Part 8
Click on the portraits to listen to the audio!DECK 3 – HYDROPONICS B & C
Date: 27.JUN.14
From: Marc Miller
To: Renfro, Richard : Oxford University
Subject: re: Our work here
Dick, I know you won't get this until after we've returned... but I had to express how incredible I feel. We've finally done it... made contact... and Muldoon and I have been selected to be involved in the initial work... Anatoly's one condition is that I tell no one aboard the ship... The creatures are remarkable... they're so helpless... I feel somehow compelled to protect them... It's a miraculous discovery...
Date: 28.JUN.14
From: Anatoly Korenchkin
Subject: re: Miracles
There, the young ones are all aboard. Captain Diego and I have sealed off deck 3. He and I are now of one mind... our bodies are changing too. Sometimes it hurts terribly and sometimes it is... marvelous... something wonderful is happening to me...
Date: 09.JUL.14
From: Marie Delacroix
Subject: re: Killing the worms
It's becoming clear that the worms are some kind of communal entity... While I'm not sure whether airborne Toxin-A will directly kill any ambulatory specimens, it should impact their communal mass and remove the residue I've observed growing on the walls and the lift shaft. But perhaps there is a more potent formula to be synthesized...
Date: 10.JUL.14
From: Marie Delacroix
Subject: re: A ray of hope
Killing the children won't be easy. But I think I'm actually on to something. The biochemistry of these worms, which I call the Annelids, treats inverted proteins as toxins. With the help of a replicator in the Biological Survey lab, I've managed to isolate some inverted proteins in a number of vials. However, the mix with the base compound is still off, so I still need to do some more research. Once I do that and mix the toxin into the four Environmental Regulators... Well, things can only get better.
Date: 03.JUL.14
From: Marie Delacroix
To: Polito, Dr. Janice
Subject: re: Making a change
I received an e-message from Anatoly. He's not well. The Corporate protocols specify I can remove the Senior Executive Officer if he's found unfit for duty... but what about his ally Captain Diego? He's got 120 goons on the Rickenbacker to back him up... I wonder if that fragmentary AI you discovered on Tau Ceti 5 is connected to this...
Date: 05.JUL.14
From: Anatoly Korenchkin
To: Delacroix, Dr. Marie
Subject: re: A new purpose
You can't understand my joy, Marie and I won't try to make you. I feel like a new man... I have a purpose... more important than the mission, even more important than TriOptimum... I will protect them... no matter what... I will protect them...
Date: 29.JUN.14
From: Marc Miller
Subject: re: The children
The specimens are dying. And we're powerless to help... they're highly toxic. Muldoon wouldn't leave them, and now he's dead. But this morning I had... a revelation... I started work on specifications for a radical series of cybernetic enhancements... If successful, I could make a body practically indestructible... yet the mind would remain human, nurturing... There's not a lot of time...
Date: 05.JUL.14
From: Angela Loesser
To: Miller, Marc
Subject: re: Where are they?
Marc, what's going on? I thought it was weird when you asked me to send up sixteen of my female staffers... but... what have you done with them? I'm shorthanded up here? Also, have you heard from Watts, Sanger or Polito? It's like everyone's gone on vacation and didn't bother to tell me.
Date: 02.JUL.14
From: Erin Bloome
Subject: re: Worried
I found these schematics on Dr. Miller's desk... they're plans for the kind of cyber modification that's been illegal for forty years... that's not like him... I was going to talk to him about it and then I noticed... the DNA sequence he spec'd for the prototype... it's mine...
Date: 01.JUL.14
From: Marc Miller
Subject: re: Nurse Bloome
I've chosen Nurse Bloome as the new mother to our children. She is sweet and kind, healthy and a perfect match. She has a child of her own back on Earth. She knows what it is to care for the young. Ave Maria. If she only knew what the future held... she'd share the joys of the Many...
Date: 30.JUN.14
From: Marc Miller
Subject: re: Wondrous toy
I'm changing. My head is full of wonderful ideas and experiments... they have so many miracles to share... so much knowledge to give... They told me how to make this implant... they said it will make a better me of me... I wish I had more time so I could give it to them...