The Crystal Cave

Thirty-six had been contracted as crew members aboard the garbage scow and tow barge Interpret, only a handful remain alive. All the others were transmuted by the local life forms and then assimilated. Many exsanguated themselves, others walked away from the shelter of the ship to freeze to death in the subzero weather. Several of the crew members and myself found their frozen bodies while doing perimeter checks.
Why wouldn't they listen to me? I tried to warn them, but they wouldn't, or couldn't hear me, maybe they were just to far gone...lost in their minds. I heard the voices in my head, but blocked them out. Captain Kavne Olson was the first go. He began acting rather weired, as if always plugged in and talking to the ships computer, even tho he didn't ware a ear monitor. We all noticed when the horns...antlers started to erupt from both sides of his head. We joked about it and started called him, "Longhorn of North", and "Old Son Caribou", he didn't seem to care. And all the others? Similar things happened to them, one after another, they surrendered over to the ice planet and were transfigured in to different life forms. I watched in horror, not knowing at the time what to do, or how to help them. Captain Olson had done a remarkable job landing the garbage barge and he had tried his best to keep the crew safe from the arctic elements of the planets surface. I will always remember him as a hero.

I hope my journal entries will some day reach the hands of what's left of my family, so they will know what happened to me. My spirits are low, and I calculate my chances are slim-to-none of ever being rescued, in the mean time, it does make me feel better knowing that six of my friends and crew mates have a chance to make the outer rim of this planets star system. If their escape ship can make it to the rim, they may be picked up by an off-course merchant freighter, or even a military scouting vessel. At least they have a chance to reach home. Home. What a sweet word.
I can't say that I did not have knowledge of their mutiny and stealing of the escape pod. They were all officers, and I am a dime-a-dozen private with a low I.Q. No other ship would sign me on except the Interptet, and that was because I agreed to work for minim wages, and a chance to learn a trade. So who was I to interfere when they escaped. Six officers with a chance of survival, twenty-seven known dead, two missing and presumed dead, and me...not a very happy ending to what started out as a routine garbage transfer mission.

The wind has stopped howling, and so have those werewolf ghost things. The only sound is the tinging of the stove pipe which needs to be cleaned again. I have traveled down from the polar ice fields to the timber line, and am now holdup in a cabin that looks as if it may have been salvaged from an alien ship. Two observation windows look out on to a forest of mixed pine trees. Here the colour spectrum is different than on Earth. I have seen shades of colours, beautiful hues and tones that I have no words to describe. Many things have I paid close attention to while on this planet: anomalies of sounds, smells and even the taste of the food that substanes life. However, none of that really matters now. All scientific equipment used to measure such phenomena has been lost, left behind at the crash site. The science officers on board gathered as much data as they could.
I believe there is some kind of...what can I call it? Evil intelligence. At times it seems as if it is trying to take over my mind and body. The fact that it comes and goes is puzzling. I block it out by my will power alone. I think it has something to do with my genetic makeup. Both my parents were explorers of the off world space lanes. Their ship was lost in a meteor shower in the Orion sector. I was very young, yet still remember them. Once I had a image book with there pictures, a family album. It's to painful to look back now anyway. I hope they know how much I loved them, and I hope they can forgive me for not being smart, because the best job I could get was looked down on as worthless to most of the crew.
I did meet and shake hands with Mr. Vennie Verdi a couple of times. Mr. Verdi owns and operates the space garbage salvage franchise. His contracts reach just about as far as anybody has traveled in to space. He's a nice man, told me I should be proud of my work. "Doing the work nobody else will do shows character." he said. Maybe he says that to a lot of workers just to make them feel better about their jobs. He said, "Getting to the top of the heap may not be easy, but the view is great, and there's alot of money to be made in garbage." He should know, he is a very rich man.
Oh! I almost forgot to mention, I found an old book. It was tucked under a pile animal skins in the back of the cabin. I've been trying to decipher the language, but haven't made much progress so far. The maps and graphs are interesting. I wish I knew what the word "Tome" means. On the cover of the book is a strange metal medallion in the shape of a dragon. Some kind of green faceted gem stone is set in the dragons front claws, and it has small red stones for eyes. The books cover is made from a silver metal material. It's very sparkly when I hold the book up to the window light during the day, and strangest of all, it glows when this planets three sister moons rise at night.
I have no way of knowing how much time has passed sense I left the crash site and found this place. The compass, given to me by my father so long ago doesn't seem to work here, so I drove the land scout, until I found the cabin. Wow! No wonder my nick name is Lucky Ualaxy.
Guess I had better stop writing now. It must be getting colder, the small stove isn't putting out the heat it should and besides, I want to see if I can figure out some more of the writing in that old book.
One more thing, I just want to mention the lamp I use for light when it's dark. It too I found in the cabin under the animal skins that I now use for a bed. The lamp is very old and works by some kind of magic. Late one afternoon during a terrible snow storm, I was sitting by the fire wondering how it might work. In the dim light I said something like, "Please, I sure wish this old lamp worked, I could use some light to look over the writing in this book." I had the book sitting on my lap, and the lamp in my hands, and all of a sudden, the lamp started to glow with bright light. I said, "Thank You." I tried several nights after that and nothing happened. Now it works whenever I say, "Please", and "Thank You." It really is some kind of powerful magic.