September 21, 2555: There are several constructions on the moon's surface. They were clearly made by intelligent life! Many of them are large buildings, very large. They might be hardened against more than just cosmic bombardment. Long, wide corridors connect several of them. Craters have destroyed some buildings; ejecta obscure others. Mike thinks they've been long abandoned. I am inclined to agree. We're transmitting images and data back to Eridani.

September 22, 2555: We're orbiting the moon's farside. Amrit has deployed telescopes to scan the moon's surface in greater detail. Mike is deploying a fleet of orbital probes to continue the search for the Warden. At present, the farside is completely lit by the sun.

September 27, 2555: The farside of the moon has only a few of the features we observed on our approach. The orbital probes are arrayed and Mike has linked them to a relay network so we can access them from the other side of the moon. We're setting a course for the nearside.

September 28, 2555: We watched the planet rise over the surface of the moon from the cockpit this morning. Besides brief telescopic images taken during our descent to lunar orbit, this was our first real sighting. The planet seems cold and barren. The poles are white with enormous glaciers. Only hints of color peer through the clouds around the equator.

September 29, 2555: We're in orbit around the moon's nearside. Only half of the moon's surface is lit by the sun. It's waxing toward full. Mike is preparing another fleet of probes. Amrit is making observations of several structures on the moon's surface.

October 3, 2555: I've thawed Ken and Marie. They were naturally shocked by our location and the fate of the Solar system. We all are. The daily discoveries Amrit has been making are keeping our minds from our troubles. We are preparing a dropship to explore the lunar surface.

October 5, 2555: The chosen site is one of those we initially thought was the Warden from a distance. We can now see it was once a large community. The area is punctuated by craters that have ruined some structures. Some of the craters are themselves cratered. Amrit is analyzing the crater patterns to determine their age. He thinks these structures were abandoned millions of years ago. Mike is preparing seismic probes to place on the lunar surface to get a better estimate.

October 6, 2555: Amrit and I have landed on the moon. The sun is directly overhead in the middle of a lunar day that lasts about 30 Earth days, very much like the moon we are familiar with. It comforts me to think the celestial dance may be universal. We immediately set up the seismic probes and a mining device to extract minerals from the lunar soil then set off to explore. We easily entered several buildings opened by meteor damage. We discovered metal devices mounted to the walls. Several empty niches may have once held other devices. The robots detached a few to take back to the Alexandria. We explored further into the ruins through open doorways that were roughly human shaped. Some were rectangular; others were circular or nearly so. We discovered a warren of rooms filled with very little debris, some empty containers of unusual shapes and empty shelves. We also found several flat but low constructions that we've called furniture, although they're too low for normal human use. They are usually constructed of metal, but we found some wood and fabric. These pieces were remarkably well preserved in the vacuum of space. Even more amazing were the numerous, white sculptures we found in nearly every room. They look like ceramic trees. They are bent into various shapes but all look strikingly similar. The smallest one was about 50 centimeters tall. The largest was over two meters. Amrit and I think they were objet d'art but Ken thinks they were security devices. Mike thinks they may have been used as lamps but no power source can be found. We tried to bend a few of their branches but they were brittle and broke off. Inside there were long strands of white fibers. The robots have stowed many of these artifacts in the dropship.

October 7, 2555: We found a corridor with a metal wall and detected a large empty space beyond it. The robots cut through the wall but there was an atmosphere beyond. As soon as they punctured the wall, the door blew into pieces. The air blew out with gale force. Amrit and I hid in a nearby room so we were not injured in the melee that followed. The wind blew the room's contents into the corridor. They smashed into the walls and each other and shattered into hundreds of sharp fragments. One of the robots was completely destroyed and a few others were damaged. After the space beyond the wall depressurized, we ordered the robots back to the dropship with the remains of their fallen comrades. We're exploring the space beyond the metal wall right now. There is a hole torn in it large enough for us to step through. There's a large, long corridor on the other side. Rails made of ceramic run along the ceiling. On the walls there are giant murals. The murals are gouged in places, possibly by debris blown through the rupture. The colors are badly faded. Portions are bubbled into a red mud. However, enough remains to see humanoids in the murals. It's impossible to see what their faces look like. Some seem to be dressed in black costumes and look like they are slaughtering other humanoids that resemble children and old men. I pity them. In my imagination, I hear their long dead voices crying to be remembered.

October 8, 2555: We're on our way back to the Alexandria. We're bringing a full load of calcium, aluminum and iron oxide.

October 9, 2555: We found words written on several walls and doors on the moon. We transmitted the images we took to Eridani but there are no linguistic analysis programs in the ship's computers and no crewmembers with skills in linguistics onboard. We're on our own for translations. I wonder what the reaction will be on Eridani when they see these pictures. They won't get the data for another 52 years. Whatever response they send won't reach us for at least 104 years. If we can't find the Warden, maybe we'll hibernate and wait for their response. [laughter] No one's really said much about the Warden lately. It's a good thing, too. Mike has completed the nearside probe array and linked it to the relay from the farside, but none of the probes have found any sign of the Warden or any alien intelligence.

October 11, 2555: Mike, Marie and Ken have taken a dropship. They landed on the other side of the site we explored. They set up the miner, stopped by the war mural and journeyed to the center of the complex. They found an enormous pit. Ken said it was like standing at the Crack of Doom. The pit was perfectly round and lined with ceramic. It was too deep to see the bottom. The pit was covered with an equally enormous frame. It was collapsed over the top of the pit like a haphazard grate. Perhaps the frame had once housed a winch or protected the pit from the sun's rays. The team attached a winch to the frame and lowered a probe 500 meters down. At that depth, the bottom was still not visible. The sides of the pit were uniformly constructed of the ceramic material. There were no openings at all.

October 13, 2555: The team is back on the Alexandria. Amrit and I have returned to the moon with longer cables. We labored for hours before finally reaching the bottom: 3200 meters. Our probe sent back pictures of a large piece of machinery fitted into the bottom. It was partly covered by debris.

October 14, 2555: Mike has examined the ceramic and metal devices. The ceramics are a little pliant, unlike real ceramics, but under too much stress they break. Inside the metal casings we retrieved, there are multiple layers of a flexible material composed of petroleum-based polymers. The layers are connected by the same white fibers inside the ceramic trees. Mike said the polymers smelled like mold. I've quarantined him in his lab until we know the mold is dangerous or not.

October 16, 2555: Robots have been hauling debris from the pit for two days. The machinery at the bottom has been uncovered but the mystery remains. It has no obvious purpose, no exposed electronics, no input or output. Ken, watching from the Alexandria, suggested it wasn't machinery at all but something purposefully buried there, perhaps radioactive waste. Ken is alone in that opinion. It begs the question why the pit was left exposed and why was it so central to such a large installation?

October 17, 2555: Marie has given Mike a clean bill of health. The polymers found in the alien devices did contain mold, but they were dead and possessed no latent spores. Just to be safe, I've given Mike orders to open all alien devices in a controlled environment and have them tested for biotics before further testing.

October 18, 2555: Mike, Marie and Ken have returned to the moon to explore a different site. They've landed in a tightly knit gathering of buildings nestled inside a small crater. Marie has given it the name Wart City because of the way it looks. There's very little damage there. They had to cut their way into the buildings, but we've learned from our mistakes. A robot carefully sealed a portion of the door, punctured it and slowly released the air. Once inside, they found numerous small suites that looked like apartments. There were very few artifacts. All the buildings we've explored seem to have been abandoned in an orderly fashion. The occupants took whatever they could carry or thought valuable.

October 19, 2555: Near the center of Wart City, the team found another mural. This one depicted a large forest scene. It's a remarkable find! The plants and animals in the forest are wildly exotic, unlike anything known on Earth! Marie said she felt like she was staring into a prehistoric moment captured for eternity.

October 21, 2555: The sun is on the opposite side of the moon today, leaving its nearside in total darkness. The robots are all equipped with floodlights. For the next several days we won't need the extra layers of radiation gear.

October 24, 2555: Amrit and I explored a site that seems to have been a radio telescope or a transmitter of some kind. At the bottom of an artificial crater we found the nearly complete remains of a parabolic dish. We found dozens of unique polymer devices and brought them back to the Alexandria.

October 28, 2555: Mike, Marie and Ken have discovered another large room with murals. Three long walls depict an earthlike savannah with exotic animals playing beneath exotic trees. None of the animals seem hostile or even wild. Ken has nicknamed it the 'Nursery'. Nearby they found a long hallway painted as if it were underwater. Aquatic life swam or fed off the bottom. Some of the sea creatures are remarkably similar to plesiosaurs or trilobites. One large sea creature looked identical to a modern shark. Only the tail was strikingly different. The plant life growing on the ocean floor looked more alien than anything I've seen yet. A multitude of sizes and shapes floated in the water, some secured to the ocean floor by long tendrils.

October 30, 2555: I've told the crew I want to take the ship to the planet. Our supply of minerals for the matter compiler is running low. We've extracted a good deal of metals, oxygen and helium from the lunar surface, but only trace amounts of carbon. If there's anything edible on the planet, it'll be nice to have a change of diet. We'll stay for a few more days then leave orbit.

October 31, 2555: Just over half of the moon's nearside was lit by the sun today. Amrit chose a landing site that was still in shadow. It was a small site, a few structures at the bottom of a crater. Only a single building was large enough for a human to enter. A thick metal bulkhead barred the way. The robots cut it open but the space inside contained no air. Inside was a narrow chamber with stairs that descended several flights. At the bottom, we found several small rooms and a large rotunda. A round table with strands of white fiber and blocks of ceramic attached to it occupied the middle of the rotunda. A dark crystal was set into the center of the dome. The walls were painted with a mural. This one was spectacularly well preserved. It depicted two clashing armies. Fantastic, black airships rained fire on cities. Beneath the cities, humanoids sat peacefully in fortified bunkers. Despite being well preserved, their faces are strangely featureless except for a ridge on either side.