222 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
222 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
From: Chris Maldonado <cmaldonado@voortrekker.com>
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To: Sameen Lee <sameen.lee@recoveryinstitute.org>
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Delivered-To: Sameen Lee <sameen.lee@recoveryinstitute.org>
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Received: from relay7.qec1.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov
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by mta1.recoveryinstitute.org
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with ESMTPS id x124so177123a067 for <sam@recoveryinstitute.org>
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Received: from relay3.qec2.ganymede.earthsys.gov
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by relay7.qec1.rs001.l4.earthsys.gov
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Received: from qec8.helio.earthsys.gov
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by relay3.qec2.ganymede.earthsys.gov
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Received: from qec.sv14417
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by qec8.helio.earthsys.gov
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Date-Local: 23 Mar 2419 14:21:02 +0000
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Date: 06 Sep 2421 12:57:02 +0000
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Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf8"
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Subject: Not alone!
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You always did say I didn't have much common sense, Sam. You'd be
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laughing yourself silly at me right now! You will be. Here, let me
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tell you about it.
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After I sent that last message, I wasn't sure what to do or where
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to go. I wanted to find out whether or not anyone else had made it,
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but I was scared to go out of Main Control - scared to let anyone
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else see me, really. I didn't know what they'd think, if they'd be
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afraid of me. If anyone was left to be afraid of anything.
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Also, I fell out of the chair trying to get up. So even if I did go
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out, it'd be hard to get anywhere - I didn't remember any of the
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lifts working, and there were a lot of ladders between me and
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anywhere I'd want to go, and if I couldn't navigate a mostly flat
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deck, what was I going to do to myself if I tried a ladder? Fall
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and break my head open, I figured. So I stayed where I was. For a
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little while, I told myself. Just until I was able to get around
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better.
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One thing about the length of Ross's solar day, it really messes
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with your sense of time. You live on Earth all your life, and you
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get used to a certain cadence of sunrises and sunsets. Extend it by
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a factor of almost three, and after a while your circadian rhythm
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just throws up its hands and goes off to sulk in a corner of your
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head. Sure, we trained for it aboard ship, prior to landing, but
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it's amazing how much that didn't actually help, you know? Somehow
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you can just feel that ship's lighting isn't real, isn't quite the
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same, and it doesn't get right down into you the same way.
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Besides, I had enough else on my mind. A little while after I sent
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you that last message, I found myself suddenly ravenous! No
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surprise, I think, considering how long I'd been out and hadn't had
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anything, and how extensively active my metabolism must've been
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throughout, to make the changes I found when I woke up. Lucky for
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me, nobody'd found time to raid the ration lockers in Main
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Control. So I did, and very thoroughly - for the first third of a
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sol after I talked to you last, eating and sleeping was about all I
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could think about doing.
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That, and trying to get up on - well, call them my 'feet' for the
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sake of talking about them, although they're not really that. I
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don't really think I can explain how strange it was at first. Maybe
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it helps to say that - assuming you're still basically the same
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shape you were when I left - the closest analogue your body offers
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to my new limbs of locomotion is your tongue. But it's not a very
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close analogue! They're not squishy like a tongue, or damp. Kind of
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scaly, but that makes sense, considering; ordinary skin doesn't
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really have the stretch, and my best guess is that the integument
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that's replaced it is much more heavily collagenous. I'll have to
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biopsy myself at some point and see if I'm right about that.
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Anyway, it took me most of a sol, and a lot of false starts, to get
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to a point where I could 'walk' mostly all the way across Main
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Control without falling over or holding on to something the whole
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way. 'Walk' isn't really the word, though. I used one of the comm
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cameras to get a look at my gait from the outside, and it's a lot
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more - undulatory - than it used to be. Have you seen those old
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educational videos, from back when the oceans were still mostly
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alive, where they'd show an octopus walking across the seafloor on
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its tentacles? Honestly, it's every bit as weird as it sounds. But
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I'm getting used to it pretty fast, now that I'm actually able to
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use them in a way that isn't totally embarrassing, and I'm starting
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to think they might be able to do a lot more than legs and feet
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ever could. That'll be a while yet, though.
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Anyway, that's what I was doing - practicing 'walking', and trying
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to get a better sense of how to not fall over - when I found out
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I'm not the only one who survived after all. With how much
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concentration it still takes to stay up on my new legs, I don't
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know why I didn't fall over when I heard the hatch iris open! If
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I'd had to turn to look, I'm sure I would have. But it wasn't a
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main hatch, just the starboard-forward emergency access, and it was
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right in front of me, and I just sort of froze and waited to see
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who'd come through.
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Turned out, it was Jen from engineering. You know, with the red
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hair? I'm sure I talked about her before - we spent some time
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together on the trip. I wish you could've seen her face! A perfect
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picture of shocked surprise. And I don't guess I blame her,
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really - I've seen myself, remember, with the comm camera, and I
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have to admit, I'm something of a sight these days. Especially
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since the only thing I had to wear was that silly gown, remember,
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that I woke up in, and I hadn't bothered to put it back on after it
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fell off. Why bother, really? Well, I might've been less of a
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surprise to Jen if I had, anyway!
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And I was pretty shocked, too. I hadn't known anyone was still
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alive at all! Certainly anyone I'd been close to. But mainly I
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just...I just wanted to hide. I mean, I'm a little embarrassed
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about it now, but at the time it made sense. You kind of think
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about how a moment like that might go, you know? How you'll make
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your long and painstaking way down the ladders from Main Control to
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one of the decks where you can get access outside, or at least
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expect to find people, and when you get there, you'll see someone,
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or they'll see you, and there'll be that moment of recognition
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where they realize you're still alive, and...oh, I don't know. But
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whatever it is, it isn't being suddenly surprised by a former lover
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while you're stumbling around Main Control, mother naked, on four
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thick tentacles instead of the two standard-issue human legs you
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were born with. Of course I was struck all in a heap!
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And of course so was Jen, poor thing. She stared me in the face for
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what felt like half a minute, her eyes and mouth as round with
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shock as mine must've been. She looked like she was about to say
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something, but before she did, she looked down and saw the rest of
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me - all the rest of me, as I am now - and...
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You never got a chance to meet Jen before we left, I don't think. A
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shame - you'd have liked her a lot. Will like her a lot, if you
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join the third expedition and come out here with us. She's one in a
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million - I mean, what would you expect, in a situation like that?
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A scream, right? Or a gasp of horrified shock, panicky flight,
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something like that, right? Not Jen. She took her time about
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looking me up and down, and then looked me in the eye again. She
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looked she was about to say something, but before she did, she
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started giggling, and then laughing.
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I could feel my cheeks get hot, and I put my hands on my hips and
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got ready to say something sharp, but before I could think of it,
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she was hanging on to the access ladder with one hand, leaning on
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the deck with the other, and just cackling helplessly - and before
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I knew it, I was laughing too, hard enough that I barely remembered
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how to sit down before I fell over again.
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And we just stayed like that for a minute, cracking each other up
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in the weirdest way, and it just felt right somehow. Like I'd been
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waiting for that moment, that laugh, ever since I came to from the
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coma. I don't know, does that make sense? I'm not sure it does, but
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right then it made more sense than anything that'd happened since
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we crashed.
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And then she asked me what a girl like me was doing in a nice place
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like this. That's Jen - jokes five hundred years stale, but she
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makes up for it other ways. And it's apropos, anyway. But the
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important part is, it turns out no one actually died! The people we
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thought were dead were in deep coma like me, I guess so far down
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their pulse and respiration weren't perceptible - either that, or
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those of us still up were so far out of it, between fever and
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exhaustion, that we couldn't tell the difference. I wouldn't care
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to guess either way, honestly. From what Jen tells me, we still
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have about sixty in coma - everyone else is at least awake, if not
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yet up and doing.
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And even more - I'm not the only one who changed! There's about two
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dozen more like me, Jen says. Well, more or less like me, anyway -
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no one's really made a detailed study of us yet, but apparently the
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tentacles are reliably always there, if not all the other
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changes. And now I have another reason to get better on my new
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feet - once I'm out of here and back with everyone, I can start
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getting some idea of how we've changed and what the similarities
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are, and why, and - oh, there's just such a lot to learn here!
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I will say, I'd have thought people who didn't change would have a
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hard time getting used to those of us who have, but Jen says no,
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that people do naturally think it's a little weird, or unusual, or
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at least unexpected, but nobody seems to have a problem,
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particularly. Jen says there were a couple of people who might
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have, but Director Soloviev - I hadn't known he'd made it through
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the crash, but apprently so - he's made it clear that, as far as he
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and the remaining board are concerned, we're still the same people,
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and if we happen to be physically different now from how we were
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before, he doesn't see why that should make a difference in how
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anyone sees us or treats us, including ourselves. That we have
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enough problems just picking up the pieces of our expedition, and
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we don't need to give each other more on top of that. I wouldn't
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have expected anything of the sort from him, but I guess almost
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dying twice over must have an effect on everybody, and maybe this
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is the effect it's had on him.
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I asked Jen if she'd help me out one of the main hatches, but she
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says none of the lifts are working, and neither of us likes the
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idea of trying to get me down all the ladders between here and
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outside, not before I get myself figured out enough to manage
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better. For that matter, neither of us can figure out how anyone
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got me up those ladders in the first place!
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But she did stay with me a while, once she'd got done the work
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that'd brought her here, and help me get a little more used to the
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changes. Got under my arm and had me lean on her while she walked
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me around the deck, but that didn't last long - too much of a
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workout, I started getting something like runner's cramps. Only
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worse, and twice as many! But Jen's really nice - I said you'd like
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her - and she helped me down, then had me stretch out my 'legs' so
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she could work some of the knots out. She's got strong hands,
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too. It was really nice. And she's coming back tomorrow - next
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Earth day, not next sol - to see me again, and help me get more
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familiar with myself. Pretty soon I'll be back with everyone and
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ready to help make a proper home out of what we've got left from
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the crash.
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Look, Sam, about what I said before. Not that I didn't mean every
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word, but...I'm sorry if I opened an old wound, or stirred up
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something you'd rather have let lie. Please understand, I was alone
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and afraid and not really feeling quite right, and I didn't know
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quite what to say, so...I guess I said what I was feeling, and I
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haven't stopped feeling that way but I hope you're not mad with me
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for saying it. I do miss you, and I never did stop loving you, and
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I do hope you'll join the third expedition, or find a quicker way,
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and come find me here. Come join us here. I think you'd like it
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here.
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But if you don't want to hear any more from me, about that or about
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anything, that's okay too. I'll stop if you say so. But,
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regardless, I'd like to hear from you. Please?
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