Walter kept visiting. It wasn’t surprising, really- while Edie was convalescing, he’d evidently appointed himself her nurse, or whatever you’d call a hulking solicitous wolf bearing piping hot soup. Edie was informed that she must stay home for a week, and do nothing exciting or stressful, for two reasons: to recover physically, as she’d caught an awful cold from the chill of the water, and to recover psychologically.

Peter explained this in a visit. “Your experience was serious, ‘kay? This has happened before, and we don’t want to lose you as a worker. Arthur and Maggie are very fond of you, and your work, and they want you back. Well, in order for that to happen, you have to work through your trauma, ‘kay? We’re not gonna put you back in there as if nothing had happened.”

“Why not?” asked Edie. “I mean, I’ll do as you ask, but I’d like to get back to work. I left the hydraulic load balancing code for the Zipline Lounge in a complete mess! I’ll forget what I was doing.”

“Maggie’s got it, ‘kay? You need to have at least a day or so to just be with your feelings and begin to process them. This has happened before, and you’re not gonna be allowed to just bury yourself in work, never dealing with the memory of the endless cold ocean with no bottom and things moving miles beneath you…”

“Stop it!” pleaded Edie, ears flattened.

“I won’t mention it again, ‘kay?” said Peter. “When you go back to work nobody will be reminding you of it at all. But you’re gonna endure some thought of it now, in a safe place, because it’s not wrong for you to have those feelings, but you’re gonna have to have them now. ‘Kay?”

Edie felt ruffled and vulnerable, and snapped, “Why? You need to let me get rid of that stuff. I need to do my work, and forget about it. That’s what you do.”

“Not on my ship, Edie. That’s an order, if the suggestion wasn’t enough. You’re confined to quarters, and I’m having Walter look after you.”

“You’re what?” stammered Edie, caught off guard by this. “That’s your doing?”

“Of course. I’m not all bad, programmer-kitty. He’s got more than enough work to do, but I’m letting him clear off part of his schedule for you. It would be cruel to ask you to work through your feelings without being able to decompress with a l..”

Edie broke in. “Are you about to say a lover? What gives you the idea he’s my lover?”

Peter soothed her. “Settle down. Call it what you like. The point is, he’s elected! And I hope that in a week you’ll be back with Arthur and Maggie and well restored and rested, ‘kay? And I’m not going to argue it with you- and I gotta go, but I’ll be keeping an eye on you, Edie. You’re a great member of the team…”

The next time Walter came to look after her, she’d not only hidden all the toys, but ran the ventilators at full blast and spritzed deodorant around, and sat demurely without a hair out of place, prepared to play ‘kid sister’ to the limit. He seemed not to notice.

“So- how’s our little patient?”, he said jovially.

Edie made a face. “Not. Which is to say, impatient. When can I get back to work? This is driving me up the wall. I have too much time to kill and I can’t stop thinking about it, I mean the water.”

Walter promptly dropped the fake-hearty manner. “I know, it’s rough to go through. You’ve got to trust that this is the right thing- we have a lot of experience with main tank psych cases. Um…”

“That’s what I am? A main tank psych case?” Edie bristled.

“No, no, it’s okay! Maybe it’d be better to say, that’s what happens to people in that situation. By the way, three cheers for lil’ sister for wanting to get back to work like that- you’ve got a lot of personality, Edie, you surprise me. A lot of people are laid up for weeks with this, but not you!”

The silver catgirl sulked, tolerating what felt like condescension. “Look, enough with the good-kitty. For that matter, enough with the little sister. Right now, I want to get back to work, and I have load balancing code that’s a complete pigsty and I’m telling you, I can’t wait a week to get back to it, I’ll forget where I was. Can’t I work from here?”

Walter regarded her with a curious mixture of approval and wariness. “No, you can’t. Peter warned me about this, you know. I always knew you were strongminded but I guess it never really registered completely, and now here you are, recovering from a horrific psychological shock and an upper respiratory infection, any normal person would be a quivering pile of nerves but you? You want to go work. I’m impressed, amazed. In fact I applaud you,” and here he briefly clapped and cheered in a comical manner, “and you’re a real soldier like few I’ve ever seen, but this you will not do.”

Edie bristled, but kept her cool. “Fine. I even understand the reason, though I think it’s completely stupid and cruel besides! You refuse to let me distract myself, well fine! In that case, can I at least do something to deal with the load balancing code?”

“That depends on what it is, Edie.” Walter regarded her speculatively. “You don’t look like you’re about to make foolish suggestions- and you obviously understand the conditions. What do you have in mind?”

“Send me Maggie! She could get it under control if I can just tell her what I was working on, and what I was trying to do with it. She even knows some of my personal commenting habits by now.”

Walter looked puzzled. “What, like ‘that girl’s fur grooming is atrocious’?”

Edie snickered, amused in spite of herself. “No! Programmer stuff. You know, like typing two slashes and then the rest of the line or block shows up in red and isn’t used in the program? I do things like type three poundsigns to mark stuff I’ll need to change later… sometimes three poundsigns and then numbers to indicate execution flow… if there’s three poundsigns and then an exclamation point it means the kluge has to be dealt with before any other changes propagate through the class structure…”

“Way over my head, hon, but you’re saying Maggie can do this for you if you brief her?”

Edie nodded emphatically. “I’m sure of it! It would be a load off my mind, Walter. Can you send her to see me?”

The big wolf considered, seriously, cautiously, but above all briefly, and in a flatteringly prompt response, said “Sure!”. It was as if something clicked for him, as if he’d expected to coddle a helpless patient or chide a recalcitrant ‘little sister’, and suddenly found himself confronted with an adult, responsible personality much like his own. Enthusiasm building, he added, “When do you want her? She’s been asking about you anyhow, and I’m sure she’d like to see you. Want me to bring her when she’s off work today?”

Edie considered this, and nodded. “If she hasn’t got other plans.”

Walter chuckled, at that. “Maggie always has other plans. She’ll break ‘em. I ought to know her by now, you know. Dated her for months, and I know what her priorities are.”

“Um, meaning that she loves to come look after sick kittens?”

Walter guffawed at that. “Meaning that she loves to talk shop! Surely you’ve noticed? She likes nothing better. Maggie will interrupt anything to sort out a software problem she’s responsible for. I’ve had her talking shop on the phone and fixing bugs by proxy while she was TIED… um.”

At this, Walter realized who he was talking to, and his face wore an expression of mingled chagrin and confusion. Glancing down, abashed, he remarked, “Anyway- I’ll bring her. Will this afternoon do?”

Edie struggled to restrain a smirk. “Admirably. You will find me at home,” she replied, as Walter departed. It was interesting to see- he was discombobulated, but still standing tall, and he was wagging without thinking about it. Edie realised she was a bit flushed herself, then shrugged and dismissed it. That time of the season was approaching, and she knew Maggie wouldn’t bat an eyelash- she could even scatter toys about, if not for the possibility that the terrifyingly direct little Siamese would want to use them.

When Maggie entered, she clumped in with a wolfish, Walter-parodistical gait, attempting to boom “And how’s our little patient today?” in her harsh little Siamese voice. Edie promptly dissolved into hysterical giggles.

“How did you know? Maggie, you nut! That’s almost exactly what he said!”

The Siamese snickered, and coughed to clear her throat, strained from the attempted wolfish baritone. “Well, he said he gave you the ‘how’s-our-little-patient’ and some soup.” Maggie scampered over, gave Edie a hug, and said, “So how much is it shop talk and how much is it about Walter?”

Edie looked sideways at Maggie for a moment. “You are just far too good. I’d better get used to it. May I ask how you know?”

Maggie looked scornful. “Now come on. We’ve talked before- and when he rescued you, he carried you home, so I’m told, and stayed with you for hours. Now he’s on abbreviated duty to look after you. You have to have something on your mind. Unlike virtually everybody else, I know that it’s more complicated than it looks. Did you get to have sex?”

“No,” admitted Edie. “But look- the hydraulic balancing code is also important, can we deal with that first? I swear I’ll lose it if I have to leave it for a week.”

Maggie brightened, and the two felines animatedly discussed extremely arcane programming details for a good hour, putting Edie’s mind at ease that she’d be able to return to a sensible and reasonably current workload. All the details tidily accounted for, Maggie at last turned to Edie as if no time had passed, and remarked, “So, no sex, huh?”

The silver cat wilted. “As a matter of fact, no, but now he’s making me soup and checking up on me, and officially my… well, something. I don’t know what to do.”

“Do you know what you want? No, scratch that, you don’t. Any chance you know what you want to want?” purred Maggie, playfully.

Edie cuffed the giggling Siamese. “You! But it’s nice to not be taking this so seriously, in two minutes it’ll seem horribly important again. No- I’m very confused.”

Maggie considered this solemnly. “Him fussing over you must be a big turnoff.”

“Damn right!” Edie didn’t mention the recent conversation- it was too novel and hard to fit into her picture of how things worked. Walter as neither thug nor Boy Scout didn’t make sense.

The Siamese considered further. “I have no idea how you’re going to react to this. Let’s see. Do you want me to take over for Walter with the kitty caretaking?”

Edie blinked, and re-blinked. She opened her mouth, and shut it without saying anything, all observed by Maggie with great amusement. Finally, Edie replied, “…not on your life!”

Maggie purred in delight and hugged her friend again. “You see? You do want something! You just don’t see how it can be. That’s a different problem.”

“It sure is,” remarked Edie, dismayed. “What on earth am I supposed to do?”

“Beats me,” said Maggie. “I know what I’d do. Well, did. Maybe you need to try things a different way.” She winked at Edie. “I discovered something that maybe I shouldn’t tell you about, but I’ll check it out for you. Topside there’s a rough crowd on this leg of the trip, or so I’m told. I’m gonna get an introduction, and I’ll tell you if they’re any good.” The little Siamese looked very smug.

“Maybe I saw them,” said Edie. “There was this one who grabbed me and tried to take me to a room. Very glittering eyes, blond, humaniform, dressed very well?”

Maggie nodded. “Yeah! His name’s Robert. The eyes are because he’s on drugs. He’s not really that good, but he says he knows a rough crowd.”

Edie considered this, critically, picturing the people she saw in the lounge. “Um- yeah, I suppose they were. You be careful now!” she purred, rapidly reaching the conclusion that it was a crowd of weekend roughnecks. There was a vibe, an atmosphere that she was intimately familiar with, had been half-addicted to, and she knew that the expensively appointed lounge contained absolutely none of it.

Maggie’s eyes danced. “I will! I’m bringing extra lube and everything.”

Edie giggled, and purred, “Oooo- here’s hoping you don’t need that!” and privately thought- how civilised, and is that such a bad thing, really? For her, it’s not about pain and humiliation and status and shame. She has special lube just to make sex more comfortable.

Maggie snickered and purred, “Maybe I hope I do. Anyway, I’ll check it out for you.”