Well, there's not much to write, now. We're nearing Antioch, less than two weeks away. Most of us have survived.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6qLAJmU8ya
We lost the last shuttle, the Columbus, the one piloted by Virgil Zapato-Joynson, I thought it meant we'd lost our new captain, but LaForge gone with the previous shuttle, Little Enterprise. We don't know what happened to the Columbus. After the Enterprise had made the jump, we tried to contact them, but without success. We continue to try, broadcasting a transmission every hour, but after all these weeks nobody holds out much hope anymore. It's possible the Columbus is out there, intact and functional, headed for Antioch just as we are, and will someday arrive and join us. It's possible.
Over the course of the three days following the jump, with the aid of navigational beacons and regular communications, all of the other vessels---shuttles and harvesters alike---were able to rendezvous, forming a space caravan which has stayed together now for nearly four months. We travel at a constant velocity, a static string of vehicles, and sometimes we have to take it on faith that we are actually making progress, getting closer to our destination.
Faith.
Four months is a long time under these conditions. Too long. Arguments and squabbles and screaming matches are too many to count. Actual fistfights erupt with regularity, and some have become quite violent; three people have been killed. Several others have died in accidents, two more apparently of old age. A number have died from illness, including fifty-three on the Galileo, when an epidemic of a still unidentified disease broke out and swept through the passengers; but, as I've said, most of us have survived.
Sulu and I, along with Shirl, Enda and Cornelius, periodically rotated out of the harvester and onto other vessels during the first few weeks, to give us a break from the confined pilot cabin, which is the only habitable zone on the harvester, and I have not left it in three months.
I'm still blamed by most people for what happened. Nobody says anything to me, but it's obvious from the furtive glances, the sour expressions, the abrupt silence whenever I approach, the deliberate avoidance of my company. I can't disagree with their feelings; even if Jean-Luc was right, that docking to the alien ship didn't make any difference, hardly anybody sees it that way. That I was able to come up with the means of escape does little to diminish the sense of resentment and hostility that emanates from nearly everyone.
Sometimes it becomes too much for me to bear. At those times I wish that I had stayed with Jean-Luc and the others on the Enterprise, no matter what happened to them. I imagine that I would have felt a sense of accomplishment that seems elusive to me now.
Sulu is one of the few people who does not seem to hold it all against me, and he has stayed on the harvester with me these last three months. His presence is a comfort. And there are small pleasures that come with his friendship----he loaded onto the harvester, in an easily accessible location, his entire store of coffee beans. He has carefully, yet generously, rationed them during the voyage, sharing with whoever is stationed on the harvester. His supply will last, he says, at least a few weeks after landfall. He has also told me that he stored a large number of pre-germinated coffee-plant seeds, determined to start another plantation once we reach Antioch.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJeKvOwTRPo
He has become a great friend, and I feel I'd be lost without him.
Charles, too, has become a friend, along with his sister, Abigail. They jet over to the harvester to visit for two or three days at a time. Charles seems much older than his age, as if whatever remained of his childhood had been taken away from him. He almost never smiles.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjyfPYth4Sa
I think often of Father O'Heron. It would be nice to believe that her spirit, her soul, lives on and is somehow with us yet: watching over us, guiding us in whatever way she can. I want to believe it.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5CJpUhOaYC
But I don't. I still don't believe---not in an afterlife, not in heaven and hell, and I don't believe in the existence of God.
And yet----and yet she is till with me in a strange and mysterious way---through my memories of her, through my imagination. I talk to her, I imagine what her replies would be, and I talk further with her. I have long, internal conversations, discussions, and even arguments; they sometimes bring me comfort, ease my grief, my guilt. She would probably say I was praying, and maybe I am.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6ldxNOia4y
When I was in the shuttle bay all those months ago, standing at Sulu's side as we prepared to mutiny and leave the Enterprise, I had believed that we were about to begin a new life. It didn't happen then, but we're about to now.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrFszn2D0AF
Despite everything, I have great hopes for the future. Life is difficult for all of us now, but that will change when we make landfall on Antioch. We'll have other difficulties, to be sure, hardships and trying times, but it'll be different. Now, we can do nothing about our circumstances. There, on Antioch, we'll have the opportunity to work together to overcome our hardship, to share and cooperate as a real community and build a new life on a new world.
Maybe we will fail. Maybe we will be unable to overcome our differences, our selfishness, the resentments and anger of our previous lives on the Enterprise. But it's also possible that we'll succeed. I find myself surprisingly optimistic and hopeful. This, too, may be part of Father O'Heron's legacy.
This personal history is nearly done. I've taken a cue from Christopher Pike, and have prepared one of the space-burial coffins. I'll keep the original document with us, but I'll put two copies in different formats inside the coffin, seal it, and launch it into space before we reach Antioch. Maybe someday it'll be found. Maybe someday we'll be found.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpD8XlYuZZM
And so I end this record with hope and anticipation. An old life ends. A new life begins.
Life. That, at least, is something I believe in.739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsZsvfxjtt1
THE END739Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFhGdU30tGT
