They watched at Marius managed to hook one of the lobsters in the hole. When he pulled it out the hole lobster was still grabbing onto the fish that was actually hooked onto the rod.
When with a show of agility that Clemens hadn’t expected Marius rotated the rod and the line ensnared the lobster wrapping it up tight. Then he began to reel into the lobster. Once it had gotten close he pulled out his coil of rope once more and the lobster became inescapably captures.
With his new capture Marius brought the lobster back to Clemens and Sarita. “Hmm, it looks like you beat me in time once again.”
Clemens said, “You got done faster this time. You still had eight minutes on the clock.”
“Your fishing pole tricks are really impressive.” Said Sarita, “I don’t think I would be able to do any of them. You must have practiced a lot to be capable of moves like that.”
“Yeah, they took a while to learn. However with them my rod has never yet failed me. Many of them are lost fishing arts which I have revived.”
“Are lost fishing arts really a think?” Asked Clemens.
“Indeed my boy. There was once a legendary fisherhman who used this arts however he died and most of his arts died with him. The only think that remained were stories of his legendary exploits and a few pictures. I’ve spent many years reviving those lost arts so that I can pass them on and prevent them from being lost again.”
“I hope you find a worth apprentice something.” Said Sarita, “Now we should be heading back. It is still a little bit to get back and I’m sure that Suzuna is waiting for you.”
“Ah, yes, and speaking of Suzuna, I think our next expedition should be the day after next instead of tomorrow. Partying back to back is rough on her and I would like to give her some breaks.”
“You are more thoughtful than I thought.” Said Clemens.
“Hey, I know how to treat people right and I can recognize when she is being overwhelmed. Sometimes I know I might be rough around the edges but I do pay attention to her.”
Clemens smiled and said, “I can tell. Now we should get you back to her then. And also get these lobsters to the resturant.”
The swim back to the resort was again through the kelp forest and they took the service entrance back into the resort again. Once back Marius handed over his lobster to Sarita so she could deliver them both before running off.
Sarita was silent on the way to the restaurant and they dropped off the lobsters without any issue.
With that done Sarita stood there nerviously before saying, “Clemens, do you…”
“Yes?” Asked Clemens.
“No, nothing, don’t worry about it. I’ll see you at dinner then. The lobsters are quite good.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you there.”
Then Sarita began to run off to another portion of the resort.
—
When Clemens arrived for dinner he was surprised to find that nobody else was there. He took a seat and waited for a few minutes until Sarita finally arrived. She looked around and saw that Clemens was also the only other person there.
“What happened? Is Marius not here yet?”
“No idea, I just got here myself. I haven’t seen either of them since I came back to the resort.”
“Me either, should we continue to wait for them or give them a little bit longer?”
Clemens checked his watch and said, “We can probably give them a little bit longer. But if they don’t show up soon we should probably go check on them.”
They didn’t have to wait long before Marius arrived however Suzuna was nowhere to be seen. “Sorry I’m late.” Said Marius, “However it doesn’t look like either me or Suzuna are going to join you for dinner. It seems that she has some down with something and I’m going to stay with her until she feels better. It wouldn’t be proper to stay out late partying without her. I really apologize.” He sounded less boisterous than usual.
“Is she going to be alright?” asked Clemens. “Did you get her some medicine? Should we call in a doctor?”
“I’m already got her some medicine, everything should be fine. I just wanted to come by and make sure the two of you knew we weren’t going to be here tonight. Hopefully I should still be good for our next expedition the day after tomorrow so I’ll see you then.” He then nodded and headed back off to the hotel rooms.
“Oh, dear, well I hope she ends up alright.” Said Clemens.
“She should be fine. There is medicine stocks for anything local that she might pickup and some general medication too. Although she did arrive recently so if she brought this in from outside then she might just have to get better the old fashion way.”
“Are there options for doctors?”
“I think there is one somewhere on the service that can be called in if needed but it should need to come to that.”
“I hope so.”
Not too much later the boiled lobster was brought out. It tasted delicious but Clemens couldn’t help but feel it would have tasted better if Marius and Suzuna had both been there. Both Clemens and Sarita were both mostly quiet throughout the entire dinner.
Sarita was eating faster than normally and was done long before Clemens. Once finished she quickly stood up and left saying, “I guess I’m going to go now too.”
“Have a nice night.”
“… …” She mumbled something but Clemens couldn’t hear it before she was gone.
However once alone Clemens also said something to himself, maybe to work through his own anxieties, “Maybe I made a mistake saying that.”
—
The next day was extremely quiet for Clemens. He was used to quiet days but this one seemed to grind on him, make him worry and wonder all day. Questioning his decisions. Maybe it would better to be more upfront, maybe that would ruin things more. He couldn’t make up his mind.
He was disrupted in the evening my Marius who rushed up to the upper observation deck where Clemens spend most of his time. Marius seemed more worked up than normal.
“What’s wrong? Is Suzuna alright?” Asked Clemens feeling worried.
“No, things have been going downhill. Her fever is getting worse. I am going to take the lift up to go get a doctor for her. I want you to stay with her while I am gone to make sure she gets anything she needs. Please, make sure she stays alright while I am done.”
Clemens nodded, “Yes, of course, I’ll take care of her. Now go,”
Marius nodded thankfully and then ran back off downstairs to the lift out of the resort. Clemens didn’t even both organizing his things before standing up and heading across toward the hotel wing. Along the way she say Sarita running toward him.
“What is wrong?” She asked, “I saw Marius running toward the lifts. Does this have to do with Suzuna?”
Clemens nodded, “Yes, apparently her fever is getting worse and he is going to go fetch a doctor. He put me in charge of making sure she is taken care of, do you want to join me.”
Sarita nodded and the two of them continued to the hotel.
They were able to quickly find the room and Clemens briefly knocked. There was a soft, “Come in” from inside and the door slide open to let them both in.
Suzuna was laying down on the bed with the covers over her. She looked just terrible with messy hair and bags under her eyes.
Sarita looked pale as she ran up to Suzuna and knelt beside her, “How are you feeling?”
“Terrible.” Responded Suzuna, “Is Marius off to the surface then?”
Sarita nodded, “’Yes, he went to go get a doctor.”
“He doesn’t need to worry that much. I’m sure I will get better soon enough.” She coughed a little, “I’ve been worse than this before.”
Clemens also stepped forward and said, “You shouldn’t be so casual about it. If your sickness does get worse than it might be too later for a doctor to show up. Better to call one now and for it to be premature than wait to long and find out there is nothing you can do.”
Suzuna said, “Fair enough, although I do think that Marius coddles me a bit too much.”
Sarita placed her hand on Suzuna’s head and said, “Well in this situation I wouldn’t call what he is doing coddling you. I would have done the same if I had known. You can’t be too careful with sicknesses like this. When the doctor arrives, do you have an allergies that we need to inform them about? And family history of allergies?”
Suzuna shook her head and said, “No, don’t worry, everything will be fine and the doctor will just be angry about having wasted their time.”
Sarita still didn’t relax however but she did say, “If you say so… Just, tell us if things get worse.”
They stayed at Suzuna’s side until the fell asleep. Once that had happened Clemens asked, “Do you know how long it will take to get a doctor from the surface?”
“Quite a while, half a day probably. None of them are near the top of the resort. Beside the resort the only other thing this planet is used for is fishing. The population is pretty small and most of the people live near the spaceport. I’m sure the saw the place when you landed on the planet.”
“Yeah, I remember the place. I’ve seen space stations that are more lively than that place. Although I am a bit surprised to have never seen any of the people from there come down here.”
“They say the place is haunted. Although I think in truth most of them would just prefer to vacation places that are not near more water.”
“It sounds like that might not like you either.”
“There is a story in the port about people like me that isn’t very polite. Because of that I generally don’t visit the port except when absolutely necessary.”
“I hope their doctor at least doesn’t hesitate on coming down here.” He looked over at the sleeping form of Suzuna, “You seem really worried. Do you think her illness is really that bad.”
“Hopefully not…. It’s just…” She hesitated but finally said, “My father died of a sickness like this. He picked up some unusual illness that didn’t respond to normal medications.”
“If you father passed away like this I understand.”
“No… that isn’t precisely it. Because of the unusual nature of the disease he had to be given special medicine. Unfortunately he had an allergic reaction to something that was in the medicine and died almost immediately.”
“Thats… terrible.”
“Yes, well, he was like me so…”
“So the doctor didn’t expect him to react like that.”
“Precisely.”
“That is terrible. Is that why you checked with Suzuna about allergies?”
“She should probably take to whatever medicine they give her just fine… it usually isn’t something people need to worry about.”
“Any you?”
“I had a bunch of tests run on me, testing to make sure I would react favorable to whatever medicine I received. Luckily for me I passed all of those tests.”
“I’m sorry.”
“There is nothing you need to apologize for. It happened a long time ago and I’ve gotten over it. I just, don’t want anybody else to suffer the same way that I did. I though the medicine here would be sufficient, but I guess I’m not a doctor so I didn’t know what to choose to stock.”
“You are the one who made sure the medicine is properly stocked here?”
“Did you think the robots did it? They are good at synthesizing stuff but they wouldn’t be able to choose what to stock.”
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