very encouraging.I try it anyway, then my arm gets
tired waving the camera around.I leave it propped
up against a rock, shining into space.It looks very
lonely and strange, that picture of a sunny orbital
day, sky and clouds and glittering water, bright
hulls and tall sails, fluttering pennants and dashing
spray, in this dead and dusty darkness.It isn't all
that bright though; I suspect reflected starlight isn't
much weaker.It would be easy to miss, and they
don't seem to be looking anyway.
'I wonder what happens to us all in the end,' I
yawn, sleepy at last.
'I don't know.We'll just have to wait and see.'
'Won't that be fun,' I murmur, and say no more.
The suit says this is day twenty.
We are in the foothills on the far side of the
mountains we saw in the distance from the
escarpment.I am still alive.The pressure in the suit
is reduced to slow down the loss rate from the
leak, which the suit has decided is not a hole as
such, but increased osmosis from several areas
where too much of the outer layers ablated when
we were falling.I am breathing pure oxygen now,
which lets us bring down the pressure
significantly.It might be coincidence, but the food
from the recycler tube tastes better since we
switched to pure gas.
There is a dull ache all the time from my belly, but
I am learning to live with it.I've stopped caring, I
think.I'll live or I'll die, but worrying and
complaining won't improve my chances.The suit
isn't sure what to make of this.It doesn't know
whether I have given up hope or just become blasé
about the whole thing.I feel no guilt at keeping it
guessing.
I lost the camera.
I was trying, eight days ago, to take a photograph
of a strange, anthropomorphous rock formation in
the high mountains, when the camera slipped from
my fingers and fell into a crevice between two
great boulders.The suit seemed almost as unhappy
as I was; normally it could have lifted either of
those rocks into the air, but even together the two
of us couldn't budge either of them.
My feet are hard and calloused, now, which makes
walking a lot easier.I am becoming hardened
generally.I'll be a better person when I come out of
this, I'm sure.The suit makes dubious noises when I
suggest this.
I've seen some lovely sunsets recently.They must
have been there all the time, but I didn't notice
them.I make a point of watching them now, sitting
up to observe the sweep and trace of trembling,
planetary air and the high clouds wisping and
curling, coming and going, levels and layers of the
wrapping atmosphere shifting through its colours
and turning like smooth, silent shells.
There is a small moon I hadn't noticed either.I put
the external glasses on as high as they will go and
sit looking at its grey face, when I can find it.I
rebuked the suit for not reminding me the planet
had a moon.It told me it hadn't thought it was
important.
The moon is pale and fragile looking, and pocked.
I have taken to singing songs to myself.This annoys
the suit intensely, and sometimes I pretend that's
one of the major rewards of such vocal self-
indulgence.Sometimes I think it really is, too.They
are very poor songs, because I am not very good at
making them up, and I have a terrible memory for
other people's.The suit insists my voice is flat as
well, but I think it's just being mean.Once or twice
it has retaliated by playing music very loudly
through my headphones, but I just sing louder and it
gives in.I try to get it to sing along with me, but it
sulks.
'Oh once there was a space-man,
And a happy man was he.
Flew through the big G,
And really saw it all, yes,
But then one day, I'm afraid,
He happened to trip up,
Stumbled on a pla-anet
And landed in the dirt.
It wouldn't really have been so bad,
But the worst was yet to come;
His one and only companion
Was a suit that da da dum.
The suit it was a shit-bag
And thought the man a lout,
And what it really wanted
Was to be inside-out.
(chorus:)
Inside-out, inside-out, inside inside-out,
Inside-out, inside-out, inside inside-out!'
And so on.There are others, but they are mostly to
do with sex, and so fairly boring; colourful but
monotonous.
My hair is growing.I have a thin beard.
I have started masturbating, though only every few
days.It is all recycled, of course.I claim the suit as
my lover.It is not amused.
I miss my comforts, but at least sex can be partially
recreated, whereas all the rest seem unreal, no
more than dreams.I have started dreaming.Usually
it is the same dream; I am on a cruise of some sort,
somewhere.I don't know what form of transport I'm
on, but somehow I know it's moving.It might be a
ship, or a seaship, or an airship, or a train I don't
know.All that happens is that I walk down a fleecy