Tangents
To: Agency Archives, Temporal Anomaly Division
From: Chit, Cinderfox Scribe, bound to Traveler Nina 99
Subject: Observations - Shard 126, Planet Keiron IV (Or is it V? I always get those two mixed up. Reminds me of that time I visited Shard 17 with Uncle Klip and we ended up on the wrong planet entirely! Turns out, their version of Keiron IV was a gas giant. Not very hospitable, let me tell you. Poor Uncle Jasper still can't get the smell of methane out of his fur.)
Nina insists on calling this place Keiron IV, so we'll go with that for now. Arrived here... oh, must have been about 2 cycles ago, I suppose. (Though, it's hard to say for sure with all this temporal distortion floating about. Did I mention the temporal distortion? Quite troubling, really. Reminds me of when Great Aunt Tizz spent a year on a shard where time moved backward! She said it was quite disorienting, especially trying to eat breakfast before she'd woken up.)
Anyway, back to Keiron IV. Humans here, much like everywhere else, it seems. Though I must say, their fashion sense is rather... peculiar. All tall hats and long coats in drab browns and greys. (Not at all like the vibrant hues of the Cinderfox community back on Shard 99. Oh, how I miss those dazzling displays of crimson and gold during mating season! Speaking of which, I wonder how Cousin Lunk is doing. I hope he's not still courting those vixens from the Southern Cross temple. I'd hate to see him sucked into that astral mystic ritual sacrifice nonsense.)
As for the Collapse, yes, yes, there are signs. Definitely some seismic disturbances. Nina's been tracking them with that new device of hers. (I think she called it a "tessellatron." Such a strange word, isn't it? Sounds like the name of a particularly fearsome predator from Shard 235. I wonder if it has sharp claws and creepy glowing mechnaical eyes...) And the humans are quite jittery, always rushing around and muttering about something called a "paradox plague." Apparently, they have these things called "rifts" - naturally occurring gates that function similar to the ones the Agency used to use in the old days, only much less reliable. (I tried to explain the concept of quantum entanglement to one of the locals, but he just stared at me blankly. Honestly, some humans are so uncultured...)
Nina seems to think there's a connection between these "rifts" and the Collapse. Perhaps she's right. Or perhaps it's all just a coincidence. (Like that time I found a five-leaf clover and then tripped over a rock and sprained my tail. Purely coincidental, I assure you.) I'll let you know if anything truly noteworthy happens. In the meantime, I might try to find some decent snacks around here. This planet has a serious lack of firefruit.
