Journal from an Impossible World

January 30^th 0700 hours (Earth time)
The large space-plane, after moments of unsteady motion, stopped. I quaked at the steady stop we had come to. It was  a solid stop as if the plane were sitting on solid ground (which it was)…something I hadn’t felt for mont,hs, I guess, that’s why. I think that humans aren’t meant to live in space, or even go into it. I think that space is like this: a party where you don’t know anyone, where everything feels out of place. it’s not even conscious for most people: it just is. You want to leave.

            That last statement is a theory I’m working on. I’m a biologist, after all. I study life. But I’ve been in space enough to know the difference between flight in the vacuum and standing on solid earth. Standing on a planet is natural…feels…safe? Yes, that’s the word. Safe. Steady. Regular. I don’t know.

            Yes, the space plane had stopped. But of course, being a space-plane we of course were not on Earth anymore. Far from it. 5 Billion miles from it. Yet now, here I was.

           I was in my cabin, at my large desk. I turned my swivel chair around towards the door  and and stood, grabbing my notebook and pencil from the desk. Invaluable tool for me.

            The hallway outside of my room was a din. A cacophony. “A grating noise” as Steinbeck might have said. He was an amateur Biologist, if you didn’t know that. That’s one of the reasons he’s in my head.
            I digress. The hallway was a mess of noise: the six other people that had gone on this expedition were all arguing loudly about what to do next. It seemed that the confusion that roiled silently in me manifested itself outwardly (and very loudly) in all of them: they had no idea what to expect from the planet that we had landed on.
            “Dvori!” Shouted a thin woman from across the room. Dvori. That’s my name.“You’re the Biologist! Tell us what to expect from this planet, so far from home!” As soon as my name was mentioned, the entire group shut up and watched me.

            You know, the thin woman, Neilia, actually sort of shocked me out of a stupor. I had been thinking about the man who had died several hours ago…

            “Well…” I began, trying to place my thoughts into a coherent whole. The way the man died this morning was like a grenade had gone off in my head and he was laying there in pieces. Those pieces were my thoughts. I had to gather the pieces and try to put them back together.

            “Have any of you ever heard of the Great Oxygenation Event?” Six shaking heads in return.
            “I can only say this, because the only reference point for that I have is the natural history of Earth: if we want to survive out there, there better have been a GOE, because if not, then the environment is unlivable for humans and will remain so for many years. There has to be oxygen. And that’s not counting asteroid showers, lava spews, or other astronomical cataclysms that could be affecting the planet…that’s all.”

            The commander of the vessel, a broadshoulered African with a deep, rich mix of native African and English in his voice, said,

            “So basically, what you say is that it is possibly very dangerous out ‘dere, for any number of reasons? Dis means…spacesuits?”

            To me this was obvious. That it even came up as a question was sort of ridiculous. Why wouldn’t you use spacesuits on a planet you had never observed, much less walked on.

            “Yes.” I remarked shortly, averting my eyes as to what came next. Groans of annoyance emanated from three of the people. I can understand their sentiment: the suits are difficult to put on, not because they’re clumsy or difficult to deal with but because of the ridiculous amount of work it requires to make them space proof. Sealing them against radiation, making them airtight, making temperature constant, making them pressured so that a human won’t explode when he hits the vacuum…takes the better part of an hour.

            “Now now, people.” Remarked the captain. “You know what kind of opportunity we’ve got here. The chance to see a brand new home for our race! So don’t go tinkin’” (he didn’t pronounce his ‘th’s’. Kind of awesome) that this is just a detour. What we’re doin’ is important. It’s wort’ de effort.”

            That kind of thinking, as well as the captain’s good nature, was what had allowed this varied crew of people, with all their different disciplines, habits and peculiarities, to survive the past 5 hours. Watching someone go mad and die requires someone like Captain Reynaldo to get you through. That’s how fragile we are sometimes, us humans.

            ***
January 30th 1100 hours

            There are times that I think life, or the universe, or maybe even what gods are out there seem to just…not care for us. Whether it comes from our nature or outer nature, something usually wants to destroy us. There’s greed (always, it’s a constant.). There’s fear (constant). There’s pollution (it’s both our fault and not our fault. Think on that one for a while). Then there’s natural disasters, like the New Year’s meteor shower.

            Of all the space that is in the universe, Trillions of miles, how come we had to end up right in the center of a Class 10 storm? Why us, 8 humans in a spaceship smaller than an asteroid by a thousand times? The universe just doesn’t like us, I swear!

            Then, ever so very rarely, there are those days where…the universe just says, “I’ll give you the day off. I’ll just let you enjoy the simple comforts of life.” Can I say to the universe, “I appreciate it?” I’m always loathe to do that because as soon as I do…somebody dies. Or the pressure inside the ship starts to decrease rapidly. Or we get caught in a meteor storm. Thanks, old friend Universe.

            I don’t mean to be a cynic. I just think about these things. Anyway, as I sit here on the edge of a forest, I’m actually enjoying myself just a bit. It’s the Universe giving me a break.

            I guess I aught to tell you the story from where I last left this journal.

Our suits were donned. We were ready, the seven of us explorers, to step outside the safety and comfort of our ship into the hands of the cold equations. Each of us a different person, with a different mission.

So as the doors opened up and we took our first steps on what we measly humans called a mission of hope, perhaps the Universe was kind at last. The world we stepped out into was completely different from the world we had come from; at least in the visual sense. It was bright, incredibly bright; bright enough to see for at least twenty miles in every direction. The vessel had landed on a small plateau. Small, that is, in comparison, with the bright, light blue rocky landscape around us.

If you’re from Earth, this material would baffle any rock lover from our planet. The material we were standing on was rock, but bright blue. And when we stepped on it, it was hollow. Or so it seemed.

A member from our team, a very short woman who I have since learned is named Daegi, has tested this. The ground is in fact solid rock, but the atomic structure is arranged in a certain way so that it sounds hollow. For miles and miles around were these plains of blue rock.

The interesting part is just beginning, for you humans who haven’t seen multiple worlds. Today, my world has (almost literally) been turned upside down. Or inside out. Or from day to night. I don’t know.

The sun: it’s white, or nearly so. This is one of the reasons it’s so bright here. And it stays up all day. We could be near the north pole…but I’m not sure. It rotates in a circle in the sky, never setting. That alone isn’t the amazing thing. The amazing thing is the difference it makes in the sky.

The sky, during this ‘never ending’ day is not deep blue. It is dark blue: You can see directly into the reaches of space from bright blue surface of the planet. It seems utterly strange to me that day should never end and night never end; at the same time.
            Another-

***

January 30^th 2130 hours

            I don’t know how to write this. My senses as a human and a scientist are…no longer real. I feel as if I’ve been thrown into a dark pit and I know not which way is up down, or how to know anything, if anything is real. I knew that the universe was cruel…just how cruel has been revealed to me.

            I stopped the journal earlier because something happened…something incredible at first, but the closer I came to examining it, the more evident it became that…

            I wrote the word, “another”, when suddenly something brushed me from behind, and I jumped up. I’ve read enough Science Fiction to know that…when something brushes you from behind on a strange planet…you move. Quickly.