Well, it was a bit of a hassle, but I'm finally here

In the end I took Morky (my Companion)'s advice and went for the Corona-Medius-Brannon-Yzak-12w078a-Cybus-Kentaurus route - even though 12w078a was only a 2 meter gauge (talk about claustrophobic! I was sure at one point I felt the tidal forces, i dont care what the capsule mind said about that being "impossible"). And some of the neumann clades at the Cybus interchange were freaky to the max (though not as freaky as their hu wannabes!). But it allowed me to avoid the tolls at Gramon, and with the horror stories I'd heard about the red tape the Medius-Juzan 74510 worm insists on (there's been cases of people having to go into nanostasis rather than die from boredom on that sparse little station waiting for their visa to come through) I thought I'd take the risk, even it did mean the extra cost of a hi res backup and storage before departing (can never be too careful)

Those who consider the Nauri (Nur? Nurri? no one is sure of the correct pronunciation) to be these ahuman plunderers who cheated hu of their original interstellar colony would be disappointed. Those neumanns I have met in person (which admittedly are about as many as one can count on the fingers of a baseline hand) have been friendly and gracious, in fact among the charming of clades, even if their idea of a nearbaseline-friendly morph leaves a lot to be desired. A skittling metal spider with accompanying wasp-like insectoid areostat swarm and a great bloated oily utility fog forming a grotesque mask of a face in which all the baseline expressions are almost, but *not quite* right - I shudder to think of what their normal appearance is like! (Morky is offering to show me some 3Ds - no Morky - that was a rhetorical question only. Where was I, oh yes). After weeks on intersystem and inter-wormhole shuttles and grapeships, and cramped hotel living units, accommodation is luxuriantly spacious. Or was when these biont habs were originally built, which the data interface here tells me was during the "Two-Hundred-and-Ninety-Eighth" Era, about 520 standard years ago, when the Nurri overmindat the time , apparently seduced by some NoCoZo subversion and a lucrative cozzie megacorp franchise offer, decided to again open the place for tourism. Since then there have be at least six overminds (even with fast learning I still can't understand Nurri politics!) and tourism and trade have been neglected. So have these habs, although the imported bionano has adapted famusly and seems to be working fine, if you ignore the scummy patches that flake off from the wall every so often (Morky did a bio analysis and e has assured me they are harmlesss. Well, I'm keeping up my medical nano doses, no point taking chances.)

Anyway, they're quadrupal bunking in most of these suites now and I expect it will only rise. Everyone seems to want to go to Rigel Kentaurus System now - Morky says - well this is what he got from expertsystem localnet analyses before we left Corona, that it is the new "last frontier" of the current sociomimetic cycle. The Periphery, Virch, Morphic Exploration, now Social Explrotion through encounters with non-sephirotic clades. I expect the situation will cahnge in a few years or decades, it always does. Maybe go back to relativistic tours or something.

I was lucky though, there was only one other person sharing my accomodation unit. One Jone Solis, a (well, no surprise, with a name like that) Bordist, putting together some travelogue edufiction interactive virch, hence all the cams and cybertelepathic feeds and what not e has in eir skull and positioned on various parts of eir person (including the most intimate).

After I settled in we had a real good rave about travel experiences, fave place, best and worst stargates, what food to avoid, and so on. I also let em interview me (apparently I'm going to have some sort of minor starring role - whatever turns you on I guess)

Anyway, Jone was a hermophrodite when I arrived, but in the weeks since my arrival, but while I was checking out the usual touristy places here (thought I'd best get them out of the way before going for the juicy stuff) - the Historical Museum (a little aerostat remote gives guided tours every tenhour, whether you want it or not), the First Probe (or at least a good nanoreplica of it), the Planetological Interactive Tour (worth taking if you want to learn everything you ever wanted to know about planetissimal aggregation and eujovian metallic hydrogen convection cells), the Nauri Museum of Perfect Art (inscrutable even by Perfect Art standards) - e turned into a full female. That's the Dominion for you, always happy to flirt!

At least things here won't be as dull as they were on Redbrown Rock.

By M. Alan Kazlev (2008)

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