“We will begin this course with some examples of deconstructive lithobraking. This 30-minute holofilm is titled ‘When the Ground Isn’t Your Friend.’”
Wherever humans go, they bring alcohol. In actuality, you are better off if they bring it, because otherwise they brew it. And you do not want to know what goes into the process, because humans will drink the byproduct of anything they can get to ferment.
And sometimes they stick Things in it, after distilling, to “enhance the flavour”.
Therefore, when you’re running various tourist traps in the Impossible Nebula[1], the best idea is to make certain there’s a bar in every mall.
And into one such bar, came a regular casualty.
She was human, of course. Only humans were mad enough to view the fast-transit ‘flight’ between asteroids as entertainment rather than a means of not having to deal with inconvenient shuttle schedules.
She walked with the help of a crutch, and half of her combination flight suit and life suit was a tattered ruin.
A table full of humans greeted her with whoops and cheers as she limped towards their company.
“Where’d you bite it, Cass?” asked another of the girls.
“I got almost all the way around to the Third Quarter. Would you believe, Sash, that I completely forgot about Big Bad John?”
The entire table moaned in sympathy.
“Yeah. Hit the Caterpillar[2] sideways. Busted my leg but good.”
“Three quarters is better than half.”
“I made it all the way around…”
“Only because you stopped at every rock, Nancy.”
“So what? I still made it.”
“You only fly the year[3] if you fly. It’s not called ‘stop and shop the year’.”
Nancy blew a raspberry. “Note the lack of broken bones and my complete absence of flakks to give.”
The bartender readied another round of Stellar Slams and rolled hir eyes at the universe. Humans…
[1] A very interesting misnomer. The nebula in question is actually an asteroid belt that has managed to maintain a breathable atmosphere between its disparate parts. All attempts to turn it into a Ringworld have failed.
[2] The ‘Hungry Caterpillar’ is a grappling-and-processing system that’s good for taking debris apart very quickly. In the Impossible Nebula, it has been adapted to preserve tourist life.
[3] The practice of flying through the entire orbit of the Impossible Nebula.
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