187 lines
9.8 KiB
Plaintext
187 lines
9.8 KiB
Plaintext
From: Chris Maldonado <cmaldonado@voortrekker.com>
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To: Sameen Lee <sameen.lee@recoveryinstitute.org>
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To: Amelia Nine <anine@expeditionsupport.gov>
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Delivered-To: Sameen Lee <sameen.lee@recoveryinstitute.org>
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Received: from relay3.qec1.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov
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with ESMTPS id a9goqf93983g45uuyp
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for <sam@recoveryinstitute.org>
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Date-Local: 3 Apr 2419 23:42:19 +0000
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Date: 17 Sep 2421 22:18:19 +0000
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Subject: So excited to be part of things again!
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf8"
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Hi, Sam! Hi, Lia! (Sam mentioned you were coming to see her at L1 -
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so happy for you both! Are you there yet? I'm sending this to you
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directly, so you'll still get it either way.)
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The last day and a half has been amazing! I'm working hard to help
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build our new bio lab, and it's going really well, even when
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everyone else is in bed and I'm working all on my own. Eve made me
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stop a few hours ago, though, and told me very firmly to get some
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sleep. But I'm not tired! So I thought I'd write some more to you.
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You know, I never realized just how big Voortrekker was? We had
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plenty of holos and everything, but I never really got to see her
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from outside. Even when they shuttled us aboard, there was only the
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one port about the size of my hand, and I wasn't sitting anywhere
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near it anyway. But she's huge! Even now, after the crash, it took
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us a good few minutes to abseil down from the hull. That was scary,
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but also a lot of fun! Easier than I thought it'd be with the
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gravity here, too. But I was still glad to be done by the time we
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finally got to the ground.
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Director Soloviev and Eve met us there. Eve had water for both of
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us, and we were glad she did! But trust her to think of something
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like that - she's our senior surviving doctor. And she's changed
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like I have, too! Well, not exactly like. She was tall even before
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the change, and her new legs must be twice as long as mine. She
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towered over all of us, even Director Soloviev, and he's got to be
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close to two meters. I never had the courage to really try to talk
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with her, even back before, and now? I could barely even say hello!
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Lucky me, the Director started talking before I could embarrass
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myself. He shook my hand - didn't hesitate, either, which made me
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feel good - welcomed me back, said he was glad to see me up and on
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my feet again, and did I feel up to getting back to work? That was
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when I found out about the new bio lab, and of course I volunteered
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for that right away, and we got into what we had and what we
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needed, who to talk with about fetching things from the ship, and
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so on.
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About the Director - I think he really has changed. Back on the
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ship, he was never rude or anything, but he always seemed like he
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was incredibly busy. You never saw him in any of the crew common
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areas, except passing through, and when you talked to him it was
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like he already had twenty things to deal with in the next hour and
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he was really hoping you weren't going to become number twenty-one.
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But on Saturday he was actually smiling! Like he was genuinely glad
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to see me, and we never passed more than a half dozen words at a
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time on the ship. He asked me twice if I was sure I was ready to
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work, and told me to take all the time I needed if I wasn't! I've
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asked around a little, and I'm not the only one who thinks he's
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different now. I don't know if it's just the crash and the bug, or
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if there's something else going on, but either way I feel a lot
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better about him than I used to, and I'm glad.
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Eve stopped us before we could get too far into making plans. It
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was all very well getting me back to work, she said, but I'd
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changed more than anyone else, and I wasn't going anywhere right
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now but straight to her infirmary so she could make sure I was
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healthy and likely to stay that way. The Director said of course,
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and I knew they were right but I still asked if that could wait.
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If it could wait until it'd be someone else and not Eve doing the
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exam, I meant! But I didn't really see how I could say so, and
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professionally, I knew she was best qualified to do it. Just -
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she's devastating, and I knew I was already blushing, and...you
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both know how I get. And in any case, Jen was already saying
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something to the Director about some kind of engineering problem
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and did he have half an hour right now to talk about that, so it
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was too late to find any excuses there.
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Eve was very good about it, though. She managed to make me
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reasonably comfortable by the time we got back to the hab. And it
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turned out delaying wouldn't have helped anyway! She's making a
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study of all of us who've changed, gathering data and working to
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find out whether there's anything we especially need to worry
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about. You know, basic research. Which is what I should've been
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thinking about, too, instead of getting all nervous about - I mean,
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I know it's just a regular thing, but it was my first time! But Eve
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understood and gave me what I guess was the same advice she'd give
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anyone, and it wasn't actually bad, just a little
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uncomfortable. (Go ahead, laugh, it's okay! I am too.)
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She gave me a clean bill of health, anyway. We talked some about
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karyotyping me, but as I said before, it'll have to wait a little
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while. Then she told me where to find the bio team and turned me
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loose, and I don't mind admitting that even if it had gone better
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than I'd expected, I was still a little glad to get out of there
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before I said something silly.
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We're putting the bio lab right near the infirmary, since there'll
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be a lot of overlap especially at first, and I found Nandi
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there. You remember Nandi - chief of the biology section, I'm sure
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I mentioned her a couple of times at least while we were on the
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ship? She'd heard about me from Jen, but I hadn't even known she
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survived! We were really happy to see each other, too. She's got
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less time for nonsense than almost anyone, but I like her pretty
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well, and I think she must be one of the smartest people I've ever
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worked with. Once we'd got done catching up, she assigned me to
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cytology, since I did some of the initial work with the Ross bug,
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and we tried calling Gareth, who's keeping track of the fetch
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teams. Hand unit comms have been spotty, though, and we couldn't
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get through, but Nandi said she thought he was in hydro and sent me
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after him there.
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Our hydro farms are clear on the other side of the hab from where
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we're doing bio. That's not great, but this place went up in a
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hurry, and there was nowhere closer with enough space and water
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supply. On the way there, I passed through the refectory, and -
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it's not a large space, but I just had to stop for a minute and
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take it in, because it felt like half the colony was there or
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passing through. People talking and eating, people moving gear and
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supplies to where they needed to be, stopping to chat, planning
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where to put up more hab space, planning how to start breaking down
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debris for usable scrap, planning studies and experiments to start
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really understanding what sort of planet we've got to work with
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here - I even saw a couple more of us who've changed - and...
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I know, it doesn't sound like anything especially amazing, just
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what a working colony is supposed to be. But that's amazing all by
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itself! Remember, when I went down, we were still struggling to
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keep people alive (so I thought) and nobody except maybe Director
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Soloviev and the section heads were thinking more than a day ahead,
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at most. I hadn't been there when that changed - when people
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started coming out of it, when everyone realized that no one was
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going to die and there was time to start building what we came here
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to build. By the time I got here, everyone was already hard at
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work, and I was a little ashamed I'd been off hiding, scared of
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what people would think of me, while everyone else had been doing
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all this. But more than that, I was so proud just to be here, to be
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part of it all!
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And I decided that I'm all done with letting everyone down. Yes,
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I've changed. Yes, I was scared. Yes, I wasn't quite right for the
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first little while there. But I'm not scared any more, and I'm all
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right now. And for all that Jen and everyone - even the Director -
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have been very kind, it's time I start contributing instead of
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being carried. So I got back to finding Gareth, who wasn't in hydro
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after all. Letsie was, though, and he said I might want to try the
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botany lab, which at least was pretty close.
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I know, this is sounding more and more like a scavenger hunt! But
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that's just what it's like right now, and it's actually not so
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bad. We're so small that everyone is mostly pretty easy to find,
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and it's actually sort of fun in a way! In the ship, our different
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groups and sections tended to stick pretty close for the most part,
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just because of the way the shifts were set up and everything - oh,
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we all had friends and people we were close with in other
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departments, but they were the exception. Here, for all that we're
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each still absorbed in our own work, everyone's still part of
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everything. Even me!
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Anyway, I did finally find Gareth in botany, and he and I and Elva
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found out some things that...I'm honestly still not sure what to
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think, whether I should be afraid or amazed or both at once. I
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think I'm both at once. But I'd better pick that up next time,
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because if I start talking about it now I really will be up all
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night, and I should at least try to get some sleep if I can. Even
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if I don't feel like I need it! I'm sure Eve will ask me tomorrow,
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and she'll be very disappointed with me if I didn't at least try.
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So I'm going to send this, and then I'm going to stretch out in my
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bunk here and see if I can't remember what it feels like to be
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snuggled up between the two of you. If that doesn't help me sleep,
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nothing will! I'll write again as soon as I can. In the meantime, I
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love you both and miss you, and I can't wait to hear from you!
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Yours with love as always - Kit.
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