Have you seen my sanity?

Have you seen my sanity?
I seem to have misplaced it somewhere, possibly behind the sofa, but the frustrating thing is I am not sure if I would know it if I saw it.

How have I come to the conclusion that my sanity is missing? Well, I am currently on a diet that restricts me to around 600 calories a day three days a week and I am not craving food on those restricted days. Me, the craving Queen, the woman who runs to make room for chocolate.
'First to the buffet table, last to leave', the motto of a glutton who does not have a time she cannot eat. What strange transformation has occurred in a few short days to make me not want for chocolate or sweets, to turn down crisps because I don't fancy them and to think warm thoughts about my diet shakes when I am on a free day when I can eat anything.
(Admittedly there is currently a cake baking in the oven but see this not as a craving to eat cake, it is more a craving to bake - I am one of the breed of bakeophiles. The only downside to this diet is no cooking three days a week.)

Perhaps this is it, perhaps this is that grail of diets I have been waiting for. Not the easy route, I do get hungry I will not lie about that, but easily doable.
Most diets for me are like running uphill over sand dunes but this is that woodland trail - I must watch my step, I don't want to trip, but the scenery is good and the run a pleasant challenge. There are far worse things to face.
If this works as it should be in my running gear very soon.

And praise be, for those who run with bowling balls and dislike black eyes I have discovered that the very shop I got my maternity bras from stock sports bras for the chest heavy.
In the next week or so I shall therefore be toddling off to the little big bra shop for a fitting and perhaps be freed from the pain of the bounce.





And deep in the recesses of my mind and on another world: 
With his face obscured by a heavy breathing mask Sean Vaughan could only hope his eyes did not give him away. His current companions were not human and were not used to dealing with humans so he suspected they would not understand the smaller emotional signals that any fellow of his own species would see very quickly.Normally, negotiations with the alien dealers were calm affairs, his cool head and quick tongue were indispensable assets but this was a different situation and he was more than a little put off by the surroundings.

It was not a new deal, his stock in trade was dodgy arms dealers, doing his part to take illegal and immoral weapons out of circulation before they could be used against other humans, but in this case the dealer had suggested somewhere very different to take the negotiations and it was not somewhere Vaughan ever wanted to be. Why he had agreed to it he really did not know. Trading in arms was never cheap and often, when things were not entirely legal, it was customary to use an intermediary to launder the money, most often that meant a meeting in the back of an office somewhere or a back room of a drinking house, but this time the dealer apparently wanted to impress Vaughan. The alien had been told the pedigree of his new client and decided to make a show of his local importance to the mysterious player, so Vaughan had found himself being shown to a ringside seat at the backwater planet's only Arena.

Only the more lawless and less favourable planets had Arena's, only those planets where slavery was permitted and even they did not all accept the use of slaves as gladiators. It was a terrible fate for a slave who never deserved such an horrific death, for unlike the ancient gladiators of Earth there was no chance of earning your freedom from an Arena, there was only a death sooner or later at the hand of another slave or a wild beast thrown in for added sport.

A lot of money was spent at the Arena, the many aliens watching bet heavily on their favourite fighters so Arena owners were always well monied making them a good location for laundering so long as you were prepared to give a healthy cut of your profits for the honour.

Vaughan's newest associate was clearly showing off, ringside seats cost a small fortune and laundering fees were high but the extravagance was not having the desired effect. Vaughan felt as though he was in real danger of throwing up. He did his best to concentrate on the deal, to ignore the blood and the screams from the ring, the deaths of many slaves while the crowd bayed without mercy. There was nothing he could do for them with armed guards lining the walls, as much as he wanted to stop the suffering he was helpless to do anything but watch.

The dealer, a slack jawed furry Deethza, was a regular at the Arena, he enjoyed the sport of it and could be guaranteed to spend much of his cash on bets, considering himself a good judge of who would live or die when they entered the sand covered floor of the arena below them. He had conducted many deals there mixing business and pleasure to give his clients a taste of the high life he loved, but he had no idea of the effect it was having on the client he had been told was a hardly arms supplier to lawless mercenaries.

After an excruciating hour they finally came to a bargain and a hard currency transfer took place. Vaughan handed a bag of credit chips to one of the bundled up Arena heavies who walked away wordlessly. The broad creature would take the money behind the scenes where a percentage would be subtracted before fresh chips were given to the dealer. The weapons, a stolen crop of rifles, would be sent to Vaughan's small cargo ship the next day.

But just when the Deethza should have been waiting anxiously for his cash he instead shifted in his seat, leaning forward towards the safety screen. “The Ensensa. I've been waiting for this fight for weeks.” he spoke excitedly, his squeaky voice only just inside Vaughan's hearing range. “They say it is a Demon, it has more kills to it's name than any other fighter in Arena history.

Dutifully, Vaughan too leant forward. “Ensensa?” he asked. He was fluent in Uni-dialect, the universal trading language, but past that his linguistics were basic.

“Red Demon. It has red tentacles on it's head and white skin that ripples with flame beneath it. No one knows what it really is.”

“Really?” Vaughan had to pretend he was interested when all he really wanted was to leave. The bodies of the slaves from the last fight were being dragged out of the Arena still, their blood smearing tracks through the sand. They were aliens, it was not the same as watching a human die, but they were sentient creatures and Vaughan felt guilty just sitting there even when knew he was there ultimately to save lives.

“This is why we came here, business is, but to watch the Ensensa fight is not missable.” The Deethza was obviously excited.

There was a roar from the crowd as one of the small doors opened and a figure stalked out into the Arena floor.

Vaughan gasped.

The announcer cried out above the noise from the spectators, shouting the impressive credentials of the Ensensa, the fights won against all manner of opponents armed and unarmed, it was a career of bloody violence spanning four times as long as an average slave survived.

Vaughan could only stare as the Ensensa was joined in the ring by an Atresion Bear, a creature that had more in common with an Ogre of myth than a bear, standing nine feet tall and a mass of slobbering teeth, muscle and fat. The Ensensa though was no Fire Demon, it was something far more dangerous, something Vaughan had only encountered a few times before.

Earlier in human explorations of space the emphasis of search efforts had been on mining, on supplies rather than pure colonisation, but so many worlds that were rich in needed metals and minerals were inhospitable to humans. There were fierce debates, ethics and morality, religion and science, arguments and violence but in the end a small group of people decided against all odds to take action and broaden human horizons beyond either evolution or God given form so those much needed planets could be mined and the supplies sent back to a needy Earth. A planet's atmosphere could be manipulated with surprising ease, in the short term humans could use breathing apparatus and manufacture their air, but it was gravity that was the stumbling block, gravity crushing down leaving humans helpless. The people who chose to take action were some of the worlds best geneticists and what they created were still technically humans but humans with the gift of withstanding incredible forces that would crush anyone without their enhanced inheritance. There were normal humans out there who called them monsters or, ironically, demons, but Vaughan was one of the many who saw them as just physically strong humans, like him people who had no more control over their DNA than they did over who their parents were. They had done a great service to the species and continued to do that service in spite of the fundamentalists, the so called Purists, wanting any genetically modified persons to be sterilised and isolated. They looked a little different to everyone else, broader and highly muscled but they were still people and they still had the right to be treated humanely, something the slave takers clearly did not understand.

The Ensensa had long red hair trailing in messy dreadlocks and the palest white skin mottled by countless freckles. Like a Celtic warrior of ancient history she was fearless and bold.

Finally, Vaughan found his voice. “She's a Hig.” he spoke to no one in particular using the accepted slang for the High Gravity Humans. “Jesus, how did she end up here?”

Luckily, the Deethza was so wrapped up in the contest he did not notice the whispered words from his companion.

To his own horror Vaughan identified the woman as injured before the fight even began and he was terrified for her, he could not take his eyes off her as the bloody contest began.

The Atresion had razor sharp claws and bellowed angrily. It had not been fed, it had been cooped up in a small pen and then poked and prodded through an entrance into a space stinking of fear and death. It only had killing on its mind when it spotted the small prey in front of it.

The Ensensa let out her own snarling cry, launching at the knife thrown into the ring to aid her fight and wasting no time attacking the foe.

Barely a minute later the Atresion was dead.

The Ensensa screamed hate at the crowds as they screamed their approval at her. She was blooded, in pain and enraged. She spied her owner high in the crowd, smiling faintly from his prime seat, basking the in glow of owning such a profitable slave. She narrowed her eyes and ran, at the last moment leaping unnaturally high and gaining footing on a narrow ledge, pushing herself higher, throwing all her weight into a killing blow.

The cruel knife was left quivering in the safety screen and the Ensensa dropped back to the sand.

Vaughan watched helplessly as the woman was rapidly stunned by the Arena guards and dragged back out of sight. He stood abruptly. “Our business is concluded, the outcome good for us both.” the words were a traditional closing to a deal. “I take my leave now.”

FraidyKat Runs away from Sanity

96.4