Chapter 2 - Explorer

  Day 2

  The atmospheric haze has cut down the visibility today. Those distant islands are now stains and splotches against the blue tapestry. If they don't want to be seen in great detail then fine, I was planning to look inland anyway. But first things first: I don't want anything coming all up in my perimeter. Makes me feel uneasy. There weren't even any footprints or nothing around the solar panels. Time to set security.

  Now if there's one thing I have in excess from the escape pod, it's 550 cord. Hell, even my watch strap is 550 cord. I used 550 cord to pitch my shelter too. So here's what I've done: I wrapped a length of chord around and between the trees nearest my 'camp site', might as well call it (Yes, I braved up to the trees. No, nothing weird happened). It's an ankle height trip wire. I took the spent .22LR casings from yesterday and put them into a metal container and wired it all together. I think the SERE instructor from the land survival course would be proud. Anything emerging from the trees trying get in this time is going to stumble into the paracord and I'm going hear rattling .22 cartridges.

  Speaking of noise, the radiation dosimeter included with the escape pod is now affixed to my waist, where it shall remain at all times. It is ticking away at 0.51 μSv per hour. That is a bit spicy by Earth standards but you get dosed at around 2 to 7 μSv per hour while flying commercially in an airliner, and no one is exactly freaking out over that. Now if we were counting ionizing radiation at counts persistently over 1000 μSv? Then I would be writing my updated last will and testament here instead. But I'm not.

  While on the topic of radiation, on the electromagnetic front, when I uncoiled the HF radio antenna wire and strung it up a tree (again, nothing weird happened after touching the tree), I heard nothing but cosmic microwave background. Disappointing. Still, I tried transmitting at the top of the hour (That is the Emergency part in the terrestrial PACE plan by they way). Again, nothing. I don't want to give up on radio communication just yet.

  The relaxing sound of wind and waves allows me to delay exploring this tablet's multimedia entertainment options at least for one more day but already I grow tired of computer chess, despite the AI's best efforts to dynamically adjust to my play, while waiting for the next hour's start. The radio is digital and run out of the escape pod. A neat little device despite the latest attempts at communication proving futile. No point taking the antenna wire down. I decide to rule out the possibility of any crew members having landed near me. Their signals, if there were any, would have bounced off the ionosphere and into my receiver. That won't stop me from trying again though, I'm just setting realistic expectations.

  I suppose the lack of signals makes sense. The staggered release of the pods and subsequent dispersion of them, each auto pilot making its own independent decision on where to land. We could be scattered all over the planet. Or maybe half of us are dead. The activity log never mentioned crew bay two launching. The crew was split between two bays so that the failure of one wouldn't be catastrophic to the mission, not that they ever failed (until now?). The crew bay QNIs even swore their own code of ethics, to do no harm – a kind of Hippocratic Oath. Why me and presumably the rest of crew bay one and not bay two? Maybe we're just lucky. Have to be lucky in many ways to even make it onto an IIEM crew. It counts for something.

  Along the beach the high tide line is marked by darker colored sand. The escape pod is uncomfortably close to the line. I wonder if I can make a pulley and drag it further inland along the sand? Perhaps that shall be a long term project. I'll have days to think about it. I run my hand along the black heat shield tiles. To think that not too long ago these pieces of Silica would have been heated to over 1000 degrees Celsius, you'd never be able to tell looking at them now, they handled those temperatures like it was nothing. Although the pod's single use nature is revealed by the ablative layer's complete absence along the wing's leading edge. The escape pod does look like it got itself stuck in the sand pretty good. I settle for yet more 550 cord and a tree hard point to tie it down to.

  Each hour brings another bout of static hissing as the radio tries to make sense of the comic microwave background where there is no sense to be had. Might as well call it and try exploring inland now. I pack the backpack with water, food, and more 550 cord. Isn't it great they had the foresight to include walking poles?

  Day 2 Hiking Logs

  The alien bush is easy going and my progress is steady. I've climbed up the nearest hill and took a photo of what was on the other side. Surprise! Another beach, or maybe this is a cove? Still, there's another ridge to reach. Maybe I'll find alien civilization on the other side?

  Working my way along the cliff tops of this beach cove, I can hear them. Whatever they are. The same calls from last night. They ring out throughout the bush. The impression I'm left with is not hostilities – it's almost cheerful, reminds me of crow speech, though I should be cautious to apply earthly expectations onto quite literally alien sounds.

  I've made my way around the cove. No indications here of any kind of advancement. Just wilderness, plants, and my thoughts to keep me company, oh and the survival rifle too, though its more for emotional support than defensive potency.

  Hmm. Big ridge line ahead. I think I'll keep trekking to the end, there could be something on the other side and getting to know your local neighborhood is always a good thing. I wonder if mission control back on Earth is getting worried yet? 24 hours without Quantum communication is when the alarm bells are supposed to start ringing so loud you can't ignore them anymore. Is Carter drafting a statement about crew loss of signal? Or does he already have one ready to go in a drawer?

  Oh, right, far future log readers. Carter Levitt: mission director – giver of firm handshakes and unnerving selection board interviews. Future reader of this survivor's log, do check for me if he still believed he chose the right people for the mission. I'll do my best to make it out of this ordeal, but there were so many who were left behind in the selection process, I wonder if second thoughts ever crept into his mind.

  I'm not in the business of getting lost. I tie paracord around the trees as I go, marking my path. After every so and so number of paces I stop and look back. If the last cord wrapped tree is about to go out of view, I tie the next one. My 550 cord bread crumb trail. I have a lot of 550 cord.

  I took a photo back at the beach where the escape pod decided to land (well, its partially obscured, but you can see it!) from the crest of the ridge line. I'm going to keep rolling now. I paused to hydrate the freeze dried smoothy from the ration pack. Very refreshing under Chara's heat. It tastes of banana and electrolytes.

  I guess this planet lacks birds? I've noticed a distinct lack of flying things. Or anything really. Just distant creatures calling. Maybe they don't want to be seen? Though that would imply the existence of predators out here. I make sure the rifle's magazine is seated properly. My pockets contain a fist full of extra rounds and the spare magazine.

  Well, I made it, and a what cool spot this is. I sit a while watching the ocean surge down below, letting the rifle rest against my leg. I do not want to fall down there, would make for a watery grave. It's a raging swell. Makes the flame-less ration heater heating my lunch look tame in comparison. It occurs to me that this ocean, this island, all of it, it's all without name. I am the first. Should I not do the honors? I'm eating a freeze dried ration of berries and biscuit. Berry Cove?

  Yeah.

  Berry Cove.

  Apologies to Mission Specialist Daisy Chu if it's not actually a cove, or a bay or whatever, that is what I'm calling it and no one can stop me! She would've known with her PhD in geology. Seriously, massive nerd alert. I really hope she's landed in safety. I pack the empty ration pack into my bag. Don't want to leave any reasons for something hungry to follow me.

  I gaze upon the bit of land poking around the cliff. I came this far. Why not go a little further?

  OK then. No advanced civilization here. No buildings or nothing. Just bush as far as the eye can see. Time to RTB. Return to base. I can still hear them calling, whatever they are. No visual on the noisy creatures.

  Day 2 Addendum

  So, the tablet battery was exhausted at some point during the walk back, so you'll just have to believe me that I saw them. Funny looking things. Quadrupedal, brownish, and looking a little goat like or maybe... what are they called again? Oh yeah, Capybaras.They just burst out through the brush, calling away, without a care in the world. They nearly ran right into me.

  I felt relief though; definitely friend shaped and looking at their mouths? Unmistakably full of molars, herbivores then, which means they weren't stalking me after all!

  I concluded they were just animals based on that quite frankly careless behavior and furthermore I was struck by just how unremarkable they looked. Extremely Earth like. Suppose there's no reason the fauna should be any different.

  They stopped and looked at me. I looked at them too. One tore off a leaf and chewed. I sucked up the last of the freeze dried smoothy. I kept walking back, not wanting to disturb them and get this, the things started following me! The whole incident reminded me of the humble penguin, whose mind was not equipped to handle the arrival of the first human explorers to their icy continent. Lacking land predators, the penguin, if I am recalling correctly, is liable to see a human as just another penguin. A really big penguin. They are chill about humanity's presence and so are the fluffy dudes that followed me along the paracord marked path I carved out to the beach.

  Though these alien creatures need not worry, unlike the fates of the first penguins to encounter humanity, these aliens have got nothing to worry about from me. They peeled off as I descended down the ridge line. Maybe they don't like the lower altitudes? Less brush and such as I reach the beach. Regardless, I am relieved to finally be able to put a face to the sounds I've been hearing, doubly so is my relief that I still have 90 rounds of ammunition. I shall name this creature The Capy in honor of the closest Earth analogue, the aforementioned world's largest rodent, though the Capy lacked webbed feet. Not swimmers then?

  Chara has turned the sky hues of orange and red as it slips below and I slip on the PSQ-98's. I don't plan on trying to stay up all night this time. The reveal of the Capy and the cord lined perimeter gives me the impression that things should be OK. I watch flaming pieces of Tongzhou vaporize in the sky while I think about The Capys some more. Alien life, and its just an animal as far as I can tell. I imagine these little guys continuing on their path for thousands of more years. Would they develop intelligence? Would they look at the remains of me and the escape pod and wonder? The tablet has many books saved to it. I settle of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds while drifting off to sleep. Those aliens may have lost to bacteria, but this alien right here, writing the survivors log on the planet that orbits Chara? It'll be just fine.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  Day 3

  I wake to sharp pain at my foot. Wh- what the... My eyelid shoots open, brain desperate for information on the source of the pain. Occipital lobe no doubt engaged in frantic neural activity as signals from the eyes arrive along the optic nerve.

  It all happens so very quickly after the half second or so my brain spends processing the received stimulus.

  Holy shit! What the fuck is that!

  Before me? It's best described as a crab. What else would you call it? Earth like non-crab? I guess all evolutionary roads lead to crab after all, even under a foreign star. Carcinization, that's what it is called. Crab is inevitable, you heard it here first. But this crab is different, it's huge! About up to my waist? Ain't that make it about a meter tall? Briefly I wonder if the reader of these survivor logs will be some kind of crab, if evolution has progressed far enough, but its a fleeting thought for there are more urgent things demanding my attention.

  There is a giant crab alien thing invading the edge of my shelter and its pincer is pinching my foot!

  Hell no!

  My arms reach out, thankfully not far, to the rifle. Its alien eyes are glancing to me, I see hunger in those eyes. Stupid thing! Can't eat me, I'm from another planet! I don't think you need protein and carbohydrates!

  I force the rifle into my shoulder, placing the orange front sight post right in the middle of its face. My finger goes for the trigger.

  Squeeze... Click!

  They say the loudest sound you can hear while manipulating a firearm is a bang when you were expecting a click, and the second loudest, a click when you were expecting a bang, but now I can confidently say they got the order wrong! That hammer strike onto nothing was the loudest sound I have ever heard in my life. I have left my rifle on an empty chamber. Mission Commander Griesmer would not have made that rookie mistake!

  He was in the United States Marine Corps in a past life!

  I practically throw my hand over the AR-7's bolt charging handle and yank it back, not waiting for the recoil spring to seat the round, I thrust the bolt forwards with my hand too. There is one more click as I disengage the safety. The crab (Yes that's what I am going to name this class of creature) has torn through the sleeping bag with its claw things and I see red and torn threads of sock and sleeping bag insulation. I also hear the report of the rifle. Eight reports in fact, one after the other.

  Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop! Click!

  The first round ricochets off the top of the crab's carapace. It tumbles and spins violently in an arc through the air, glances the tarp ceiling, all the while making an absurd vvvVVVVvvvvzzzzzZZZzzttt! sound like a ground flower firework, before depositing itself in the sand. The rotational energy converts into cloud of sand grains thrown into the air.

  The next few rounds strike true and I see chunks of chitinous shell flung about in almost as dramatic fashion as the first errant round. It's not particularly loud, because in case you forgot, .22LR is an under powered round for the situation, and my ears aren't ringing and the crab isn't finished either. Instead of retreating it drives in! But I guess I really am lucky, for one of the last three rounds puts the crab down and it goes limp, body atop my feet.

  I just stare at the aggressor for a while. It was being aggressive wasn't it? Not mild curiosity I could have dispelled with a shout and wave of the hands? I was acting reasonably to a life threatening encounter. Was I acting reasonably? Christ. My mind races with all manner of possibilities. Was it intelligent? Did it lunge forwards to what it perceived was a threat to its life? Did I just cause humanities first extra planetary diplomatic incident? Or maybe it was just a mindless crustacean, whose absence no one will pity.

  God damn it, why can't everything on this planet be nice like the Capys?!

  This is not over yet. I hear disturbances, quiet shuffles in the sand, from out beyond my survival tarp! I hear more crabs! Perhaps they approach to see what the noise was? Perhaps they will feel horror upon glimpsing their comrade? Perhaps they will be pleased that they now have their own chance to have at the thing that could potentially be food? Me!

  My hand is patting around my side, searching desperately for the spare magazine. I find it in the top left pocket. Thank god. I depress the magazine release and slide in the new one. The bolt makes a satisfying click as a new round is fed into the chamber. I have to wriggle my feet to free them. Left, right, left, right, free left, free right. The sleeping bag is abandoned in place as I move out from under the tarp. There are three of them!

  "Get back!" I shout, but they are unperturbed. The approach of the crabs continues in the face of my verbal barrage. In fact, it continues in the face of my lead barrage too. I take the time to breathe before I fire. I can't help but notice the orange front sight post is shaking back and forth and up and down with my trembles.

  Calm down! Squeeze at the bottom of the breath...

  I put the second crab down with another magazine dump then I am off, a limping hovel, attempting to put some distance between me and remaining two. My foot screams but not as loud as I want to verbally, desperately trying to fish one loose round at a time out of my pocket and into the magazine. I need to reload. One step, one round, and one foot of distance is lost as the crabs gain on me. The cycle repeats until eight rounds sit snug in the magazine. I don't like how loud the pincers are when they snap together. One has made it to arms length by the time I am back in action, but it gets even closer as I hear another click!

  Malfunction!

  I rack the bolt again, cursing the round as it is evicted from the chamber. The cartridge taking its place is faithful, firing off without issue as is the next and all the others in the magazine. The crab is down and his mate seems to have gotten the message. It retreats to the water, disappearing beneath the waves. I don't celebrate, no, I work frantically to get the magazine reloaded. Where's the other magazine? Damn it. Lost it.

  Reloaded again I look around. I must be about 100 meters down the beach. The waves continue to crash into the sand, uncaring towards my plight. The sky is overcast, a little bit like me. There are three crab bodies on the beach, and I'm just standing there, heaving breaths and my foot hurts. The sand below me is red. Great. While limping back to the campsite I search for the lost magazine but I can't find it. I hate it. 16 rounds was poor already, 8? I have no firepower at all. Not to mention I'm down to 66 rounds of ammunition from this little exchange. This is not sustainable.

  I seek out first aid upon my return to the camp. Wound cleaning and gauze and a new sock and my trail boot. This sucks. My trip wire idea? It didn't account for the possibility of something coming out the water. Silly idiot George, nearly smoked by leaving a gap in his perimeter.

  But hey, I now have a pretty good hypothesis as to why the Capys didn't follow me to the beach yesterday, already I'm considering packing up and moving to join them further inland.

  Gosh, what a mess. The crabs, in their curiosity, have made a mess of the place. What am I going to do about the bodies? They're going to attract scavengers, I have no doubt about it, and what will said alien scavengers think about me?

  I don't have to wait long to get an answer. Overhead, a loud roar sounds that I feel as much as hear. It clears my thoughts right out. High in the sky but below the clouds I see a black spot, small, but far away, so really it must be quite big! It comes from the direction of one of the closer islands.

  If you want the damn crabs, you can have them!

  I'm not hanging around to see if this new comer is better than the crabs at differentiating food from distant planet visitor. I half run, half grit my teeth in pain, to get up the hill, leaving all I have behind. I'm going to the Capys!

  Day 3 Addendum

  While hoofing it through the bush I have the oddest of thoughts. Do you ever stop and think about what critical decisions led you the point where you're running from some overhead beast?

  You never really know what decisions are those critical inflection points that radically alter the trajectory of your life until you look back on them in hindsight.

  You should know, for me, one might think it was a fateful evening with overcast skies, much like they are now, obscuring the moon's light, sitting at a desk, preparing what courses to take in a second year of undergraduate computer studies at a one Wellington University. A haphazard decision to fill an elective course slot with "Introduction to Quantum Communications (Limited Entry)" instead of "Differential Equations (mathematics)". It wasn't a course that I was particularly interested in, but, the course I actually did want to take, I couldn't due to course requirements I had bungled up in my cluelessness of first year course selection.

  No, deciding to take "Introduction to Quantum Communications (Limited Entry)" course was not a critical inflection point. It was rocking up to the first lecture in that tiny seminar room, for we were too little in number to justify taking a full sized lecture theater, and deciding to give a shit. Listening to what the lecturer was saying and, God help me, actually trying to do well in the course.

  There was something deeply humbling about studying under someone who has forgotten more about a subject than I could ever hope to know in the course of my, comparatively to theirs of course, short life. The ItQC course was limited entry for a reason. It was a class of 30 that became 20 that became 15 over the first two weeks as those, who like me, just needed an elective paper to fill the course load realized this was not for them and so jumped ship, pulled the 'ejection handle', so to speak, and blasted off into the promised land of game development or algorithms and data structures.

  In short time I found myself amongst a different kind of student. It's hard to recognize them at first, but you do, if only you open your eyes and actually look. It's not the foreign American accent that gives it away, there are plenty of those around the campus halls. No, its the conduct. The way they hold themselves, the way they walk, the way they know there is a purpose for their being there. Military hopefuls. Officers in training. Almost all of them Naval bound to sit, ultimately, in America's nuclear submarines, bearing the nuclear deterrent. Waiting for those Qbits to deliver the message that now is the time to rain nuclear fire down upon America's enemies. That was their final trajectory and so failing out of "Introduction to Quantum Communications" was simply not an option. The ability to have guaranteed secure communication with America's angels of death, their nuclear weapons delivery vessels, is such a tantalizing opportunity that of course the United States Armed Forces should send their young officers to the only university in the world offering the courses teaching the technology that makes such a capability possible.

  And there was me there too.

  Should it come as any surprise that in the next year I found myself penciling in "Quantum Communications" for my course elective, and then after that "Applied Quantum Communications"? No surprise at all, and after that too, the Masters degree and Doctorate awaited. By the end of it we were a small bunch and everyone knew each other by virtue of practical assignments were we would have to communicate with each other, not face to face, but with the very things we were studying. Ultimate proof that our understanding of Quantum Communication was, in fact, satisfactory.

  I'll never forget, during my first industry placement at Q Survival Devices Ltd, we made Personal locator beacons with a quantum twist. Just one Qbit, not suitable for data transmission, but enough to give a 'heartbeat' signal. Some skiers' life in Switzerland was saved by our product when they fell into an ice crevice, covered in snow. Our beacon told rescuers to keep looking, long after they usually would have given up, and the skier was alive when the S&R dog sniffed them out.

  And then shortly after, the company went under and I was out of a job. I got an email then, out of the blue, Professor was asking students who had graduated from under him – the ones that met two conditions one: he had preferred having as students, and two: not currently in an undisclosed location in a nuclear attack submarine – if we would be interested in going to a trial for this strange new thing called the International Interstellar Exploration Missions as Quantum Router Engineers. Sure, why not? I was out of a job anyway.

  Well turns out plenty of people had a not. Just me and one other raised their hand. Just the two us ‘giving a shit’. Not that there were that many of us to begin with. They picked her by the way, just the better candidate on paper, I’ll happily admit that. Only come IIEM 3 she decided she’d had enough of the barren rocks.

  Who was the next best available candidate to fill the role of Quantum Engineer?

  Me!

  New Zealand’s 2nd ever astronaut. Mankind’s 63rd ever to go interstellar. New Zealand’s 1st ever to become stranded on another planet.

  Aren’t I just a trial blazer? What kind of glass ceiling am I breaking?

  I’ve always secretly suspected my nation’s government pulled some strings and pulled some favors to get me in through the door. An opportunity to have one of our own as part of the IIEM, simply too much to resist.

  I never really felt truly indoctrinated into the ranks of the astronauts, only being there to manage those special machines we could not do without. Like the back seater in a fighter jet, while the pilot does the ‘real aviating’. And here the actual space exploration was reserved for others. Reserved for the best of us.

  But those are my internal private thoughts on the matter, I'm leaving them here for the record. Externally? I smiled, waved, gave a shit, and held on for dear life at Johnson Space Center as they tried to ascertain if I had what it takes. T-38 training, real nail biting, a go in the vomit comet, a narrow mission set, no need for EVA training.

  Now here I am, stranger on an alien planet. I reach Berry Cove and stop to look around. All clear by the looks of things. Talk about a mad minute of hiking. My foot hurts. Pain killers? More like pain-numbing.

  Deciding to care and deciding to try.

  Two critical decisions that have lead to me being here. I will continue to care, and I will continue to try. And I will wait until Chara dives down below the horizon. That thing should be gone by then. What better option do I have? You know any future survivors would be wise to keep their critical equipment on them at all times. The PSQ-98 goggles came with a neat carry bag and sling, without them I think I would need to wait until dawn. I am pleased to see a Capy emerge from the brush. It stands next to me. Just chilling.

  Chilling.

  Aren't we all?