Managed to get one of the underwater drones to respond and come back in for repairs. They got too far out and most of them seem to have shut down, or been taking out by some kind of aquatic life. The one I found was in fairly shallow water. The pictures it sent back are eerie. Beautiful, but haunting.
It limped back over several days and I was able to retrieve it. It had taken some damage, and actually had a tooth embedded in the outer casing. It was a very large tooth, which I have in the lab for testing and genetic profiling.
Speaking of genetics. Kel's last review of my species genetics finished and I looked at the results. I was quite surprised by it. It seems that my ancestors were, as Kel would put it, engineered to be specialists, but there was also people like myself who were meant to be good at everything, not as good as a specialist, but able to understand the specialist. At least that's what I interpret the results as. I still don't have all the understanding Kel does, but I'm learning. Their experience is something I hope to have one day.
I hope we can get more information out of the next ancestor we bring up in the virtual world Kel has built. Their data is still undergoing repair, which Clar is actually overseeing, making sure that the data is repaired and not changed. It is amazing to think just how advanced the ancestors really were, but then they were travelers of space the way Kel was. The way I hope to join Kel in being.
Thing is, I know Kel well enough that they are not going to want to leave. I do not want to either. Not unless it is to retrieve the other parts of the ship. Not unless Merd is willing to go with them, just as I wouldn't want to leave unless Clar and Hearl came with us. It really complicates things. I want to explore, but I need this home that we have built, I need Clar and Hearl. There isn't a point to exploring this world, trying to locate the ship our ancestors crashed in, to learn from it, if it means leaving them.
Now I think I understand Kel's reluctance to join the festival. They were afraid they'd find what they have with Merd, and if that person wouldn't want to leave with them, then what? I couldn't leave without Clar and Hearl. I know Kel is going to not want to leave without Merd. They still hold out hope, after all this time, that Edix will return.
I look at the shuttle, and wonder. Will the others be willing to join us on an expedition to the moon, if we find the ship there, either crashed or intact? I know, either way, that's one of the few things that Kel will be unable to resist doing, and I would go with them. It would be months of preparation, weeks to get there and then weeks to get back, all packed into the shuttle. We'd need to add an extension of the cabin, otherwise there just wouldn't be enough room.
I'm confident that the trip would be a safe one, considering what we would be doing, but how do we convince the others of this? I don't know the answer to that, and it would still be dangerous. It might just be something that Kel and I do by ourselves. In the long run, I think we would both be more comfortable that way, and it would give us more reason to be careful so we can return home.