Today I fed on an [inferior, unclean, artificial / fabricated?? Check data on early fabrication. Fleet Veterinary Compendium, Abyl Darkoe’s Fyrste Gloryous Toure] human for the first time. It seemed as good a day as any to start a journal.

There are other reasons, I suppose. Better reasons. I’ll be damned if I let that dead-eyed maniac’s [scribblings, ravings, scrapbook? Sloane self-reference, check the darker interpretations, start with Sloane: Poet or Convict?] be the last example of the written word carried from the dying world [Earth? The form used is closer to platform or construct. Staging area? World-as-flat mythos??]. Not that I suppose this is much better.

I’ll be damned. Well, I probably will, at that.

We’re [two segments / months? Weeks?] out from [the world]. I waited as long as I could bear, too long to really be safe, because I thought the trip would be shorter. It is another three [months makes more sense here] to the [blue fire / blue star. Taras Talga? Closest inhabited system to Earth in the Ganan Gyran Agaa, and is a blue star], or so the [strong machine / vessel? Some kind of synth? Strong machine reads like a nickname, later context suggests person?] says. We stop every few [days / hour-clusters] because there is something wrong with the [probably stardrive, although this can also mean song, or breathing apparatus. Something wrong with ship systems?] or something else, something about the [strong machine]. She is communicating with someone – a [sister? Aki’Drednanth? If referring to vessel, comms with other ships? WATCH YOUR CONFIRMATION BIAS‼]? – and she cannot do it at [faster-than-real / outside-everything / probably reference to relative speed, which reinforces aki’Drednanth guess but also ship comms guess].

It was [two years / years of light, probably light-years but may still refer to time] to the [blue fire / blue star], which we should have been able to cover in a matter of [hours], but she says that this is a misunderstanding of [no idea about this part, best guess lensed space-time / standing wave / castle physics? Not sure what castle might refer to, maybe universal stellar structure? Dark matter??] across [The Face of the Deep, this is a direct symbol-lift from Book of Mygon, see if mum has a copy of the old unabridged, the only available copies are modernised]. The [grey building / grey and fearful, this is another nickname, may be the strong machine again but in different context] says it is [Mark of the Adversary, another direct symbol-lift, plus albedo for some reason]. The [strong machine] says it is a dangerous passage, full of turbulence and [storms? Seems to be storms], but this is the [black nothing / void, probably interstellar space], is it not? I don’t understand what she’s talking about most of the time, and she’s meant to be better than most of her kind at talking to [aliens / children / animals? Passengers? Leaning towards aliens, if this is an aki’Drednanth].

I think she is trying to decide what to do with us. Perhaps she was waiting for me to starve, or to see what I did when I fed.

We can’t see the [cursèd wheel, pretty sure, galactic disc / Core? / stars in general]. When we are at [faster-than-real?], there is only the [grey nothing / second realm? Probably soft-space in context] outside the [electrical blue / house or manor of ice / the hands that cup protectively. Probably the name of the ship? Misbegotten Creatures lore has a ‘bestiary’ of ships but no matching name]. When we stop, there is only the [black nothing / void]. No stars, not the way the [electrical blue / house of ice] is facing, not in this [The Face of the Deep] that we are in. We only have the [strong machine]’s word that we are stopping or moving, there are no windows, only the [this says windows again, or maybe eyes. Viewscreens??].

I haven’t rested. I’m as wakeful as the [silver toothed, this could be a Silver Bane reference but it might also be grey building by another context nickname from the connections]. I go [every day / with the flowers?] into my [sleeping place / final rest? In context it could be sepulchre but I think this means bed or cabin], but nothing happens. I stare at the [ceiling, bunk, lid], and nothing. When we stop, or return to the [grey nothing], there is a churning inside me but it passes quickly.

The [water, liquor, blood] hurt inside me. There was nothing wrong with it – it seemed [normal / sacred / symbol of blessing], nothing set it apart. I know [water … could this relate to the feeding above? Fabricated flesh? Condensed water?]. But it hurt. It burned. It was strange. I haven’t burned like this since the [princess, but framed like the sign for disease / biohazard] came to us. I think I can live on it. We will have to see. The [grey building / silver toothed] and the [strong machine] say they can alter the [cunning artifice, machinery. Fabricator?], change the recipe, it is intended for [medical?] use [implied holy, old usage, may be confusing religious sanctuary with hospital] and was not designed to make [full humans, true life, image-of-God … ables?? Fabrication technology doesn’t line up], and it doesn’t really – not real ones. Maybe I can learn to feed from an artificial [dispenser / fount]. Maybe that will dull the fire.

It makes three [months, pretty sure now] to the [blue star] seem a very long time. It makes [eternity? Xidh cora laar but with the ghåålic infinite frame] seem … unthinkable.

The [silver toothed, grey building / fearful?] is adding a final appendix, a closing chapter to the maniac’s ramblings. A final series of [events / adventures, lies] that he didn’t get a chance to write down, telling of the end of his long story. Closure, perhaps. I don’t know why she does it. Why does she consider it worth doing? The [grey building] is strange. But no stranger than the rest of us, I suppose.

I sometimes take out the [vessel? Cell, womb (artificial)? Ceremonial urn maybe, what was that book about old Earth funerary customs…?] that is all that remains of him. Is he the last human? The last [purebreed / wild strain / unaltered]? The [strong machine] says no, that there are many, that they thrive out here in the [black nothing]. I hope this is true, and at the same time I hope it is a lie. I wonder if [he / the maniac? Sloane’s remains? Check the Declivitorion catechism] is aware of where he is. I wonder if he hurts. Part of me hopes he does, part of me hopes he does not [re-check this part, if it’s a funerary urn then he can’t hurt / be alive? This may be poetic form]. The same parts, perhaps, as those that hope [humanity, but this is a non-sentient / cattle marking?] is no more, or hope that it survives and prospers. Those parts are different each [day / flowering with implied pain], sharing and relinquishing dominance within me.

I don’t understand how the [grey building, silver toothed] can write his final chapter when I [hold it in my hand?].

I wonder if he will [abstract future point] emerge. I wonder if I should empty the [urn] into the [black nothing], or throw it whole from the [electrical blue, in this context could be the airlock mechanism, maybe it has blue markings and is electrically operated?]. I don’t know which is the right course, and whether there is any difference. I only know that if we are taking the [dead flowers / last words / epitaph?] off the dying [world], and those [words] are going to belong to him, then they cannot be the only [words].

He can’t be all there is.