SICKNESS

Today was the last day in Banderander. SLEPT late curled around the
hired consort picked up in the hotel bar. Woke slowly. As usual in the
morning, I felt sausaged skin pulled tight and cracked BECUASE OF THE
AIR UNIT, must destroy all dry airs! Banderanderan hotels still had not
gotten the hang of comfortable living quarters and the necessity for
highly moist air. My happiest times are when humidity is at least 85%
and the temperature is above 90 degrees. When I informed the hotel
manager about this necessity, he stared at me with a lackluster boredom
that would put a jolter to sleep. He gave the usual flummery: "yes, Ms.
Netter, right away." Then he proceeded to stand there for another 5
minutes with glazed eyes. A pitch black mood was upon me already and the
day'd just begun. Used to these morning "madnesses" during business
trips abroad, I held off on consort contact. When too filled with rage,
sometimes accidents befell the consorts.

I went straight to the median and picked up some hodge whites, carn legs
and a bunch of gregor sandwiches. While I was sitting down to eat, an
especially thick consort sat down across from me and winked the wink of
a hot lover in heat. He licked his cheeks and preened his white maine.
Before I knew it he had his sticky arches all up and down my new poly
suit. By the time he got to my freshly coifed head, we were up in my
room doing who knows what, lunch forgotten down on the median.
Afterwards I sat blankly wondering how I got into these situations with
total strangers.

Morning madness ate me again, I hated everything and trusted no-one,
especially the carapaced consort who wore cheap badly made silver
trinkets on his antenae and shimmery cheek glitter, bought in the
reduced market zone no doubt. How did I ever let him into my room? He
had some nerve seducing me. Trying not to go beserk for once, I payed
him and we said our goodbyes. He was lucky I had learned some modicum of
self control in that Medern religious school. I would have liked to take
him apart segment by segment but there was too much to do today. Opt
out.

After pressing 18 buttons, my trainer's shell was in front of me. I
suggested that she come over for an exercise session. She is an old
friend so I never pay her to jolt me out of morning madness. Freebees.

She brought her own pocket weights that gain mass if you whisper a fifth
sequence. "Plan to get rid of my wimpy forearms" she says with a
vivascious smile, lifting and grunting her pocket weights. I had just
been sitting there brooding so she told me to do the swan routine. I
practiced flailing my hooks around in the air, true propeller speed
fighting techniques. Then I kicked up both my legs and trotted around in
a circle. This was better known as the swarming grill stance and was
used to surround and confuse one's enemy. From this I transitioned into
an adhoc level shifter fnd finished it off with the unsanctioned
whirring. This shocked my trainer and she gave a howl pleasure. Air
fighting is a delight and ALWAYS restores the chemical balance that the
night time sleeps seems intent on destroying. Workout! My trainer gave
commendations and signed off.

I ordered transport to go to the station where the 12:30 to Node 77
waited. The station was a wreckish modular anchored to a jelly pool
eatery. I ate fried scribbers on the balcony and made my way to the
ship.

Waiting in line to get on the ship, "I'm still alive" by E.G. played on
the loudspeakers incessantly.

The flight did not go well.

I ate an IC bar and immediatelly got the ache from the steroids. After a
shell sex share with a newt star called Free Jin, the ache got worse. I
couldn't stand it. I tried wrapping my hooks around my body but it did
not help. I went to the facilities and stared at myself in the mirror,
inspecting for skin ripples and hair patches in hopes of a distraction
but it did not help. In a futile despair, I went to another payper.
Sitting stubbornly refusing to think about the pain, I grabbed a shell
share with Dex Wesh who fantasized a complex scenerio with the first
mixed race Slapface team to win the global championship on Missinctit
10. Their "melting pot" motto was very racy and I really tried to enjoy
myself in the winning role Dex Wesh gave me. The ache kept getting worse
and worse. I went and asked the flight attentant if she had any kind of
pain killers for one of my species. She looked frightened and said, "I
am not allowed to medicate. You should have put in a request form upon
buying the ticket so they could have had an authorized medicart on the
ship." She looked down and picked at something round and dark on her
skin. "Can you hold out until the end of the trip?" she asked. I shook
my head and said, "I don't know." Worriedly, she said, "Well there is
nothing I can do." So I went into the facilities again to inspect. This
time I noticed my coloring had changed to a pale orange, my gloss was
down and one of my hooks had swelled to 3 times its normal size. It was
the flute!!! Oh I should have known better than to hire a consort in
Banderander. He was a blackmarket swine, a robber filthier in moral
makeup than a child's waste puddle!! That scoundrel had shot me up with
anesthetic, taken out my pipping organs, swallowed them for safe
keeping, then grafted the skin back while I was asleep --so I wouldn't
notice. He made his escape calmly lying to my face about love so he
would still get payed!!! I'd actually gone half a day without my pipping
organs, slowly depleting!! This would be the end of me if we didn't land
pronto. I weaved over to the slight attendant again and she gasped as I
collapsed. Unfortunatelly it was her first interstellar trip with mixed
species and she had no idea what to do. She panicked and told the
captain the truth instead of lieing through her teeth and getting the
ship down. Those captains are all cold hearted cutthroats, reigned in
from some interstellar pirate ship or other, there was no way they would
put down on a random un-UCAL planet just to save the life of a
passenger. I was helpless as the life ebbed out of me.

I felt like a warm lump for a long while and then bestirred in Med Unit
3B809. I am lucky to be alive. Apparently, It was all due to the
kindness of a stranger who kept pouring water over me like I was a
beached whale. I am ALIVE!!!! I did a little research and found the
stranger was none other than Ashun B Soloid, the famous electrical
engineer who designed the schematics for Veltons square dark matter
pumper in the helckor section. Her system is pumping out galaxies like
time's inevitable desintigration will never come. She's a genius beyond
compare. I sent Miss Soloid a rare antique eight prong ball switch, a
lifetime supply of minute Imbled nature developers so she could escape
into green pasteurs when she wished. Also I sent an autographed photo of
myself so she could look at it and say, "I saved an aliens life" and
feel heroic. Thanks to the kindness of strangers. Its funny, one
stranger saved my life, while another cared so little that he was
willing to destroy me to get what he wanted. You can never know what you
are going to get. Someone nice in the beginning can turn into a real
fool halfway through the years and vice versa a reprobate ugly can have
a golden midsection. Be on your toes!