139th Entry

March 25^th, 2037

0930

Dear Space Diary

Been a quiet day. Mary’s been asleep for 24 hours so far and 3.0’s decided to make the most of the voyage by learning about Earth so she’s locked herself in one of the study rooms with the ship’s collection of encyclopaedias which – in an amazingly retro touch – are in book format. I stuck my head round the door last night to see how she was going. She asked me what an armadillo was, so I guess it’s slow going.

Spent the day in the lab watching the Grapefruit in Mary’s gene vat. And hoping they don’t start to watch back. I’m sure what we’re doing is probably considered unethical to some extent. And I’m not sure what to do with them when we get back. Release them into the wild to roam free.

Well, roll free anyway. So long as we’re on a hill.

Note to self. Find hill.

I really don’t know what I’m looking for, but the grapefruit seem to be growing well. Can I call them grapefruit? Mapefruit, maybe.

Looks like Mary ran out of grapefruits to use though. There’s a Mavocado and a Miwi fruit in there as well. Hope I don’t get a sudden craving for grapefruit for breakfast.

“Oh don’t worry, there’ll be more by now?”

More? Also, good morning.

“I found out where the fruit supply is coming from. It’s the next evolution from nutritional paste. Genetically engineered fruit, grown in vats in the ships walls and fed through to the kitchen. Infinite fruit supply.”

And if we want to eat something other than fruit?

“Unless there’s a cow on board somewhere, I think when the freezer is empty, it’s empty.”

Wait, we have meat?

“Yeah. Meat, milk, bread, cheese, salad, the works. Why what have you been eating?”

…Paste.

“Paste. We’ve been on this ship for three days, and you’ve only been eating paste?”

I thought that’s all there was! It’s a NASA ship!

“What about the fruit?”

Don’t really like fruit.

“So hang on, we’re on a state of the art ship, will full food facilities, and you’ve been eating that disgusting paste?”

I didn’t know!

“Excuse me, could you go into the other room? I have to laugh.”

For how long?

“Couple of hours should do it.”

1135

“Ah, that’s better.”

You haven’t really been laughing for two hours.

“No of course not. I finished laughing and then went to check on the Grapefruit.”

And the kiwi fruit and the avocado.

“I’m afraid the kiwi fruit didn’t make it.”

…what? What happened?

“The solution was too strong for it. And it was too small. It got overloaded with gene… juice.”

Well, first of all, ew. And secondly… the kiwi fruit died?

“Well died may be too strong a word. But, yes.”

I feel kind of sad.

“Oh don’t worry, we’ll still have more than enough.”

Should we hold a funeral or something?

“It’s a kiwi fruit. So no.”

Heartless.

"Yes. It was."