MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

Apr 18th 2011, 14:25 by E O Hatterpol | KUIPER BELT DAY 14

GOOD afternoon & happy Monday to all my Flybrarians back on Earth!  I've got a progress report to make on the book stack mystery.


I spent the weekend reading books, hanging out at the cafeteria & tidying up my quarters. I finished my chores early yesterday, so I decided to reward my hard work with a few pints down at the Whale's Liver.  Just a nice Sunday afternoon at the pub, you know - nothing heavy.


I don't know what it is, though; I start drinking & just keep at it until bedtime.  The pubhand comes around to take my order; I say "Whaley & steamers"; the ale comes first, so I drink it; the clams finally show up, but I'm not hungry anymore; I just want more beer. So the seafood gets skipped in favour of another pint.


Long story short, I started thinking about what Oru said on Friday. She said I should leave a note for the book stack mystery; after all, if it's been there for a long time, it must know how to read.


I said I was never going back there, but I had enough "liquid courage" in me to cloud my judgment. I grabbed the pubhand's pen, scribbled a quick message on a napkin & worked it down the neck of my empty beer bottle. Then I dashed off through the bowels of the blue whale to the back of the bookshelves.


I went into the half-gloom as far as I dared; it was quiet enough to smother an old man in his hospital bed. I crouched down & bowled the bottle down the aisle. Then I turned tail & got the hell out of there. I didn't even stick around long enough to hear it stop rolling; that place gives me the heebie-jeebies now, even with the hoppy encouragement.


At the time, it seemed like a good idea. What safer way to initiate first contact, right? I'm seeing problems with my plan now.


How am I going to check to see if there's a response? Do I just waltz into the gloom & muck about? Check some kind of community message board for creepy things that stalk the forgotten sections of the starship?  Tell somebody on the ship that I actually think it's haunted?


I doubt even the Right Hemispheres would be able to back me up on that one. What am I going to do?