Fire and Ice

As I write this, the initial flash cut is burning furiously. In about five hours we set off the charges which will literally blow the two halves of Fort Falling apart. One half will get kicked away from Saturn initially, but will eventually crash into the ring plane. On the other half, we will ride the initial explosions and flaming ice-boosters into a tighter, more sustainable orbit.

I'm trying very hard not to freak.

I spent the last three days checking cat trees (a.k.a. cat traps), and rounded up a dozen more cats. None of them were happy to see me, but without weight (or a magnetic symbiote) they couldn't get away from me. I transferred all twelve of the wildest felines I've ever met to a large cat-tree living in one of the converted launch platforms. I suspect availability, opportunity, and weightlessness three times every day will encourage symbiotic relationships.

It's spreading. Kelly wants me to take care of her two 'domestic' cats for a couple of weeks while she gets fitted with a symbiote. I agreed to do so before her stated intentions caught up with my brain. Since it isn't my business, I kept my mouth shut. No matter how scatter-brained she seems at times, Kelly wouldn't agree to something unless she understood completely.

Apparently Counter-Spin has a symbiote and a specialized vac-suit already. He sent us pictures of himself standing on one of his new slush bombs, and there were half a dozen of Doc's ice-pods scattered around. Each one of those pods contains a tiny ecosystem with bugs and rodents.... like we need more of those around. I'm afraid to ask why Rick is planting them on a ball of slush he intends to crash into an OSA troopship.

Paula wants me to get one of those symbiote things too. I told her I would rather we survived the next two months before making friends with the local space-flu.