For Dinner: None   I don't want to think about it.
Mood: I'm not sure if I've been rescued or trapped.. 
Written in the Year of our Lord 3580, April  9th, Monday night.
Location:  Somewhere near  the river  Nibulon, but that's all I know, in a primitive hut, waiting for rescue or robbers, I'm not sure which.

    That's what I get for having pretensions of being a gourmet....I have trouble not thinking about food.
 
      Instead, I tried to think of some of the more beautiful worlds I've seen....but it then started to invariably turn to food.  I once travelled to  the world Peter, where the Pope is situated in the New Vatican. I was remembering a sight so lovely to break the heart....sailing in a sailboat on the oceans of Peter (Peter's largest land masses are a few largish islands, no bigger than England. The largest one has a vaguely crosslike shape--all the rest is ocean.), and of course Peter is encircled by lovely rings. To sail on the flat expanse of the ocean, and to see those great rings, semi-transparent --arching over the sky....it was one of the moments that any one with any artistic ability would love to paint.  You could vaguely see the twinkle of a sister planet, Andrew, through the rings, and the planet Paul, the evening "star" setting in the east.
 
     Then my thoughts would turn to  what was in the oceans,  the genetically-altered humans who had become merpeople to colonize the depths.  Then I would think of their principal export, the ten thousand forms of sealife below the boat--edible, tasty, delicious sealife--, and my stomach would protest again...

      I had to stop thinking about eating, and think of something I could do. Yet I was getting weaker and weaker. I didn't know how well I would fare on a long trek...

       I was thinking all this, staring into the pool, full of self-pity and hunger, when suddenly I felt a point against my back.
 
       Uh oh. I got up, and I heard a female voice say in Naviscan.
 
       "Forward. Don't speak. I'll look you over once I get home."

      I nodded and started walking. It's amazing with something sharp at your back, suddenly a trek didn't seem so arduous after all.

      We walked maybe a mile or two miles. I felt curiously light-headed, the exertion with no reserves to draw on --making me slightly high.  I started giggling...not a good sign.

       Finally we came to a small ramshackle dwelling, with several tyrbunds penned up outside.  As I went through the door, she said,

       "Sit."

      I sat.

      My captor was a female just into the childbonding years, not very old at all, the equivelent of eighteen for a human.  She had a spear in her hand.

      She looked closely at the weregild necklace. "Well, it's a good thing I didn't kill you at first, which was my first impulse. I would have had every assassin on Loki looking for me." She said in a calculating tone. "I wonder how much the Fel hierarchy would pay for your safe return?"

      "I met with Derheim himself, if that gives you any indication."

     "Human, aren't you? I'm not real familiar with all the aliens, but you look like a human.  I lost a sister in the Loki-Cluster war."

     "Oh. I'm sorry."

      She looked at me, puzzled. "Why? It wasn't your sibling. It was her own fault, she was always too much of a hot-head anyway."

       She talked of the death of her sister the way I would talk about trimming my fingernails.

       "What's your name, human?"

       "Redwine. Father Flint..."

       "Redwine will do. I'm Folgi. You look hungry. Maybe I should feed you, so that you can return to the Fel in prime condition."

        "I can't eat Lokiite foods. They would poison me. My nanoprocessor, that could convert foods to something I could eat was stolen by one of the Sia.  My party had another such unit--- is there any way you can get in contact with them?"

       "Sure. I live under pretty primative conditions, as you can see,  but there's a place down the road where I can contact the authorities. Will you be....all right....until I come back?"

        She wasn't concerned about me, understand. She was concerned about the potential profit she would make with me.

         "Yes." She left. On the kitchen table, there was a bowl of fruit.  My stomach was screaming for me to stuff them in my face. Yet if I did, I would die.

        Talk about your forbidden fruit....

        "Down the road" must have been quite a  ways. It grew dark, and I feel myself growing sleepy. I saw a small bed, and laid down on it. I hope I wake up, throat uncut.

                             Yesterday | Tomorrow
 
 
 
  Return to Redwine at Dinner.