Trouble?

Now I know why my human self had no civilised contact with any locals. They are all dead.

I had been tracking the signal for two hours and eventually came across a small settlement. The place was destroyed. Buildings lay in ruins, corpses lay around, their flesh clearly melted off of their bones. There had obviously been a fight. It was laid out a little like a western. The street was deserted except for a few corpses that lay in the street, behind objects for shelter or in the middle of the street, rifles and pistols next to them. They had clearly been fighting to defend the settlement.

I didn't look too closely, but it seems that this could have happened any time between 40 and 50 years ago. I'll leave that for the archaeologists, no doubt that they shall be here one day. Maybe they shall receive a couple of nudges and hints from somewhere. ;)

The site clearly hadn't been disturbed in all that time, which means that no one from any neighbouring settlements came to help. Maybe they weren't able to. I just about make out another settlement on the horizon, since I'm heading that way, I shall take a look at it, but the same thing appears to have happened there.

Maybe there are other settlements somewhere, but I can not see any for now.

I am currently camped out under a tree. It seems a little strange that in this flat, sandy landscape, there is one tree randomly standing. I scanned it first just to be safe, but it appears to be as it appears to be. A tree.

Now, I have a long walk ahead of me so I'm going to sleep for a few hours, this has been a long day. Fourty-nine hours, twenty-seven minutes and three point four seconds, to be precise. That is the time that it takes for this planet to make a full rotation. I worked that out in the first five seconds after I got my body back.