The depot is quiet. Supplies are secured. I'm safe. I eat, I drink, I wait for the usual snarky comment about my appetite.
Nothing. I tell myself they're just busy. They always disappear after a big drive — probably recalibrating something, or pulling my leg. They'll be back.
Very funny. You made your point. I survived the storm. Now come back and tell me I looked ridiculous.
Silence. I walk back to the base alone. The stars are wrong. The gravity feels wrong. Even the air tastes different. Something is off about this place.
I look up. Two moons crawl across the sky. They barely move — one full orbit takes 47 days for the inner one. I can't watch them in real time. So I'll mark where they are today, and come back tomorrow. That's how astronomy started: patience.
In the corner of the depot, under a stack of supply manifests, I find a notebook. 4physics logo on the cover. Handwritten field records. The handwriting is neat, detailed — orbital data, derivations, observations.
The last page has a name on the cover. My name. The callsign I registered with. I don't remember writing any of this. But the diagrams, the notes about G being wrong… I wrote them. Whoever "I" was.
- Who am I?
- Where am I?
- Why does physics still work here — but differently?
Philosophy has its three great questions. Economics has its three great questions. I have mine.
The notebook has a section on conic sections — ellipses, parabolas, hyperbolas. The polar equation r = a(1−e²)/(1+e·cosθ). I've forgotten this. Or I never learned it here. Either way, I need it now. I take the notes. I look up. Two moons crawl across the sky. Time to observe.