The Garden of Eden by Martin Westlake

The first paragraph had enough to ‘wake-up’ one’s attention. Good intro.

In this story, interior monologue gave us the thoughts and feelings of an
imaginative astronaut, the perils, the sense of mission, and his self-awareness.
This story might be Sci-Fi, but it could have been set in the old American West during covered-wagon days. Or on board a ship, or even as an adventurer in Africa.

The question of ‘do we want to live forever?’ is touched on briefly as it has been for many a century. Goli and the protagonist’s re-incarnation seem to be some shell in which their minds are transferred to, after the old shell is no longer of use.

I find it hard to believe that Goli’s helmet cracked when hit by an arm-thrown-pebble! Very hard. Unless the pebble had some innate energy that was released by it being thrown.

In essence, it was a very nice first person told story capturing the thoughts and feelings of a future astronaut, his mission, his environment and his time and place in a future society that, like ours, can’t be trusted!

good job!

[Robert_Moriyama]

...I find it hard to believe that Goli’s helmet cracked when hit by an arm-thrown-pebble! Very hard. Unless the pebble had some innate energy that was released by it being thrown....

Obviously, it was a bad batch (like the first batch of bat-headpieces in Christopher Nolan's "Batman Begins" that shattered when struck lightly with a hammer). Or perhaps Goli had sabotaged his own equipment to improve his chances of dying when he provoked the narrator into acting in self-defense... loosening valves and seals, treating the faceplate with acid or other agents to weaken the material.