Dear Jim,

when I looked out of the window this morning tiny snowflakes whirled down from the sky, which was just as grey as it had been for the whole last week. It has been too cold to do any work outside for a while now – or maybe I'm just not used to it. Barbara takes walks in the area, watching all the animals which have put on their winter dresses. Many birds have transformed their looks completely. Even the predators have exchanged their resdish-brown fur for a grey and white attire.

As much as I like Barbara I must say that I look forward to the hours when she is out of the 'house' and I can have the place to myself for a while. It was easier to get some time for oneself in summer, when we could just go outside and do our thing. Now I spend most of my time inside, reading up on different things, thinking of which projects lie ahead of me. If I am not in my own pod I go over to others' to fix things up or make improvements. Of course I could just go outside and take long walks, but the weather does not make this any fun for me. I wish there was at least some snow, but it is only cold and grey and the wind is going through and through. Gerald says that even Ryker wants to stay at home.

I spent the morning reading up on things. Data has piled up which I have marked for reading at a later time. There are documents about all the technological advancements we have missed and I think it cannot be wrong to keep being informed – even if we are lagging two years behind on our information.

I have recently received a message from Mom, telling me about her brand new kitchen bot and how handy it is. She told me about all the great dishes it helped her to cook and how proud she was that she managed to supply it with grandma's recipes. After five tries the bot managed to cook up a very convincing imitation of grandma's famous minestrone and after eight tries it almost replicated her sponge cake. It did however fail so far on aunt Gertrud's pasta salad. I am impressed. Not only by the bot cooking so well but also by Mom being able to operate it correctly.

Do you remember when we gave her that cleaning drone as a birthday present? She wasn't happy with the settings we had adjusted and re-did it all herself. In the end she had to re-frame all the family pictures and buy new dishes. I don't think this machine has seen the light of day in the past fifteen years (as it really been that long by now?). It's great to see her finding a piece of technology she can enjoy for a change.

I also read up on the news from the other clusters. All the cluster coordinators write regular reports which are free to read for everyone and also get sent back home along with the scientific data of our researchers.

Cluster 1 reports that the sea is too rough to do any naval research at the moment, but the wind and the spray form picturesque ice sculptures at the shore. There were pictures attached. Very pretty.

Some animal broke into the chicken coop at Cluster 2 and they lost half of their flock of chickens. Some could be found running around and were caught after an effort of all the people of the cluster. They want to warn everyone to keep their animals secure.

While we have to live with some tiny snow flakes and generally grey weather here at cluster 3, there fell quite a lot of snow in the mountains. All of Cluster 4 have been informed that they should stay in the vicinity of the settlement. There are snow drifts and they are afraid of avalanches on the steeper slopes.

The people of Cluster 5 are probably the most fortunate at the moment as they have hot springs close by. They seem to enjoy them very much at the moment and are making good use of the cabin they have built at the springs during summer. But they must freeze to death when they get out of the water? I don't know if I trust this news. . .

Cluster 6 is bragging about the meeting hall they built during autumn. They are about to finish the interior and furnishings. This may not sound like a very useful project, but I already shudder at the thought of having another in-person meeting at the tent during winter. They have a nice picture of their team (which as you know is the largest of all clusters) inside of the hall.

I also found a message from Darius, the engineer of Cluster 4, who had more ideas about how to solve the problem with the Doctors' pod. I don't think this can be solved before spring because I don't intend to work in the freezing cold of a pod without power unless it is absolutely necessary. Nonetheless I am very grateful for Darius' thoughts and I am sure they will be helpful later. I am surprised he is making such an effort to help me out. Maybe there is not enough work to do in Cluster 4 and he is bored?

When Barbara returned at noon she was freezing and I made her a warm tea before preparing lunch for us. Arthur offers to make something to-go every day, but in this weather I don't feel like going over and picking something up. Sometimes Peter brings food along when he picks some up himself. If at least the wind would stop blowing the weather would only be half as bad. Therefore, Barbara's pictures of the location were mostly holes and grey-and-white rocks.

While sipping her tea, Barbara told me about the long-legged bird she watched stalking the lake shore, catching fish and other small animals in the water. She also sneaked close to the predator's hill – for which I scolded her – but there were no creatures to be seen. They seem to be smart enough to stay mostly in their dens in this weather. Barbara used her camera drone to get even closer to the hill, but all there was to see were the large grey-and-white rocks which were piled up there. In the shadows beneath them lay the entrances to the predators' homes. I looked at the pictures for a while, trying to figure out what they reminded me of, but then Barbara went on telling me about a ruffed bird she saw in a tree. It was a bird of prey she had never seen before from up close and she was impressed by its size.

In the evening we had to realize that we didn't have any insta-meals in the kitchen which we felt like eating at that moment. So we played a game of cards and the loser had to go outside to the storage boxes and get some more. Of course it was me. So I put on my jacket and gloves and scarf and wool cap and went outside. It was not late, but it was dark already and the wind was strong. The trees were howling like restless ghosts and as there were clouds in the sky I was surrounded by almost complete darkness.

I could see the faint shine of windows in the surrounding pods and Peter's shed, but they only gave emphasis on how dark it really was. I shone the flashlight on my wrist pad around the area, but could see nothing but dead grass moving in the wind. I opened the crate with the provisions (which is fortunately possible with gloves on as it is supposed to work even if you're wearing an environmental suit) and started to rummage for the right kinds of insta meals. I took a new box of cocoa too, just in case.

Suddenly I heard an animal scream in the distance. There was a loud splash coming from the lake. The grass rustled near me. For an instant I saw several pairs of eyes around me, then they were gone.

I closed the lid of the crate as fast as I could, took what I already had in the bag I had brought with me and ran up the stairs and inside as fast as I could. I do not intend to go out there in the dark again soon.

When Barbara saw the look on my face she of course asked me all about what had happened. She tried to calm me down, explaining that there could be nothing out of the ordinary at the lake. Maybe my ears had played tricks on me in the wind. I am not convinced.

I lie here in my bed, listening to what I can hear from outside, but there is nothing out of the ordinary. I move the blind at the tiny window up a bit to look outside, but there is only black. Even the little lights of the windows all seem to have gone out. Now I will try to sleep.

Love,
Sarah

Tavaron

06.05.24 Front Page

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