Entry 38 - Day 19 (Part 2)

I can't believe it.  I thought I was alone here. 

Except for the sealife, obviously.

And maybe the aliens. Unless they count as sealife too?  

Anyway, I thought I was the only living human being on this rock, but I found habitation pods!  I mean, they're abandoned and haven't been maintained in a while, but it's evidence that other people have been here and maybe they still are... I need to sit down. I think I'm having a panic attack. 

[sounds of rapid breathing and indistinct mumbling for several minutes]

Okay... okay. I'm good. Everything's good. Just got a bit overwhelmed, that's all. It's a lot. 

On top of everything else, I mean. 

I-I should probably start at the beginning. So, I left the cave before dawn and, keeping one hand on the cliff face, I started to follow a rough trail down. Which was when I saw the cargo pod.

My first thought was that maybe it was from The Aurora, or had somehow survived what happened to the Sunbeam, but the serial numbers on it were old. Way older than anything loaded on The Aurora.

And then the beam of my flashlight caught the habitation pod. I think it might have been the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

It was badly corroded and dirty inside. All the door seals had long since rotted, but there was a cargo pod, still operating on minimum power, and some sort of tree growing in what I assume was once an atrium or botany lab?

Anyway, this tree has a number of oddly shaped fruit hanging from its upper limbs, and they glow!  The scanner calls them Lantern Fruit (appropriately enough) and says they're edible but not very nutritious. To be honest, they taste a bit like a pear, which I'm not a fan of, but it's good to add another alternative food source to the list.

I scanned everything that I could, hoping to get the chance to replicate some of these habitation pods later, and then pressed on. The sun was up by now and I was able to follow the trail to a small plateau that gave a clearer view of this island.

This planet really can be quite beautiful sometimes.

There were another couple of pod structures in the distance, so I decided to hike over to the nearest one and investigate, before deciding what to do next. 

This pod was in an even worse state of disrepair than the first one I'd found. Maybe because it was lower down or something? I don't even know., but this one is bigger and looks much more like a habitation pod. 

Maybe the one's that were fabricated higher up were put there as observation posts?

Anyway, this one had an actual growbed outside, with real Chinese Potato plants growing in it! The sight nearly made me cry. We had them on The Aurora, as fresh ingredients for the crew's meals. It was almost a taste of home.

Maybe I can take a sample of the roots and grow my own somewhere?

The whole place looked like it had been caught in a landslide, which explained the poor condtion. I found another one of those weird alien tablets in the forward section and then, in the upper pod, there was a PDA.

Voices from the past. Voices and names unconnected with The Aurora. 

Paul Torgal, Bart Torgal, Marguerit Maida. All survivors from the crash of their own ship, The Degasi. 

Marooned, just like me.

These people survived on this planet, even started to make a life here by growing their own food and building shelters.

I've got to take that as a sign of hope, don't I?

It's strange hearing voices that I don't recognise from The Aurora. Where are they now? I have no idea, but I'm going to keep looking. Maybe they found a way off this planet? If they managed to disable the Enforcement Platform somehow, then it's possible.

It'll be getting dark soon. I've spent a long time recording these notes, so I'll probably try to sleep here. My belly is full for the first time in weeks, and I've blocked the hatch down to the main pod, so I should be safe tonight.

I really needed this. Here's to finding more good news tomorrow.

Ryley out.