III
First contacts
First contacts
COLONY LOG #005 [T+4]
ID: FALISA
We finally have (sorta) a place to sleep and even managed to put together an improvised airlock to keep the heat outside. I wish I could say we also have any semblance of order here - but that'd be a stretch. I (generally) lay out a plan, Perry does the worst labour, Milo does some lesser tasks. He was never a worker type. But this means that while he collects berries, plants seeds and does all the thinking stuff, we can focus on getting dirty.
Today I had my first encounter with local fauna. Looked pretty similar to a wolf from the database - and was at least as vicious as the warnings there mentioned. Good news - I managed to put it down quick. Bad - it managed to get a bite of me in return. The wound doesn't even look that bad, but Perry insists on having it disinfected and tended carefully. A golden girl. I'm pretty sure we'd all be already dead if it wasn't for her.
We need to get some defences set up ASAP. I have a hunch this is just the first time we get to fire our guns.
COLONY LOG #008 [T+6]
ID: FALISM
Planet Notes #02: Climate
Allow me to preface this part with a disclaimer; pretty much all my conclusions here are speculative. Data sample is diminutive at best, but we cannot afford the luxury of applying academically approved methods here; time is of the essence.
Temperature is rising rapidly; spikes up to 40 C are becoming a commonplace, and I don't think we have seen the peak yet. I urge Amelia and Perry to get some sort of AC system up. It's not even about our comfort; I shudder to think of how fast our supplies would perish in this heat.
It also appears the planet has an anomalous axial tilt - well beyond the average values for terrestrial planets. While this doesn't seem to disrupt the ecosystem - at least not in any observable manner - it might make the climate unpredictable in the long run.
It also appears our planetfall took place in mid-southern latitudes. Taking into account the aridness of the immediate area, I suspect the equatorial latitudes might be an impenetrable desert; to the south, the landscape should become more and more hospitable - but the big question is how anomalous the polar day/night cycle would be with this axial tilt, and how much that would interfere with my attempts at modelling the climate.
I really hope we run into other human beings soon. More data is desperately required - and all in all, locals would know a lot about their home, right?
* * *
[/b]It was the first rain since Berenice's planetfall - and Void, what a storm it was.
A ceaseless lightning barrage crossed the sky, underpinning dark clouds with a spiderweb of blinding filaments. Torrential rain flooded the place - but did little to ease the heat that has been plaguing the colonists; most water evaporated before even hitting the ground, making the already high humidity oppressive and suffocating.
Perry put aside her pickaxe and sat down to take a breath. Each swing felt like working in high g - but she had to keep digging. If Milo's predictions were right - and so far, his guesses were accurate enough to rely on - they needed the whole cooling system set up as soon as possible. And for that they needed more than just scrap metal from their crashed pods. Luckily, whatever structures used those heaps of metal be, they were rich enough for extraction.
Suddenly, she heard a thud. Even with the ground turned to mud by the rain and through the deafening thunders ahead, it managed to break through and shake the whole cliffside she was digging in. Then came another. And another. And after them, drowning out even the sounds of the storm, came a roar.
Perry clinged to the wall, trying to hide inside the shallow cave she managed to dig out during the past few days. So far, they haven't met any animals bigger than the wolf that attacked Amelia... So what monstrosity, in the name of the Void, was that?!
Through the curtain of rain, she could have seen a massive white shape, lumbering across the plain. A singular flash illuminated its frame - towering as high as the trees, a horn the size of a human crowning the animal's head. Its thick fur was soaked in water, the liquid dripping down to the ground. The giant lumbered forward, ignoring Perry's hiding hole and rain alike. It resembled a white spirit of the planet itself, impervious to mundane elements raging around it.
Later that night, Milo explained to her that those beings - the Thrumbos - were an uncommon, yet not unheard of, sighting across the Rim. Venerable animals of mysterious origins, a misty memory of ancient people who settled those planets millenia ago.
Perry was never a woman of deep thought - what mattered was work in front of her and people she talked to, not some fairy tales or ghastly things that "might happen one day". But that night, for the first time in her life, she realized fairy tales might be real. Terrifyingly so.
* * *
COLONY LOG #016 [T+13]
ID: FALISA
And so we got our first contact with other human beings.
Milo noticed the guy while working in the fields. From the very beginning, something was off; the man was sneaking, approaching the farm's wall undetected. Well, at least that's what he apparently hoped for. Milo signaled my walkie-talkie, I grabbed the rifle on the way out... and just as I came out of the base, that guy was already charging at Milo, his club ready to strike! Too bad for him that my military training kicked in. Two shots put the bastard down before he could even get into swinging range.
Now I'm sitting by the wall, that damn savage in front of the main door. In a pool of his blood. And I just want to know: why.
Why did the first human being we met on this gods-forsaken planet just attack us without provocation? Was he just some lone straggler? Or a scout of some local tribe? Or maybe this planet has no actual civilization, with people deteriorating to feral state once their technology inevitably fails? How should I know...?
I need answers. We need answers, if we want to survive here more than just a few weeks.