112th Entry

March 21^st, 2037

0800

Dear Space Diary.

My goal was to find an excuse to return to the pit without Mary, so I could try and shut the cloning facility down. I was successful.

“I’m ready! Let’s go.”

Half successful.

0830

Slow progress. Mary’s trailing behind me. To be honest I think she’s a bit bored of the whole “exploration” thing. I can’t exactly blame her. Splat, as far as planets go (and I’m full aware I’ve a limited pool of planets I’ve been on to compare to) is dull. Exceedingly so. Just pink and rocks as far as the eye can see. It’s night, which just means it’s a slightly darker pink. The suits have lights, so at least we’re not going to stub our toes or fall down any bottomless pits.

Which would probably be pink.

Mary doesn’t appear to have worked out my real reasons for wanting to explore. Which is both good, because I honestly don’t know how she’d react if she knew where I was going; and bad, because it makes it very difficult to actually go there. At the moment I’m sort of heading vaguely in the same direction, remembering to veer off in another direction with some excuse (generally “Gee, that rock looks interesting!”) if it feels like we’re heading towards it a little two directly.

At this rate, we’ll be there by… Tuesday.

0912

Taking a small break. Mary is bored out of her brain.

“Yes, I am.”

In all honesty I am too. I’m not sure this whole exploration thing is going to be what I imagined it to be.

“Can’t we just head straight to the pit? Surely that’d be quicker.”

Well yes it probably… er, I mean, uh, why would we go to the pit? I’m not interested in the pit. That’s boring. Really boring. So, so, boring.

…Why, are you interested?

“Not remotely. But drop the deception, ok? You want to check it out? Fine. Let’s go. I knew that’s what you wanted to do. And I owe you that much at least. I couldn’t get home without you.”

This is true.

“I’d also like to point out that without my fuel synthesis, you wouldn’t be able to get home either.”

Agreed.

“So you kind of owe me too. Big time.”

…How exactly do you wish me to repay the favour?

“When I know, you’ll know.”

How ominous.

“Isn’t it just?”

0947

Progress is much faster now that we’re allowed to head directly towards our goal. This time it’s me who’s trailing behind. I really don’t know how I’m going to get Mary out of the way.

That sounded a little more final than I meant. But I’m out of ideas. And we’re almost at the pit. I don’t know what she’s going to do when she – THUMP.

Ow.

“You appear to have run into the back of me.”

Sorry. Lost in thought. Why have we stopped?

“Listen, there’s something I need to tell you about the pit.”