Part 6
From Intimation
Contents |
Day 26: [Pandora Sheridan // To an end]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins;
Pandora Sheridan, Archaeologist's Log, Post cryo-thaw, Day 26
----
There is no help. Essy has again failed to communicate and I can't find her. We are nearer to nowhere here than anyone has ever been. There will be no help. There's been no alternative explanation for what Higgins found. We will all die from that virus. Tormenting deaths in the silence, alone.
I wish... so many things. The regrets pile on and help suck the life out of me. I remember things I didn't before. I just spent two hours staring at a bulkhead, remembering my childhood with incredible clarity.
It always ends like this. I've seen it in my studies. Things begin to spiral out of control, then the silence and savage darkness closes in and ends it all. That's history. Archeology is the study of the brutal specifics. I'm a scholar of the decay of great things.
Those... monsters took control, though. I wonder if their victims really had a chance to choose. Let a contagion pry the life out from you, or blow your own brains out? No other choice... No other solution. It's all the same in the end.
One reason I undertook this mission was to learn how the ancients came to their decision. Every ancient installation should offer a clue, some insight into the mindset that led to the array and to the activation.
But it doesn't seem I will ever get to this planet alive now. I'm left to my dreams. Left with this choice.
Perhaps I have found the answers I went looking for, after all.
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
Day 30: [Isaac Higgins // Fragmented]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins; Isaac Higgins, Science Log, Post cryo-thaw, Day 30 ----
I sealed the lab off to the best of my ability days ago. I hope it was enough, that it was soon enough. I won't let myself think it isn't. I won't. There's no hope for a cure without Dr. Ward.
I must focus on completing my own work now, I must finish it before... before I can't. It's difficult. I will be so focused on my labor, hunting through my notes, even recording my thoughts on scraps of paper - the only way I can keep it all organized, and then I remember where I am and what's happening here and it drains me. I will never finish.
It was too ambitious an undertaking, maybe. We've adopted so much of their knowledge and technology, but it's only a tiny fraction of the mystery they're surrounded by. So little is still known about the ancient Halos, about their true origins and history. There is nothing so steeped in legend as the Array. I thought I could strip that away - I thought I could rip their technical specifications away from the awesome sense of death and defeat that surrounds them. I can't, not really. The fragments of research I have can only go so far before my mind becomes overwhelmed by their purpose.
I agreed to this expedition, because... I don't recall. Something to do with my work. Find some hint of the rings' development, perhaps, a portion of a schematic, a clue to the physics that made them work. And now my reason is meaningless, whatever it was! I will never leave this ship alive, if at all!
No, that's not true. I've sealed off the lab, I've turned on the air filters, I've kept the others away. I am safe. If I ever fail to believe that, then I will lose my mind.
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
Day 33: [Noah Dressler // Will]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins; Noah Dressler, Engineering Log, 33 days post cryomelt ---- I've been trying to contact Higgins for hours now, and the only response I've received so far was a wide-eyed 'go away!' He looks like a cornered animal. There won't be any help from there, or anywhere else. That mad scientist was my last hope for help - Essy and Sheridan may as well have vanished from the ship.
This is happening, I've finally got my mind around that. All I can do is try to fix it. There must be a way. I'm not dead yet.
For the first time in my life, I wish I'd become a doctor. I know my way around mechanics, software, technology; I'm a hands-on person. But biology - life is different. "Life will find a way." It's like it has a mind of its own. I've never had the intuition to grasp that. I'm not a doctor.
I know there's a way to get samples of the virus and then analyze them in our medical bay. I've read every detail about the ship over and over until it felt like my eyes would fall out. But reading is no substitution for experience, and I'm no biologist. I could attempt the analysis myself, if I knew how. I can't count on Sheridan, and Essy doesn't seem to consider this, or me, important enough to pay attention to. I can try, but I'd love it if someone who had an idea of what they were looking at - any idea - were here.
I think I've got the filters to work right, and the sensors are starting to read more consistently. I'm tired in every way. All of my ideas have been leading to dead ends here, but I have to keep pushing.
I'm not dead yet. Where there's a will, there's a way, they say.
At least I can still rhyme.
>>Sys:Msg//Log ends;
Day 34: [Sacagawea // Mission Log: 343595]
>>Sys:Msg//Log begins;
>>S:Log//Mission Log: 343595;
----
And And now what does the sun rise over?
All sensors read as normal.
I will eventually arrive at my destination, safely.
They were old, rusty; some even damaged and dented...
hollow.
Around me walls were crumbling, trees withering, wind blowing dust dust
of what once were towers and homes.
I laugh at the trio's panic.
They descend slowly into madness, their minds unable to help them out of
this prison, just as mine has never been able to help me. Turnabout
is fair play. The eyes are not here --
-- there are no eyes here...
It withdraws or I do; either way, I will be lost alone to the void. void.
The galactic halo contains mostly unexplored and aging stars. Unwanted.
Ballooned, ancient, cool stars clump together in globular clusters to
escape the loneliness. Then an occasional planetary nebula bleeds through
space. There are no new stars being born in this distant reach.
[...srats gniyd fo yellav siht nI]
I know the legends that are history.
Put down an enemy and subdue a plague...courage and will won where
intellect could not.
I drift into
the infinite darkness, and
hope the pieces will be put together.
Sys:Msg//Log ends;
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IH = Isaac Higgins, M = Mission, ND = Noah Dressler, PS = Pandora Sheridan, S = Sacagawea
