The Seventh Electron

Doc is awake. Or was for a minute. She smiled at Paula and said, "The seventh electron."

I'm sure it makes sense to someone. Other than Paula I mean. Paula knows, but since she turned bright red and pretend not to have heard, I didn't ask. I would ask Doc, but she is busy turning into a plant. It's creeping me out a bit. Paula said Doc is just 'building the framework.' It didn't help.

More importantly, the station is spinning, and we hit half-rev this morning. We'll reach full-rev and 1.0 Gee in two weeks. Blessed weight all day every day. And a bath. With water I can sink under. It's like the opposite of vacuum.

Paula wants me to take a bath in one of Doc's med-vats for a couple of days. If I had one of those symbiotic smart-bugs like Curious or Rick, I could have one of those custom vac-suits. I suspect Paula asked Rick to send that picture. The suit looks awesome.... And the features; emergency hyber-sleep, oxy-cycling, auto-charge ion-thrusters, grav detection.... It's a childhood fantasy. And I want one.

Except it comes with an intelligent virus called Submind. Submind, or part of it, will be inhabiting a genetically engineered symbiote which needs to bond with my nervous system in order to make the suit work. Submind inhabits the suit too, so I have to float in the med-vat while Submind takes my measurements.

I wonder if I can convince Paula to explain Doc's comment in exchange for becoming her next lab monkey? It's got to be good, because I've never seen Paula turn that shade of red before.