14 April 2104 [24 Moses 305]—I spent most of the morning in bed, letting the effects of yesterday’s breakdown and subsequent drug therapy wear off. I don’t want to write about it now. Same old flashback shit. Tarrytown and Indira and Sam, Sam.

Evy promised not to say anything to John or Dan about my ER visit. I suppose they might find out anyhow, since this can is like any small town anywhere, which just happens to be hurtling through the darkness at a tenth of the speed of light. I profoundly don’t want to explain things again. I don’t want to absorb any more sympathy.

Punched up the crystal of Lester Rand showing us how to baby seedlings into food. It will be good to work with plants again. Now that I understand why I’ve been avoiding it.

(Later) Went down to see Sandra and she either is very empathetic for her age or was in a naturally bad mood. When I asked her what was wrong, she burst into tears and hit me twice, landing a solid one right in the solar plexus. Who taught her that? I hugged her, struggling, and gave her back to Robin. All in all it made me feel better, once I could breathe normally again. Watching your little girl act like a little girl gives you some perspective on yourself.

Spent from 1400 to 1600 with Mercy Flying Dove, the only piano tuner aboard, who’s teaching Lewis, Lebovski, and me how to do it. Lewis claims a total lack of musical talent, but he loves mechanical stuff, and has a better ear than me or Lebovski. (He’s heard less, being only twenty.)

This stuff is so complicated that concentrating on it was therapeutic. Twelve notebook screens full of numbers and exotic terms. If you need an A flat against an E flat, say for a major triad, and that key is tuned up to G sharp instead, it’s 35.681 cents off of the perfect fourth, and produces a characteristic sound called the “wolf.” Flying Dove played a nice loud one for us, and it makes your skin crawl. Every note is a compromise—and there’s a different, simpler, set of relationships for medieval instruments, so next week we relearn the process for the harpsichord.

There is time pressure, unfortunately, because Flying Dove doesn’t have much time left. She’s ninety-nine and has liver cancer that’s spreading into the bones. If it had happened before the disaster, she could have had a mechanical liver put in before the cancer spread. Our surgeons haven’t recovered enough information to attempt anything that complicated.

She’s as serene about dying though, as she has always been about living. I didn’t know her before Launch, but wish I had. She might have taught me things more useful than piano tuning.

BAD SEED