The Station, Part 33

I’m still focused, no matter how may detours I’ve taken, voluntary or otherwise. She’s my way out of here. Not for the food or water or regulated atmosphere. The transmitter she carries is the key. If I spend more time with it, modifying it, I could boost the signal further. Maybe even to the point it can pick up incoming transmissions. I’m going through the schematics in my head, mentally kicking myself that I didn’t do this sooner. Damn it, I became far too distracted by my surroundings. As wondrous and frightening as they are, they should not have deterred me from my goal as much as they have.

Like the body, the mind needs it own exercise to stay sharp, focused. I’ve been slacking evidently. I’m having some trouble recalling some of the basic system specs for Frontier’s comm system. Probably in part due to recent events I mean really, can you blame me? This place would get to anyone. Just look at what I’ve seen in the past few days and how I’ve lived. In a fucking space suit no less. Now that I’m out of that damn thing I feel so much freer. I didn’t realize just how much of a prison it was. And when I say free, I mean free from fear. Microscopic xenoforms with all manner of horrible diseases were a real fear les than a week ago. And now I don’t give a shit. I just don’t. Hell, I ate some native fruit without a bit of hesitation. Now, would I have done that the day I donned the helmet? No way in hell. No way. And that my friends, is something that is completely new to me. A part of my persona that I didn’t know I had—the daredevil. Laugh if you want, but eating that fruit was far more daring than walking across the Grand Canyon on a tightrope. How’s that you may ask. Well, the guy on the tightrope practices and practices before he gets on that rope, so he knows what he’s doing. Can’t say the same for me now can you? Yeah, thought so.

I think that once I’ve found Frontier, and I will find her, whatever I haven’t recalled by then will come back to me in a flash. I know those systems like the back of my hand. I just need the right kind of stimulus. In the meantime, I can’t let my surroundings get the better of me. From now on, I’ll be forgoing any exploration I feel takes me away from my primary goal.

What’s wrong with me? I’ve been walking towards these mountains, learned a little more about myself and this environment and more. But it’s these other lapses in memory. Forgetting names that I shouldn’t be forgetting. Basic functions of station operations. Other things I may not be aware of yet. It’s prompted me to go as far back in my memory as I can. And that has become harder. There shouldn’t be this much effort as I have made to do so.