Ted Mahsun

Well, that was unexpected. She said yes.

Dr. Irina managed to save the Poseidonite by forcing him to breathe through his gills. Her aides dumped him into a tub of water and his gills activated. Then it was just a matter of using a pair of tongs to extract the offending piece of bone. Mission accomplished. The Poseidonite was saved. Now it was my turn to make a move. As the Qastas had advised me: Tempus fugit. Carpe diem. Time is fleeting so seize the day. Act now before it is too late. When the matter of the Poseidonite was saved and I saw him and his Qastas friend out, I turned back into the sickbay and made my move. I asked her out.

Unfortunately, as I and the Qastas were engaged in deep conversation (and what a lovely conversation it was to have the chance to dip your toes in an immense ocean of knowledge and wisdom), the Poseidonite began choking, of all things, a fish bone. I had invited them for dinner at the lounge on the aft deck. It had a magnificent view and an amazing array of ocean culinary delights which as I suspected, delighted the Poseidonite and allowed me the time to talk with the Qastas. The Qastas immediately took charge of the situation. He rammed his finger across the poor Poseidonite’s neck, and massaged it. In an instant, he turned to me and said, “He’s choking and I cannot do anything about it. We’ll have to rush him to the sickbay.” I nodded. A crowd was already gathering around us, curious to see the commotion. I pushed some of the people aside and told them to make way, as the Qastas carried the Poseidonite on to his back. We ran as fast as we could to the nearest sickbay. When we

The Qastas told me he was a roamer. He spent a moment calculating in his mind how long since he had left his native planet. He spouted a number but it was a number that had no equal in our language. To translate it into human words would have taken several thousand years to utter, and longer still to write down. Truly, the Qastas was full of wisdom, but what he shared with me that day, was merely a tiny drop in an ocean of infinity.

Yes, I must admit that I haven’t the will to take finger to tablet and write more about my experiences here on this ship since… well, you know. Her. But enough of sulking like a love-struck teenaged boy. Am I not traversing through one of life’s wonders, the vastness of space itself? As it so happens, we have still not reached Zubanaljanubiyy. In fact we are nowhere near even one tenth of the way there. That is just how vast space can be at times. Not much has happened and the only exciting moment we have had was when someone had the bright idea of swimming in the water tanks on deck 4. It was all fun and games at first but when Crewman Cadman drowned, things quickly turned sour. Many more would have drowned if not for the three aqua-dwelling crewmembers from Poseidon. They had gills but I wasn’t sure if they were surgical or natural. There just was no doubt that they were good swimmers. I was intrigued. I decided I wanted to talk to them and find out more. I tried to find a fr