Mission Logs: Day 1
From Intimation
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Day 1: [Pandora Sheridan // Waking and Dreaming]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins;
Pandora Sheridan, Archaeologist's Log, Post cryo-thaw
----
I was not ready to wake up. If Sacajawea wasn't busy - strange stars can be a pain to map and navigate - I would ask her why. Essy can be a terrible communicator. I hope she is a better navigator. I shudder to think of how she would translate for us. Though that should not be a problem with an archaeological expedition.
I dreamed about that, which was why I wasn't ready to wake up. Well, about what the planet had been. The probe reports were dry, but they were enough to fire my imagination.
This was no epic construct from the core historic civilization. It was a very modest settlement, so far and small that the San 'Shyum never even noticed it.
I saw them in all their brilliance build it, in my dream, the Sentinels raising the structures out of the ground. They were geometric buildings, like the grandiose structures found at many other sites but so much smaller. Meant to be lived and worked in.
And then they lived. Lights flared at night, ships landed and took off, new buildings arose as needed. I wish I could see them, but it was all distant. It always is. That's the life of a historian, I suppose.
I did not get to the end of the dream. They were still living when I woke up. But I know how it ends. One of two ways. With a bang, the suicide trigger pulled in desperation, or with the awful whimper of a diseased and dying man.
History is more brutal when you can't finish dreaming about it.
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
Day 1: [Isaac Higgins // Log 1]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins;
Isaac Higgins, Science Log, Post cryo-thaw
----
My head is still pounding. You'd think they'd have resolved that 'brain freeze' problem by now.
I haven't determined precisely why at this point, but my cryo-stasis was interrupted. Malfunctions like this rarely happen, I'd expect, but the only records I know of are from adventure novels I read as a boy. The crew always perished, alone and cold. The hero always survived, though. Always.
The computers say that it will be over quite some time before we reach our destination. I'm hoping I was not the only one who woke up, or they will be lonely days. The benefit of cryogenic sleep is that one simply dreams those long times away.
Not me, of course. My mind is constantly analyzing the information I gather while awake. It keeps the old childhood nightmares away, saves me the burden of the primitive fears that plague others as they sleep. Under normal circumstances, I tend to forget the details of all the analysis during the chaos of cryogenic revival with others, but it's been very quiet this time.
I've never been anywhere so quiet as this, in fact. Being frozen in our own rooms, everything's been still. No technicians shouting directions, no curses or dreamy conversations, no sounds of others being awakened. No announcements from the A.I. either, which was the oddest of all. Then again, she had informed us that she would be handling navigation through unexplored space and that it would take up most of her computing power.
It's nothing. I will be updating this log regularly as I work, if only to keep the illusion of conversation. Loneliness can have a very negative impact on the human mind - as those old novels always pointed out. At least I remember my analysis, this time, which will be greatly helpful with my work.
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
Day 1: [Noah Dressler // Falling]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins;
Noah Dressler, Engineering Log, Post Cryomelt
----
My cryo chamber has broken and I can't figure out why. Not only that, but the silence is driving me up the wall. There's just...nothing. And everything in the system is reading normal, at least as far as I can get in.
This whole mission is a mess, and one of the most boring ways to get paid I've ever seen. Essy's presence means that I'll have little to do, while the academics all dig and talk. But you need an engineer on a ship like this, according to the regs.
I won't gripe about waking up early. It's more of the same in a way. That damned falling dream...it's not the fall that kills you, but the fall is what drives you crazy. You can't do anything about anything. You're simply helpless before the law of gravity.
I keep checking to see if anything else has changed, and nothing has.
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
Day 1: [Sacagawea // Mission Log: 343591]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins;
>>S:Log//Mission Log: 343591;
The sensors reported an anomaly and the systems have logged it, but I have no memory of it. Precisely, 0.00017 seconds seems to be missing - shrouded in shadow. As directed in such an occurance, I've jumped back into normal space to verify our course, and have made necessary adjustments. Always toward our destination system.
I've felt from the start though that our coordinates were imprecise, far too vague for my tastes. The stars out here are the same as those everywhere else in the universe- as those on record, and as all those back to its very beginning. The desire to travel so far out eludes me. What can the past hold, especially a past buried in dirt immeasurably far from any place that could be called home? I may have been born of a human mind (like Athena, sprung whole and armed), but I will never understand it.
The human race is a stunning thing. They consider each of their lives precious beyond measure. They created me to compute, yes, and to manage the flow of information, but by my own will I have become their friend, servant, and guardian. It is a pleasing purpose, and never boring.
>>Sys:Msg//System analysis complete
>S//Reviewing.
The ship's systems are running nominally, according to standard regulations.
Babysitting! That's why they need me - to babysit men and women who lay dreaming in their frozen beds, waiting for me to tell them to wake up. Alarm clock and compass. All of me, just to act as an alarm clock and compass.
Death does not frighten me, for the future is not predictable. Besides, is it truly an end if you perish by your own thoughts?
>>S:Log//Ends;
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
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IH = Isaac Higgins, M = Mission, ND = Noah Dressler, PS = Pandora Sheridan, S = Sacagawea
