The feast was awesome. Roast squirrel done several ways, including a few techniques I taught them. Lots of veggies, and a few other things. I brought some items I had stashed for special occasions. Cold sweet treats and the like. Then the stories began, and I learned a lot more about my friends; who they are, and how they came to be here on this world. And with that, my guilt has grown stronger.
The elder told the stories, using a book. Yes, a book where each elder has written down everything that happened during their time as elder. They are, as I suspected, not from this world. They know this, but it doesn't impact them in their daily efforts to survive. The ship crashed somewhere inland, and I now have a set of drones looking for it. I'm not quite sure how many generations it has been, but if I can help them recover anything, I will. Frydai deserves to know the whole truth. They all do.
It boils down to them crashing here just as I did. The details are a bit sketchy as the first recorded story is from several generations, though recorded from the telling of an elder that was aboard the ship when it crashed here. Since then, they have been doing what they could to protect the memory of who they once were. Travelers amongst the stars. Maybe I can help them get there again.
Though, most of them just take these things as stories, being a recent traveler amongst the stars and more, I recognize the truth within the story. The descriptions of something similar to the ARC drive. How they became lost and chose to explore much as I did. The description of worlds, and of a fusion plant. Other details that ring true to me due to experience.
After a rest, I invited the elders to the module and brought them inside. I don't blame them for being suspicious, but I needed even more to prove that I want to help them, and to make up for what I did. I pulled up the pictures of the animals I had thought they were, and they were understandably shocked by the similarities. I then showed them some images from my travels. I then showed them the fusion plant on the monitor. They had one of the guards run back to the village and retrieve the book. We spent hours pouring over the earliest parts, with me showing them the equivalent technologies. It was cathartic for them I think. Vindicating that the stories are mostly true. Perhaps embellished a bit, but clearly based in truth.
We are committed to a very long conversation when we get back from the retreat. However, like them, I am now doing a significant amount of preparations. I am preparing to abandon the module for a while. I am making sure it is as sealed as I can make it. I've fired the anchors deep into the ground, and used a powered up laser drill to create deep bore holes. I then dropped anchor cables down them and filled them with creet to lock the cables in place; anchoring them to the module to ensure it doesn't go anywhere. I'm doing everything I can to make sure it can withstand thousands of meters of water pressure.
The module is supposed to be water tight, and the anchors should keep it in place. It was not however designed for what is coming. I have had the 3D printers cranking out things as quickly as they can. I have a small six wheeled transport, which I have increased the engine power of, and added additional fuel storage. I have also printed a trailer, or rather I have made a trailer from some printed parts and the bed frame from one of the empty staterooms. I built a winch system at the top of the cliff, near where my friends path up the cliff is located. I have moved the transport, trailer, and some initial supplies up to the top of the cliff. I had been using the transport to run around the cove.
There is a lot more I need to get up there, while I also pull down some of my observation stations. I'm going to leave three of them up so I can watch it happen, and if they survive, get additional observations. After the feast, and before the elders came to visit, I did something I had not done, and ran a simulation of this world, for tidal action. The tides have not been significant. The biggest one was five meters. That might seem like a lot, but on this world, that isn't much. There is however a larger tide coming, and that is the problem.
My friends have helped me move a few things into one of their caves. The absolute necessities I might need to repair the module if it is damaged. It is a pocket in the rock that remains dry, if under significant pressure. I left a sensor in there to record it. Still, I only have so much room, and you can clearly see the water line, but I still had to be choosy because there is only so much room.
A few of them had apparently tried to ride it out in a larger cave where they keep the majority of their things. I didn't need to be told that it did not go well for them and they were all found dead by the time the tribe returned. The description of the injuries suggest pressure. Literally being crushed by it. A nasty way to go. The tide is too fast to get used to the pressure.
We are well on the way to being ready to move, and my winch is helping them prepare much faster. They have a pathway up the cliff face, and that is how they will get the majority of the tribe up. That was also how they would get all the supplies and other things they need up the cliff. I have made it easier on them, and we should be ready a good two standard days earlier than they are used to. That means we can be heading inland to safety sooner.
They call it the ocean wall, and they don't mean a wall of rock. They mean a wall of water, that according to them, will dwarf the walls of the protected cover we are living in. That description matches the simulation of the tide I did. Absolutely terrifying.
We will be making our way to a nearby mountain, and climbing said mountain, all the way to the top. I have scouted it with drones and confirmed that there are very old structures that match the building techniques of my friends.
My simulations suggest just as the stories my friends tell say. If we are not moving by dusk of this coming day, we will not be able to make it to the top of the mountain before the water catches us. The fact is, my assistance is going to let us get started a full day early. We should be at the top of the mountain and able to watch the water come in. Rather then be running from it.
I hadn't considered what the harmonics of the system was going to do to the tides of the oceans of this world. I had not simulated that. Most of the time, the distribution of worlds around this central world, means that the tides are not all that significant. However, every few thousand days, you get a bigger tide. That tide is the one that makes the marks on the cliff face which had me so unnerved. Every few generations, about a hundred or so standard years, enough of the other worlds that orbit this one line up, and as one might expect, that causes a massive tide. A tide that is truly epic in scope. The module will be submerged under ten thousand or more meters of water.
I've discussed what I see with the elders, and they advise that in their history it has happened once before, in the earliest days of them being on this world. A double tide. Where it appears to subside, and then returns again. This is going to be one of those tides. The elders say that they lost many members of the tribe that time. I have now played the simulation out a thousand years and given them a map of the tides, so they will know.
Time to get back to preparing. My strength is also helpful in the preparations, and I am teaching Frydai how to use some of the technology in the module, and that we will be taking with us. He is doing a really great job of running the winch to get supplies up to the top of the cliff. More to his credit, he came up with the idea of a basket to lift up caged squirrels and other items, things that they would have to leave behind before. Frydai is a really great kid. I hope in the future, he can forgive me for what I did.
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