Year 4 Day 236

Nile SunsetOne of the bits of information that is in the computer files is that pregnant women sometimes crave particular foods, and that seems to carry over to the People. At least Songbird would very much like some dates.

The particular clone of trees I found earlier did indeed produce a fruit that the People relished, but most of the trees of that type do not. Since that clone does not currently have ripe fruit, I added testing of palm trees to my mapping–somewhat doubtfully, as the coastline I am now mapping is pure desert. Today, however, I levitated enough to get an overview of the area (and make myself very short of breath) and while I did not see any ending of this very salty sea to the north, I spotted a thread of green far to the west. A river? Could it flow into the tideless sea I seek?

It was indeed a river, and on its banks grew not only reeds, but date palms. And the river flows northward! I spent the rest of today checking for ripe fruit, feeling for high sugar content. And I found another of the trees with sweet fruit. It must be a rare mutation, so I made sure I memorized the teleport coordinates of that tree as well as gathering some of the fruit.

Shall I continue my mapping of the coastline of the salty sea, assuming that it will eventually meet with the destination of the river? Or start tomorrow from the river and follow it northward?

Whichever way I choose, Songbird (and Giraffe and Meerkat) were overjoyed to have the dates.

Jarn’s Journal is a fictional journal kept by a fictional alien stranded in Africa roughly 125,000 years ago. He is being treated as a god (much to his annoyance) by a group of primitive humans calling themselves the People. The story is the remote backstory to my published novels Homecoming and Tourist Trap and the trilogy I am currently editing. Jarn’s Journal to date is on my author site.