Log 1
This is to be a record of my discoveries while journeying on the planet Ekal.
Honestly, it's quite a coup for someone as young as me to be chosen for this mission. I've only recently graduated from the OmniCorps Training Academy, and I'm already being sent to investigate a whole new planet, by myself!
All right, it's only at the secondary research stage. Ekal has already been eliminated as a threat to the Federation, due to sheer lack of weapons - at least, as compared to those as standard on Federation ships. And it's true that relatively few of those who study at OCTA do so in order to become explorers, as I did. Rather, they go into weapon development, working for the MiniPax Dept. So it's not like I had a terrible amout of competition.
Still, this is a coup. It's what I've always wanted to do.
I must stop writing now - it's time to land. This journey has passed so quickly. I was in hypersleep for much of it, of course, and I've barely wiped the sleep from my eyes, figuratively speaking.
Log 2
I met my guide today - Sehkmata, her name is. An Ekallian who has agreed to show her planet to this outsider. Willingly, of course, but it seems not entirely of her own good nature. She seems almost sulky with me.
At first she pronounced my name as Teraglik!o, with that irritating k-click they include in each of their own names for whatever reason. I corrected her; "Teraglio".
She laughed at me, the only time I've seen her face crack a smile so far.
"Sehk!mata" was all she replied. I find it impossible to pronounce her name, but I believe I am forgiven, as she cannot leave the k-click from mine.
Before now, I don't believe I've fully appreciated just how useful an invention my communicator is. Except for those who are interested in spending years studying such things, only one language is spoken on Terran now, and subdialects do not differ enough to make communication difficult. Out in space, however, it is a different matter. It's not that no one can hear one scream, as was once said. Rather, no one can understand what one screams.
The communicator works, I am told, by analysing voice content - pitch, tone, timbre - to come up with a meaning. It then manipulates the sound waves sent to my ears, forming them into words I will understand while retaining the essential meaning. It is not perfect - that's why part of my training included knowledge of how the little gizmo works, to enable me to make my own decisions - but I am told many of the bugs are out of it now. There are many tales, in the Omnicorps Scic-Dev, of experiments in the early days. These experiments consisted mostly of attempts to break or confuse the little machine, such as by saying something in a tone which one would normally use for an entirely different statement. Or of speaking an entirely fictional language (surprisingly, it had no problem making sense from babbles). With the huge archive of languages, tones, and accents it has access to, it has very few problems making me understood.
The communicator does the same thing to my speech, of course, changing it to another's language while keeping my meaning. What a marvellous little gizmo it is.
Log 3
I have been on Ekal for several months now.
From watching the Ekallians, I have learned that I was wrong to think Sehkmata sulky. As a race, they tend towards withdrawel, and show little emotion. Blunt, they might be considered on Terra, or within the Federation as a whole.
Ekal, as a land, is rather arid and dry, apart from near the riverbanks. There, the land is lush and what we could consider fertile. However, Ekallian crops do not need as much water as Terran ones require, and nor do Ekallian people require as much water as Terrans do to survive. This realisation came very uncomfortably, I can assure you. Sehkmata has agreed that we can move nearer to one of the rivers for the rest of my stay here, as the environment there tends to be more suitable for "Terran weaklings" such as me.
The k-click irritates me less now.
Log 4
It is fascinating how very different cultures tend to celebrate the same things. The Ekallians have festivals, similar to Terran Mardi Gras, days to honour parents, a day on which gifts are exchanged (the Ekallians have no complex reason for that last one - I asked. They do so because they enjoy it).
Tomorrow, Sehkmata tells me, we are to visit an old friend of hers, for another celebration. She was called away before I could ask her what it was. Something similar to a birthday perhaps, or a name day.
Log 5
The Ekallians do not celebrate birthdays. Instead, they celebrate deathdays.
All seemed familar when we arrived at the home of Sehkmata's friend. There was a cake, gifts, decorations - exactly as one might find on Terra. I asked Sehkmata what the celebration was in aid of, presuming it was a birthday. Instead she whispered, "deathday", and my blood turned to ice in my veins.
How macabre, how chilling, how utterly sick, to celebrate such a day. I passed the celebration in a daze, hiding my emotions behind a bright smile, as I have been taught. I believe Sehkmata suspected something, when I disappeared so quickly afterwards, but I needed to be alone.
Log 6
I remember a lesson back at OCTA, which discussed some of the more unsettling customs we might find on other planets, in other cultures which are, quite literally alien to us.
"You may be disgusted, or shocked, or dismayed, or all three," said the professor. "And that's fine now. But, once you leave this room, you must never show that. Your role is to record, not to judge."
So, I shall record. I will go to Sehkmata now, and ask her everything I need to. And I will refuse to show anything other than curiosity over the subject. I refuse to embarass myself or OmniCorps any further.
Log 7
Audio
Sehkmata?
Yes?
How do you...how do you know when to celebrate someone's deathday?
I - I'm sorry?
How do you know which day is their deathday?
It's the day on which they die. When else could it be?
But how do you know?
I am sorry Teraglik!o, I do not understand that question. Do you not celebrate Deathdays on Terra?
No...we celebrate birthdays.
Birthdays?
tone is shocked
Yes.
tone is puzzled
End of Audio.
Log 8
Today, I finally asked Sehkmata when her own deathday is. The communicator changed the date she gave into a Terran form; June 13th. A date only a few weeks away. I did not ask her the year.
Later, I checked the communicator. Perhaps it was in error, with its translation. That phenomenon is not entirely unknown.
I asked the communicator to confirm some words in the Ekallian dialect, words which I knew were accurate. The words for food, hunger, thirst, hydration, sleep, crops...commen words which one could have understood from a simple game of charades, without such a complex and bug-prone piece of equipment.
"Define 'deathday' in the Ekallian dialect." I asked.
"Deathday: the anniversary of the day on which one dies."
"Define "dies" in the Ekallian dialect."
"Dies: to cease living. To expire."
Log 9
Sehkmata and I do not discuss deathdays further. We celebrate hers each year. I refuse any invitations to celebrate mine, not wanting to go through the explanation of why I do not know when it is - or to have someone offer to find out.
It is true, I am a failure as a universal-geographer. But I mind less and less. I am happy, here on Ekal. Sehkmata and I are unable to have children - Terran and Ekallian biology differs too greatly, although there seems to be little difference on the surface - but this does not trouble us too much. Ekallians have long lives and breed seldom, I have discovered. It keeps their population stable, which is the only way it could be, considering the lack of fertile land.
Log 10
For a while I have been confused over the uses of 'yesterday' and 'tomorrow' on Ekal. For years, I had simply assumed that the communicator had been mixing them up, and settled for cursing at it in Terran the few times it had come up. Communicators do not translate curse words. Seemingly, the original developers assumed the meaning would be clear without a literal translation. But no, the comm defined 'yesterday' as 'the day before today' and 'tomorrow' as 'the day following this one'.
I asked Sehkmata about the discrepancy earlier today, and she seemed confused. After a lot of talking (and some diagrams, drawn in the sand), I believe we got to the root of it. Ekallians see time as flowing backwards - from the time we know nothing about, to the time we see clearly, and know everything of. It does make a kind of sense.
Log 11
It is not June 13th, but still, Sehkmata died today.
Log 12
I have worried all these years for nothing. Watched over her on that day, all for nothing.
The Ekallians see time as travelling in the opposite direction to the rest of the known universe. Why did it not occur to me that their language would reflect this?
One's deathday, the day on which, as the communicator claims, one ceases living, is, to the Ekallians, the day on which they are born. Before - or, rather, after that day, as they would say - they do not exist. They cease to exist upon that day. They cease to live.
Their birthday is the day on which they believe they enter this life, knowing everything that is to happen, or which has happened, as a Terran would see it.
I have worried for nothing.
I shall return to OCTA. Einstein was right - when one travels faster than the speed of light, one grows younger. I shall reach there barely two years after I left, with a wealth of information on the Ekallians, and fresh for my next assigment.
End Log.
Posts
