Gary Underwood
I traveled down a river I had found, every now and then I saw small dinosaurs move around. They were about the size of chickens and at first I was worried that they were aggressive but they didn't attack me. I didn't know what was safe to eat but I saw fish and that had to be safe. I took some berries and brought out the pocket fisherman I had brought, the fishing was good and using my limited survival skills I had managed to keep myself fed. I tried out some of the fruits from the glowing trees. I expected to feel sick and terrible but to my surprise I was fine, they tasted like watermelon. the texture was off, like that of an apple but the taste was definitely watermelon.
I didn't know anything about the flora or fauna of this new world, it wasn't exactly something that was released to the public, but I was learning. Maybe I would become a botanist in this new world. Study plants, write books, I had wanted to do that on Earth, but I went into accounting to please my parents. I had put aside so many of my dreams to please them, to please society, but now... Now there wasn't any point, they couldn't super exile me for life. I could finally become a botanist instead of just reading magazines and books and reminiscing about college classes that I had actually enjoyed.
Sure I was alone but there was an entire world to explore, a beautiful moon and a glowing forest to show me the way. Then I stopped, a boat was beached on the shore, a fishing boat, a big one. I ran to it and looked at the hull, "The Madonna". I carefully attempted to get on and froze at the horror of the scene. There had been an explosion. I saw a mass of rotting corpses and in the center of the horror was a scorch mark. The ship was still intact despite the explosion. I decided to explore the inside of the ship, the ship was built tough, this was something owned by someone with connections.
I didn't see a lot of wood in the construction, it looked like it had been made out of some kind of metal. Not tinker tech just a really durable material, probably sourced mostly from asteroids. It was definitely a tough thing, other then the scorch mark the explosion had barely done any damage. I looked through the corridors trying to study the ship itself. The crew was dead, that much was obvious, I don't know what caused the explosion that killed them all but I felt a need to understand what had happened.
The ship had several rooms, one room belonged to the captain, the books were mostly in Spanish, with a few books that detailed how to speak in different languages, I found some magazines there with pictures of nude men in suggestive poses. I decided to firmly close the drawer I found those in and made an effort to forget what I had seen. I continued to explore, I found 2 bunkrooms built to hold five people each, and one bunkroom built to hold 8 people or at least that's what the beds hinted at.
That meant there was a crew of about 19 people, not a big one but a sufficient one, it also seemed about right if the carnage I saw on the top deck was correct. I checked the fuel, I had found the ships schematics, it was built to hold 52 metric tons of fuel, it currently held 30 if the gauges were right. The ship was, according to the schematics 40 meters long, had a breath of 10 meters, and a draft of 3 meters. So it was big, but some of that was taken up by the thickness of the materials used. The fresh water supply was a max of 16 tons, but currently at 13. I went into the back and found three boxes, one of them had been hastily opened. Dynamite, they were filled with dynamite. I took the time to count them, each box held a hundred sticks except 1 that 1 held 99 sticks. The crew had rebelled, mutinied and their captain had taken them with him.
I continued to go through the ship, finding clothing, food, supplies, I also found ominous red packages attached to the boat that blinked off and on. I opened them and found food, water, and fuel. I also found some wilderness survival books including a map of Pluto. I put the supplies into the interior of the ship and then carefully took the time to bury the bodies of the crew. Then I took the time to think. I was alone, this was true but I had a map, and on one of them was a little blurb that said Island of Pari. The name of the infamous Thinker who had scuttled the Io Mission.
It was well within the range of the ships fuel. I read more about the schematics and with the Spanish to English book carefully messed with the engine until the ship was floating on the river. With that done I took a sip of instant coffee and set sail to Pari Verma's island. It was more out of curiosity then anything else. She was probably dead, but if she wasn't then it would be good to have someone to talk, to someone to help me as I sailed the sea of nightmares.