Transcribe…
…At first I thought it was strange how much they look like us. You know, “Them”? My master and his people, if there is a “them”. If there is I’ve never seen them. As times gone on I don’t even really think about it anymore, I don’t think anything could shock me at this point.
My father…I think it was my father…once said: “I’ve been from one side of the Galaxy to the other, I’ve seen a lot of strange things.” Wait, I think that was Dad…it was either Dad or…A…Aisha?…there was definitely an Aisha…I can’t remember…NO it was definitely something to do with ‘father’ so it must have been Dad.
But that was me, 29 sols there, 29 sols back, the paludarium in the hull writhing with life from every biome imaginable across the known galaxy, when the ad said “Illegal, extremely illegal” they weren’t kidding, I had to dump perfectly good cargo and run more times than I can count. I wasn’t a GOOD runner per se, but the handful of times I actually made it to Centauri Station, cargo-in-hand were more than I could make at extracting Nephrite in 20 orbits back home, probably.
I never knew what happened to the cargo once I handed it off, I didn’t want to know, honestly I didn’t care, and maybe that’s why I’m here, you know? Suffering…whatever the hell you call this, I remember thinking just after the crash “this is it I’m dead”. I was twisted completely around apparently, like ALL the way around, Twizzler-style, should have been fatal. I never actually saw the wound, but I could feel myself getting lighter as god knows what unceremoniously slopped out of me. It was around then I heard a wet, crunchy SLUMP and couldn’t feel my legs anymore.
I don’t know how long it was actually, It could have been minutes or hours, all I remember was the smell of smoke…offal…the magenta holo-field on my hazard bracers blinking in my periphery vision, with my arms still in them…And I was a mess quite honestly, if that’s not clear enough, never take the advice that going limp in a crash landing will save you, tried it, doesn’t work. It wouldn’t have mattered if it did to be honest, being marooned beyond the Core Systems is a nailed on death sentence anyway, better to get it over quick than die slowly of exposure, drinking your own piss in a cave.
That was the first time I saw my master, sliding to-and-fro between the material universe and God knows where. Blackness…then a zap of electricity in the brain, a racing heart, metallic gurgling in my throat, an ornate archway…dragging…a marble hallway…dragging…another zap of lightning…another…a machine beeping slowly…another…rapid beeping…
A beaming smile pulled across the width of his tightening thin lips, familiar eyes, brimming with humanity. It’s really not his fault, you know? I’ve come to realise that as time’s gone on, I used to hate it down here in the tunnels, scrambling around in the dark looking for the food he leaves me, the S.M.A.R.T I’m using to transcribe this very recording shows that it’s …283 Kelvin…here in my…enclosure…
It must be daylight up in the palace then, it’s been as low as 253K, once it got to 248K. Master, finding me blue and…unresponsive, stoked the great fires. It was terrifying the first time obviously, but quite a spectacle nonetheless, fortunately that night I had perchance taken shelter in my favourite nook, by some miracle it was just deep enough into the jagged obsidian walls of my terrarium that I avoided the worst of the roiling wall of fire ripping through the winding impossible caverns. I think I maybe lost an eyebrow?
But that’s life down here really, you either boil or you freeze, my master is nothing if not a creature of extremes. I like to think of it as a dance I’ve nearly perfected now, I have my little rocky plateau, it’s only about a 40 metre (or so) climb and it’s at the very entrance of Tunnel 11, if you time when you eat right you have just enough energy to make it up there and enough energy to stay awake to watch the show, seriously finding the plateau made my life SO much easier, when he stokes those fires you want to be off ground level, pronto.
Sure I held it against him at first, but I think he’s doing his best, what does he know about human beings are our strange little needs and wants? He found me on a cold planet, he probably thinks we thrive in cooler temperatures, he saw me cold and unresponsive so he tried to warm me with the fires, he just doesn’t understand, but he saved me and he MEANS well. Alright I can’t quite explain the terrifying labyrinth which is otherwise completely at odds with human survival but I’m adapting, that’s what we human’s do isn’t it? Adapt?
Sometimes I play dead so he will take me up there with him. Satin bedsheets. Warm showers. Food that isn’t in bloody pellets…not that I’m ungrateful you understand, my master is truly benevolent. I owe my life to him and he takes care of me the best that he can. I go to him in the night, if it’s cold enough, if I can’t fool him I climb the walls with my fingertips, but it’s worth it to sleep at the foot of his bed. He even lets me in sometimes, his long slender fingers gently scratching my chin, and I found that I was happy.
Content, safe.
How my friends would laugh if they Even thought this is where I’d end up, Lonely, afraid, an Intergalactic house pet Pining for the attention of my master.
Mum. Dad. Sorry to tell you this, but Earth is next, so Master says.