(18a) Addendum to (18)

The Misha Campaign (111-1121 and 112-1121)

Robert in Sparkly Pink Mode

(1) Sparkly Pink Communications (111-1121)

    Suddenly Robert is in a void. He's floating in that void, but there's something he's aware of. Ah, that would be it. There's a sensation of knowing where everyone is because there's a little signal from their commdots. Yeah, he can feel where they are, all inside him somewhere. Most of them are staying still, but Helia's dot is floating backwards and forwards, presumably as she swings in her hammock.
    Something's blocking him in, though. Around him is dead space, nothing. He wishes he could break out of this somehow. He explores the surface of the Arm, and it's like a blocking wall that's keeping him in. He reaches out to push his finger through the cracks, but they're dead ends and he can't reach out that way. There's always something blocking him. It's irritating.
    There's so little stimulation here. He knows he's ready to pick up anything that might be around, but there's so few sources to look and and feel. He can do what he wants in here, it feels good, he is communications, he is the comm exchange, he can relay, he can send, he can receive. All there is are a few commdots. Oh, and there's a personal computer or two -- it's a very unfamiliar and somewhat unnatural signal, but he can wire it into himself, his being. Now he comes to think of it, his ears may not have heard that song before, but he himself knows what it is and can fiddle with it to make it audible.
    Got it. Good.
    But that's it. There's so little here. He could just go to sleep, knowing he'd wake up if something else appeared. Or he could just step out, and let the ship handle it. It should be easy enough not to need his help.
    Robert drops out of sparkly pink mode. He's back on the bridge.

(2) Sparkly Pink Computer (112-1121)

He finds himself in a sort of hookup with the computer. He can feel its presence, and there's some common ground for communication, but it's morphing its symbols too fast for him to follow. It's just a natural feel thing, it's not like he sees the symbols, but he is the symbols. He feels like he can't get in to the computer like he can get into the communications, but he can get a really close link. He just doesn't quite have that link matched yet... but if he could, it would be a good way to relate to it, to tell it things, and particular with the communications he can patch in the personal computers and so on.
Just be the communications again, push here, and the personal computers are linked with the ship. Almost immediately, the ship says it's done. Robert leaves the link up, so that the ship can continue to read from or send to the personal computers as it wants -- he knows the Baron and Shark leave theirs on all the time. With an adjustment to the communications state:

Ideogram:

continuous-activity	coincident-in-space-time
	communication	reference-to-alien-concept-stream
	reference-to-ship
	agent: comm-system

he ensures the link will always be there. It won't cover the difficult Imperial military communications, but any simple Imperial transmitting device is pretty much covered now. Of course the commdots are already connected, and now the football sensor data is being received too.