Dear Victoria,

How I miss the ability to scribe you a letter using pen and paper. My wrist unit is a practical alternative, but I miss the feel of ink sliding across paper, embedding forever thoughts onto white paper. I will acquire dozens of blank books upon my return to civilization and never correspond with you again by electronic means. Oh course this means you will have to wait until I send you my physical musings to hear from me, but I feel the emotions are lost when using only ones and zeros to converse.

There is little for me to do in the ling lonely days I spend in my small quarters aboard the mysterious industrial transport. After spending a few hours in the bare interrogation room, I was finally moved here and here I have remained. A small portal gives me a view of the satellite I first spied on my trip to the control room, so I can deduce that we have moved into an orbit around this body. The vibrations of the ship have also altered to indicate we are in a holding pattern around something. I can see nothing more of the surrounding system since my window into the outer world always faces in the direction of the moon and never alters. For now it seems to be some type of natural satellite with nothing on the surface, but the scars of encounters from space. I have seen no lights or signs of occupancy from my perspective and the space around us are free of any other traffic. I know there is a solar body in proximity for I can see the reflected light off one hemisphere of the moon, but the orb fills the entire range of my site and I can see nothing beyond it. During the infrequent visits of my two fellow travelers, I have gained no more information. They take turns bringing my meals and asking me questions, but nothing can I gleam from them. Not even their names or the nature of the ship we are traveling on: only the constant bombardment of questions about the Anomaly and the nature of our project for the Louvre. I only wish I could deduce what objective these people have and what has become of the secret charges I was given for safe keeping. I hesitate to mention the strange creatures since in all their questions the man and woman have not mentioned them: only the hints about a second purpose for my trip to the Alpha Centauri system. Hopefully the sleeping creatures have remained aboard the Infinity and can be taken charge of by the members of Simona’s team once they arrive in New London. Unfortunately that will mean that my part in their exposure to the Anomaly aboard the space station Phycodurus 8 have to be postponed, but at least they will arrive intact on the planet surface. As I have heard nothing and seen no sign of their containment units in the original area I woke up in, I hope this to be true. It gives me some hope that at least a part of the plan will come to pass. At the least I know that decades have not pasted as I slept. The woman who came to retrieve me seemed of the same age as when I encountered her on the Infinity. She also seemed relaxed in the environment of the ship and the use of the electronics in the control room. The glimpse I caught on my way through of the units did not put them out of context with the equipment I am familiar with.

 

One bright point has surfaced in the last few days of my solitude. Embedded in the memory of my wrist unit I found the majority of my notes and findings over the last year of my research. It seems they survived whatever trauma I have experienced along with several hundred books from my library downloaded into the external control unit. These later items I thought would keep me company on the long quiet evenings aboard the space station, but now I find them more useful than ever. I had encrypted my research along with the digital dialog between us before I was placed into stasis for the Gambol leg of my trip, just as a precaution, but I left the entertainment portion untouched. This was fortunate as one of the first things the man did during the first interrogation, was to confiscate my external wrist unit for several hours. When he returned I could see the disappointment on his face as he handed it back. He had no idea of the embedded unit in my regenerated arm. I think he believed it was only an entertainment module because, of course, all he could find were the books I had included and several hundred gigabytes of music. He did not detect the communication program that connects my embedded unit with the external controls. Thank goodness for your encryption process. I do not know of anyone who could break that.

So now I can enjoy my evening’s entertainment in a situation I never imagined I would be in: stuck in space with nothing to research but the barren surface of a moon.  If only the ship would rotate once in a while.  I am dying to see what is in the other direction and where exactly I am.  It might be the case then that they would move me to other quarters without even a portal.

I will keep a record of whatever is to come. Unfortunately I have nothing much to relay to you , but it will help keep my sanity. Maybe it is time to return to Middle Earth. That always helps me pass the time and gives my hope rejuvenation.

Love Annalis