HARE: I was speaking to you.

Taban: Oh. What’s going on?

HARE: USER Daley is gone.

Taban: Gone—what do you mean, gone?

HARE: USER Daley is no longer in his bunk. USER Daley has exited the ship.

Taban: What time is it?

HARE: Unclassified solar major set six hours ago.

Taban: That’s the middle of the night! It’s freezing out there—and dark as hell. How long has he been gone?

HARE: Undetermined. I can check the ship’s logs.

Taban: Do that. And get my suit. Goddamn him, we said we’d never go out at night. What’s he thinking?

HARE: You require your suit?

Taban: Yes. We have to go out and get him.

VIDEO LOG #56—Ship Designation CS Wyvern 7079

Day 10: 21:52

[It’s nighttime outside, though the sky is barely visible. Taban is struggling to move against blasts of howling wind, which whip frost and chunks of ice into the air in gray waves. He fights to lunge forward with every step, while the HARE leads the way by a meter, scanning their surroundings in 180-degree arcs.]

Taban: Goddamn it! There’s no way he’s out here!

HARE: He must be.

Taban: But how will we find him? There aren’t even any footprints!

HARE: There is a slight heat signature in the air. This must come from USER Daley.

Taban: Goddamn him!

[Together they struggle through the blizzard. Glimpses of the terrain show that it has changed, though they’ve scarcely moved one kilometer from the ship. The usual white flatness has changed to fields of dark, smooth ripples, low and regular, like frozen waves of glass. Taban struggles to step over the hard crest of each ‘wave,’ but doesn’t comment on (or notice?) the transformed landscape.]

[After several minutes of traveling, it’s clear that Taban is struggling to go on.]

Taban: Shit. This is so fucking hard. (looking at his sensor glove) And my oxygen’s already at 50%! How is that possible?

HARE: I am unsure.

Taban: We’ve only been out here thirty minutes. Daley’s been out here for, what, hours? Is there any way he’s still alive?

HARE: We’re following the infrared trail of something.

Taban: Goddamn it. (heavy breathing)

HARE: Do you require assistance?

Taban: No, I’m all right. As soon as we find him, I’m dragging him back and locking him up. We can do that thing we talked about. Turn the medical bay into a kind of cell. Just until ISF arrives.

HARE: USER Daley will most likely be uncooperative.

Taban: I’m tired of being cooperative. Seriously. I’ve let him put us in enough danger as it is. It’s over now.

HARE: I have not been in danger.

Taban: He was planning to send you out in all of this. Every night. Trust me, you would have been in danger.

HARE: Thank you.