A tropical paradise is what they call Pendleton. Well, sure. I mean, it's got more O2 to the nitrogen than the late, unlamented Earth itself. Personally, I always have a nagging sort of twinge between the shoulder blades whenever I step outside without checking to see if the stasis net is at least four out of seven in the green, but chicks seem to dig the whole back to nature bit. So what can I say? Arturia was still working her way to her first reup, with the parts that needed buoyancy still buoyant. "Sure," I said, "can't think of a better way to spend leave than breathing like our ancestors did." Damned "Back to Earther", that girl is. I mean, sheesh, there's good reasons we spend a good four hours briefing before planet fall. But trust me, four months in N-Space, and I challenge you to think with the big head instead of the small. I'm told that I'm lucky that the damned NeoNudis are not even vaguely terrestial in regard to the DNA. Otherwise, their neurotoxins would have killed me about seven times over with enough left to kill a Jovian blimp or two. But, the acidic delivery systems hurt enough. Last time I go wading barefoot. Hell, last time I go barefoot on any goddamned dirt ball. Cost me two weeks unpaid leave in the autodoc, which was enough time for Arturia to discover the ship's mess specialist's supposedly natural physique. I'm sure there's a moral somewhere here, but "don't step on toxic camouflaged slugs" just doesn't sound particularly profound. I've had these graphics programs (Photoshop and Zbrush) laying about for a bit now, as I acquired them in a computer swap. Just now getting around to learning to use them, largely inspired by my friend Geir Lanesskog's amazing SF work (do jog over to his gallery here under the nom de artiste of "geirla"). The slug is a Ztool I made starting with the spiral 3D primitive (cones for the spikes with a touch of gravity), rendered against a plane with lots of fiber brushing for the weed. I rendered it with some fog and exported to Photoshop, where I created a blurred water layer which I hit with the eraser and a bit of low opacity greens and blues. Inspired by a disagreement I had with a sea urchin once (remember kids, always shuffle your feet; get on the board and paddling asap!)