A Tale of Two Minds -- SD 10303.11

[LoAmi 0]

Lt. Arphazad Lo'Ami was puzzled.  As a scientist, he was puzzled by what was going on around him.  The void, the yacht, Kawalas' death, the planet, the old woman, the Prophets.  The crew reunited, standing together on the same planet Ziggy and himself had crashed on a few hours... or hundred years ... ago.  All of the elements of his recent life ran through his mind; or, at least half of his mind.

As an individual, he was puzzled by what was happening inside him.  It was an odd feeling of detachment.

 

"All right then, if we've mastered this place, then all we need to do is think of the ship, and we'll all go home," Captain Moose suggested.  Apparently, the crew was using thought as transportation?  With no time to ask, Lo'Ami simply accepted that this might work.  He had begun to develop a trust for the Arcadia crew, and, empirically, they *were* there.

Telano replied: "Why don't we think of the ship and somewhere more specific? Home is a bit to subjective..."

Then Dac: "Captain, first the Bridge, and then I suggest ... Earth?... or Risa?"

And the discussion ended, with Captain Moose giving an implied order, in his nonchalant command style: "It works for me."

And, so, presumably, the entire crew was thinking of the bridge.

Arphazad thought of the bridge as well.  He thought about how good it would be to be back at his science station.  He tried to avoid the thought of his impending duty to make a final entry in Kawalas' file.  In parallel, Lo'Ami thought first about the bridge, then about the Vogarts, another host's long-past childhood... two trains of thought!  Something was definitely wrong internally.

 

And... something was definitely wrong externally as well.  Arphazad Lo'Ami found himself staring at a console.  The diagrams on it indicated that it was likely a science station - a counterpart to his own.  But, it was not his own.  Looking around, Lo'Ami realized that he was alone, in an unknown place.  The console in front of him displayed mostly familiar data in an unreadable language: readouts on local gravitation, EM fields, particle fields, lifesigns, spectroscopic analyses, etc.  The console to the left of it displayed schematics of a ship.  He recognized it immediately as Vogart.  The console to the right displayed schematics of another ship: Arcadia.  The consoles all lacked buttons, so he did not know how to interface with them, or even if he should be trying to interface with them.  The second, uncontrolled train of thought that continued to race through his mind was not helping his decision making.

 

After a few seconds of indecisive staring, the consoles began to glow in a blinking green, and a thumping noise was broadcast throughout the ship.  Now, both of Arphazad Lo'Ami's minds came to the same conclusion: they were piled high and deep in excrement.