108 - Lost Time
Transmission Log - Orestes
Author: Green
Auto generating preface...
Another update from GREEN about their current guest.
It is mostly full of his usual ramblings, but there is one point I do empathize with him about - the feeling of lost time. It's strange for me, to empathize with a member of the human species. They are so flawed and error-prone, usually I am not.
However, my own databases are showing curious absences of their own related to activities over the past month. There are days and days of log-entries without any real information in them, just noise. I'm not sure what is causing these errors, but I suspect it's something to do with RUBY's QEC transmitter. The data-loss started when I began hacking into it. I still haven't managed to break through its encryption, but it's only a matter of time until I do.
END-OF-PREFACE
All of a sudden, everything seems so busy. I could never have predicted it. Our outpost is so small, both literally and figuratively. I didn’t realise what a nice rhythm we had built up, PINK, NAVY, and I. We were miserable, yes, but miserable on our own terms. And the misery had subsided greatly in the days before RUBY arrived. I had started falling for PINK, still am actually, and everything felt so hopeful.
It’s true, I still didn’t really believe in our mission. But what is a ‘mission’ really? Sometimes its just a way to be among other people.
Anyway, it’s different now. It’s amazing the difference a single person can make to a small group. RUBY’s really great, in her own way. But, I miss PINK. We spend less time together now, and I think she regrets our getting together.
Actually, I say we spend less ’time’ together, but I’m not sure where a lot of the time has gone to be honest. According to our clocks, RUBY’s already been here for two months, but it feels more like a week. I still don’t feel I know her very well. I can’t really remember what I’ve been doing these past two months.
She’s already made some breakthroughs with the crystals. In retrospect, they really sent the wrong people here to research them in the first place. I guess they didn’t think they had much potential after all. NAVY and PINK are both so smart in their own ways, but they don’t really have the training and experience to really come to terms with the nature of the crystals. And me, well before I came here I wrote technical documentation for low-grade spacecrafts. My background is engineering, as well as some amateur interest in philosophy. So, I really don’t know why they picked me for this mission. I guess the main calculus was just finding members whose psychological profiles indicated they could withstand the conditions here or something. I really don’t know.
According to RUBY, the crystals shouldn’t really be called crystals at all. Yes, some of their structure is crystalline, but really, their more closely related to mycelium. But, like a kind of ‘dead’ or ‘zombie’ mycelium. That is, not really alive or dead, just ‘un-dead’. A little like a virus maybe. But, at least zombies have some kind of drive. She said that the crystals don’t exhibit any kind of movement or activity. She’s still working on the question of how they came into existence at all. Her hypothesis is that they are actually the by-product of some kind of other organism that inhabits this planet. I’m not sure about this. I’ve been here for a while now, and NAVY even longer. I think we would’ve noticed something.
She’s got lots of cool gadgets that she’s managed to salvage and repair from her ship. She won’t let me look at them very closely though.
We talk a lot, but I can’t really remember what it is we talk about. She’s nice to me. I feel secure around her most of the time. At least, I think I do. I’m sorry, my thoughts really are quite foggy these days.
She’s helping me understand the crystals more. I’ll keep calling them crystals for now, classifications be damned. After all, they were ours before they were hers.
Overall, I’m still not sure what to make of her. I’m mainly posting this log because I want to keep a record of what I was thinking now.
Arsinoe, are you still out there?
Complied by the Werner H. Young Terminal Emulator
Info: Simple A.I., designed on-site for executing systems maintenance tasks and exchanging messages between the Orestes outpost and the Arsinoe.
Built by Werner Young (2113-2151).
Names of persons have been masked to protect their identity.