Golden Apples of the Sun

10023.10.006 Here at last! The third planet of the twin suns of Qu Ruk. The crew looked at me a bit oddly as they assembled my prefab quarters -who would want to stay here, in this strangely daunting place. I waved the ship goodbye into the copper sky and immediately began unpacking my equipment, nerves tingling with excitement of the discoveries I'm going to make. I have four periods until they return, easy enough if I'm to be as busy as I expect. Time will fly.  

10023.10.007 My first night was not at all restful. The strange noises coming from the forest around me were most disconcerting. Even though Helen Baxter's journals describe nothing dangerous I'll admit I rose and locked the door to my quarters. I woke to the welcoming sight of the suns feeling tired and somewhat jaded. My camp is set on a rocky outcrop sitting just above the forest which stretches out in each direction as far as the eye can see. To the north the distant mountains gape like ragged yellow teeth across the horizon. I have spent the day unpacking my equipment, it all looks to have withstood the demands of the trip and is in good order.  

10023.10.008. Another exhausting night with the noises of the forest keeping me awake with its screeches and squawking and odd ringing noises. I've spent my second day exploring the shadowy forest. It is a depressing, colourless place full of drab stained yellows and dull greys. Of the animals that kept me awake all night, I can see nothing. I hear movement in the tree canopy and the sudden rustling of the leaves as I approach through the undergrowth, but nothing shows itself to me. I tried one of the burnished fruits Helen Baxter described as being so delicious in her journal. It was so disgustingly bitter that I spat it out. Yet something is eating it- the ground is strewn with left over, half eaten cores. The place I see does not seem to fit the vibrant forests of Helen's records. 

10023.10.009. Back in the forest today. I can hear the animals scurrying round ahead of me but still encounter none. The birds I can see are far off, gloomy sulphur painted beasts climbing the thermals over the mountains. I'm beginning to think the ship has dropped me off on the wrong planet and I'm stuck in this pallid, lipid gaol, with its insipid grey palette and elusive wildlife until it returns. I feel that in the mind blowing numbness of it all I might go mad. My initial hopes for my studies have changed - this looks like a thankless bleak yellow stained inhospitable place which is far from what I was led to expect. 

10023.10.010. One sun here burns with the bright yellow of burning sodium, the other white magnesium. The effect on the landscape as they follow their independent paths across the sky is unsettling -pallid copper hues, bland yellows, washed out whites. I'm getting used to it now, the blandness of the colours. I've called the suns So and Mag which raises my spirits a little. 

10023.10.020. I find this place strange, a little frightening. I try to absorb myself in my work, taking samples, doing tests. I must keep busy until the ship returns. Last night I retreated early to my quarters. The sounds of the forest echoed up the rocks gully to me. At night the woods ring with unnervingly eerie noises that keep me awake. I don't dare leave my quarters for fear of what I may find. Another fitful night. 

10023.10.025. I take some comfort in sitting in my cabin rereading Helens test results. Even though she was here long before me, a pioneer, I feel I'm doing my bit too. Following in her footsteps. Science has advanced so much over the two hundred years that have passed. I read of her struggling with this or that test, whereas I can do the same in just a few moments with the equipment I have with me. But I cannot see the wonderful sprites she speaks of, the brilliance of the coats of the wildlife, the beauty of the forest. None of this is apparent to me. I find it bleak and inhospitable. I know now I've made a mistake coming here.  

10023.11.015 I haven't been keeping up with my journal. I see no point. Something is wrong; there is no spectacular beauty here, the pleasures of the planet that journal held the promise of does not exist. I now suspect Helen encountered the same as I and was left here so long she became maudlin and made up the journal as some form of entertainment. And then two hundred years ago she closed it's cover and wondered off into the forest to die. And all the ship was able to find when it came for her was the empty camp and incomplete journal. I look out and wonder where her body lies. Perhaps one day I may stumble across it, half buried in plumes of dull windblown leaves. The thought makes me shudder. 

10023.11.025 Something has happened! I resolved last night to put my fears behind me and sit outside and watch the forest in the hope of encountering some nocturnal life. I built a large fire even though I knew it would frighten off anything of interest. I was so tired I must have dosed off. When I awoke with a start the fire had died to its embers. And there before me the forest below had lit up with a host of tiny beautiful lights that danced and flitted through the trees. The effect was entrancing. I sat and watched until morning came, captivated by the spectacle. 

10023.11.026. Yesterday I reread Helens journals with mounting excitement -what I saw must have been the sprites she writes of. I sat outside again last night without the fire and waited. I'm still afraid of the noises from the forest but hoped the sprites will come to me on my rocky outcrop- and amazingly one did. It broke from the forest edge and dipped and jumped its way up the long gully to the camp. I sat still so as not to frighten it as it flitted around my head. A tiny glowing ball of magical celestial light. It stayed with me until the morning suns forced it into retreat back into the shadows of the woodland. 

10023.11.027. Outside at night again. This time a whole host of the sprites broke away from the forest and tumbled up over the rocks to greet me. I sat still so I could study them flicking and dancing around my head. And Then! I coughed and accidently sucked one into my lungs. When I coughed again a thin ethereal string of light emerged from my mouth and the sprite reformed itself it front of my face. I was so relieved to see no harm was done to it. 

10023.12.012 The sprites come at night. As I sit stirring the embers of the fire they drift up from the forest on the breeze and hang around me and if drawn to me by some sort of magnetism. I suck them into my lungs and blow them out -elegant streams of blushed ribbon that recombine to form little balls of pulsating light. I have tried to catch one for analysis but have not found any specimen jar that can hold them. 

10023.1.010. I've been so entranced in my new found friends I've been ignoring my heath. I've been sleeping all day and working outside at night and hardly eating. Checking in the mirror this morning I saw with surprise my irises flecked with strands of gold. The effect is most peculiar. At first I thought, it being early morning it was a trick of So's sodium light flowing into my quarters but, on pulling the blinds down and checking with a pencil lite I find there is most definitely a change. I have been spending all my nights at camp with the sprites. Tomorrow I must return to the forest to see if anything has been missed. 

10023.1.011. I've been into the forest today for the first time for a long time. The change in my eyes seems to be impacting my vision. The land so once covered in interminable yellows and greys now appears strung with hues of shimmering light, bright reds, brilliant greens, vivid purples. Intricate patterns have appeared on the leaves of plants, their flowers give out an intense spectrum of lustrous russets, bronzes and glittering incandescent nickels and silvers. A pallet of colours I cannot begin to describe. The effect is overwhelming to the senses. I think somehow my vision has moved up a notch or two into the ultra- violet.  

10023.1.015. Today I caught my first sight of an animal. Like a centaur it looked at me startled through it's golden eyes before racing off into the forest bouncing high over the fallen boughs. Then surprisingly something drew me to the fruits I found so disgusting before. Now their skins appear lustrous, like burnished amber, heavenly crafted objects, not meant to be eaten but put on display in a gallery to be admired. Instinctively I tried one again. I cannot believe something that tasted so bad before is now so exquisitely delightful. I collected a jacket full and bought them back to camp with me.  

10023.1.020. Last night I resolved to put my fears behind me and find the source of the ringing noise that disturbs the nights. I left the comfort of the glow of the fire and went into the shadows with my pen lite, trailed by a comforting cloud of shimmering sprites. I followed the noise which seemed to shift and echo through the woodland and then I came upon it. How can I have been so foolish! I looked up, my head drawn by the sound to see the leaves of the trees above me ringing together in the night breeze. And to think I was afraid! 

10023.2.008. My skin seems to have taken on a light copper sheen. My hair flashes with gold strands in the light of the suns as I walk about. I wonder if this is the impact of my recently changed diet. It's a little disconcerting as now my pupils have also transformed. I now look into the mirror and eyes with perfect orbs of pure gold leaf stare back. I've make a note to stop eating the fruit and to do some tests with my kit. If there is something wrong I need to deal with it quickly. 

10023.2.009. My blood and biopsy tests are fine. In fact more than fine, 'top notch' in a phrase. And I feel good as well. I'm back on the fruit and drinking the cooling liquid that dances in the light over the silver pebbles in the stream I've found in the woods close by. 

10023.3.008. During the days I've taken to wondering through the woodland consumed in awe of it all. Up and down the hills and glades catching the radiant pulsing light of the sun's reflecting off the foliage in such a multitude of entrancing colours. The animals with their shimmering coats of glowing bronze and silvers run through the woodland ahead of me. The trees are full of exotic birds with long glowing gossamer light feathers ablaze with a multitude of radiant lights. I stare bewitched for hours at a time into the leaves above at the bewildering confusion of scattered rainbow hues pulsating through the canopy. How I'm ever going to leave this place and return to the drabness of earth I cannot think. 

10023.3.014. At night I sit with the sprites drifting around me, a bowl of fruits collected from the forest floor, listening to the music of the trees drifting up from the forest below, drinking the liquid from the stream. Far off the mountains glow in a cool bright light. I wonder if that is the source of the sprites as Helen suggested in her journal. She, like me was entranced with the mountains. I must find out. It's hard to tell how far but it's surely worth the trip however long it takes.  

10023.3.016. I've known for some time now that I've not been alone. I feel something, someone, has been watching me. The feeling is odd but not unpleasant for I now know I have nothing to fear here. I think whatever it is has been in my camp. It's not much, a book I put down that has been lifted and returned slightly out of place, my toothbrush on the table where I'm sure I did not place it. It's the little things but enough for me to know. 

10023.3.022. I saw her today standing on the ridge of trees by the edge of my compound. She is young, hardly older than thirty I would guess. Gold skinned, glittering gold hair. She just stood and watched knowing I could see her. When I tried to approach she just disappeared into the copper boughs. She could have been ten feet from me and I would not have known. 

10023.3.024. I have packed my shoulder bag. I am going today. I can see her shimmering golden form on the forest edge waiting. I'll return her journals back to her when I meet her. We'll go together to the mountains and see what's there. I'll leave my research notes and my journals. Hopefully one day they may be interest to someone.  

I shan't be coming back, don't try to find us. You'll not succeed. 

The captain looked up. 'Anything?' 

'No, nothing. We've searched as far as we can.' The team leader slumped down exhausted on the rock. 

'I suppose it's these suns. This light. It's enough to send anyone mad. He's out there somewhere. He's right, we'll never find him.' He shook his head. 'Just like that women who was here before. I think we should recommend no one comes here again - this is a dam awful depressing place.'  

He slipped the journals into his jacket and walked back to the ship. 'Come on, we're done here. Let's go.'

A simple traditional story in the genre of the time I hope. The Golden Apples of the Sun of my title was a series of short stories by SciFi author Ray Bradbury written in 1953. He in turn took it from W B Yeats -'The Song of Wandering Aengus' written in 1899. 

Though I am old with wandering 

Through hollow lands and hilly lands, 

I will find out where she has gone 

And kiss her lips and take her hands; 

And walk among long dappled grass, 

And pluck till time and times are done 

The silver apples of the moon, 

The golden apples of the sun.

It's not hard to guess who the golden apples are in my tale.