The Station, Part 50

I can see the white fur poking out here and there. From the sleeves, ankles, and over the collar. It’s all very thick, very white. Although that may not be entirely true. I’m looking very closely at the hair on my chest, and from here, it appears to actually have a strangely clear quality. No pigment at wall. How bizarre. That must include the rest of it. Perhaps the light passing through it, combined with the star white of the snow is the color that I’m seeing. Like it was meant for this precise environment.

I’ve become a snowman. A snowman that no longer needs the ever tightening constriction of a now-useless and redundant undersuit.

I’ll admit I feel like the garment is no longer appropriate. Foreign in some way. It has been a distraction in my journey, but other than the comm. device I’m using to speak to you, I have no other link to the outside. Going native has been a slow, reluctant process on my part.

The undersuit is off and lying on the snow. It looks like a deflated body. Once I removed it, it resumed its nominal shape. I watched it contract and reshape, I had no idea that my body type had been altered so drastically. Shocking to see how small I was those days ago. I was a small, round pink thing of a man, with stumped arms and legs, diminutive hands with too few fingers. How could I have ever thought that my former body was at all adequate?

No man would recognize me now. A tall, fur covered apparition that stands among the white snow dunes of a vast, white desert. The cold is welcoming. It feels…right. I smell the crisp wind and discover scents I thought did not exist. There are no words for them, but I know them well already. And the snow itself. My eyes have changed yet again. I can now see that it is not a uniform thing. There are densities and consistencies in that whiteness that my old eyes would never have found if they had stared for years. Even now, I would have to create more than a dozen worlds to describe each species of snow. A whole new taxonomic system after a while I suppose.

And without the suit I’ve finally allowed my body to be free. I should have done something about that some time ago. But it’s so hard to let go. They were my clothes. What sane person would shed them inside a wholly alien environment? The answer—a person who is no longer what they started out as. And what, pray tell, am I? Whatever it may be, it is certainly better. I feel like I can conquer this new land on my own.

As I walk I feel the wind increase, my newly grown hair is ever sensitive to changes in speed, temperature and direction. Instrumentation would only be redundant at this point. I know the direction I want to go. The image of the hologram is still clear, the path is still a series of strongly glowing red lines. When I have been reunited with her, how strange will Frontier seem? I no longer remember how to operate her systems. What will I do then? Surely I will recall at least the basics once I have seen the instruments. If not, I will relearn them. Simple as that. Because I still care. I still am me. Bradley? My name is Bradley. No, you don’t need reminding. But I do. I’m unnerved that it takes me a moment to recall it. Just a moment, but it’s an eternity when it’s your own name that eludes you.