,” she said.  “Back in the bad old days, you know, or maybe you don’t, at Horton Pfizer we’d just sleep around the clock.”  

“Sleep, you mean, like, a lot?” I floundered.

an answer, of sorts, to @razziecat . A different bathtub encounter, but the configuration is the same.

"The Pursers are worried," I tell Rehm.  I've shown up with my towel this time, about as blatant a statement as possible of my intentions.  He takes in my elderly yellow terry bathrobe without comment, stepping aside to let me through his stateroom door.

"They told you this?" he asks.  I shuck my bathrobe and hang it on the coat hook inside his door.

"It feels good to be naked with the lights on and the curtains open and not care," I say.  I walk toward his bed, looking out at the play of ship-lights reflected on the water.  "I mean, who will notice I'm naked?  Pirates? Wild creatures of the sea?  It's liberating." I scratch an armpit, and turn to face Rehm, who's gazing at me fixedly.  "I had dinner with the First Purser.  Jesus, did you eat?  I never see you in the dining room."

"Are you actually going to take a bath, or did you just come to take off your clothes in my stateroom?" Rehm asks.  We stare at each other for a second, the air between us suddenly tingly.

"Okay," I say meekly, slipping past him into his tiny bathroom.

The bath has already been drawn.  The water is scalding hot.

"Wasn't sure when you were coming," Rehm says, looking uncomfortable.

"I'll bring you some food next time," I say, and test the water with my toe.  "Jesus! Ow! Have to wait a sec, Eric, it'll take off my skin."

"Had no idea you were so desperate to go around naked," he mutters.  "Thought you just liked to run free in your socks."

"And I do," I agree, "and I do.  Never had the impulse to come to work naked, though.  Sometimes, on casual Fridays, I get going in bare feet.  Drives the Marmoset crazy."  I drop into his chair, he sits down rather nervously on his bed, and we stare at each other again.

"Are you getting used to me?" I ask quietly.

"I'll never get used to you," he answers, rising from his bed to go back into the bathroom.  I hear him puttering with bottles and caps, and I leave him in peace for a little.

"The First Purser," I say, "told me they've been worried about Captain Walt for quite some time. There've been signs."

"Signs?" Eric's poked his head around the doorframe.

"Signs, yeah, signs of instability, irrationality, just little things about the way he gives orders, stuff like that.  The shoulderpads," I add, swiveling around in the chair to face him.  "The shoulderpads were his idea, not a Monastic Travel and Shipping thing.  These cruise ships, I find out, are run like franchises.  The captain of the ship actually has the franchise, so there's policies, right?  But also quite a bit of leeway.  The Pursers think maybe the extra leeway is starting to kind of go to his head.

"And now, of course, that we're a nation...Eric, there's something I don't get about this.  Being a nation.  Could I, say, declare myself a nation?  How's the water?"

"Try it," he says, and I slide past him into the bathroom.

The water is still on the hot side, but I take a deep breath and step in.