Transmission Log - Orestes

Author: Green

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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-

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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?

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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.

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