posted on Feb, 15 2008 @ 01:52 PM
Upon leaving Earth i was able to watch on the small monitor above my cocoon as she receded from view, a majestic blue and white globe lit by a halo of
sunlight. Tears welled in my eye's, strapped tightly i was unable to wipe them away and so they rolled down my cheek.
And then the machine attached to my cocoon caused me to sleep.
I awoke for a short time as the ship passed the outer edges of the solar system, the monitor showed only an inky void lit by dimly sparkling lights,
the planets and the sun, no more than motes upon a velvety dark sheet.
Again i slept.
Awaking once more, the real time clock showed that thirty three years had passed and the ship had entered the space between dimensions, a nether world
of limitless possibilities, the ship and myself one of those many possibilities. Nothing showed on the monitor. This was true vacuum, absolute,
frictionless. Mechanical arms massaged my body and electrical impulses exercised muscles that would otherwise atrophy.
Sleep again closed over me.
Conscious again, where? This time the RL clock showed ninety seven years had passed.
The monitor sparkled with a myriad of lights and swirling gaseous clouds of star stuff. Abreast of the ship a large swollen orb burned brightly, its
companion star a red giant, was a meagre blot in the far distance.
No more sleep, the machine works feverishly at my body, fluids and vitamin rich soups are pumped continuously through me for hours, ingested and
expunged over and over. And ever so slowly i become fully aware.
Information flows from sensors and banks of circuits through optical cables into the neural plug attached to the base of my neck. An orbit is
calculated and the ship slows and slips into an embrace with what will now and forever more be my home. Before the landing can be attempted news of
our success at reaching this distant land is collated along with technical information from the computer and sent on the return journey back through
the link created by my journey, to Earth, a hundred years will pass before another man will see and hear these things. My own thought journal will be
sent after the landing and my initial investigation is complete.
At the time of my leaving Mother Earth thousands of other pods had also been released into the cosmos, men and women like myself, volunteers, for lack
of a better word, on a mission to save mankind. How many of those others would find a habitable world, one percent, five percent, fifty percent? It
was a one way journey we had all undertaken, some may never make it to the destination that they had been programmed to, we knew the odds. The pods
were based upon a new technology, a stream of total nothingness had been accidently discovered between dimensions, existing between time and space, a
place where faster than light travel was possible. A chance for mankind’s salvation had been found, but where to go?
And so it was us that were chosen, to find a new home, a new beginning.
The cocoon releases me from its grasp and i can move once again, albeit within the small confines of the ship, oh my body aches and screams.
At last, because i grow impatient with every passing hour the ship finishes it's calculations and prepares to descend. Once more strapped tightly
within my cocoon i await my final moments aboard the ship, within hours i will be standing on a land sixteen hundred light years from Earth.
The planet has only small seas pocked over it's earthen skin, small dots of blue scattered over a green and brown land, no oceans at all. The ship
has chosen to land just below the equator near one of the seas, to the east a range of mountains marches north, west and south plains and forest meet.
There is a place at the edge of the sea where mountain range, forest and plain converge.
A perfect home for a lonesome man!
At last the ship drops and a moment of ancestral fear engulfs me, but quickly passes as the excitement surges through me born on the wings of my
body's secretions.
Unbound, i stand perched before the hatch, shaking. Courage comes at last and the door swings outward, i hold my breath involuntarily until at last i
am forced to breathe or pass out. The air taste's sweet and just ever so slightly tinged with spice, nothing like the foul air that was strangling my
home the day i left. I cannot speak, that ability was removed by the surgeons before i left, to make room for devices inserted into me, and so i think
into my journal which is attached to my back.
"One small step for man..." and then i stop, it doesn’t seem right. Instead i think to myself, " Thank you Gaia for accepting me". I had decided
to call this planet Gaia during orbit, the scientists at home had named it GS7. I never bothered to ask them why.
I grasped the pulse rifle by the door and stepped out onto a virgin world, unspoilt by man......until now i mused.
Those first few days i did not venture far from the ship, i erected my home from the panels stored within its skin, it would never fly again. I dug a
small well using the machinery that was once a part of the ships drive. I set up a safety perimeter made of parts from the ships electronics. During
those first few days i noticed small animals, mostly grazing creatures no larger than a small dog, some birds, sparrow like and some small insects.
None of them bothered me or it seems showed any interest in me or my home. I didn't see any predators at all, which i guess is strange.
After a week of pulling apart the ship until it was nothing but a shell and storing its remains safely for use later i began to slowly widen my
explorations in an ever increasing circle.
continued next post
[edit on 15/2/08 by mojo4sale]