I open my med-log. I type one last line.
In the center of the circle stands Captain Valerio. His mouth is moving, but the voice coming out is not his. It is a chorus of forty-seven voices, layered on top of each other, whispering a single phrase over and over:
I cracked it open. Inside, instead of quantum memory cores, there was a beating heart. Human. Tagged with a bio-stamp: BAATAR, A. – CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER . Stranded on Santa Astarta -v1.1.0 Beta- -Doc Ba...
Doc Ba’s medical tricorder, the one device that still works, reads them all as having zero neural activity. Flatlines. But their bodies are breathing, metabolizing, repairing minor wounds with impossible speed. They are not dead. They are installed .
He becomes home .
I step into the clearing. The pollen touches my skin. The thrum becomes a harmony. And for the first time since the crash, Doc Ba stops being stranded.
But the jungle is kind today. The bell-flowers are singing back. The six-legged things are curled at the edge of the clearing, chittering the melody softly. I open my med-log
Santa Astarta. A name meant to evoke saints and purity. The reality was a seething, iridescent green hell.
“The beta is stable. The patient is the vector. Patch 1.1.0 is love. Patch 1.1.0 is home.” His mouth is moving, but the voice coming out is not his
They are here. The other survivors. I found them in a clearing the ship’s cartographer never recorded. There are forty-seven of them. All crew. All wearing the same expression of beatific, vacant peace. They stand in a circle, perfectly still, as a fine, iridescent pollen drifts down from the canopy.