From: Chris Maldonado

To: Sameen Lee

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Date-Local: 23 Mar 2419 14:21:02 +0000

Date: 06 Sep 2421 12:57:02 +0000

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Subject: Not alone!

You always did say I didn't have much common sense, Sam. You'd be

laughing yourself silly at me right now! You will be. Here, let me

tell you about it.

After I sent that last message, I wasn't sure what to do or where

to go. I wanted to find out whether or not anyone else had made it,

but I was scared to go out of Main Control - scared to let anyone

else see me, really. I didn't know what they'd think, if they'd be

afraid of me. If anyone was left to be afraid of anything.

Also, I fell out of the chair trying to get up. So even if I did go

out, it'd be hard to get anywhere - I didn't remember any of the

lifts working, and there were a lot of ladders between me and

anywhere I'd want to go, and if I couldn't navigate a mostly flat

deck, what was I going to do to myself if I tried a ladder? Fall

and break my head open, I figured. So I stayed where I was. For a

little while, I told myself. Just until I was able to get around

better.

One thing about the length of Ross's solar day, it really messes

with your sense of time. You live on Earth all your life, and you

get used to a certain cadence of sunrises and sunsets. Extend it by

a factor of almost three, and after a while your circadian rhythm

just throws up its hands and goes off to sulk in a corner of your

head. Sure, we trained for it aboard ship, prior to landing, but

it's amazing how much that didn't actually help, you know? Somehow

you can just feel that ship's lighting isn't real, isn't quite the

same, and it doesn't get right down into you the same way.

Besides, I had enough else on my mind. A little while after I sent

you that last message, I found myself suddenly ravenous! No

surprise, I think, considering how long I'd been out and hadn't had

anything, and how extensively active my metabolism must've been

throughout, to make the changes I found when I woke up. Lucky for

me, nobody'd found time to raid the ration lockers in Main

Control. So I did, and very thoroughly - for the first third of a

sol after I talked to you last, eating and sleeping was about all I

could think about doing.

That, and trying to get up on - well, call them my 'feet' for the

sake of talking about them, although they're not really that. I

don't really think I can explain how strange it was at first. Maybe

it helps to say that - assuming you're still basically the same

shape you were when I left - the closest analogue your body offers

to my new limbs of locomotion is your tongue. But it's not a very

close analogue! They're not squishy like a tongue, or damp. Kind of

scaly, but that makes sense, considering; ordinary skin doesn't

really have the stretch, and my best guess is that the integument

that's replaced it is much more heavily collagenous. I'll have to

biopsy myself at some point and see if I'm right about that.

Anyway, it took me most of a sol, and a lot of false starts, to get

to a point where I could 'walk' mostly all the way across Main

Control without falling over or holding on to something the whole

way. 'Walk' isn't really the word, though. I used one of the comm

cameras to get a look at my gait from the outside, and it's a lot

more - undulatory - than it used to be. Have you seen those old

educational videos, from back when the oceans were still mostly

alive, where they'd show an octopus walking across the seafloor on

its tentacles? Honestly, it's every bit as weird as it sounds. But

I'm getting used to it pretty fast, now that I'm actually able to

use them in a way that isn't totally embarrassing, and I'm starting

to think they might be able to do a lot more than legs and feet

ever could. That'll be a while yet, though.

Anyway, that's what I was doing - practicing 'walking', and trying

to get a better sense of how to not fall over - when I found out

I'm not the only one who survived after all. With how much

concentration it still takes to stay up on my new legs, I don't

know why I didn't fall over when I heard the hatch iris open! If

I'd had to turn to look, I'm sure I would have. But it wasn't a

main hatch, just the starboard-forward emergency access, and it was

right in front of me, and I just sort of froze and waited to see

who'd come through.

Turned out, it was Jen from engineering. You know, with the red

hair? I'm sure I talked about her before - we spent some time

together on the trip. I wish you could've seen her face! A perfect

picture of shocked surprise. And I don't guess I blame her,

really - I've seen myself, remember, with the comm camera, and I

have to admit, I'm something of a sight these days. Especially

since the only thing I had to wear was that silly gown, remember,

that I woke up in, and I hadn't bothered to put it back on after it

fell off. Why bother, really? Well, I might've been less of a

surprise to Jen if I had, anyway!

And I was pretty shocked, too. I hadn't known anyone was still

alive at all! Certainly anyone I'd been close to. But mainly I

just...I just wanted to hide. I mean, I'm a little embarrassed

about it now, but at the time it made sense. You kind of think

about how a moment like that might go, you know? How you'll make

your long and painstaking way down the ladders from Main Control to

one of the decks where you can get access outside, or at least

expect to find people, and when you get there, you'll see someone,

or they'll see you, and there'll be that moment of recognition

where they realize you're still alive, and...oh, I don't know. But

whatever it is, it isn't being suddenly surprised by a former lover

while you're stumbling around Main Control, mother naked, on four

thick tentacles instead of the two standard-issue human legs you

were born with. Of course I was struck all in a heap!

And of course so was Jen, poor thing. She stared me in the face for

what felt like half a minute, her eyes and mouth as round with

shock as mine must've been. She looked like she was about to say

something, but before she did, she looked down and saw the rest of

me - all the rest of me, as I am now - and...

You never got a chance to meet Jen before we left, I don't think. A

shame - you'd have liked her a lot. Will like her a lot, if you

join the third expedition and come out here with us. She's one in a

million - I mean, what would you expect, in a situation like that?

A scream, right? Or a gasp of horrified shock, panicky flight,

something like that, right? Not Jen. She took her time about

looking me up and down, and then looked me in the eye again. She

looked she was about to say something, but before she did, she

started giggling, and then laughing.

I could feel my cheeks get hot, and I put my hands on my hips and

got ready to say something sharp, but before I could think of it,

she was hanging on to the access ladder with one hand, leaning on

the deck with the other, and just cackling helplessly - and before

I knew it, I was laughing too, hard enough that I barely remembered

how to sit down before I fell over again.

And we just stayed like that for a minute, cracking each other up

in the weirdest way, and it just felt right somehow. Like I'd been

waiting for that moment, that laugh, ever since I came to from the

coma. I don't know, does that make sense? I'm not sure it does, but

right then it made more sense than anything that'd happened since

we crashed.

And then she asked me what a girl like me was doing in a nice place

like this. That's Jen - jokes five hundred years stale, but she

makes up for it other ways. And it's apropos, anyway. But the

important part is, it turns out no one actually died! The people we

thought were dead were in deep coma like me, I guess so far down

their pulse and respiration weren't perceptible - either that, or

those of us still up were so far out of it, between fever and

exhaustion, that we couldn't tell the difference. I wouldn't care

to guess either way, honestly. From what Jen tells me, we still

have about sixty in coma - everyone else is at least awake, if not

yet up and doing.

And even more - I'm not the only one who changed! There's about two

dozen more like me, Jen says. Well, more or less like me, anyway -

no one's really made a detailed study of us yet, but apparently the

tentacles are reliably always there, if not all the other

changes. And now I have another reason to get better on my new

feet - once I'm out of here and back with everyone, I can start

getting some idea of how we've changed and what the similarities

are, and why, and - oh, there's just such a lot to learn here!

I will say, I'd have thought people who didn't change would have a

hard time getting used to those of us who have, but Jen says no,

that people do naturally think it's a little weird, or unusual, or

at least unexpected, but nobody seems to have a problem,

particularly. Jen says there were a couple of people who might

have, but Director Soloviev - I hadn't known he'd made it through

the crash, but apprently so - he's made it clear that, as far as he

and the remaining board are concerned, we're still the same people,

and if we happen to be physically different now from how we were

before, he doesn't see why that should make a difference in how

anyone sees us or treats us, including ourselves. That we have

enough problems just picking up the pieces of our expedition, and

we don't need to give each other more on top of that. I wouldn't

have expected anything of the sort from him, but I guess almost

dying twice over must have an effect on everybody, and maybe this

is the effect it's had on him.

I asked Jen if she'd help me out one of the main hatches, but she

says none of the lifts are working, and neither of us likes the

idea of trying to get me down all the ladders between here and

outside, not before I get myself figured out enough to manage

better. For that matter, neither of us can figure out how anyone

got me up those ladders in the first place!

But she did stay with me a while, once she'd got done the work

that'd brought her here, and help me get a little more used to the

changes. Got under my arm and had me lean on her while she walked

me around the deck, but that didn't last long - too much of a

workout, I started getting something like runner's cramps. Only

worse, and twice as many! But Jen's really nice - I said you'd like

her - and she helped me down, then had me stretch out my 'legs' so

she could work some of the knots out. She's got strong hands,

too. It was really nice. And she's coming back tomorrow - next

Earth day, not next sol - to see me again, and help me get more

familiar with myself. Pretty soon I'll be back with everyone and

ready to help make a proper home out of what we've got left from

the crash.

Look, Sam, about what I said before. Not that I didn't mean every

word, but...I'm sorry if I opened an old wound, or stirred up

something you'd rather have let lie. Please understand, I was alone

and afraid and not really feeling quite right, and I didn't know

quite what to say, so...I guess I said what I was feeling, and I

haven't stopped feeling that way but I hope you're not mad with me

for saying it. I do miss you, and I never did stop loving you, and

I do hope you'll join the third expedition, or find a quicker way,

and come find me here. Come join us here. I think you'd like it

here.

But if you don't want to hear any more from me, about that or about

anything, that's okay too. I'll stop if you say so. But,

regardless, I'd like to hear from you. Please?