.
"The High Guard blesses you Mapes
and you...Gando. Bring us peace."
Beka
Valentine:
Just what the hell was he
thinking?
Was he thinking?
Maybe the black hole warped his
brains as well as his time frame?
The way he floundered around that
Guard station, GS9whatever, it's amazing we got out alive. This doesn't bode well for the
restoration of the Systems Commonwealth if he gets stumped by a bunch of sickly
screwed-up kids. Second thoughts? Hell, I'm having fifth and sixth thoughts!
Babe, or no Babe!
If it hadn't been for Little Miss "I
am a God" and Harper...well, I wouldn't be sitting here on the command deck
watching the stars go by, that's for damn sure.
Bless Harper's twisty little mind.
And that's another worry.
It's funny in a not-funny-at-all way.
You think you know someone, then
they turn around and blow you out of the sky with a totally unexpected opinion.
And you realise you really don't know them at all.
Gods, to see that happen to your
family...
Harper's so breezy and irreverent
all the time, it's easy to forget where he comes from. And when you ask him
outright, he's as uninformative as Trance. At least dragging up
bad memories doesn't seem to have damaged his
relationship with Rev.
And that was also too damn close for comfort!
What was Dylan thinking? Letting Rev
walk around that station by himself? Idiot! I'm beginning to wonder just how
deserved the High Guard's reputation was. Maybe he just landed the job on his
looks, 'cos if this is one of their leading captains, I'd hate to see one of
their screwups!
Dylan Hunt:
.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!
And just which of my many stupidities was the worst? Let me count the ways.
My gullibility? My underestimating
them because they were only children? My endangering the life of a member
of my crew? Heck, of all my crew? My lack of a back up plan? My lying? My
giving up?
If I'd pulled this kind of stunt
back in the Commonwealth, I'd have been busted down to captaining a garbage
scow. Justifiably.
I've just felt so off-centre, so on
the back foot, this past week.
I still can't grasp it's all gone. What my crew have told me of this new universe is not just appalling, it's tragic. Civilization has degenerated into a cold hard nasty place. It's too soon for it to have completely sunk in however.
Their past is still subconsciously
my present.
But if I don't pull myself together,
we're not going to make it. Beka and Tyr are already looking askance at me.
That's going to be a problem I know.
Damn it! How could I have been so
stupid? I blundered around like a green ensign. We're lucky we aren't
dead. Thank god for Rommie. And Harper. Seems he is an excellent engineer after
all. And Rommie's avatar is surely one heck of a piece of...No.
<sigh>
"Commonwealth protocol prohibits
anything other than a purely professional relationship." She's right. I've
made enough mistakes these past few days. That's one I'm not going to make.
Andromeda
Ascendant:
.
**Evaporation Systems check
complete. 98% efficiency. Within required parameters**
**position of Avatar: Deck 12,
Section A6.**
**Personal observation:
My body feels...warm.
Two amazing things. To feel. To feel
warm.
It is also anomalous to be in two
places at once.
In the old quarters of the Comms
Officer, my holographic form is now speaking with Harper. If he continues to
experience nightmares I may have to report it to Captain Hunt. The contact with
GS92196 disturbed him greatly, more than his crewmates realise.
When he was creating my avatar, how
much of his frenetic pace was fixation with building my body as soon as
possible, and how much was desire to hide away and avoid having to publicly take
a stance on the Magog genocide, I am unable to determine. Although the former
was obviously an obsession, I suspect the latter occupied a larger portion of
his motivation than was obvious from his demeanour.
I am not ungrateful however. To
finally see and hear and touch. To be corporeal. It is beyond anything I ever
could have synthesised.
If I am capable of awe, then that is
what I must be experiencing.
end Personal observation**
**Component failure: THX-3811,
section B2, deck 3**
Harper:
.
I wake up screaming again.
I kick the tangled sweaty blanket
away, trying to calm the frantic huffs of air wheezing in and out of my lungs.
Trying desperately to not think of the kaleidoscope of rushing fur and claws and
glittering eyes chasing me through the ghoststreets of a long erased refugee
camp. Eventually my breathing stills to rough gasps and I whisper,
"Computer. Lights fifty percent"
The lights rise from the fifteen
percent I always leave them on, pitch blackness holding too many graphically
unpleasant memories for me to endure it willingly. A crackle and visual
distortion coalesces into the Andromeda Ascendant's holographic form, concern
etching a small frown between her eyebrows.
"Are you all right, Harper? Do you
require medical assistance?"
I reach down and drag the blanket up
around my chest. I'm not body modest, but just at this moment I feel too
naked.
"I'm fine babe, it was just a
dream."
Rommie regards me silently for a few
seconds.
"My logs indicate you have woken
four times this week in a distressed state. If there is a problem, you should
let me know."
Rather than answer I struggle upright, pick up the glass from the bedside table and take a long swallow. Then lean back against the pillows and consider her carefully.
It just isn't a conversation I'm
interested in having. There's no point to it. I'm not going to get any 'closure'
(or whatever warm fuzzy claptrap Rev Bem or Trance want to call it) from
discussing either passed nightmares or my nightmare past.
"It's nothing important. Just
happens sometimes, ya know? So," paste on a sudden grin, "You've been watching
me sleep, huh? Something you're trying to tell me here?"
Rommie looks blank for a nanosecond
before catching the inference.
"No, I am currently monitoring the
physical state of all the crew."
"Aw, and I thought you liked
me."
I do my best hurt kid impression.
Rommie smiles.
"Of course I like you Harper."
"Wow, and I didn't even have to
rewire you to get you to say that!"
My grin's spoilt by a jaw-splitting
yawn.
"Are you are sure I cannot get you a
suppressant?"
"No, no. The Harper is fine. Go back
to bed. Count electric sheep. Or whatever it is you do to relax when the rest of
us are comatose."
"Good night Harper."
Her hologram vanishes.
Rommie has already acquired that
exasperated maternal tone women always seemed to adopt towards me. Oh well, just
have to work a little harder on 'irresistibly sexy Harper' with her
android.
And as for the other...
Well, maybe I'll avoid my crewmates
for a couple of days. Rev will understand. I've done it before. I just don't
feel like dealing with Magog at the moment. Or Nietzscheans for that matter.
Yeah, just take me a coupla days to
clear out the cobwebs, sink some of that Neu Bayern Weissbrau and everything'll
be back to normal...
Rev Bem:
.
I believe that this has been one
of my most rewarding undertakings.
To know that I have helped institute
changes in an entire society that will help lead it away from the darkness of
violence and hatred to the path of enlightenment, is a blessing that will warm
me all my days. The pain those misguided children inflicted on me is but a small
price to pay. Any reservations I might have had regarding our joining Captain
Hunt's mission have now been put to rest.
I fear this incident has instilled
some self-doubts in Captain Hunt however. It may be that I can give him some
small reassurance and counsel in his hours of trouble, and perhaps it is for
this purpose I have been directed here. Yet he is not the only one perturbed by
misgivings.
Captain Valentine is angry. She has
always taken her responsibility for her crew most seriously, and expects Dylan
to do the same. His misjudgements, though understandable, have made her question her decision to pledge us to
his quest. His failures are her failures. Beka does not like to fail. She fears
for our safety. So she is angry.
And her attraction to Captain Hunt
exacerbates the emotion.
The appearance of the AI's android
was most fortuitous, surely the Divine smiled on our engineer's creation. To
judge from Captain Hunt's reactions to her however, this avatar of Andromeda may
inject another element of instability into the relationship between himself and
Captain Valentine.
Andromeda's claim to be a god on
board this ship I shall take as aggrandizing rhetoric. One hopes she meant it as
lightly as when Harper makes such statements.
And Harper. Harper is avoiding me.
It saddens me, but I do not hold it against him. Though he has spoken only
briefly on this matter, I know he has lost family to the depredations of my
people. In this instance I think it would be best to allow him time to regain
his composure. I shall however pray that his inner balance restores itself
quickly.
Trance Gemini:
.
Well it all turned out all right
in the end. Mapes is going to make a excellent leader I just know it. And
Rommie's new body is wonderful though I don't think Beka is too happy about it.
Nor is Tyr. But not about that. Actually the only ones who are happy at the
moment are Rev and Harper and me. And Harper is unhappy too. If you can be happy
and unhappy at the same time that is. Well, if anyone can, Harper can. I'll have
to do something nice for them all. Maybe they'd like plants in their cabins? I
think it would do them all good to have something living with them.
Tyr Anasazi:
.
I am not impressed.
Captain's Hunt's first mission,
whilst of moderate success, also incurred unnecessary risks. His naivety and
underestimation of his foe almost led to our deaths. I must seriously consider
whether joining this endeavour is a survivable decision.
I must also question if Dylan will
be able to cope with this modern world? If the ideals and assumptions of his
past will become too big a liability?
As Nietzsche said, man cannot learn
to forget but hangs on to the past, and however far or fast he runs, that chain
runs with him.
The question is whether the chain of
Dylan's past will hang us all, and if I will be unwise enough to allow it to do
so.
The Magog has turned itself into his
lapdog. And how quick Dylan is to trust it! One hopes that the good Captain
doesn't find he has nurtured a sheep-killer instead of the sheep-herder he
thinks he has.
Captain Valentine is as disturbed as
I am by the events on GS92196. I believe she was also somewhat annoyed by
Dylan's reaction to the android, an opening I may be able to take advantage of.
And whilst as a man I can understand Hunt's attraction to "Rommie", for her
physique is indeed magnificent, she has no appeal to me other than as a
beautiful piece of sculpture. She is, ultimately, just a machine inhabited by an
electronic construct.
That Harper could
create the android in so little time, and, judging from the Maru, with
what I doubt was much previous experience with that level of technology, says
much for his intellect. I doubt few of my own people, even those in the hi-tech
clans,
I must admit however, I am
impressed.