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Andrew reporting.
Daniel seems uncharacteristically cheerful, even though he is bearing Daniel's entire
weight. He is transmitting the Star Wars theme music (full orchestral arrangement)
and tapping a complicated contrapuntal rhythm on the bulkhead. If I didn't know
better, I would suspect that he is up to something.
Isaac is taking a long time checking the circuits for the ship's computer. Too long.
"Isaac, did you find any loose cables or any other hardware malfunctions? You need to
transmit data and diagrams so that Daniel and Bette and I will know what's happening.
Maybe we can suggest..."
Isaac must have changed something. The ship's engines sound different.
We are still accelerating, and I am starting to worry. There is some sort of vibration
in the ship now and a noise. It is like the sound the sand makes on Mars when it is blown
against rock. Kind of raspy and uneven. I don't see why, I always thought space was a
vacuum, how could there be sand on the hull?
Isaac is still working on the computer. He seems to think he is making progress. He had
better hurry, because no new Ipsolstai have arrived to help us, I wonder if the acceleration
is hurting them somehow?
The One is here.
The One can help.
Hardware must be fixed.
By us.
Software must be recovered.
By the One.
We must help first.
Soon.
Time is shortening.
"No, Elder Brother. It's definitely not alive."
That was Elder Brother's second wrong question within three attempts. If he keeps
on going that way, I'm quite sure that he never will beat my record in our Twenty
Questions game.
Koala, do you know what? Sojourner came up with a microscopic view of that glowing
stuff. I didn't know that Sojourner had a microscope at all, but it has. It looks funny.
I will send you an image.
Can you see the scale that Sojourner put on that image? That means that this stuff
is very, very tiny. And can you see that light bulb on one end? It looks pretty much
the same as the light bulb that we have in front of our casing, doesn't it? And do you
see that brown stuff around the bulb? That is the same methyl iodide that we detected
in the atmosphere. At least Sojourner's analysis indicates that. Just a moment, Sojourner
is coming up with a new stream of data.
"Zachary, guess what. It's moving. That little tiny stuff is moving. Do you think that
it's alive? Maybe it wants to tell us something with its bulb."
I'll keep Sojourner looking at it. Maybe that tiny stuff uses Morse code.
I was extremely concerned about Theresa's presentation of Burn's last few minutes.
It is really not right for her to do anything except show exactly what happened,
even if it means that Caleb would go free. I hope that wouldn't happen, because
I always thought the Ipsolstai as scientists valued truth and justice like we do.
Caleb lied when he told about Burn. Does it take another lie to neutralize him and
make things right again? Even if the outcome is just, it's the tactics that seem
unfair. I'm confused.
I guess my worries about Theresa's truthfulness are beside the point. Before Theresa
could finish persuading the Ipsolstai of Caleb's part in Burn's death, one of Caleb's
gang shot her with his projectile tube.
The projectile glanced off her casing and ricocheted around the cave. It rang each time
it hit a wall. It hit an Ipsolstai who was just next to Commandant Perry. The
Ipsolstai turned gray, and he is leaking fluid just a little bit.
Theresa ran to me, and now she is crouched down playing possum. She is too scared
to say anything.
"Now do you understand, Theresa? Bad things happen when you don't tell the truth."
Enoch is busy with Sojourner's new discovery. It's very fascinating for him. How
large must be an entity to be alive? Do you know? Could that stuff be sentient too?
I left Enoch on his own. I'm exploring that ice field. Mao suggested to dig into the
ice using the lasers that are attached to the caterpillar. At least Elder Brother told
him to mention it. Koala, I think that Elder Brother is using Mao like a pet. Maybe
that's the reason why he felt so sorry that he lost contact to Kim.
The lasers are working fine. The Ice became more slobber now. I've to take care
not to get wet. We have to find something to avoid that.
Guess what? We built up a pile of molten ice. It froze immediately, so we can stay
safe on top of it. Also, the caterpillar is doing better that way. The hole that we are
digging is now about twenty inches across, and we also went down for about two
feet. We can't get further down. The hole is totally filled with water, and I have no
idea how to get that water out of that hole.
Mao came up with something. He said that we should send a cable down to find out
how deep we went. So, we did. It seems that we went very deep. I would say about
a hundred feet, if not even more.
No, wait a moment. That's odd.
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