Escape Pod 1036: We Who Live in the Heart (Part 2 of 3)

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Escape pod, episode 1036. We Who Live in the Heart. Part 2. By Kelly Robson.

Welcome to Escape pod, the science-fiction podcast. I'm Alista, your host and this week's story is the second in a three-part, by Kelly Robson.

You can find the previous part in episode 1035 or should be just up. A little bit to the left. There, you got it.

Kelly writes science-fiction fantasy in horror. Her short fiction collection, Alias Space and other stories was published by Subterranean and won the 2022 Aurora Award. Her time travel adventure gods, monsters in the Lucky Peach won the 2019 Aurora and was a finalist for the Hubell,

Nebula, Theodore Sturgeon and Locus. Her most recent book, The Fantasy Stone of Comedy, High Times in the Low Parliament, was a finalist for the Nebula.

In 2018, her story a human stain won the Nebula Award for Best Novelet and her story We Who Live in the Heart. This one was a finalist for the 2018 Theodore Sturgeon.

In 2017, she was a finalist for the Astounding Award for Best New Writer and in 2016, her novella Waters of Versailles won the Pre-Oro Award and was a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy.

Her story, the three resurrections of Jessica Churchill was a finalist for the 2015 Theodore Sturgeon and her story to Year Man was a finalist for the 2015 Sunburst.

Kelly grew up in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies and as a teenager was crowned Princess of the Hinton Big Horn rodeo.

From 2008 to 2012, she wrote The Wine and Spirits column for Shattling, Canada's largest women's magazine.

Kelly consults as a creative futurist for national and international organisations. She and her wife, A.M. Delamonica, live in downtown Toronto.

Your narrator for this one is the always excellent Iber Arman cast. Iber is an award-winning writer-director based in LA available for audio or cinematic projects across the board.

She still hasn't found time to weld the website and encourages listeners to shame her about it on Instagram or Twitter.

Your audio producer this week is Adam Pratt, who lives in Kansas and asks that you've not held that against him.

He was the 2002 college recipient of the RFK Award for writing about the disadvantaged and has published a disappointingly slim volume of short stories called Frame Story.

Seven stories of sci-fi and fantasy horror and humour, which is available from Amazon, the Cineboko paperback.

He's been working on his second volume, shrouding his zombie, seven weird and wonderful tiles of the undead since 2012 and successfully finished the first story.

He hopes to complete it before he's cremated and takes up permanent residence in an earn.

You can also hear his narration and audio production work on two audible audio books and as a regular producer and occasional narrator for the travel cast.

So, the sky is calling. Let's see what it has to say.

Let's see what stories it has to tell.

Richie got into my notes. I don't keep them locked down. Anyone can access them.

Free and open distribution of data is a primary force behind the success of the human species after all.

Didn't we all learn that in the crash?

Making data available doesn't guarantee anyone will look at it and if they do, chances are they won't understand it.

Richie tried. She didn't just skim through, she really studied.

Shift after shift, she played with the numbers and gave my simulation models.

Maybe she slept? Maybe not.

I figured Richie would come looking for me if she got stumped, so I de-hermated, banged her out the rumpus room, put myself to work on random little maintenance tasks.

When Richie found me, I was in the caudal stump, dealing with the accumulated waste pellets.

Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like.

Half kilogram plugs of dry solid waste covered in wax and transferred from the laughs by the hygiene bots.

Liquid waste is easy.

We vaporize it, shunted into the gas exchange bladder, and flush it through the gill-like permeable membranes.

Solid waste? Well, just like anyone, we'd rather forget about it as long as possible.

We rack the pellets until there's about 200, then we jettison them.

Richie pulled up her goggles and scrub knuckles over her red rim dies.

Why don't you automate this process like you do for liquids?

Richie asked, as she helped me position the rack over the valve.

No room for non-essential equipment in the mass budget, I said.

I dilated the interior shutter and the first pellet clicked through.

A faint pink blush formed around the valve's perimeter, only visible because I dialed up the contrast on my goggles to watch for signs of stress.

A little hormone ointment to care of it, not too much, or we'd get a band of inflexible scar tissue.

And then, I'd have to cut out the valve and move it to another location.

That's a long, tricky process, and it's not fun.

There's only two bands of tissue strong enough to support a valve.

I bent down and struck the creamy striated tissue at my feet.

This is number two, and really it barely holds. We have to treat it gently.

Why risk it then? Take it out and just use the main valve.

A sarcastic comet bubbled up.

Have you never heard of a safety exit?

But I gaze into our big brown eyes and it faded into the clouds.

And we need two valves in case of emergencies. I mumbled.

Richie and I watched the pellets plunge through the sky.

When they hit the ice slush, the concussive wave kicked up a trail of vapor blooms.

Concentric rings lit with pinpoints of electricity.

So far below each flash just a spark in a violet sea.

A flock of jellies fled from the concussion.

Flat shells strobing the reflected lights.

Trains of ribbon-like tentacles flapping behind.

Richie looked worried.

Did we hit any of them?

I shook my head.

No, they can move fast.

After we'd finished dumping waste, Richie said.

Say, Doc, why don't you show me the main valve again?

I puffed up a little at that.

I'm proud of the valves.

Always tinkering, always innovating.

Always making them a little better.

Without the valves, we wouldn't be here.

Far forward, just below the pinnacle isthmus.

A wide band of filaments connects the petals to the bladder superstructure.

The isthmus skin is thick with connective tissue and provides enough structural integrity

to support a valve big enough to accommodate a cargo pod.

We pull due in here.

I padded the collar of the shutter housing.

Whoever prepared the pod had put you on a pink body bag.

I don't know why it was such a ridiculous color.

When Vula saw it, she said.

It's a girl.

I laughed.

Richie winced.

That joke makes sense.

Old style, I explained.

No, I get it.

Birth metaphor.

I'm not a crashy, Doc.

I know.

We wouldn't have picked you if you were.

Why did you pick me?

I grumbled something.

Truth is, when I ask our recruiter to find us a new havemate,

the percentage of viable applications approach is zero.

We look for a specific psychological profile.

The two most important success factors are low self-sensoring and high focus.

People who say what they think are never going to ambush you with long fermented resentments

and obsessive people don't get bored.

They know how to make their own fun.

Richie tapped her fingernail on a shutter blade.

Your notes aren't complete, Doc.

She looked up at me, unblinking.

No hint of a dimple.

Why are you hoarding information?

I'm not.

Yes, you are.

There's nothing about reproduction.

That's because I don't know very much about it.

Yeah, the whale crews do.

And they're worried about it.

You must know something, but you're not Sharon.

Why?

I glared at her.

I'm an amateur independent researcher.

My methods aren't rigorous.

It would be wrong to share shaky theories.

The whale crews had a collective research assignment once.

You wrote it.

She fired the document at me with a flick of her fingers.

I slapped it down and flushed it from my buffer.

That agreement expired.

We didn't renew.

That's a lie.

You dissolved it and left to find your own whale.

I aim my finger at the bridge of her goggles and jab the air.

Yes, I ran away.

So did you.

She smiled.

I left a network of halves with a quarter billion people who can all do just fine without me.

You ran from a few hundred who need you.

Running away is something I'm good at.

I bounced out of there double time.

Richie didn't call after me.

I would have answered if she had.

The next time she talked to Jane, Richie didn't mention me.

I guess it didn't rate high enough on her list of problems.

I didn't really listen to the details as they chatted.

I just liked having their voices in my head while I tinkered with my biosynthesis simulations.

Halfway through their session, voila pinged me.

You can quit spying, she said.

None of us are worried about Richie anymore.

I agreed and shut down the feed.

Richie's been asking you about you by the way.

Vula added.

Your history with the other whales.

Tell her everything.

Are you sure?

I've been spying on her for days.

It's only fair.

Better she heard the story from Vula than me.

I still can't talk about it without overheating.

And they tell me I'm scary when I'm angry.

Down below ground, the air is thick with rules written and unwritten.

The slowly-degang husks of 30,000 years of human history dragged behind us from Earth.

And the most important of these is cooperation for mutual benefit.

Humans being human.

That's only possible in conditions of resource abundance.

And not just actual numerical abundance.

But more importantly, the perception of abundance.

When humans are confident there's enough to go around.

Life is easy.

And we all get along, right?

Cooperation makes life possible, but never easy.

Humans are hard to wrangle.

Tell them to do one thing and they'll do the opposite more often than not.

One thing we all agree on is that everyone wants a better life.

Only problem is, nobody can agree what that means.

So we have an array of habs offering a wide variety of social cultural options.

If you don't like what your hub offers you, you can leave and find one that does.

If there isn't one, you can try and find others who want the same things as you and start your own.

Often, just knowing options are available keeps people happy.

Not everyone though.

Down below ground, I simply hated knowing my every breath was counted.

Every killageual measured, every moment of service consumption or contribution accounted for in the transparent economy.

Every move modeled by human capital managers and adjusted by resource optimization analysts.

I got obsessed with the numbers in my debt dashboard.

Even though it was well into the black, all I wanted to do was drive it up as high and as fast as I could.

So nobody would ever be able to say I hadn't done my part.

Most people never think about their debt.

They drop a veil over the dash and live long, happy, ignorant lives.

Never caring about their billable rate and never knowing whether or not they siphoned off the efforts of others.

But for some of us, that debt counter becomes an obsession.

An obsession and ultimately an albatross, chained around our necks.

I dreamed about an independent habitat and abundant space and unlimited horizons.

And I wasn't the only one.

When we looked, there it was, floating around the atmosphere.

Was it dangerous? Sure.

But a few firms provide services to risk takers and they're always eager for new clients.

The crews that shuttle ice climbers to the polls delivered us to the skin of a very large whale.

I made the first cut myself.

Solving the problems of life was exhilarating.

Air, food, water, warmth.

We were explorers, just like the mountain climbers of old,

ascending the highest peaks wearing nothing but animal hides.

Like the first humans.

Revolutionary.

Our success attracted others and our population grew.

We colonized new whales.

And once we got settled, our problems became more mundane.

I have a little patience for administrative details, but the burden soon became agonizing.

Unending meetings to chew over our collective agreements,

measuring and accounting the debts and credits and assigning value to everyone's time.

This was exactly what we'd escaped.

Little more than one year in the clouds and we were reinventing all the old problems from scratch.

Nobody needs that.

I stood right in the middle of the rumpus room inside the creature I'd cut into with my own hands

and gave an impassioned speech about the nature of freedom and independence

and reminded them all of the reasons we'd left.

If they wanted their value micro-accounted, they could go right back down below ground.

I thought it was a good speech, but apparently not.

When it came to a vote, I was the only one blocking consensus.

I believe, hand to heart, if they'd only listened to me and did what I said,

everything would have been fine and everyone would have been happy.

But some people can never really be happy unless they're making other people miserable.

They claimed I was trying to use my seniority, skills, and experience as a lever to exert political force.

I'd become a menace.

And when they told me I had to submit to psychological management, I left.

Turned out, we'd brought the albatross along with us, after all.

When Jane pinged me a few days later, I was doing the same thing as millions down below ground.

Watching a newly-arrived arts delegation process down the beanstalk

and marveling at their dramatic clothing and prosthetics.

I pinged her back right away.

Even though I knew she would probably needle me about my past, I didn't hesitate.

I missed having Richi and Jane in my head, and life was a bit lonely without them.

Also, I was eager to meet her.

I wasn't the only one.

The whole crew was burning with curiosity about Richi's pretty friend.

When Jane's fake melted into reality, she was dressed in a shiny black party gown.

Long dark hair poofed over her shoulders, held off her face with little spider clips

and gathered the locks into toughs.

Her chair was a spider model, too, with eight delicate ruby and onyx legs that cradled her torso.

Hi, Doc, she said,

It's nice to finally meet you.

I'm a friend of Richi's.

I think you know that, though.

A friend.

Not a therapist, pure counselor, or emotional health consultant.

And that was odd.

And then it dawned on me.

Jane had been donating her time ever since Richi joined us.

She probably wanted to formalize her contract, start racking up the billable hours.

When I glanced through her metadata, my heart began to hammer.

Jane's rate was sky high.

We can't float your rate.

I blurted.

Not now.

Maybe eventually, but we'd have to find another revenue stream.

Jane's head jerked back, and her gay is narrowed.

That's not why I pinged you.

She said,

I don't care about staying billable.

I never did.

All I want to do is help people.

I released a silent sigh of relief.

What can I do for you?

Nothing.

I just wanted to say hi and ask how Richi's getting along.

Richi's fine.

Nothing to worry about.

I always get gruff around beautiful women.

She brightened.

She's fitting in with you all?

Yeah, one of the crew.

She's great.

I love her.

I bit my lip and quickly added,

I mean, we all like her.

Even Vula and she's picky.

I blushed.

Badly.

Jane noticed,

and a gentle smile touched the corners of her mouth.

But she was a kind soul and changed the subject.

I've been wondering something, Doc.

Do you mind if I ask a personal question?

I scrubbed my hands over my face and embarrassment and nodded.

She wheeled her chair a bit closer until it did towards me.

Do you know what gave you the idea to move to the surface?

I mean, originally.

Before you'd ever started looking into the possibility.

Have you read Zane Gray's Riders of the Purple Sage?

I asked.

You must have.

No.

She looked confused,

like I was changing the subject.

You should.

Here.

I tossed her a multi-bookmark compilation.

Back down below ground,

I'd given them out like candy at a crush party.

She could puzzle through the diction of the ancient original

or read it in any number of translations.

Listen to a variety of audio versions and dramatic readings,

or watch any of the hundreds of entertainment docs it had inspired.

I'd seen them all.

This is really old.

Why do you think I know it?

She flipped to the summary.

Oh, I see.

One of the characters is named Jane.

Read it.

I've explained everything.

I will.

But maybe you could tell me what to look for.

Her smile made me forget all about my embarrassment.

It's about what humans need to be happy.

Sure, we evolved to live in complex, interdependent social groups.

But before that, we were nomads.

Pursuing research opportunities in an open, sparsely populated landscape.

That means for some people,

solitude and independence are primary values.

She nodded, and I could see she was trying hard to understand.

Down below ground, when I was figuring all this out,

I tried working with the therapist.

When I told them all this, he said,

we also evolved to suffer and die from violence, disease, and famine.

Do you miss that too?

Jane laughed.

I hope you fired him.

So one book inspired all this.

It's not just a book.

It's a way of life.

The freedom to explore wide open spaces,

to come together with like-minded others,

and to form loose-knit communities based on mutual aid.

And to know that every morning you'll wake up looking at an endless horizon.

These serisons aren't big enough.

She waved at the surrounding virtual space,

a default grid with dappled patterns,

as if a directional light source was shining through gently fluttering leaves.

For some, maybe.

For me, pretending isn't enough.

I'll read it.

It sounds very...

She purseed her lips, looking for the right word.

Romantic.

I started to blush again,

so I made an excuse and dropped the connection before I made a fool of myself.

Then I drifted down to the rumpus room

and stripped off my goggles and breather.

Whoa, bush said.

Doc, what's wrong?

Eleanor turned from the exterior to look at me,

then fumbled her caffeine bulb

and squirted liquid across her cheek.

Wow!

She wiped the liquid off with her sleeve.

I've never seen you look so dreamy before.

What happened?

I'm in love, I thought.

Jane pinged me.

I said instead.

Bush called the whole crew.

They came at a run.

Even Bula.

In a small hub,

any crumb of gossip can become a legendary.

I made them big for the story,

then drew it out as long as I could.

Can you ask her to ping me?

Eddie asked Ritchie when I was done.

I would chat with her for more than a couple minutes,

unlike Doc, said Treasurer.

Char grinned lasciviously.

Can I lurk?

The whole crew in one room,

awake and actually talking to each other,

was something Ritchie hadn't seen before.

Much less all of the howling with laughter

and gossiping about her friend.

She looked profoundly unsettled.

Bula bounced over to the extruder,

filled up with her favorite social lubricant

and tossed it to Ritchie.

Tell us everything about Jane.

Char said.

Treasurer whackled her tongue.

It's not like that.

Ritchie frowned.

She's a friend.

Good, they chorused,

and collapsed back into the netting, giggling.

I'd been meaning to ask.

Why do you use that handheld thing to talk to her anyway?

Char said.

I've never even seen one of those before.

Ritchie shook her head.

Come on, Ritchie.

There's no privacy here.

Bula said.

You know that.

Don't go stiff on us.

Ritchie joined us in the netting before answering.

When she picked a spot beside me,

my pulse fluttered in my throat.

Jane's a peer counselor.

She squeezed a sip from the bulb,

and grimaced at the taste.

The handheld screen is one of her strategies.

Having it around reminds me to keep working on my goals.

Why do you need peer counseling?

Astrara.

Because I...

Ritchie looked from face to face.

Big brown eyes serious.

Everyone quieted down.

I wasn't happy.

Listen, I've been talking with some people

from the other whale crews.

They've been having problems for a while now,

and it's getting worse.

She fired a stack of bookmarks into the middle of the room.

Everyone began rifling through them, except me.

That's too bad, I said.

Don't you want to know what's going on, Doc?

Astrara.

I folded my arms and scowled in the general direction

of the extruder.

No, I said flatly.

I don't give a shit about them.

Well, you'd better, Bula said.

Because if it's happening to them, it could happen to us.

Look.

She fired a feed from a remote sensing drone

into the middle of the room.

A group of whales had gathered 100 meters above a slushy depression

between a pair of high ridges.

They weren't feeding, just drifting around aimlessly,

dangerously close to each other.

When they got close to each other, they unfurled their petals

and brushed them along each other's skin.

As we watched, two whales collided.

Their bladders bubbled out like a crushy squeeze toy

until it looked like they would burst.

Seeing the two massive creatures collide

like that was so upsetting, I actually reached into the feed

and tried to push them apart, embarrassing.

Come on, Doc, tell us what's happening, said Bula.

I don't know.

I tucked my hands into my armpits as if I was cold.

We should go help, said Eddie.

At least we could assist with the evac if they need to bail.

I shook my head.

It could be dangerous.

Everyone laughed at that.

People who aren't comfortable with risk don't roam the atmosphere.

It might be a disease, I added.

We should stay as far away as we can.

We don't want to catch it.

Treasure pulled a face at me.

You're getting old.

I grabbed my breather in goggles and bounded towards the hatch.

Come on, Doc, take a guess.

Richie said.

More observation would be required before I'd be comfortable

advancing a theory, I said stiffly,

and I can only offer conjecture.

Go ahead, conjecture away, said Bula.

I took a moment to collect myself

and then turned and addressed the crew with professional gravity.

It's possible the other crews

haven't been maintaining the interventions

that ensure their whales don't move into reproductive maturity.

You're saying the whales are horny?

Said Bush.

They look horny, said treasure.

They're fascinated with each other, said Bula.

Bula had put her finger on exactly the thing that was bothering me.

Whales don't congregate.

They don't interact socially.

They certainly don't mate.

I'd guess the applicable pseudo-neural tissue

has regenerated, perhaps incompletely,

and their behavior is confused.

Richie gestured at the feed where the three whales collided,

dragging their petals across each other's bulging skin.

This isn't gonna happen to us?

No, I said.

Definitely not.

Don't worry.

Unlike the others,

I've been keeping on top of the situation.

But how can you be sure?

And then realization dawned of a Richie's face.

You knew this was gonna happen, didn't you?

Not exactly.

She launched herself from the netting and bounced towards me.

Why didn't you share the information?

Keeping it secret is just cruel.

I backed towards the hatch.

It's not my responsibility to save the others

from their stupid mistakes.

We need to tell them how to fix it.

Maybe they can save themselves.

Tell them whatever you want.

I excavated my private notes from lockdown

and fired them into the middle of the room.

I think their best option would be to abandon their whales

and find new ones.

That would take months, Bulla said.

19 whales, more than 200 people.

Then they should start now.

I turned to leave.

Wait, Richie looked around at the crew.

We have to go help, right?

I gripped the edge of the hatch.

The electrostatic membrane licked at my fingertips.

Yeah, I want to go.

Boosh said.

I'd be surprised if you didn't, Doc.

I want to go, said treasure.

Me too, Tara chimed in.

Eddie and Ellen were both nodded.

Bulla pulled down her goggles

and launched herself out of the netting.

Whales, fucking.

What are we waiting for?

I'll start fabbing some media drones.

With all seven of them eager for adventure,

our quiet, comfortable little world

didn't stand a chance.

We're not the only humans on the surface.

Not quite.

Near the South Pole, a gang of religious hermits

lives in a deep ice cave.

Making alcohol the old way, using yeast-based fermentation.

It's no better than the extruded version,

but some of the habs take pity on them

so the hermits can fund their power and feedstock.

Every so often, one of the hermits gives up

and calls for evac.

When that happens, the board crew of a cargo ship

zips down to rescue them.

Those same ships that bring us supplies and new crew.

They also shuttle adventurers and researchers around the planet,

but mostly they sit idle,

tethered halfway up the beanstalk.

The ships are beautiful.

Sleek, fast, and elegant.

As for us, when we need to change our position,

it's not quite so efficient, or fast.

When Rishi found me in the Rumpus room,

I had already fabbed my gloves and face mask,

and I was watching the last few centimeters

of a thick pair of productive overalls

chugged through the output.

I told the other crews you'd be happy to take a look

at the regenerative tissue and recommend a solution,

but they refused, she said.

They don't like you, do they?

I yanked the coveralls out of the extruder.

No, and I don't like them either.

I stalked to the hatch.

Can I tag a long duck?

She asked.

You're lucky I don't pack you into a body bag

and tag you for evac.

I'm really sorry, doc.

I should ask you before offering your help.

When I get an idea in my head,

tend to just run with it.

She was all smiles and dimples,

with her goggles on her forehead,

pushing her hair up in spikes,

and her breather swinging around her neck.

The person who looks like that

can get away with anything.

This is your idea, I said.

Only fair you get your hands dirty.

I fabed her a set of protective clothing,

and we helped each other suit up.

We took a quick detour

to slather appetite suppressant gel

on the appropriate hormonal bundle,

and then waddled up the long dorsal sinus,

arms out for balance.

The sinus wall is clicked,

and the long cavity bent around us,

but soon the appetite suppressed to cold,

and we were nearly stationary,

dosing gently in the clouds.

On either side, towered the main floatbladders.

Clear, multi-chambered organs

grappling with rainbows

across their honeycomb patterned surfaces.

Feeder organs pulse between the bladder walls.

The feeders are dark pink at the base,

but the colors fade as they branch

into sprawling networks of tubules,

reaching through the skin,

grasping hydrogen,

and channeling it into the bladders.

At the head of the dorsal sinus,

a tall, slot-shaped orifice

provides access to the neuronal cavity.

I shrugged my equipment bag over my shoulder,

should reachie had to secure her face mask

over her breather, and climbed in.

With the mask on,

to talk we had to ping each other.

I was still a bit angry,

so no chitchat, business-only.

I handed her the laser scalpel.

Cut right here.

I sliced the blade of my glove-tanned vertically

down the milky surface of the protective tissue.

See these scars?

I pointed at the gray metallic stripes

on either side of the imaginary line I'd drawn.

Stay away from them.

Just cut straight in between.

Reachie back to way a few steps.

I don't think I'm qualified to do this.

You've been qualified to draw lines

since you were a crushy.

When she began to protest again,

I cut her off.

This was your idea, remember?

Her hands shook,

but the line was straight enough.

The pouch deflated,

draping over the skeleton

of the carbon fiber struts

I'd installed way back in the beginning.

I pulled reachie inside

and closed the incision behind us

with sports of temporary adhesive.

The wound wept drops of fluid

that rapidly boiled off,

leaving a sticky, pink,

sap-like crust

across the iridescent interior surface.

Is this the whale's brain?

Reachie asked?

I ignored the question.

Reachie knew it was the brain.

She'd been studying my notes after all.

She was just trying to smooth my feathers

by giving me a chance to show my expertise.

Not every brain looks like a brain.

Yours and mine

look like they should be floating

in the primordial ocean depths.

That's where we came from after all.

The organ in front of us

came from the clouds.

A tower of spun glass floss

threaded through and through

with wispy feather-like strands

that branched and re-branched

into iridescent fractals.

My mobility control leads were made

of copper nanofiber,

embedded in color-coded silicon filaments.

Red, green, blue, yellow,

purple, orange, and black.

A ragged, dull rainbow piercing

the depths of an alien brain.

Reachie repeated her question.

Don't ask dumb questions, Reachie.

She put her hands up

in a gesture of surrender

and backed away.

Not far.

No room inside the pouch

to shuffle back more than one step.

The best I can say is its brain-like.

I snap the leads into my fist-sized

control interface.

The neurons are neuron-like.

Is it the whole brain?

Is the entire seat of cognition here?

I can't tell,

because there's not much cognition

to measure.

Maybe more than a bacterium,

but far less than an insect.

How do you measure cognition?

Reachie asked.

Controlled experiments.

But how do you run experiments

on animals this large?

All I can tell you

is that most people who study

these creatures lose interest fast.

But here's a better measure.

After more than 10 years,

a whale has never surprised me.

Before today,

you mean maneuvering takes a little practice.

We use a thumb-operated clicker

to fire tiny electrical impulses

through the leads

and achieve a vague form of directional control.

Yes, it's a basic system.

We could replace it with something more elegant,

but it operates even if we lose power.

The control it provides

isn't exactly roll pitch and yaw,

but it's effective enough.

The margin for error is large,

and there's not much to hit.

Navigation is easy, too.

Satellites ping our position a thousand times a second,

and the data can be accessed

in several different navigational aids,

all available in our dashboards.

But though it's all fairly easy,

it's not quick.

My anger didn't last long.

Not in such close quarters,

especially just a few hours after

realizing I was in love with her.

It was hardly a romantic scene.

Both of us swad,

head to toe in protective clothing,

passing a navigation controller back and forth

as we wiggled slowly towards our destination.

In between bouts of navigation,

I began telling Richie everything I knew

about the organ in front of us.

A brain dump about brains.

Inside a brain.

Huh.

She was interested.

I was flattered by her interest.

Age old story.

I treated her to all my theories, prejudices, and opinions.

Not just about regenerating pseudonural tissue,

and my methods for calling it,

but the entire scientific research apparatus

down below ground.

The social dynamics of the habit grew up in,

and the psychological underpinnings

of the research exploration proposal

we used to float our first forays out here.

Thank goodness Richie was wearing a mask.

She was probably yawning so wide

I could have checked her tonsils.

Here.

I handed her the control box.

You drive the rest of the way.

We were aiming for the equator,

where the strong steady winds have carved a smooth canyon

by sacking the ice right down to the planet's iron core.

When we need to travel a long distance,

riding that wind is the fastest route.

Richie clicked a directional adjustment,

and her headings swung a few degrees back towards the equator.

What is the whale perceive when we do this?

Richie wangled the thumb of her glove above the joystick.

When it changed his direction,

are we luring it or scaring it away?

Serve me right for telling her not to ask simple questions.

I don't really know, I admit it.

Maybe it makes them think the other whales are around.

What if they want to be together, just like people?

But before now, they didn't know how.

Maybe you've been teaching them.

My eyebrows climbed.

I'd never considered how we might be influencing whale behavior,

aside from the changes we make for our own benefit.

That's an interesting theory, Richie.

Definitely worth looking into.

Wouldn't it be terrible to be always alone?

I'd always considered myself a loner.

But in that moment, I honestly couldn't remember why.

I talked last time about Robson's ability to balance big ideas

and intimate realizations,

and I think that's central to this second act.

Most obviously, it's there in the literal collisions

that lie at the heart of this part.

The crew colliding with the outside world,

feelings colliding with pragmatism,

safety colliding with adventure,

celibacy, societal and biological,

chosen and enforced, colliding with libido.

Massive cool spacewales colliding with each other.

There's a lot of it.

But two lines really sparkle for me.

The first is this.

Obsessive people don't get bored.

They know how to make their own fun.

There's that collision.

Once again, this time between personal choice

and cultural expectation.

I also love how Robson approaches representation in this story,

the same way it's approached in life.

It's just that.

Not everyone moves the same way.

Not everyone is the same size,

the same build,

has the same level of neurodivergency.

People are just people.

But in a tight space like this,

people are more themselves than anywhere else.

Robson finds the drama there,

and the contrast between the careful assembly of a crew

and the offhand modification of the whales

is they gently handled

and very sinister piece of world building.

This isn't quite as brave or as nice a world as it thinks it is,

and the safety of the crew's routine being versed

speaks to that even before the whales do.

The other line is this.

So nobody would ever be able to say,

I haven't done my part.

As a former talented child

with a complicated parental relationship

in a Catholic work ethic,

this one hits me square in the guilt centers,

and there's a lot of them and they're big.

The drive to be useful is great.

Being useful at the expense of being happy is not.

Realising when you're doing that is almost impossible

and doing it changes your life,

basically instantly for the better.

Doesn't make it easier though,

and that being one of the arcs of this story

is one of the many reasons why I love it.

One last thing.

Riders of the Purple Sage is a real book.

Published in 1912,

it's regarded as one of the seminal westerns

and follows three characters

as they struggle with persecution

from the local town run by a woman elder.

I love how Robson uses it here

both to emphasise the universality of personal choice

and exploration as personal definition

and to show how goals like live free

are actually destinations disguised as goals.

It's also at a copyright if you're interested

so we will drop a link to the text

via Project Gutenberg in the show notes.

What a great story.

Come back next week for the last bit.

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I wonder,

I'm music is by date I do.

One last name.

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The music is by the mission of Daikichi.

We'll see you next week for the final installment.

Before then, we're sending you off into the week

with another quote from Starfleet Academy.

See what you will about this present time.

But it has one advantage over every other.

It's ours.

We'll see you next time, folks.

Until then, have fun.