>Bina: Are you sure you really are falling into something? Most of reality is space which is basically a huge void, right, so there's no guarantee that there's a bottom or anything. Maybe you should just use this opportunity to take a nap?
It's just the black expanse of nothingness like always.
> So, uh, are there any other holes you can see to get into?
But there should be other holes… shouldn't there? B12 and company implied that the damage done to reality doesn't reset.
It just gets worse every time.
She's B13, so where are all the holes? This shouldn't be an infinitely dark void, it should be like falling through the temporal equivalent of Swiss cheese…
Just a minute ago, when Kendra mentioned the state of the ceiling, she'd realized that she'd never seen herself land before.
She just falls, and then she's there. Kablam!
But this time she'd seen them land. The hole even stuck around. Maybe that's because of this crap right now, with Piotyr, but maybe…
A small part of her tells her that she's falling to her death and she should be busy panicking. Remember? Anxiety attacks? Now would be an excellent time for one!
The rest of her glares at it. Panicking about what? So, ok, she's falling through time towards an unknown four dimensional destination while only meters away from an enormous monster that's maybe the quantum entangled undead duplicate of the ghost of a beagle that seems to be camping out in her dreams. And ok, she's tired, beat up, her fingers hurt, her side hurts, she's swallowed god only knows how much muddy rainwater, and she probably has some broken ribs.
Oh and that monster-beagle-undead-corpse-puppy can shoot lasers out of its mouth. Lasers that, when you look at them for more then a second, make one feel as though they were staring into the eye of some vast and alien insect-like god.
So yeah.
That's all happening.
No argument here.
But how exactly is panicking going to help the situation? It's not like she can change any of that.
The small part of her advocating panic admits that the rest of her makes a very good point.
Well good, the rest of her thinks. Glad we've reached an arrangement.
What was she thinking about again?
Oh yes, Kendra.
Faaar away now. She'd better not jump in after her. She's out, now that Bina thinks about it. She could just duck out the door, walk the direction away from Gregor, and she'd be safe.
She hopes Kendra does that. Of course she does. To think anything else would be -
Wait, she was having a thought here?
Right.
Their landing.
Earlier, Bina had attributed their unusual landing to the time machine, but now that she thinks about it, that doesn't feel quite right.
That feels like the easy answer. The answer that someone like B3, or B12, or Josephine would give. They'd say something like 'Due to the widened angle of the foozwidget, the prunedangle has parped the shmagee! This means that you were able to observe your own landing this time and also the gap stayed open behind you. Because science, and also math and things!'
But Bina thinks it isn't that complicated.
Bina's pretty sure that all that other stuff is so much horse shenanigans.
Bina thinks that it wasn't what she was doing, or even how she was doing it, but who she was doing it with.
Notes
Terry Pratchett died today. There are words to say about that, and other people, more skilled, have said them. I have only these:
He left the world a brighter place then when he found it. There is no higher praise then that.
He will be missed.
He left the world a brighter place then when he found it. There is no higher praise then that.
He will be missed.