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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