What I did on my summer vacation

The Friday Challenge for 9/4/09 is to write an essay about what you would like to have done on your summer vacation.




This summer, my vacation was very restful and refreshing. I needed that badly after the long, intense project at work. I think the Doctor needed the rest, too, judging by a couple of offhanded comments he made.

We went to some very novel places, but all of them had one thing in common: there were no demands on us. There was nothing on a to-do list, no cooking or cleaning, and most importantly, no stress. Just sit back and enjoy the scenery, or make friends with the local creatures. There were a few more exciting moments here and there, like our visit to Trenco, but I never felt in danger. The Doctor has many talents, and he always made sure we were safe.

Our first stop was Zabriska. I had always wanted to see a fontema in person, and I was especially curious about their water needs. The descriptions of Zabriska never included any water. No rivers, lakes, ponds, rain, or even dew. But I found it hard to believe that a creature could exist without water of any kind. I was also curious about Zabriska’s sun. Since it provided all the nourishment a fontema needed, would it be beneficial to a human, or harmful?

We touched down halfway between the equator and a pole, and the Doctor ran his tests on the sunlight. After several minutes, he decided it would not be harmful to either of us, but it wouldn’t be beneficial, either. It was simply very different. We didn’t have the receptors the fontemas had, so we had no way of receiving any energy or nourishment from it.

We opened the door and stepped out onto the dry, sandy surface of Zabriska, and started looking for a fontema. We had brought along our own shade in case we had to wait a while, so we set up the umbrella and lounge chairs and had a picnic. This gave us the chance to experiment a little with water.

We found that a drop of water spilled on the ground would evaporate very quickly, but it seemed to form a tiny thin cloud just above the ground. There was no wind, so the cloud didn’t move. This caused the Doctor to go hunting for more testing equipment so he could test the air. He found the air was full of evaporated water, enough so there wasn’t any more room for the drop we had spilled. It stayed partly condensed in the air rather than completely evaporating.

We were both scratching our heads over that one, but the Doctor couldn’t rest until he figured out how it worked, so he kept poking around with various machines, talking to himself and making vigorous hand gestures. I think he did figure it out, but I didn’t understand much of his explanation. I caught the fact that the ground was hotter than the air, and that made more water able to evaporate on the ground than in the air. He also launched into some theories about fontema skin really being their stomach, which could absorb water from the air and transform sunlight into energy. It was interesting, but too much work for my brain on vacation.

While he was working on the water question, I got out my book to read. I was about halfway through Havah, which was the perfect book to read on vacation. It was very soothing and full of exquisite beauty. I kept checking the stretch of dirt in front of me for any sign of a fontema, and finally I saw a slight movement off in the distance. I picked up the binoculars and tried a closer look. It was definitely a moving creature, coming right toward us.

We had an interesting time playing with the fontema, which completely ignored us no matter what we did. It acted exactly like all the descriptions of it, falling asleep instantly when we shaded it from the sun. I felt much more appreciative of the expression “less brains than a Zabriskan fontema.”

As we were just about to pack up and leave, we spotted another one coming toward us, and we turned around the one we had been playing with to head toward it. We got to see first hand the reproductive process of fontemas, which was about as exciting as that of amoebas. They met, merged, and divided into four fontemas, who immediately moved off in the four different directions.

From Zabriska we went to Trenco. We had a big advantage in our method of travel, because we didn’t have to face the winds or the chaotic perception changes. We could put down inside the shelter instead of having to time our landing during the time of the least wind, then spend a very short time doing whatever we had come for and take off before the winds became too strong.

I spent most of my time there staring out through the thick plexiglass, or whatever it was, watching the plants grow. I thought the “tree weeds” in my yard grew fast, 15 feet in a couple of months, but this was unbelievable. These plants lived for one day, because they couldn’t withstand the violent wind and storms during the night. Each morning seeds sprouted, the huge leaves grew in a few hours, more seeds were produced and deposited into the mud, swirled away to another part of the planet during the night while the leaves were ripped up and shredded by the wind, and everything started over the next day.

All I could think was thionite must be some terrific drug to make people risk their lives to gather the leaves to make it.

Our last stop was Arisia. We contacted the authority to get permission to come, and Mentor met us as we walked in the garden. Actually, we had gotten separated by that time, so Mentor met each of us. To me she appeared as a beautiful and very wise woman, dressed in flowing magenta and gold robes. Even though I knew she was really not a single entity, but a four-way Arisian mind meld, it was hard to think of her like that.

I’m not sure how long we were there, but it was completely refreshing to me. I basked in Mentor’s presence as in the sun, and my spirit relaxed and stretched like a sleepy cat. We talked about deep things, both dark and joyous, and I felt my soul growing in wisdom and understanding.

As in all good vacations, I regretted having to come back home. I would especially miss the suite of rooms the Doctor had created for me. They had everything I could have wanted in a house. I would love to spend more time there.

As I opened the door and stepped out into my own yard, I turned back to look at the Doctor. “Will you come and pick me up next year for my vacation?” I asked.

“Of course,” he answered with a smile. “It will be in August, and we will be going to the sci-fi conference near Henry’s house. We can stop and pick up anybody else that needs transportation – Minnesota for Bruce, Nashville for Vidad, Texas for the Bandit, Colorado Springs for Rain and Waterboy, New Jersey for Snowdog, and even Italy for Vox. There are plenty of rooms for anybody that wants to sleep here, and the Tardis will fit in Henry’s back yard. Just tell everyone to let me know.”