Degasi Voice Logs
“BART TORGAL'S LOG #1 - THIS WORLD
Bart Torgal
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I thought it might get claustrophobic, living underwater. Father feels it is. He'd tell me it was childish, but I stare out the window and sometimes I think how lucky I am to see this world up close. Back on the island I wouldn't have believed the creatures that live down here. The fish down here, they GLOW... There's one that's 90% eyeball... Snakes twice the length of a habitat compartment.
Certainly it's not all friendly. Most of the plantlife is toxic, I learned that the hard way, but I've managed to coax some marblemelons into growing indoors, and when they don't cover our dietary needs, well... we eat the fish themselves. It's a bit gross, but it's nothing they wouldn't do.
I've been attempting to document my findings. Father approves. He says understanding is power. That the more we know about this planet, the more we can use it to our advantage. I'm just doing it because it's fun. It's not easy without proper equipment and network access, but the old fashioned way - observing, taking notes, testing theories - shows me the world in a way a spectroscopic analysis never could.
Lately I've been watching the crabsnakes. They ambush their prey as it tries to feed on the mushrooms they hide in. What they don't eat settles on the seabed, which fertilizes the mushrooms, which feed the herbivores, and so the chain continues. Co-evolution gives me the fuzzies.
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Something incredible just happened.
Since we're down here, I had this plan to build equipment and study the incredible lifeforms we're encountering, but I didn't have enough enameled glass. So I started looking for a natural substrate that would strengthen the glass we have, and those stalker teeth we've been finding fit the bill - only we needed more.
That's when Marguerit got interested. She actually listened to me - more than I can say for father - and I worked up the courage to talk about my more... tentative theories. When I told her they were attracted to metal deposits, that their teeth get dislodged when they pick them up, her eyes narrowed and she dashed out of the room.
Three hours later she came back, her pack loaded down with stalker teeth! I asked her about it. She shrugged and said my theories were good. Said she had them eating out the palm of her hand. I think she meant it literally.
She is incredible. She went out to the kelp forests, armed with just a heatblade, and went fin to fin with a pack of stalkers.
On the one hand, that is the coolest thing I have ever heard. On the other hand, I hope the stalkers didn't come off worse than Marguerit did. She had a huge gash on her forearm. I don't think things went as smoothly as she made out. And what's the point in surviving here if we have to kill everything that makes it so wonderful?
I wish I knew more about these animals, but father won't let me leave the habitat. Maybe with all this glass we could build a containment unit and get up close to them.
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This is the first time I've seen sunlight in months. After all that time in the deep I'd been dreaming of it. Now that I'm back here, I'm finding it hard to enjoy alone. Father was right: we never should have left this place. We shouldn't have gone so deep. They don't want us down there.
Despite my best efforts ill-health is taking hold of me. The visions are getting worse.
Marguerit and father are now part of the ecosystem of this incredible planet. It's reassuring to know that when I go, I'll join them.
Until then... well, there's always the view.
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“Paal Torgal
Chief's log, five weeks since the crash. The only other survivors are my son, Bart, and Maida, the cut-price mercenary I commissioned for the journey.
After days drifting in the lifepod, rain hammering the roof, the weather cleared and we washed up here. I had Maida salvage the Degasi wreck, set Bart to finding us a stable source of food.His education is paying off sooner than I'd anticipated.
Our only problem is Maida. She says the weather's going to turn. I say she's finding excuses to risk our lives. I imagine she's not gone a week in her life without a physical altercation, and she's itching for a fight. In every judgment she makes things go from bad to worse.
If she had my experience she'd have more faith. Humans have spent millennia specializing in how to shackle nature to our will. This planet won't cause us any new problems.
My one task now is to keep us alive, as comfortably as possible, until the insurance company arranges rescue. In this part of space that could be months, or even years.
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You know what Maida told me today? She wants to build a habitat 500m below sea level, more than a kilometer north-east of here. And she needs Bart and I to do it. She's got it into her head that she can save us if she just acts recklessly enough. But I've hauled starwhals to Neptune. Plasteel to the Federation... this family operates nine different mining colonies across the Ariadne Arm. Maida thinks she's better suited to lead? Her contract still says otherwise.
But... I just cannot damn tell whether it's the stupidest idea I ever heard, or my only hope. I turned 80 years old last week. I thought I had another 80 in me, but marooned on this planet there's no swapping out my liver when the old one fails. Here, I'm mortal. And Maida is useful.
So it's my responsibility to make a decision. Return to the island and hope whatever knocked the Degasi out of the sky won't do the same to the rescue ship, or take us deeper in search of answers. And all the while be hoping old age gets me before the seamonsters do.
I'll give Maida just one thing. She was right about these caves. There's enough lithium here to fabricate a hundred tons of plasteel. Enough for a damn FLEET of Cyclops submarines. There was nothing anyone could have done to avoid crashing here, but I was right to order the detour. If we get off this planet they'll be talking about the Torgal Corp. share price on the other side of the Federation.
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Came out of nowhere. An alien kraken, bigger than a Cyclops. Tore a hole clear through the reinforced hull. Barely got my breather in in time. I told her. I said others would come.
The rupture threw me clear of the habitat, and the monster turned and bore down on me. Just as its tentacles came within reach, Maida appeared out of nowhere. She had a seaglide in one hand, a jagged piece of scrap metal in the other. She meant to butcher that beast, or die trying. The last I saw her she had the metal lodged in its neck as the monster did its best to shake her, contorting off into the darkness. I'm certain she got her wish, one way or the other.
Then I thought I saw a light, deep below me. I hoped maybe Bart had swum clear. I followed it. Now I wonder whether I saw anything at all. My oxygen is low. The habitat is gone. I can't see the sky. Something surely has the scent of my blood.
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“Marguiret Madia
These conniving, corporate, bourgeois, inbred, incompetent, self-absorbed ASSES don't have a damn clue!
The kid's not so bad - he's even useful - but I swear everything that comes out of his father's idiot face is a narcissistic lie. He wants to stay in this cave, his problem. I'm the one doing the heavy lifting. Screw the contract. Screw the emergency pay. When seamonsters are hunting you, you don't hide. You hunt the seamonsters. Then you build a bigger boat out of seamonster bones, and you hunt bigger monsters. Repeat until there aren't any monsters left to hunt you.
I'm going deeper, I'm gonna find what shot us down, and I'm going to tear its damn heart out.
I've started the prep work. The kid's taught me how to make enamelled glass. I've started stockpiling metal ores to build myself a seamoth. I'll raid the indoor growbeds before I leave.
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