Given that we here at the Institute write up a lot of breathless reports of what we’ve found, we hope the reader will not be too dismissive of this latest entry into that oeuvre.
Jayce brought me fragment 418.E.334 to review a few days ago. He was quite happy to have recovered another entry from the Uriel’s mission recorder. He was somewhat surprised when, after reading the first line, I leapt to my feet and sprinted down the hall. I had forgotten that since all of M. Chava’s work takes place in the data-sphere, he was not necessarily up to current findings on the physical archive from the Cabot mission.
What we have here is corroboration of Ursula’s extended lifespan. The Captain of the Uriel mentions her by name. And not only did she survive to see the second mission, she met them.
I called a meeting with Jeric, Lazlo, and Kell to give them the news. Lazlo said he was “gobsmacked.” This, of course, required a 30-minute lecture as to the origin of that ancient slang for “extreme surprise.” I swear he does that just to show off.
Dr. Lyra Abdi-Lund
Statement from Dr. Lazlo Soros
And now I am going to show off again! The real mystery of this fragment is why Ursula had trouble with the language of the Uriel’s crew. In her era, Ursula would have spoken a close variant of what was called American English (idiomatically distinct from the English of the then United Kingdom). The language of the Uriel’s crew would have been a fairly close cousin, with a mere 5 century drift. Given that English had existed in a recognizable form for even longer than that at the time of the Cabot mission, it seems odd she had trouble with it. Furthermore, given that Captain Mendelson tells us Ursula could not – or would not – answer questions about her origin, I believe our girl Ursula was hiding the truth from her would-be rescuers. The question is, why?
Oh, and the title of this commentary should have been “Gobsmacked.”
Laz
Fine, I changed it.
Lyra