The Station, Part 30 cont.

My guides. Or do they just let me follow them? Then they wouldn’t be guides then, would they? They haven’t moved aside yet, like in the dream. And I’ve realized something else as well. In the dream I was still in the excursion suit. But I’ve changed the scenario by removing it. That shouldn’t affect the outcome though. But I wonder if my decision to do so was a reaction to the dream. My way of somehow negating the reality of it by supplanting my own. Then it wasn’t a wholly rational, practical choice I made. I had more time left. I could have possibly made it further along. Saved myself. What am I talking about here? I’m in no immediate danger. I was worried about microbial contamination, which is still a strong possibility. But here, on this false Earth, that is probably not going to happen. I practically belong here. After all, my own biology is descendent of something more or less identical to this. This giant chamber with its duplicate mountains and false sky. My man ape friends have moved aside. It’s the dream happening. But for real this time. Frontier will be just over the ridge. But I don’t see her. Just a tree.
It looks completely out of place and yet it belongs here. Yeah, I know. That makes absolutely no sense at all. But trust me. This is how it appears. So what does it look like you ask? Nothing really out of the ordinary for a terrestrial plant. There’s a thick trunk that braches off in three more or less symmetrical directions. Smaller twigs hold healthy looking dark green oval leaves. All very ordinary you would think. But then there is the single fruit that hangs from it.

It’s so perfect looking that it can’t possibly be real, but of course it is. More like the sim fruit people use to decorate their trees for houseguests. It’s perfectly spherical about the size of a grapefruit, and with not a blemish upon it. Its orange hue isn’t the bioengineered caricature you would see back home either. This one is more natural, and therefore, more lifelike. It’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. And within a second of seeing it, I have never been hungrier in my life. I have never been starved, just as no on Earth starves anymore, so I don’t really know what that would really feel like. But people have addictions still and that means people have withdrawal. That must be what I’m feeling right now. The mental and physical effects of substance deprivation. It is horrible, this feeling. To be addicted, the slave to something otherwise insignificant. Yet this fruit, which I have never seen before, is suddenly my master. I have to eat it. I just have to. It’s an imperative. My imperative. If this is my end, please forgive me for my weakness. Don’t let my parents know this is how I ended. I’m going to eat this damn thing now. It better taste fucking horrible. Why do you ask that? Well, like my mother once told me, if it doesn’t taste good, then it’s probably good for you. I hope you’re right, Mom.

I tasted wonderful damn it. Then I guess that means I’m fucked. But it was wonderful. I ate the whole damn thing, skin and all. Like apple, except not so hard. More like a melon, but with a citrus tang. It was really like the best of all fruits, combining all the attributes of all of them into one absolutely perfect food. Like it was meant specifically for me. Tailored to my exact tastes. My hunger has been satiated. I’m not full, just satisfied. But if another one was presented to me, I suspect that the pangs would return instantly, the gnawing hunger that won’t go away until I’ve done my bidding as the obedient slave. I suppose I can thank who or whatever for supplying just one of these foods of the gods.