Captain’s Log: Arcadia

I was completely wrong, and we have paid the price.  I have lost a finger.  Mr. Landerson is badly concussed.  Dr. Tanaka was partly skinned alive.  And Susana is dead.

Or not dead.  I understand why the doctor had me take Maria elsewhere while he worked – the results were grisly, and I cannot imagine actually watching him work.  Since landing, Jason has retreated to his quarters – this is normal for him, but I cannot be sure that there isn’t some amount of mental shock.

The doctor cut apart Susana’s head, and apparently preserved Susana’s brain in an organ storage device he happened to have.  Susana’s body is currently in a refrigerated container, awaiting autopsy: Dr. Tanaka thinks that a new body can be grown, and the brain transplanted, but notes that the brain doesn’t make us who we are, it is the brain and the hormonal glands.   Thus he needs to inspect those.

Saying that he cut apart Susana’s head doesn’t do what he did justice.  I feel ill just remembering it.

Maria has also withdrawn to her room.  The poor girl can’t even cry over her best friend’s body, what with it being refrigerated.  I want to comfort her, but now that the moment is past, I think she is blaming this all on myself and the ship.

I blame myself as well.  I was too excited about this new planet that I didn’t really think about the dangers.  And… I suppose that I live in a fairly enlightened civilization – I had not imagined the depravity of that man.  But I should have suspected something.  It seems so obvious in hindsight.  Why did I let him bring his assortment of personal servants?  Why didn’t I think that someone might want to steal the Astral Zephyr?

I want to have faith in Zephyr.  She explained to me that, no, she does care about the crew on an emotional level, but had to pretend otherwise to resolve the hostage situation.  If she had admitted to caring about us, then Lord Whitevale would have never released us.  But as I stare at the stump of my finger… I don’t know.  I certainly felt abandoned and betrayed.  What if Lord Whitevale had continued, or ordered Clarkson to skin me, the way he was skinning Dr. Tanaka?  What if Lord Whitevale had ordered my death?  How far would Zephyr go to prove she does not care?

I hadn’t expect this streak of ruthlessness from Zephyr.  I suppose that in extreme circumstances, people change.  Or maybe people reveal their true selves.  It was my instinct that refused to cooperate, that the lives of a town were too dear.  And my logic backed it up, both then and now.  But when I watched my friends being tortured and killed before my eyes?  I wanted to scream, I wanted to give in, and I wanted to put my friends above a town of people I don’t know.  It’s not right, but if this all happened again… I’m not sure what I would say.  Lord Whitevale called it the ‘bravado of youth, untested.’  But if that is the bravado of youth, when what do I have now?  The cowardice of experience?  Now I know my limitations.