*
In the absence of the quarx’s voice, Bandicut found himself starkly alone and at a loss for purpose, drifting toward, but not quite into, silence-fugue. He watched the instruments and the stars, and did little more for the rest of the ship-day than tap the armrests on his seat and listen to the vague choir of fugue-voices tuning up for action, just beyond the edges of his consciousness.
Eventually, drawn by hunger, he drifted out of his borderline state and went to prepare a grim, lonely dinner. He mouthed some tasteless soyloaf, thinking about all he had left behind, even his duffel bag with all of his photos, books, memories . . .
/// You still have your memories.
Those other things were only possessions. ///
He grunted. /You’re back, huh?/ The quarx might have been right, but he very badly wished he had those possessions. He thought he might find them comforting, at the end. To say nothing of the people he would have like to see.
And that thought was enough to send him skidding over into real fugue . . .
Neptune Crossing Page 66