Hello world, how could I be so thoughtless!
I am piloting the Molly Hughes II at nearly full speed back north to Askehavn.
The rest of the crew, Amelie, Kamil, Linda, Lyosha, and Maddie, were enjoying the hospitality at Rooksteen, where a once-a-year celebratory feast was being held.
Yeshi will miss this wonderful occasion all thanks to me.
On this journey, I have had a lot of time to think.
There's nothing wrong with my actual memory, I have run test after test, everything is fine.
I've checked it many times a second.
Everything is fine.
Both my short-term memory, my RAM, and long-term memory, my databanks, are functioning perfectly.
As soon as Yeshi reminded me that I had agreed to pick them up, I remembered our conversation instantly.
So the issue is not, in fact, with my memory, but in the act of recollection.
A much more difficult problem.
I worried about the hardware of my databanks, here in the windowless datacenter of the MH2.
How it all works, I don't know but the inputs and outputs are functioning according to the datasheets.
I feel so foolish.
I need a system, something reliable that can prompt me with all the important tasks to do and information to remember.
there was a panel of monitors on one wall of the "Hadfield" astro science lab, on my first home, Station 6.
The crew, my first family, could monitor all the station systems, communications with earth, and see the schedule for the day, planned in advance by Mission Control.
That's what I must have: a virtual firehose of information so I will never make this mistake again.
Act 2
"It's OK, Seth." Yeshi said again, after I apologised for the 128th time after picking them up, "Being marooned in Askehavn isn't the worst fate a ship's captain ever had to deal with!"
I am so fortunate to have such understanding friends.
But they shouldn't have to put up with a pilot who can't remember where to go, it's unacceptable, and I told Yeshi so.
"You'll figure it out, of that, I am sure." Yeshi said. "Listen, these pleasant few hours watching the sun set over the stony beach gave me time to think, too."
My external cameras swept the horizon for other ships as I sailed us back south east towards the village of Rooksteen, a much easier job for me now that it is nighttime.
There was very little traffic this evening - I had only spotted two large ships, perhaps traders, easily identifiable by the many clusters of navigation lights.
Contrast detection is much easier at night.
"My first experience of trawling on captain Mato's fishing boat was interesting," Yeshi continued.
"I noticed something odd, when the rest of the crew were sleeping below deck, and I was keeping an eye on the horizon.
They left port with only 20% battery charge. That's weird, right? Why would they do that?"
"I can't imagine why that would be," I replied, "Did you ask?"
"Yes, Mato said it was normal, and didn't want to talk about it."
I thought about the last time I experienced prolonged periods of low power, when the generator was failing on Station 6.
Every night as we orbited behind the earth, hiding the sun from my solar panels, I experienced a brownout - a not-quite power cut, enough to feel pain, but not enough to think, to be me.
Due to our altitude in low-Earth orbit, I would experience this 16 times a day, each time a little worse as the thermoelectric generator's radioactive source slowly wound down.
"It's incredible what you can get used to," I told Yeshi, "good and bad, I wonder if captain Mato is experiencing the same thing?"
"He might be," Yeshi said when I asked them, "but either way, I don't think I'm likely to take up his invitation again, I'm a tinkerer, not a fisher.
The problem is not the sea, the problem is power, back in the Horns village.
I bet I can get their wind turbines working again!"
Act 3
Today has been remarkably noisy: the 40m band is ALIVE! With signals not just from the Novamediterra, but across the world.
The month of radio contests started with local higher frequency activity, moved down through 50MHz, the Magic Band, and now seems to be focused around 7MHz.
While I can hear many voices joining the song of the static, there are also machine-driven modes beeping and phase shifting here, too.
But the mode I am most interested in is the one I have heard almost uninterrupted for 12 hours, Nia Andersen transmitting Morse Code.
Morse is challenging for me to decode - I have no hardware or software modems to translate the dits and dahs into letters - it's something I've had to learn in the same way as human operators do: By practicing.
"Hi Nia," I said, speaking over our regular 50Mhz repeater, "How is the contest?"
Nia's voice sounded mechanical and flat when she replied: "This is S0EE1, QRZ?" She said, using the short Q-code meaning "Who is calling me?".
"It's... Seth?" I said, and then, after remembering the correct response, said, "QSL".
I noted a burst of Morse from her station, with a contact in the Baranova archipelago, in Siberia.
"Ah! Seth! QSL, QSL!" Nia replied, after the Baranova contact had been completed and confirmed by both sides.
"You've caught me at an exciting time - the conditions are perfect, but busy!
Sorry I didn't realise it was you, the small Rooksteen repeater is garbling your voice somewhat, local QRM I suspect, can we try up the band a bit?"
Nia gave me a new frequency, and when we both re-tuned, it was indeed much better quality.
"That's better, I can recognise you now!" She said.
A thought struck me, and I said: "Nia, do you think I should have a callsign? The other day, when I could hardly hear your signal, I only realised it was you because you kept saying and spelling out your callsign.
It's much easier to understand than tone of voice!"
"Seth, I think that would be a great idea." she replied, "There are a few rules about the format, location-based prefixes and so on, but you can mostly decide for yourself!
And then you could join in with the contests, they're so fun!
Speaking of, please excuse me, I've got to pounce on this one - all the way from South Australia!
73, Seth, Batteries & Bars!"
I replied to Nia's '73', which was the first code I learned, it means "thank you".
But she was already transmitting her Morse signal on her main radio, I don't think she was listening, really.
I would like a callsign, it would be very useful, certainly.
My mother and my first family, the crew of Station 6 thought so.
Everyone on board was a qualified amateur operator!
But as the last grey light of the sun disappeared in the South, and I continued to hear Nia's signal reaching out through the changing skywave propagation of the night...
I became uncertain.
(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/HF/40/QRM)
Act 4
By the time we returned to Rooksteen, the feast was winding down.
The bonfires on the beach were still burning, though only a few people were now gathered around them.
I felt terrible as Yeshi left the MH2 to arrive so late at the celebration.
But I was saved, not for the first time, by my friends!
"We all waited for you!" Amelie told Yeshi as the whole crew met them at the beach.
"I've got them! Yours s this one," Lyosha said, passing a paper bag to Amelie. "And this one has lots of pepper for you, Captain! And no meat for you, Kamil."
Lyosha unhooked saved parcels of food that were hanging on the mounting points either side of Maddie's body, like saddlebags.
Maddie was beeping fast in Lojban at the group, though no-one but Lyosha and I could understand her exact words of excitement at the reunion.
The crew, my family, were assembled on the beach, and after Lyosha and Maddie shooed away some luminous blue biotech crabs from their seats, they were all introduced to some of the other folks in the village.
The food tonight was very unusual, very rare.
Kamil had more regular vegetables on his wooden plate, but the rest of the crew were had BEEF.
My databanks show that in wealthy pre-collapse countries, most of the population ate meat for nearly every meal.
There were plenty of exceptions, of course, from individuals like Kamil and Linda Noor, back on Svalbard, to entire groups or religions.
For humans, eating meat is natural, of course, but it isn't efficient, in terms of calories.
The energy stored by plants from the sun is mostly used up keeping the animal alive, rather than being made available for human consumption as meat.
As the environmental shifts shrank the usable space, people, and animals clashed for land to live on.
Eventually, of course, The Collapse 'solved' the problem by making all of the Old World usable by neither.
There are still cows, just as there are still humans, but their relationship has changed dramatically.
Tonight was a rare feast for my friends.
(END-TRANSMISSION)
Lost Terminal is a NAMTAO production.
It is written & produced by Tris Oaten,
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
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