Altair

A Brief Rest

They walked slowly through the fertilizer. Not because they were taking their time, but rather the thickness of the filth they were wading through. "Do it for Jenna" Emory chanted to herself repeatedly, trying to manifest the endurance. Scott was in the lead, and used the strength of his legs to pave a way for her behind him.

"See? It's not so bad. A bit slow sure..." He told her but she couldn't really hear him over the squalishing of their movements and her own chanting. "Do it for Jenna. Do it for Jenna."

"So uh...look. I should have told you this sooner but there's a BIT of a dip up ahead that we'll be coming across and I don't want you to freak out. Just think of it as a really gross slide." He confessed but Emory really didn't hear a word of it and he had no real way of looking back at her to confirm since their movements where pretty limited. He continued on forward until he could see it in view. The poop shute. That wasn't the proper term for it but it was what he referred to it in his head.

On the schematics it had reminded him of a spiral slide. In the center of the waste recycling system, the five fertilizer full pathways from the different bioreactors met here in the middle and then spiraled down. It would be slow going, and they wouldn't be able to speed it along but they should be able to just sit comfortably and slide down the spiral to the Biodome. But there was a big dip from the top where the pathways opened up to the center room, and it was quite the fall. He knew they'd be fine though, well....he hoped anyway.

Then they were at the edge, and he wasn't even able to pause before he lost his footing and down he went with a small yelp. Emory was right behind him, only her scream had a lot more volume to it. They fell about quite a bit and landed with a disgusting smack onto the top of the pile below, which luckily cushioned the blow. Emory sat up with a groan and looked over at him and glared. Then she was concerned because Scott was laying there still and unmoving. "Scott! Scott! Are you alright?" She tried to make her way over to him but they were already on the slow moving spiraling slide and the footing wasn't the best. Her attempts to stand just ended up with her falling back on her ass. "I'm fine." He told her, "Just that kinda reminded me of the water parks back on Earth as a kid for a moment."

"I can't believe you're having fun with this." She groaned and he laughed. Scott sat up and turned to look at her. "The newest Altair attraction! The poop shute!" He joked and she balled up some fertilizer and threw it at him. He laughed again and laid back down. "Anyway, by my estimation we should be there in an hour or so. I'm gonna take a nap in the meantime. Keep watch?"

"Now is when you go to sleep? You can rest in this? Damn, humans are so weird." Emory shook her head. "Sure I'll keep watch. Wake you when we get there." She was never going to get used to his oddities. With nothing else to do though, her mind wandered to Jenna. And how she was doing.