cowlark.com

My Diary, 2002-11-29

If the suns rose in the east, then my apartment window faced due east, as I could watch the sunset from the big chair. Which meant that the landing pad was at the north tip of the island, and the sealin's bay at the south...

Of course, this is all completely irrelevant now.

The fake sun switched on at about the right time today. It didn't fade up nicely, it just went click and was on. The sudden glare woke me up. Green and Black somehow slept through it, so I tiptoed around them and went outside.

The island looks... oddly normal. The vertical sunlight is strange, but not too strange. The black sky is strange, but that, too is not too strange. I wandered around. If I keep my eyes lowered, I can con myself that I'm still safely on the planet. (Now, there's a catch. While I was on the planet, I was desperate to leave. Now I'm off it...)

I hadn't visited any of the buildings for days, spending my time in the Hotel cowering from the storms or watching the ship. Well, I reckoned I was now fairly safe from storms, and I knew right where the ship was at all times. And getting out into the fresh air and stretching my legs felt so good.

First stop was a Mysterious Pyramid. I guessed that they had something to do with the island's power supply. Given that the power was the only thing that kept us eating, I wanted to check for any changes. There weren't any significant ones. The irregular patch of light that probably represented the Hotel had grown a little, but that was reasonable enough given that Green and Black had moved in.

Near the Mysterious Pyramid was the Invisible Fountain, so I sat down on the grass and looked through it for a while. I hadn't noticed before, but it made a faint hissing sound, as of insubstantial water being squirted through illusory nozzles... the last time I had been here the sound must have been drowned out by the surf.

That was a major change. The island was quiet.

Inside the force barrier, there was no wind. Therefore, there were no waves. The sea was as flat and glassy as the black-glass windows of the buildings; there weren't even any ripples. The only sound, apart from the Fountain, were a few sea bird-things on the shore, calling to one another in the strange silence. They had been trapped inside the barrier with Green and Black.

I thought about weather systems. Was the cage big enough for a convection cycle to set up? If so, then later today when the ground started to warm up, we should start to see a sea breeze, which would stir up the water a little. But for now, there was nothing.

Next stop was the Observatory. It still worked. The lights swirled on demand, as entrancing as ever. I watched for five minutes, but couldn't keep my mind on it. Eventually I switched them off and walked around the central hills to the Generator.

That was different.

Previously the Generator had been throwing off violet and blue lightning in all directions, crackling and snapping with power. Now the lightning has been reduced to blue rings of electric flame, crawling up from the bottom of the spherical head to the top, one after the other. The noise was a faint electrical hum.

I didn't know what this meant. Green had said that the Generator provided power that kept the Hotel standing. I sincerely hoped that it wasn't failing for any reason. Perhaps it was being inside a warp bubble that affected it? Or the proximity of the ship?

Before heading back for lunch I pushed my way through the collapsed forest to the Observation Tower. The undergrowth wasn't as solidly packed as I had originally thought. The few hundred metres to the tower took a while, but it wasn't particularly hard and I only got a little muddy.

The view was unnerving. From up here, it was painfully obvious that the sea went out a little way, perhaps a kilometre, and then abruptly stopped. With the sun switched on it was impossible to see the stars or the warp bubble striations (if indeed we were still moving), but there was still a great sense of absence about that black gap. It made me feel as if this island was all that was left of the universe.

I headed back. Green and Black were up; from Green's expression, I gathered that (a) she seemed to be back to normal and (b) I should probably have let them know where I was going before disappearing for the morning.

[break]

The sealin have gone swimming again. I've found a little patch of real sand that the megastorm left and am lying down on it.

It's occurred to me that, if only there were some decent walls holding the air and, indeed, the land in, this would be the way to travel. Take your entire home town with you. You get to see the sights while sleeping in your own bed.

The sun's shining off the spines where they rise up out of the sea. But far above, where they turn ninety degrees and run inward to meet the nightmare bulk of the vast ship above us, they seem to be in shadow. All I can see above is matte black sky and the glare of the fake sun above the exact centre of the island. If I hold my hand up and block out the sun, I can just make out the suggestion of structure. But only the suggestion.

I wonder if I'll get a tan if I stay here too long. Probably not a good idea; I've no idea if these people got the UV of their sun set right.

[break]

What did you find?

The wall is a window. We swim to it and see the sky. We are scared.

I can imagine.

There are stars. The stars come and the stars go.

Ah. I was meaning to tell you about that.

About that?

We seem to be moving through space. I think we're a very long way from home.

[untranscribable conversation]

Where are us?

I don't know. But this ship seems to be moving considerably faster than the one that brought me here, um, to this island. If it's been moving in a straight line, then I'd say we're probably further away from your planet than Earth is.

[untranscribable conversation]

You have know and you have not say?

You were asleep.

[untranscribable conversation]

Yes.

Well. Did you find anything else?

Black have find a bird-thing. It was dead. It have swim in to the wall and it have dead.

Ouch.

Black have eat it.

Ah. Did it taste nice?

[untranscribable conversation]

Yes.

[break]

Afternoon was mostly used up by a language lesson. I made the mistake of trying to correct Green's tenses ---- all those haves and wases. She leapt on them with such enthusiasm that I suspect she was grateful for the opportunity to do something to take her mind off things.

I've been impressed with the way the sealin have been handling things. They both had breakdowns, yes, but seem to have recovered in short order and are coping well again. Possibly they're a little subdued. Black, in particular, hasn't growled at me for a long time.

I wonder why I seem to be taking it all so well. That is, if I am taking it well. Oh, I haven't had a nervous breakdown, but I am spending a lot of time talking to myself via you, my Dear Listener. Perhaps the dictaphone is keeping me sane; perhaps it's just not letting me realise I'm not sane any more. Perhaps I just have a tendency to overanalyse.

I suspect that the rather technological lifestyle on Earth helps. I know that the Big Ship is just a machine. The sealin almost certainly have a very low-tech culture, what with all that water and all, and probably very little exposure to major high-tech devices. Green did use that database headset thing, but I'm willing to bet that it wasn't made by the sealin and she doesn't know how it works. They know about spaceships but don't have any. I would be surprised if any of them had ever been on one.

(Says he, snobbishly, veteran of one and a half flights now.)

Where is this ship taking us? How long will it take to get there?

[break]

Green, what did you do on your world?

What did I do?

How did your day go? What kind of things did you do between sleeping and eating and so on?

I do not understand.

Well, on Earth I was a journalist. That is ---- I told stories. I found out what people were doing, and recorded it so that other people could find out.

[untranscribable conversation]

I do not understand.

Um. I knew someone who made things. All day long, he would make little machines. Like my watch. I knew someone else who learnt things; she studied rock. She knew everything about rock. What do you do?

[untranscribable conversation]

I do not know if I understand. I remember. Black hunt.

You remember? Anything in particular?

I remember any thing and every thing. I remember languages and machines and stories and pictures. If someone know then someone may will not know. If I know then I will know. I remember.

You remember everything you see and hear?

Far past I learn remember. Remember is pain and tired. I see I know or I not know. If I remember then I see and I know.

You can choose to remember or not remember?

Yes.

So people come to you, and ask you to remember something, and you remember it permanently.

Yes.

And everything is stored in your memory? In your head?

No. There is a machine which remember. I have the machine. I remember.

And Black's a hunter?

[untranscribable conversation]

Black hunt. He catch fish and eat fish and bring fish to me and to not me. He learn fish and learn fish breed and there are more fish. If there are not more fish then he not catch fish and he prevent not him catch fish and there are more fish.

He not catch... prevent... ah. He protects the fish? So that not too many are caught?

Yes.

A fish farmer. Black's a fish farmer.

Farmer?

That's what Black does.

[break]

The sealin have checked out of the Hotel. I have my room back to myself, the splotch in the Mysterious Pyramid has shrunk, and the smell of wet sealin has largely gone.

I should have realised; on a planet that's mostly water, where would sealin be likely to sleep? At sea, of course. Now that they don't need the protection of the Hotel any more they might as well be comfortable.

I'm a little surprised at how soon they're doing this. It was only yesterday that Green was going frantic at the thought of being on the Big Ship, and now they're forgoing any protection the Hotel might give and entrusting themselves to the protection of the force barrier.

Perhaps they're just more realistic than I am and realise that if the barrier does go down, we're all dead, Hotel or no Hotel. Perhaps they just don't have as much imagination.

The sun went out about half an hour ago. The window's open, and I can hear occasional faint splashes outside. That could be seabirds, I suppose.

The room seems a little empty without them.

[transmit]