The Station, Part 19

20/6/2207

I’m not back. This isn’t Frontier 2. It’s Frontier 1. Just didn’t see that until I got up close. In big black letters. Looks like she’s been here a lot longer than I have. I don’t know how that could be though. I was just talking to my counterpart here, Samuel Price. He preferred Sam. Only his mother called him Samuel he told me once. I wouldn’t want to be his mother right now. I wouldn’t want to be the one to have to tell her that her son was dead.

He’s been dead for some time it looks like. Suicide it looks like from what I can gather. There’s a pressure syringe and a bag of sleeping solution nearby. Empty. He must’ve taken enough to put a herd of elephants into a coma. Why, though. Why did he decide to take his own life? He couldn’t have been here that long. Like me, he must have tried every fucking comm. channel known to Man. And he got no responses. I’ve been through every deck of his station. Looks like he never left. None of the excursion suits have been used. O2 tanks were all full. Can’t get into the central computer because there’s absolutely no power. That I don’t understand at all. Even running all systems on full power, Frontier 1 should be good to go for at least another two years. And that’s without any aid from the solar and kinetic chargers. There’s not a light on in here. And what I really don’t get and I don’t know if I want to understand it, is exactly just how life has gotten into this station. She’s supposed to be sealed tight against the vacuum of space for fuck’s sake. I had to use the outside manual release to get in. And that door opens into an airlock with another door that has to be unsealed manually as well. In other words, just like my station.

There’s a weed growing all over. It has made it into just about every deck and every room. It’s infiltrated the food and water stores as well and taken every scrap, even used the emergency ladders next to the pneumatic lift system to make its way nearly up to the sensor complex at the station’s apex. It’ll probably be there in no time. It’s such a tangle that I can’t see just where it may have gotten in. There must be a breach somewhere. Doesn’t really matter anymore. Sam’s dead. The station died with him.

Sam. It’s hard to look at him. At what he’s becoming. The weed, whatever else it is. It’s a parasite. Sam had become food for it. The weed has apparently penetrated his orifices, strands of it has entered his nostrils, his mouth, even the tear ducts. Probably doesn’t end there. The exposed skin is grayish, not the white I would have expected. And what’s really making it hard to look at him is the protrusions that have come through. Little furry skies have erupted through the skin on his face forearms and hands. I think he’s being digested. His body’s nutrients are being processed by the environment. Sam is just food now. Is his fate what will eventually happen to me? Will I die and be turned into alien plant food? I can’t stand by and let this happen in front of me. I want to have him cremated just like everyone else. I don’t know if that’s going to be possible. I may have to settle for burying him. It’s an outdated and primitive practice, I know, but that may be the best I can do for him. If these messages of mine are getting through to anyone at all, please tell Sam’s family that I’m so sorry. Just don’t tell them about the plant. Thanks.