My Private War, Part II

The following is the second part of an ill-conceived story arc chronicling Rolinthor's and the Applied Physics Institute's pathetic solo misadventures in the Derelik region. Read Part I here, and check back this Sunday for the next episode (you know, if you're empire mining, and you're really, really bored).
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Most people find lying in the coffin-like alcove of an autodoc to be an unnerving experience. They say that, beyond the intimations of death brought on by being surrounded by a long, narrow box, it's just a creepy experience. Moments after you first crawl in and lie down, innumerable sensor ganglia extend from the walls, floor, and ceiling of the box to sweep across the skin in a gentle, undulating rhythm. Here and there, an individual ganglion will pause over the skin and burrow into a particular pore or prana point, to diagnose, to administer medicines, or to inject a few billion tissue-repair nanites. The ganglia punctures are utterly painless. Only for the briefest of moments, before the anti-inflammatory meds kick in, you might feel a series of slight itches or a tickling sensation, but that's it. Still, it just freaks people out.

Personally, seeing a body surrounded by the ghostly translucent filaments of a 'doc reminds me of the tropical fish that hide in the sea anemone back home on KP IV. Maybe that's why being in the 'doc, as I am now, doesn't bother me: I don't draw a bright line between man and machine. We're all God's refuse.

My Private War, Part I

I feel the embrace of the Universe Entire as a pitch-black swaddling shroud. It's a feeling of incredible power, as if all time and space were one great cynosural field, calling out to me to reach out and go to any point I care to choose in its infinite expanse. A host of long-forgotten names pass through my awareness as potential destinations: Soekheviti, Athra, Epsilon Eridani, the Great Attractor.

There is an infernal paradox to this awareness of omnipresence: In a cosmos in which I can travel anywhere, infinite though it may be, I can go nowhere. To see all that is or can be, as I am now,  is to know that choice and action are pointless. There must be more than this, but this strange awareness tells me there is not!