A Cerulean Hug

By Harden Taylor

Cris Sarast finds herself hopelessly marooned in a place bereft of other human beings, a planet similar to the Earth 100,000,000 years ago. She is devastated that, after her long journey, she can find no sign of the civilization she believes must be present. Adding to her distress is the lack of any communication from her lover who had preceded her by three years. She learns to survive but soon makes two shocking discoveries: she is inexplicably pregnant and a navigational error has put her in the wrong place. Since there is no escape and no rescue possible, she and the fraternal twins she bears are marooned for life. Eventually, her children reach sexual maturity and, as human nature would have it, both Cris and her daughter become pregnant by the only available male – her son Aron. The resulting life-threatening conflict is resolved by their love of life and each other.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harden Taylor
• Release date: Mar 2, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458197078

Harden Taylor

Yes, I was a cog in the industrial machine, grinding out reams of technical and business writing to support the once mighty American manufacturing colossus. But something happened in the early spring of 1995 – a bolt of lightening from the god of letters. “Fiction,” She said. Bit-by-bit I tried it, a little more each year till it became for me the quixotic enterprise it is today. Yet, I can’t complain, though my family may from time-to-time, because I found in this experience a liberation of style and content that is very appealing, drawing me into a new kind of grinding – a love/hate enterprise that wears the repetitive trudge down to fine dust.Recognition for my short stories (in descending chronological order):• “One Dish at a Time” – Honorable mention in the 2007 New Millennium Writings Short-short Story Contest.• “Mentors” – Honorable mention in the 2006 New Millennium Writings Short Story Contest• “What Will You Do for Me Yesterday?” – Published in the 2005 Dan River Anthology and was in the top five out of 75 submissions to Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine, June 2004 short story contest.• “A Rock by Moon World” – Honorable mention in the SpecFicWorld.com’s 2005 Speculative Fiction Contest magazine out of 93 entries.• “Where’s Jason” – Finalist in the 2005 Abroad Short Story Writing Contest. All finalist attended workshops & lectures given by Michael Bishop, Dan Chaon, Margaret Drabble, Anne LeClaire and Margaret George in Bourdeilles, France.• “Experiments of the Mad Chemist” – Semi-finalist in the 2005 New Millennium Writings Short Story Contest.• “In an Instant” – In the top five in Jan. 2005 Jerry Jazz Musician short story contest.• “Numbers Four and Five” – In the top 10 out of 90+ submissions to Jerry Jazz Musician Magazine, March 2004 short story contest.• “Stones, New and Old” – Honorable mention in the Whim’s Place on-line short-short story contest, May 2004 and published online 2004 by Whim’s Place.• ”Theraxis Comes to Visit” – In the top 14 for the SpecFi World magazine 2nd quarter 2004 short fiction contest and was in top 10% out of 1200 entries in the 18th Consecutive New Millennium Writing competition closing July 2004• “Flying Flowers” – In the top ten in the September 2004 Jerry Jazz Musician short story contest.My body of work (Fiction only):v Four full-length novels under my copyright –ÿ Project 334 – The first person to leave the solar system discovers and attempts to understand a battered civilization. His presence generates conflict (this is the first expedition.) – unpublished.ÿ Cerulea – A History of the Second Expedition – A pregnant female Robinson Crusoe-type story. She raises her children & incestuously created grand children alone on a forbidding planet – unpublished.ÿ Outhouse by the Moon – A series of murders at a small midwestern university by a Christian doomsday cult of prominent citizens leads to revelations of a terrible conspiracy – unpublished.ÿ A Rock by Moon World – Two twelve-year-olds discover a Lilliputian world ripped apart by war. They save them from the rages of a maniacal leader – published on Kindle. Based on my short story of the same name.v Completed short stories – This is an eclectic assortment of over 40 stories with different styles, themes and character portraits ranging in length from 240 to 40,000 words.v I have other novels short stories and poems in various stages of completion, including sequels to Project 334 /Cerulea and A Rock by Moon World.

Book preview

A Cerulean Hug

Transcriptions of the Second Exploration

By

Harden Taylor

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2004 to John Harden Taylor

Also at Smashwords.com by Harden Taylor and on most platforms discover:

Project 334 - The first human to leave our solar system.

The Children of Cerulea - A growing family meets growing mysteries.

A Rock by Moon World - A children’s adventure novel - understand or die.

Swim in the Lake of Fire - An exploration of the black heart of righteousness.

Tangled Hearts - A collection of short stories on the facets of love.

License Notes

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1 - The Approach: 21 August 2170 to 15 September 2170

Chapter 2 - The First Days: 15/September 2170 to New Time 020/00

Chapter 3 - Awakening: 020/00 to 150/00

Chapter 4 - Terms: 150/00 to 210/00

Chapter 5 - One More Explore: 210/00 to 260/00

Chapter 6 - New Life: 260/00 to 033/03

Chapter 7 - Growth: 033/03 to 414/04

Chapter 8 - The Bug Wars: 414/04 to 137/08

Chapter 9 - Expanding Horizons: 137/08 to 575/08

Chapter 10 - On the Edge: 575/08 to 031/09

Chapter 11 - Budding Years: 031/09 to 530/10

Chapter 12 - Dangerous Blossoms: 530/10 to 575/10

Chapter 13 - Consanguinity: 575/10 to 583/10

Chapter 14 - The Road to Survival: 583/10 to 182/11

end

A note from the author

Figure 1 - Map of Cris Crater and Surrounds

Figure 2 - The Great Escarpment & Surrounds

Figure 3 - Cris’s Ship & Surrounds

Introduction

to top

During the last 120 years, we, the members of the Ahranian Society have monitored the telemetry received from the first two vessels to leave the Earth’s Solar System. Transcriptions from the first expedition are reported in the book we titled Project 334. The second expedition is reported in this book. Our organization is small and has experienced some turnover during these years of waiting for the two explorers to come out of hibernation but our patience has been rewarded with the most astounding results.

We have edited the huge volume of data we have received and give below our condensation of what we consider the most valuable. Cris Sarast’s words appear in normal font and our commentary, explanations and descriptions of important non-verbal sounds we have put in italics. As best we could, we identified date, time and location for every entry. After the end of the story you will find three schematic maps, which may help clarify the relationships between some features of the Sarasts’ environment.

Chapter 1 - The Approach

to top

08/21/2170, 22:10 hrs.

This is ... Cris ... Cris Sarast. Having trouble with this … last three days coming out of deep hibernation. Couldn’t move first day. Hope this is aimed right - I’ve aimed it at Earth I think. Screen says OK but I’m too foggy to do all the checks. Second day I started to move, even got out of the hibernation chamber but couldn’t talk, or eat. Drank a little but puked it all up. The pills, little pink ones seemed to help. Don’t know what they are ‘cause I dropped the bottle and can’t find it. Starting to feel nauseous again. Still very disoriented. Know I’m on mission, computer tells me to Ahran to find Tom ... Tom Wilson and to start exploration. Having trouble operating all this crap. Very confused. Ate something yellow and sticky. Didn’t taste too bad but I don’t think it’s going to stay down. Still looking for the little pink pills. Something about those I think somebody told me. Can’t remember what. Must’ve been before I left. I’m alone here and very afraid right now. Wish there was someone here to talk with - someone who could talk back - conversation. This little space …closes in on me. Head’s too messed up to figure out what to do ... even to get some music. Got to figure out where to puke ... I think...

Cris broke into fits of coughing, vomiting, screaming and crying. She smashed her balled fist down on the control panel - blow after blow till by pure chance she struck the key that shut off her transmission.

23:34 hrs.

Took forever to get control, to get my guts calmed down … to clean up the mess. Thank God it’s not freefall conditions - I’d never get it all. I’m focasting, I hope – sending everything – hoping you, who ever you might be, will get something. The puke helped. Feel better but very sleepy. Found a bed to sleep in. Too tired to do all the sleeping bag stuff. Too tired to keep on talking. All that sickness wore me out …Just want to lay down...

08/22/2170, 09:21 hrs.

Actually slept. I feel better, ate more yellow powder mixed with water. Started the biogenerator. Computer told me to. It takes a few days to work. This is so strange. Minutes, hours, days go by on the clock but there’s no reference to anything. At least back home in space there was always the idea that one turn of the Earth was it - one day, one turn. Didn’t matter where you started it unless you were on solid ground, I suppose, but it was something to fix on. There’s nothing but this little clock screen pumping out numbers that don’t mean anything. But what else is there - nothing.... nothing. I can’t stand not knowing what time it really is ... somewhere.

Make a note, you people on Earth if you’re listening: next trip give the traveler something to hook on to ... something more than just a clock going on Earth time ...something. Just think about it. I’m here trying to feel what now is and it’s not getting through to me. Maybe when I get to Ahran this crazy feeling’ll go away. I sure hope so. … Feel sleepy again. I found some sleeping pills - not the pink ones but maybe good enough. Damn name’s so long it goes almost all the way round the bottle. Christ, couldn’t they find a shorter name? Stuff works fast ... Bye … for now.

08/23/2170, 05:49 hrs.

Another day or two and I think I’ll be ready to make a formal report – not today … not now. You can punch it in, make it all pretty and give it to the media. Cut out all my rambling BS, of course. Media. I wonder if anyone’s still there on your Earth. I wonder but I don’t think I’ll ever know. Twenty-four years is a long time to wait for an answer.

05:49 hrs

I kept down the yellow stuff - corn meal mush it’s called. I don’t know if it tastes like the real stuff or not but it’s good enough for me. I need to get my act together, need to start figuring out where I am and what I’m supposed to do. Brain’s starting to clear a bit. Sleep definitely helps - lots of sleep. I found the pink pills right under the control seat. I must have looked at them fifty times and not seen them. That’s part of this disorientation from the hibernation. You can look at something and see it but it doesn’t register. It gives me the feeling that I may not exist, that I’m only half alive - extremely frightening. It’s something like coming out of anesthesia only ten times worse.

Kidneys are working better. At first, no urine at all. I knew that was somehow bad but the idea of ureic poisoning didn’t coalesce in my mind. I drank water because I was so thirsty but kept heaving it up. Then I peed and it burned like crazy and was very dark yellow with little brown streaks. Something told me to drink more water so I did and eventually, it cleared up. Now I’m working on a bowel movement. It’s so dry and hard and hurts so bad coming out I feel like I’m giving birth to a rhinoceros - horns and all.

08/24/2170, 13:34 hrs.

You ready over there Mother Earth? Here’s my report. Listen-up – this is some kind of hysterical first – I’m not sure of what. Date is August 24, 2170, 13:35 hours. This is Cristine Sarast, ISESL Number J34226. I’m transmitting from Interstellar ship number 2, a craft, second of its kind, made by the Institute for the Study of Extra-solar Life. I have no passengers, no expectation of return trip - physically impossible I just remembered. The first ship is identical to this one. It was piloted by Thomas Wilson and left the solar system in 2047. I left October 24, 2050. All systems appear to have worked normally per operational manual K 5499. More details on that later as I get more information. My health now is OK but recovery from hibernation was very difficult with extreme dehydration, mental disorientation and heavy depression. Survival was problematic in the first forty-eight hours. Future flights should employ only very fit individuals. I will continue to focast all my thoughts and feelings and experiences and leave it to you to sort it all out. I’m long past embarrassment. You might find some of my tidbits useful so on I go.

More tidbits. We made an agreement, Tom and I, that I would follow him in the second ship. My mission is to find Tom and, well, together we’re going to describe the civilization that we believe is on Ahran. I guess you could say this is the most expensive anthropological field study in human history. It sure will be the most distant and I hope it will be the longest lasting. It’s been one hundred-twenty years since I left the solar system and it’ll take twelve years for this message to reach Earth so I have no way of being certain you are getting my messages. Anyway, I reset the scan for my messages over a one-degree sweep. You should get a five-minute window of message time per Earth station. If my programming skills are up to snuff, I should be able to sweep the Jupiter station as well. I’ll repeat each sweep five times. As much as possible I’ll try to stick to regular patterns when I focast. Any questions, just pop your head in and we’ll discuss it over a cup of coffee. Bye for now.

08/25/2170, 15:27 hrs.

I don’t know if anyone remembers hearing or maybe reading anything at all about Tom’s trip it having been more than a century ago, maybe less likely for mine, being number two and done secretly - supposedly. Do people live longer now? Remember more? Anyway, I asked Jeff Gordon to tell the people at the Institute after I was off - he prepped me for the trip. I’m sure he’s long since dead. Maybe he actually kept his promise or maybe he just put it in his log, being the cautious not-wanting-any-trouble type. He was the Prep Supervisor for Astro Minerals Corporation Inner System Group.

God, I hope I’m not just talking to empty space here ... I hope someone is listening. If you are, please keep on listening. As long as I’m alive and still able to focast, I will.

18:01 hrs.

Been doing some research, trying to help my memory, make sense of where I am, trying to keep from going crazy. I’ve been having trouble accessing the records … maybe they were destroyed when the WAGS attacked the institute. There’s got to be a hundred terabytes in the memories … something’s got to be there. Maybe I’m still too confused to go through all the steps.

Guess I’ll wing it. I may end up telling you things you already know but maybe not so I’ll just ramble on and hope you’ve got enough time to listen. I’ll try to do the important stuff first. If you can find pictures of the Institute’s headquarters in Detroit…It was built next to Grand Circus Park on the site of the old Fox Theater. In fact, Tom insisted on keeping the theater so he just built around it and used the theater for conferences. Years before he wanted to build in Chicago but the WAGS (acronym for We Are Good - an activist political and later terrorist organization for people outside the economic mainstream) put the whammy on that as you all know. Detroit was a good choice he thought ... well, so did everyone else. I guess no matter where it was; it was bound to be a target. If there’s anything the WAGS hate it’s big glistening symbols of the power of educated people. Can’t blame them in a way. They organized around the idea - and the reality - of being left out so there has to be something you’re left out of, space being the biggest one. But it’s hard to hate space so next best is to hate people in space and all their trappings.

Tom’s vision was certainly something to hate. It was a twenty-story monster sheathed in some kind of exotic granite taking up a quarter of a city block - a total contrast to the old theater. I asked him if his mother made him dress funny for school and this was his revenge. He just laughed and chided me for not seeing the profound meaning of this stylistic travesty. Fortunately, although Tom has no sense of style he is able to laugh at himself, something he did a lot of when he saw the finished product. I forgave him, of course. How could I not? I love the jerk, deficiencies and all. God, what will our children be like? I shudder to think!

Tom had several good years there planning the missions in secret with his staff which, thanks to what ever God may or may not exist, included me. They say that for a couple years after he lost his wife and son, he was not a pleasant person to be around but when he decided to take his trip to Ahran, the mission, the sense of purpose pulled him out of it. He became obsessed with it and I think spent his entire personal fortune as well as half the company profits for several years. He hired the best in every field and swore them to secrecy. Even the Board didn’t know the full extent of it - witness their lack of knowledge of the second ship - my ship. He had many concerns about sabotage, systems failure, his failure. He was determined the mission would succeed and make its results known to a skeptical and battered Earth - a new ray of hope for humanity? The world has entertained dumber ideas.

Tom admitted to me shortly before he left that he had been looking for a hearty, healthy and preferably attractive female co-conspirator for years. I was the winner of this competition I didn’t know I was in. Of course if there was anything in the universe I wanted to do it was to break out of the solar system so such an opportunity did not require my loving or even liking Tom to garner my acceptance. Our personal relationship was a very thick layer of frosting on this wonderful cake.

I was a bit miffed at the same time though. The way he presented it at first was to ask my opinion on who should be the occupant of the second ship. Those were his very words as my not so reliable memory has it. But then it came to me – he wanted me to ask for it just to make sure that I really wanted it … and him. Pretty soon I realized that it made perfect sense for a mission of this magnitude. Why should I hammer him for making the logical choice when I’ve been batting my jaws about this for years? As far as Tom and I ... well ... it’s a story. Quite weirdly and even more unexpectedly, we were an instant eyes-across-the-room item for the office gossip mill and for each other. There were some sub-solar flare level outbursts from angry rivals, female and male, but, as I told my friends, it’s the gene pool that counts. We had far too much fun practicing but when the real thing happens, we’ll have to bear down and do our biological duty. I hope it doesn’t become duty as in fighting a war or something.

But, where was I - the past - the bad and the beautiful? It’s coming back to me in shattered little bits. I remember running through the hallways of Tom’s wonderful albatross yelling for people to get out of the building by the emergency tunnel. When I looked out the window of my office ... it was on the 14th floor, I saw a gun battle going in Grand Circus Park. It was a hot summer night, about 21:00 hrs. Little flashes of light and soon after the sharp bark of a round flying out of a muzzle. It looked like play but I know a lot of people died. Something in my head said they were going to plant a bomb so I pushed the run and scream button, the big red knob that hangs near the doorway of every office. I don’t think I’ve ever been so terrified. The thought of the building collapsing under my feet, falling, with broken pieces of what were once solid walls and floors falling down right behind me ... there is nothing that could happen on this ship that rips at me more than that. Most of the people got out but some did not. I didn’t stop running and I didn’t look back until I had covered that hundred-meter tunnel in a heartbeat. About half way through, I heard the explosion, a huge, Earth-shaking roar that knocked out the lights and stripped the plaster and paint off the ceiling in a shower of dusty fragments. My coworkers, my friends and I ... we were just a screaming mass of pounding feet and shaking arms. I thank God Tom’s people had the foresight to make the door open outward instead of inward. Otherwise, we would have killed each other in the stampede. Actually, his architects thought out the whole ugly scene in advance step-by-step. Shock resistant fire doors at the end of every hall, triple spec steel structure, easy access to escape routes. Tom saw it coming. He knew, from the many threats, the loss of his family, just from keeping his ear to the ground like a good Indian scout. His thinking saved us.

The tunnel led into an underground parking lot. There were five institute vans there just for emergency use. I remembered the drill. The vans were kept gassed up and were exercised every week. We piled in and ripped out of town as fast as their wheels would turn. We had a terrible screaming match trying to figure out where to go after we got out of town. That part of the plan had not been finalized yet and only one person knew the proposed site. It was in Ann Arbor near the U of M stadium - kind of a safe house. Now that’s a one-eighty isn’t it? The citizens have to go to a safe house to get away from the terrorist.

On the way there, I knew I’d better move up my plan to take the second ship to meet Tom. I went to Metro airport and caught the first plane to Houston. I maxed out my personal account to get a hitch on a routine crew change flight to the Mars station. That took three weeks to get off the ground and another six months to reach station M-12. I met Jeff Gordon there. We rode with another freighter to the Jupiter research station that has a lab we used for my hibernation prep. Jeff was a dear. I had a lot of apprehension about the prep, never having done it before. In fact, I was only the second person to take a prep for such a long period - Tom being the first. It’s been done to a lot of people for much shorter times with a pretty good no damage rate - 98%, as I remember. And the projections were hopeful - not foolproof, not anything like 98% but hopeful. Numbers don’t mean much at this level. It’s just between the idiosyncrasies of your body and the chemicals that the prep puts into you. Of course, the trip environmental parameters are critical too. Thank you Engineering for doing that to perfection - I survived.

It’s starting to form in my head, awareness that I am damn lucky to be alive. So many things could have gone wrong. I remember as Jeff was scrubbing me down that this might be my last sensation. A wave of fear came over me that made me shiver all over. Jeff asked what was wrong but I was too drugged to speak. It seemed like the last moments of life, standing on the railing of a bridge, tipping slowly over till gravity did its cold work and pulled me into oblivion. Fear at the extreme. But waking up was almost the same. Waking from hibernation was like dying. I hope someone there can figure this out. Depression is common coming out of hibernation but this was way beyond that.

I have one request. Send me some news - politics, science, fashion, sports - anything. I know, I might not live long enough to get it but humor me here. After all, it’s only a few megawatts of power and a little studio time to send those little photons my way. It would be something wonderful to look forward to, something to count days against, a reason for me to let this God damned screen clock keep on flipping the minutes away. Try sending photos and videos too. Use the JOSS format. That’s what I’m going to use when I land to record and transmit images - -the first to reach Earth of a planet outside the solar system. Tom should have waited another year and he would have had it. So, I will be first, not second at something. I like that.

08/26/2170, 03:22 hrs.

Got some sleep finally. I had a dream, a nightmare really. I was walking through a swamp with huge trees everywhere. Long thin tendrils hung from their branches - they swung back and forth with whip-like motion, searching for something I thought. Maybe prey, maybe me. One tendril caught my arm, another on my leg. They pulled me up into the air... it looked like thirty meters or more above the green muck I’d been wading in. I was hanging upside down, swinging back and forth. There were strange noises, animal cries, it seemed, but not like anything on Earth. One especially piercing scream was getting closer. Then, I woke up. I was half out of bed, my head on the floor, which is about half a meter below the level of the bed. My legs were still on the bed. There was a screeching noise coming from the number two bio-recirculation pump. It took a while for me to figure out where I was and what was making all the noise. Turns out, a bearing went out in the pump. I switched over to the back up pump. I might try to fix it later since I believe there are some spare parts on board. That’s the most excitement caused by something outside my head I’ve had so far. Scary as it was for a while, the adrenalin rush was nice. I’ll probably pine away ferociously for this boredom when I get to the surface of Ahran.

08/27/2170, 10:09 hrs.

Just some more basics I happened to think of in case you were wondering: our trips are one-way. I guess the engineers couldn’t figure out a way to store enough energy for the acceleration to escape velocity from Ahran or even from the Ahranian system. The demands for fuel multiply a gadzillion times, I’m told if we had to carry that much fuel the whole trip. Storing enough during the trip was not feasible and there certainly are no gas stations on Ahran with the right stuff, ergo, suicide mission. If we survive our trips, we’ll spend the rest of our lives on Ahran. That’s OK ... we’ve agreed to that before we left. Our main goal is to send regular messages back to Earth describing our experiences and what we’ve discovered. Naturally, we can’t do that if we don’t have good relations with the locals so that has to be top on our list also. If the natives are hostile, we’re dead. I don’t hold out much hope for a cargo cult situation - wouldn’t want that anyway. We’ll do our best to keep you informed. If conditions are suitable, Tom and I will try to reproduce and establish a family. We made that agreement before we left. Hopefully, we’ll become part of a community of Ahranians. Even more hopefully, and our hosts agree, more humans can come and establish a small colony - they study us and we study them.

Another problem to keep me busy - the recordings of messages received from Earth by the ship automatically - they indicate that no messages were received between 16:03 hours, 23 July 2055 and 14:33 hours, 2 June 2057. I’ve run all the diagnostics on the receiving system and they all indicate the system’s in good working order - has been all along as far as I can tell. However, if I’m interpreting this the right way, it seems that when the system went back on line, there was an adjustment of some kind, which caused my projected location to be different than my actual location. I’m afraid this may have resulted in minor navigational errors not being corrected by the system during the bulk of the flight. I don’t know if Tom’s flight had the same problem because we had different transponder target stations on Earth. Mine was in the Kingston Arizona station and Tom’s was in the Palomar station. I’ll follow the standard manual protocols to make course corrections and pray to the local Gods that I end up in the right place.

08/30/2170, 21:12 hrs.

Did a visual on part of the Ahranian system - the inner part. I can see only one inner planet. It’s too close to the plane of the planets to see the other two. I think they’re on the other side of the Ahranian sun. I saw what looks like Ahran ... it’s got to be ... green and blue and brown with big white swirls. You only get one of those in a system. Trouble is, it’s not where it’s supposed to be. I’m afraid there’s still bum course data in the computer and I don’t know how to get it out. But no matter. I’ll be able to restart it with an optical fix directly on Ahran. I’ll get into orbit in a week or so and do a thorough search. Got work to do now.

09/01/2170, 06:05 hrs.

The problem with the navigational errors also seems to have caused me to miss the news, info and entertainment channel I was promised from Earth. Only the navigational channel works. I tried to make some sense out of the non-focast radio buzz from Earth without much luck. I was hoping to get some news, some sense of where you people are now. Is it all sweetness and light, finally? Or are you still bashing each other’s dormant brains out? Are you all worshipping Allah or Jesus or money or what?. The signals I’m getting are a lot weaker than I expected from Earth at this distance but at least they reassure me that there is still life on Earth. More efficient broadcasting? More use of cable or local focasting? Maybe just fewer people.

12:30 hrs.

Another thing to worry about - gravity. As I remember, the poop screen said the gravity on Ahran is slightly higher than on Earth, yet here I am at 0.8 Gs. There should be some kind of reminder after coming out of hibernation to adjust to anticipated gravity - and time enough to do it ... to adjust to it. I’ve made up my own regimen. I’ll let you know if it doesn’t work.

Command: Increase rotational speed incrementally to achieve 1.1 Gs. Do this over the next ten days. Make increments equal to one hour.

[ACKNOWLEDGED]

09/02/2170, 20:06 hrs.

I think I’m close enough now to locate Tom’s focasts. Don’t know when or how often he’ll do it so I’ll scan the whole planet.

Command: start radio search sequence 1 -20 of program TWFIND01, target visual fix A1 plus/minus 3 degrees. Check for match with Tom Wilson voice print

[ACKNOWLEDGED - COMPLETE CYCLE REQUIRES APPROXIMATELY 43 HOURS. REPEAT SEQUENCE WHEN COMPLETED?]

Command: Yes, repeat sequence 1-20 until stop command. Display results on screen 6.

[ACKNOWLEDGED]

Now I’ve got some work to do - prepare for orbit and landing in, well, it looks like 98 hours.

09/04/2170, 19:04 hrs.

I wish I knew what’s wrong. The computer ran through the sequence and found nothing. Not only did it not pick up any messages from Tom, but it didn’t pick up any radio messages from Ahran at all! There’s got to be something wrong with the receiver. It’s the aft system that’s doing it. The forward end has started picking up Earth signals since I fixed the location. I know that works. They’re faint, mish-mash stuff as far as I can tell and they need a lot better directional focusing on the receiving dish but at least it works. Signals from Ahran should be a lot stronger. Ought to get a good signal to noise ratio. Only choice is to turn the ship around 180 degrees and see what I can pick up. So, Earth, my focasts will be interrupted for a while. Let’s hope the navigational stuff works.

Command: rotate ship 180 degrees in the direction of travel, reverse functions of forward and aft broadcasting and receiving operations. Then resume radio search sequences 1 - 20.

[ACKNOWLEDGED - ROTATION OPERATION REQUIRES 34 MINUTES, RESULTS WILL BE REPORTED AS PREVIOUSLY INDICATED.]

19:58 hrs

I’m seeing this and not wanting to believe it. God damn it! There’s got to be some kind of mistake.

Command: check reception of Earth non-focused signals. Optimize signal strength then check signal to noise ratio.

[ACKNOWLEDGED - RATIO IS NORMAL FOR CALCULATED RANGE AND WITHIN SPECIFICATIONS FOR SIGNIFICANT SIGNAL.]

Shit!

Command: What is the range?

[ACKNOWLEDGED - RANGE EQUALS 12.15 LIGHT YEARS]

Command: resume radio search sequences 1 - 20 at aft receiver.

[ACKNOWLEDGED]

09/05/2170 04:45 hrs.

I’ve been at it for more than eight hours now. I’ve scanned a major part of Ahran’s surface and have found no signals at all … NONE! I’ve checked all the frequency bands recorded on Earth and attributed to Ahran. There was a brief period a few days ago when I caught a short burst local to the Ahranian system but it didn’t last long enough for me to get a fix on it. I’m not even sure which direction it was coming from. But before and after that, nothing. Maybe my thinking is too conventional here – a possibility no one back home would entertain about me. But could it be something totally unexpected? Perhaps the frequency range is way beyond what Earth