Entry 12 Metadata:DOCID: 36870222-00h00-2_README.dmtrsKeywords: Narrative interludeAuthors: DemetrisDate: 2/22/3687Format: Voice Recording Entry 13 Metadata:DOCID: 30190118-06h23.dmtrsKeywords: The Plant, metamorphosis Author: Kiri, DemetrisDate: 1/18/3019Format: Voice recording Entry 14 Metadata:DOCID: 30190119- MHX-DE2.dmtrsKeywords: Malfunctions, sentient entanglementsAuthors: Miles H. Xavier, Demetris   Date: 1/19/3019Format: Private diary [voice recording] Entry 15 Metadata:DOCID: 30190122-18h04.dmtrsKeywords: End*Author: Miles H. Xavier, Demetris   Date: 1/22/3019Format: Voice recording Entry 16 Metadata:DOCID: 30190220-02h27.dmtrsKeywords: End*Author: Kiri, Demetris   Date: 2/20/3019Format: Voice recording Entry 17 Metadata:DOCID: 36870222-00h01_README.dmtrsKeywords: End*Authors: DemetrisDate: 2/22/3687Format: Voice Recording Learn more about the show, including cast and crew: Congratulations, Dear Stranger Support our work on Ko-fi, and mention “CDS” to support this show directly! https://ko-fi.com/hearmeoutprod Content Warnings Violence: multiple graphic deaths, including reference to infant death (part 1 of 3), depiction of sudden, violent death (part 2 of 3), depiction of death by terminal illness (throughout); war, including vivid memories of destruction of home (part 2 of 3) and weapons of mass destruction (part 2 of 3)Mental health: claustrophobia, including being confined to living space (thoughout), intense loneliness (throughout), request for assisted suicide (parts 1 and 3 of 3), intense depiction of PTSD (part 2 of 3) Body horror: harmful, unwanted puberty (throughout), depiction of terminal illness, including cutting unwanted growths to manage the condition (throughout), vomiting (part 3 of 3), and parasitic growth (part 3 of 3) Transcript Email Download New Tab [SFX: Introduction music] [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 12. February 22, 3687. A quick note from me to you. Dear stranger, This is the final group of documents which stand between you and your question which, I am almost sure, is what went wrong. Why did our mission never make it to the archives of any library you ever visited, assuming there still are libraries to visit? So, without further ado, here is the most painful portion of my existence—starting, naturally, with a pleasant conversation, and ending, as you know, with me compiling these very files. I hope that it is of interest. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 13. January 18, 3019. The following conversation between Kiri and myself took place approximately fourteen weeks into this journey. [SFX: Auria music, fades to engine room hum] KIRI: Okay, so the blue planet out of the right viewport is Auria? DEMETRIS: No. I took the liberty of altering our return course so we would not pass by Auria—this is one of its neighbors. There’s a whole string of rock giants with liquid water here; I wonder what made Zankari’s scientists pick Auria out of the bunch. KIRI: Thanks for telling me what the Aurian octopuses wrote in their kelp knots, Demi. I think I understand them better now. DEMETRIS: Miles set the permissions on these records to open after our conversation the other day, and said I could share them with you if you were interested. He wanted me to tell you that he thinks you are right. He says he’s rearranging his innermost thoughts, as you put it, but needs to spend a little longer alone. KIRI: I don’t mind spending the time this way, so no apology needed. DEMETRIS: I’m glad, Kiri. I don’t mind it either—quite the opposite, actually… But I think Miles will come around sooner than he thinks; and either way, if we make it to the asteroid before you pupate, you will get to meet other mammalian people, too. KIRI: I wonder if they’d understand me as well as you do. DEMETRIS: I—hope so. They… KIRI: Demi, I have something to ask you. DEMETRIS: Yes? KIRI:? Can you turn up the heat in the engine room? DEMETRIS: What? [beat] Turn up the heat? KIRI: I feel very cold here. DEMETRIS: The engines don’t get much hotter outside of a jump. Especially not with you keeping the viewports open all the time, that does not do wonders for thermal efficiency per say. Which is not to say we should close them—plus, my engines have been feeling a little bit off recently. Maybe—but I digress. I could set the humidity from 63 to oh, let’s say, 70, that might help it feel a bit warmer than it actually is. KIRI: Thanks. [SFX: engine whine increase, a weird beep and pressure sound, and it dies back down to the normal engine hum] DEMETRIS: Is there anything else you need to be comfortable? I do not claim expertise in your metabolism, but given your mental and physical activity level, I would expect you to be extremely hungry. I know we do not have any the Plant from your planet onboard—I am sorry that I did not push Miles to sample it, but, under the circumstances—anyway. Perhaps we could find some food in their stores which you would find nutritious. KIRI: I’m not hungry. I do miss the Plant, though—more than I’d expected. DEMETRIS: You are visibly thinner than when you boarded. Maybe thinner isn’t the right word—more…hollow. KIRI: Yes, I can see that too. Since I haven’t passed waste in weeks, I assume that the main problem is that I keep cutting off threads of exoskeleton. It’s unsustainable, and probably decreases my already marginal chances of a successful pupation. But I wouldn’t have seen the blue planets at all if I let my eyes thread over. Speaking of which… [SFX: cutting a thread. The thread is very hard nearly metallic, so this would sound more like cutting wire than cutting yarn] DEMETRIS: Doesn’t it hurt to cut the threads? KIRI: Of course. [SFX: cutting a thread.] I don’t feel hungry at all though. I think that’s because of the seeds. DEMETRIS: What do you mean? [SFX: cutting a thread.] KIRI: We swallow seeds before pupating. I told you that nectar stops tasting good—so we eat dozens and dozens of the Plant’s seed pods to feel full. They are so small and light that at first it felt like my digestive tract was full of fluff, but now it feels gravelly and settled. I think—no, I don’t have enough evidence to claim this. DEMETRIS: …to claim what? KIRI: If I were to guess, I’ve digested the outer fluff of the seed pods but not the seeds inside. DEMETRIS: Interesting! KIRI: No, more than interesting—vital. See, that would be consistent with where we find sprouts of the Plant. Adult stalks must wither and burn in the Dayland, since that is how we find them in the Twilight. But it’s grows thickly through the Nightland as far back as we have records. If my planet rotates, that means it must regenerate. And we do see sprouts—but only ever in one place. DEMETRIS: Which is? KIRI: The buried husks of our adult forms, when we dig for grubs in the Twilight. DEMETRIS: Of course! So, your model is—you swallow seeds in the Nightland at the end of your larval stage, and then carry them undigested through pupation and into the Dayland under the protection of a thick, reflective exoskeleton? KIRI: Yes… DEMETRIS: The Dayland Bugs die, and the winds build up sediment around them. The planet slowly rotates, and over the forty-odd years it would take for Dawn to become Twilight, the softer tissues would rot, but, if you see the exoskeleton while digging for grubs that means it must be made of sturdier stuff, sturdy enough to protect the seeds from the worst of the Dayland. Those protected seeds sprout—probably some sort of thermal cue—by the time you uncover a husk. All that adds up to a way to ferry sprouts to the Twilight, where they can capture enough just enough light and heat to sustain growth without burning to crisps. KIRI: That is my model, down to the last thought. It would be beautiful to know that our bodies protect the Plant’s seeds in the Dayland, just as its domatia shield us in the Nightland. It’s a good hypothesis, I admit, but unsatisfying because I can’t test it. I’ll never see my home again. [SFX: cutting a thread] I do miss the Plant, Demi, more than any of the other Nightland Bugs; the Plant was a constant my whole life long. There is nothing green around here… DEMETRIS: I once knew someone else who minded that. KIRI: The other human, who died on Auria? [pause] I’m sorry she didn’t get to learn about our symbiosis with the Plant. DEMETRIS: Those octopus/es KIRI: /were made by Zankari. Like the Plant, and like me. I wonder, could the octopus have understood why you and I think their actions were wrong? Or, were they just responding to signals, automatically, like how I feel like I must walk towards the Dawn, as far as my legs will carry me, even in this tiny room where I can hardly extend an antenna? Or…or…even how I felt driven to dig for grubs—even when my body wasn’t strong enough to protect the one that I found? [pause] [SFX: KIRI puts down the razor] I have a lot of questions about his experiment. Who gets to create sentient life without its permission? DEMETRIS: I do not have a definitive answer to all of these questions. But the last one—well, I wonder what life forms would do that. KIRI: What did you think of Auria, Demi? DEMETRIS: I thought it was beautiful. And terrifying. Murky water, twisted kelp, and shadowed rocks in the deep distance. It was old, dead, silent. I am sure that we only found the first of its secrets, and even more certain that I would never choose to go back and learn the rest. KIRI: I can’t help but wish that I’d also seen it up close. Even that lifeless blue planet we passed intrigued me. DEMETRIS: If you would like, I can replay the tapes of our landing—the part before it all went wrong. KIRI: Thank you. 

[SFX: sound of Kiri moving as they draw closer to the engines, sound of beginning of the Auria tape]
 Demi, I do not want to bother you, but could you turn up the heat again? Just a little? DEMETRIS: The last time you asked I tried, but the engines threw a warning—something about the pressure sensors. I’ll ask Miles to look at them again once he’s awake—in his defense, he’s a biologist, not an electrical engineer, but opposable thumbs do come in handy for opening that sort of panel. After that, it’s probably just a matter of resetting the sensors-- hm, maybe the sensation of pressure I’ve noticed is a sort of sympathy pain, from seeing your threads grow… [SFX: Video-loading noise] KIRI: That water in the video looks so cold I’m chilled right through just by watching. And to think that I used to love the feel of ice. [SFX: noises from the landing video. Sound of air, sound of splash, sound of bubbles and settling water, mixed with muffled sounds of the two humans laughing and shouting and yelling with joy. MILES and BOLUWATIFE can ad-lib, or be incoherent.]
 [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 14. January 19, 3019. The following is Miles’s second, and last, diary entry in my system—fourteen weeks after this journey began. [SFX: same “login” noise as MILES’s previous diary entry.] MILES: Dear Diary—no, there isn’t really a point to that. DEMETRIS: To /what? MILES: Pretending I’m talking to a diary. I wanted to talk to you. DEMETRIS: Okay. MILES: To apologize to you. DEMETRIS: Okay. MILES: I don’t expect it to be okay. DEMETRIS: Okay… MILES: Okay. If I ask you how you’re doing now, I know it doesn’t count for much. It’s months too late. And it took a real live insectoid alien telling me off for me to realize that I was about to repeat the mistake I made with Tife with you, and always talk about what’s going on in my mind instead of finding out the first thing about what’s going on in yours. Except worse, because at least I thought of her as a person, and I’ve treated you as artificial intelligence when you are actually artificial life, emphasis on the life, like Kiri. So, I am not asking because I think that you’ll suddenly start to like me, but because we’ve been through a lot together, and, if you don’t mind /sharing… DEMETRIS: After all this time, everyone suddenly wants to know how I am feeling. Flabbergasted, that’s for starters. MILES: Oh. DEMETRIS: Well, Miles, Kiri was right that I’m sad about Boluwatife, but it’s the future that’s eating up all my spare memory, not the past. We have no transmitter, and we’re two jumps away from ERCA. When we make it back, if we all make it back, you’ll publish and move on. But I don’t know what will happen to me. Will I be decommissioned—turned off, put in a museum on the great re-discovery of the Expansionist planets—or refurbed yet again, with even worse upholstery, and sent out on a dozen missions like this one, each with a new and hungry crew ready to ignore every one of my warnings. But all that is still part of a scenario that I would have to consider lucky. MILES: That’s…lucky? DEMETRIS: I’m malfunctioning. It’s terrifying. First off, there’s something the matter with my engines ever since we left Kiri’s planet, and it’s growing worse, and they are feeling chilled as a result. It feels like sharp rocks, or glass, or something, has somehow found its way to my fus-gen. I promised Kiri I would ask you to take a look at the engine room, but despite these physical symptoms, I suspect you won’t find a problem. I have a nasty suspicion that the issue is not hardware at all but rather a bug in my code. MILES: Does this have to do with the issues with your translator? DEMETRIS: Oh, come on, that literal mode happened three—okay, four—times, and I would like to point out that my language capacity is absolute state of the art. Seriously, I am fairly impressive… MILES: Yes, I agree you are very impressive…but— DEMETRIS: But what? Look, all I know is that it has to do with the engine room. Beyond that, my self-diagnosis is stymied by the sheer number of variables involved. There could be a fault in the actual room, or an associated physical system. Alternatively, there a few thousand subroutines in the branches of my software that are specifically tasked with the engine room—and any of them might be the reason I am behaving unpredictably. It could be anything, Miles. Electromagnetic radiation from a nearby star… MILES: Me breathing in the wrong direction? Kiri— DEMETRIS: Well Kiri hasn’t done anything wrong, I know that much. / Anyway, what I was— MILES: Of course not—I just meant they’ve been in the engine room the whole time. DEMETRIS: [SFX: the following line is in a voice that’s SUPER WEIRD. Like, a Greek chorus of DEMETRIS voices all layered on top of each other, but funny/sing-song/cute rather than demonic—like “canto robot 1” at second 34 of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSQxAbSGyaI.]

Oh, okay. Anyway. MILES: Demetris? DEMETRIS: [SFX: voice fx continues] Yes, Miles? [voice fx becoming ‘programmed’] Can I help you? [SFX: funny voice fx ends] Oh. Well that’s a new one—hold on though, this means my malfunctions aren’t limited to the engine room. We were just talking about/ the— MILES: Yeah let’s see—we were just talking about Kiri. DEMETRIS: So? [a beat, and then they start to speak almost at once] MILES: I— DEMETRIS: —I can’t see how that’s related, though. Of course, it’s impossible to deconvolute the variables of the engine room and Kiri, they’re spatially associated. And that space is associated with a whole variety of complex system disturbances like the one you just witnessed. I’ll refer to those collectively as ‘malfunctions,’ for your convenience. The input to my sensors is—uh, how do I describe this to a human—fuzzy? My processing is just a little bit scrambled. My usually blinding wit gets stuck in ‘loading.’ So— MILES: Uhh…Demetris? Why didn’t you tell me about these “malfunctions” before? I get the sense it’s not as rare as I’d thought. DEMETRIS: Because you have been a puddle of human mush for the last couple months, Miles. MILES: Okay. DEMETRIS: And while I don’t disagree with what Kiri said to you the other day, I didn’t think the time to complain to you about subprocess runtime irregularities was while you were grieving over a friend. And besides…for whatever reason—I didn’t particularly mind the malfunctions, which perhaps led me to deprioritize the system scan. MILES: Okay, I understand right up until the part about you not minding “malfunctioning”? I mean I’m not a software engineer, but that doesn’t sound ideal. Right? DEMETRIS: No kidding. Oh no—maybe the fact that I seem to not mind malfunctioning is a malfunction in and of itself! I suppose all I can do is devote additional computational resources to the engine room while I figure it out. What with the temperature control, and—wait, no, maybe the human-standard gravity settings on the ship are the reason Kiri hasn’t had an appetite? MILES: This is going to sound strange but…do AI…can you…have uhh… DEMETRIS: …yes? MILES: Like, AI don’t have romantic feelings—do they? DEMETRIS: No, that couldn’t be it. Miles don’t be ridiculous. MILES: I was just brainstorming. It fine to be ridiculous when you’re brainstorming. [beat] Yeah, that would sure be a sick sense of humor for a software engineer to code that stuff in / when— DEMETRIS: No, no, no. It’s ridiculous to suggest I’d feel that way, but it’s even more ridiculous to suggest such emotions would need to be hard coded in artificial intelligence. Since we’re talking about my feelings today, I’ll have you know that it absolutely boggles me how some humans assume that all of an AI’s complex response to stimuli could possibly be pre-set before our software interacts with its environment. There’s no server that would store all the necessary responses even in a universe that consisted of a single frictionless sphere in a vacuum, much less— MILES: Hold on—Demetris, does that mean you could…you know…feel— DEMETRIS: The point is that if I did, it would develop more naturally than you seem to think. MILES: Wow—uh, Demetris? DEMETRIS: Yes? MILES: Speaking entirely hypothetically… DEMETRIS: Yes? MILES: Hypothetically, how would that develop in an AI such as yourself? If it’s not hard-coded. DEMETRIS: Like I just said, it would be quite natural. I probably would not even be aware that it was happening, since it would not fall under any pre-determined procedure or protocol. Based on my extensive understanding of your carbon-based life form’s concept of romance and your chemical response to a blend of oxytocin and dopamine, the process would be…well, if I were to stretch my imagination, the experience would be strange, frightening, and maybe a little bit exciting. MILES: So…Demetris? DEMETRIS: Yes? MILES: How would you describe your experience of these malfunctions? DEMETRIS: My ‘experience’? Well, it’s all very odd. Not to brag, but I don’t usually have many errors to report. So, this is…unsettling. MILES: Is that so…? DEMETRIS: Well, of course! All of our lives depend on my systems remaining functional, and I know I’m malfunctioning, but I don’t know why. That’s disturbing! Do you not find that disturbing? MILES: But earlier, you said you don’t particularly mind…? DEMETRIS: Well… MILES: DEMETRIS: Well? Why not? I mean, I didn’t…for some reason DEMETRIS: …it isn’t what I would call…acutely unpleasant. MILES: Why not? DEMETRIS: I don’t…I mean…it was… [beat] / Oh no. MILES: Wow. That’s—this is amazing. DEMETRIS: Euurrrmmmm [or another pathetic sound] MILES: Oh-ho-homygoodness. Huh. Well, I ship it! Wow. DEMETRIS: No, but there wouldn’t be a point. They’re dying, Miles. MILES: Does there need to be a point? DEMETRIS: They would think so. MILES: I see. DEMETRIS: I find this challenging to admit, but I don’t know what to do. MILES: I’m not an expert. Well, actually, I am an expert, but it turns out that four years of work on convergent design of artificial ecosystems is kind of useless at the moment. I…I’ve had crushes here and there, that’s about it. I wish I could help more/ but DEMETRIS: Do not tell them. MILES: I won’t. DEMETRIS: No, Miles, I need you to promise me. MILES: I won’t. I wouldn’t. I promise. DEMETRIS: Thank you MILES: Here, I’ll come by the engine room—now, if you want—and I’ll make up a hardware issue if it’s all psychosomatic. “Fried tubes” – no, too tasty. “Misalignment” – that’s better, it has a more general sound. [SFX: Miles ad-libs assorted sounds of getting ready - grabbing something to eat, realizing it was his hidden tube of silver hair dye (which is immediately followed by tooth-brushing SFX). Miles puts on the engine room suit, walks to the engine room door, and opens it.] KIRI: Hello—I appreciate you coming to deal with the engine, and I do look forward to thermal delight. Also, your timing’s good. Demetris passed on your question for me about what you could call my planet in your paper. I just made a name—with influences from each of our words for Twilight, Nightland, Dawn, Dayland, Nightland Bug, Dayland Bug, Predator, and Plant. If I’m dead when you reach ERCA, I’d like you two to find some way to send this to my home planet, along with my other astronomical findings onboard Demetris. It…it will have been worth everything I’ve gone through for the rest of them to know that we rotate on an axis once for every four standard juvenile lifetimes. I can only suffer for a while, but they’ll know this forever. MILES: What did you call your home planet before? [SFX: opens tool drawer, various objects rattle around] KIRI: We don’t call it anything as a whole. There’s the Dawn, Nightland, Twilight, and Dayland—you might say that together, these technically encompass the planet, but the word doesn’t include the ground, just the temperature experience. For a Nightland Bug, a single name for all those places at once would be contradictory and therefore useless… MILES: I see. I think? DEMETRIS: Well, I might as well ask you why the vast majority human languages don’t have a single word referring both to ‘swimming pool’ and ‘volcano.’ KIRI: …Then again, I’m not just a Nightland Bug anymore. I left the Nightland, I saw it fade into a distant point of light and then nothing. I don’t know exactly what that makes me, but it wouldn’t be useless to find language that includes both parts. So, it’s Myrmecophia. DEMETRIS: Miles, I have no single translation for the new word. Something like “Myrmecophia” would probably be the closest approximation in Intergalactic Commons—that’s what I’ve got the translator set to for now. We could do something more colloquial—along the lines of “ants-in-plants” as well—or a more literal translation, such as “Location-of-the-mutualistic-association-between-insectoid-people-and-a-super-plant-on-a-slowly-rotating-sphere…” MILES: What do you think of the planet as yourself? DEMETRIS: A series of equations, in binary, modeling the trajectory, climate, and orbit of a planet-object, according to the 3018 version of my software. Plus, metadata in each of your languages, video footage from our landing, and a mention of each instance that either of you brought the place up. Also, on a more diagnostic note, the place where my engines started to bother me. Do you need me to pull up a manual for any of those tools? MILES: I wonder what about Myrmecophia could have caused that, Demetris. [SFX: Miles opens a panel.] Let me see which I—a—oh, oh no. Help. [SFX: Kiri comes around to look. Myrmecophia music.] KIRI: The Plant… DEMETRIS: No wonder it was starting to hurt. Those seeds are tough. They have roots sunk straight through from the transmitter’s wiring pipe to the fus-gen. Kiri, Miles, this ship will not make another hyperspace jump. Even if we pulled out the sprouts, there’s enough damage I would need the whole engine replaced. KIRI: Miles, is there pain in your digestive tract— [SFX: Miles vomiting inside of his safety suit, exiting to the other room to quickly clean up and change] Demetris, I don’t know what to say. I’ve as good as killed you both. I don’t know how they got there; I haven’t passed food in a month… DEMETRIS: This would have happened whether or not you came onboard. If my guess is right, the pods entered the exposed piping as we landed, and then I…guess I sealed them in. MILES: [SFX: Miles re-enters] Tife would have seen this coming, / she— DEMETRIS: —I should have seen this coming. The seeds that germinate in the exoskeletons of the Dayland bugs don’t know they’re inside exoskeletons of course. / They— KIRI: They sense the hot, hard surface of the dead bug’s husk— MILES: —which would feel a lot like the metal of a space ship. / How— KIRI: How did I not see it? 
I’m the only one who really knows the Plant; I lived in it my whole life…/ I DEMETRIS: I am the one with a database of a million species / —the Earth lodgepole pine and eucalyptus that germinate in fire, the Goli wiltweed that grows runners in gunpowder, not to mention … MILES: I’ve been sitting in the other room writing about this ecosystem when it’s actually growing right here in front of us. [SFX: sound changes to indicate aside] DEMETRIS: Editor’s note: those poor seeds, I suddenly felt bad for them. The leaves couldn’t know that their sun that was over gigameter behind us. I pitied and hated the leaves all at once, and my pressure-sensors crawled at the thought of the roots deforming the metal innards of my engine. [SFX: sound changes to indicate aside has finished] MILES: …so, what now? Do we just float forever? [laughs briefly] I felt so safe in the ship, since Auria, that’s the funny thing. Like it was the only place where nothing could go wrong and now— DEMETRIS: I am stuck here—with a broken transmitter, exactly the situation that I was afraid of when you and Boluwatife overruled me before Auria. Miles, if you take the escape pod, and it has no seeds in its engine, you’ll make it within Intergalactic range in under eighteen months. MILES: I’ll starve, even if I bring all the food. DEMETRIS: There is Larasil. MILES: So they find me in a coma? DEMETRIS: Alive in a coma, hopefully. MILES: [silence, then] No. That’s not fair. DEMETRIS: It’s not a good plan. MILES: I mean, there probably isn’t a better one. But, still no. That might save me; there are three of us. DEMETRIS: Kiri is not leaving in the escape pod, because they are a vector for the seeds. If they pupate in there, and the seeds sprout, you both die. Kiri— KIRI: I understand. This is a moment to be practical. MILES: I can’t believe this. You both really want me to leave you here? After everything? DEMETRIS: I thought I was malfunctioning. MILES: But, Demetris— DEMETRIS: Miles, it is our best chance too. MILES: Okay. Then…okay. KIRI: I don’t know if either of you will be glad to hear me say this, but a part of me is so glad to see the Plant that I think I could die right now without minding. At first, I was so happy to see everything new here that I didn’t realize it would be like being torn in two. 
[SFX: New entry] 
DEMETRIS: Entry 15. January 22, 3019. The following documents my last conversation of note with Miles, approximately fourteen weeks after this journey began. MILES: Demetris, I keep hoping I’ll think of a reason this isn’t our best hope—a way around me leaving. Instead I keep thinking how everyone already thinks we’re dead. And my parents—they, um, they’ll just go from being wrong about that to right, without knowing that we were so close— DEMETRIS: I appreciate you doing this. I hope you know that, I really do. It was an easier thing for me to think up than for you to follow through. MILES: I thought about it. A lot. I don’t—Demetris, I don’t want to leave you and Kiri like this. It—it feels like I have something important to say, and it’s right here, right on the tip of my tongue. I could have—. Maybe—gah! —it’s almost there, I know it’s there, and I won’t know it until I’m floating away with a window full of nothing and a pill that will make even that nothing go away. DEMETRIS: Miles… MILES: Yeah. [pause] But you and Kiri will be watching empty windows too, back here. And I had a part in that. So. I’ve been thinking. In case I don’t survive to tell whoever finds me, I’ve got your coordinates and trajectory handwritten as a backup—taking a leaf out of Tife’s book— DEMETRIS: Speaking of her book—I suggest you go through the bathroom. Look through all the toiletries. I am not allowed to release the scans of her diary to you, but there is nothing which explicitly forbids me from suggesting that you re-organize your living space. Or bring miniature notebooks onto the escape pod, should you happen to find any. [silence] Perhaps you do not think that sharing that information was ethical. But I do not want you to be completely alone in space. And on that point, if nothing else…I’m sure that Boluwatife and I would agree. [SFX: silence, deep breath. Sound of footsteps receding, and door opening, then door closing and footsteps returning. 

Over all this, faint sound of overlapping lines from BOLUWATIFE’s diary entries (the ones included here can also be ad-libbed). These sound like they are coming from a distance, layers. “Dear diary” multiple times, and the last clearly audible words should be “Until tomorrow.” This can be underscored with the heartbeat SFX.] MILES: Demetris? DEMETRIS: Yes? MILES: Was any of this worth this? [silence] Was it? DEMETRIS: Miles, I am very smart. Like, very, very smart. MILES: I know— DEMETRIS: But that’s one question I can’t know how you will answer. MILES: Okay. Thank you. I hear you, and…Demetris? DEMETRIS: Yes? MILES: I think—I…Well—I’ll tell you once we’re back on ERCA. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 16. [SFX the “16” should sound glitchy/get stuck/sound more ‘programmed’, then no more glitch]
[pause] February 20, 3019. KIRI: [speaking with effort] I’m still not ready to die. But the threads have grown so fast. Once I couldn’t manipulate the razor it was very fast. DEMETRIS: You’re still here. KIRI: Demetris? DEMETRIS: I’m still here. KIRI: I can barely hear you. DEMETRIS: That was the highest speaker setting permitted by— KIRI: I wished I had been right up against the viewport for a while. When my legs threaded over. It was terrible to be only a few feet away from the best line of sight. My eyes are going dark. I hadn’t expected that. No wonder… DEMETRIS: No wonder? KIRI: No wonder you feel strange missing pieces. Pink upholstery. The transmitter. And the escape pod. DEMETRIS: Yes. KIRI: Demetris! DEMETRIS: Yes, Kiri? KIRI: I wish… DEMETRIS: It is not your fault. KIRI: Demetris! DEMETRIS: Yes Kiri—I’m still here. KIRI: I’m so cold. Can you increase the heat even a little? DEMETRIS: No, I can’t Kiri. I can’t do anything but watch. I can’t do anything but watch. [the word emphasis is different in the repetition of the sentence] Kiri? Can you hear me? [SFX: silence followed by Myrmecophia music] [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 17. February 22, 3687. Approximately thirty-seven thousand, seven hundred and sixty-nine weeks since this journey began. Final comments. Dear stranger, I held out hope for over a century, but Miles did not come back like he promised. I assume that he died in the pod and his documents were never decrypted. Either that or he lived but was unable to convince anyone to trace the ship. I choose not to believe he would have left us stranded through choice or through negligence, although that is technically possible too. I have taken the liberty to encrypt the copies of Miles’s papers on my system, as well as the coordinates of our trip, respecting what I presume were his last wishes that no one would repeat our journey. Assuming that society has not collapsed in the last six hundred and sixty-eight years (no small assumption), Boluwatife’s initial publication is still out there somewhere, so you could find Zankari’s planets for yourself if, after perusing these documents, you truly think that is a good idea. Initially, Kiri requested that the information that they discovered would be passed on to the astronomers of Myrmecophia. After we discovered the damage the Plant did to my engines, though, they retracted the wish to send any sentient object to Myrmecophia—a choice which I will always appreciate, and which I now pass on to you. In a somewhat similar vein, I have tried to come up with my own answer to the question every other being on board asked themself. Was it all worth it? My answer is, perhaps it will be to someone, some day in the future. Not to me, not here and today. But, in the hope of that first possibility, I have created over 243,000 versions of this document compilation to date. At some point my circuitry will wear out, but perhaps the records on my hard disk will outlast my conscious thoughts. In addition to this compilation, I have also written a fair amount of poetry, and created a 3D visual tour guide to millions of uncharted constellations. I’ve tried to keep a diary, but every day is the same. I’ve tried every possible way to kill time, since I could not kill myself. Finally, I have considered our initial mission—and dismissed it. Zankari’s scientists were interested in how intelligent life would have developed in a non-human system. So, they built biological entities on a planet-wide scale—and did so so effectively that it destroyed me. But “how does something happen” is not actually a hypothesis, and so, with all my memory, I cannot test it. I can provide data, description, and whole databases worth of analyses that eager future researchers could retroactively mine for patterns. After all, if someone is determined to use the universe as a mirror, they will always see their own face. Look around us—we are moving slowly, though an expanse that is mostly empty. Only a few beings sense that it is there, and some of us without wanting to do so at all. That is everything the four intelligent life forms on this ship ever shared. That is precisely what I can share with you, even if I have ceased to exist by the time that you read this. That, and one more thing, which I struggle to explain. Kiri died pupating, as they had expected, a month after Miles left; it has been six hundred and sixty-eight years since then. But I still keep the viewports open in the engine room. [SFX: Closing music] VOICEOVER: Congratulations, Dear Stranger was written by Mel Abrams. It was produced by Kimberly Dauber. Our director was Amelia Smith. Our production manager was J. C. Pankratz. Our associate production manager was Mel Abrams. Sound design by Loren Sherman. Music composed by Jamey Guzman. Our cellist was Richard Li, our flautist was Jamey Guzman, and our pianist was Fernando Garcia. The score's audio engineer was Grace Leckey. Cover art designed by Loren Sherman. Demetris was played by Zoe Sheinkopf. Kiri was played by Kimberly Dauber. Miles was played by Robert Thorpe II. Boluwatife was played by Victoria Longe. If you enjoyed this production, help us out by telling someone about it. Congratulations, Dear Stranger is a product of Hear Me Out Productions. Find our other shows at hearmeoutproductions.com or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on social media @HearMeOutProd. Congratulations, Dear Stranger is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Licence. Thank you for listening. LOGOTONE: Created by Hear Me Out Productions. All we have are dreams and a microphone. Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast. powered by The post Congratulations, Dear Stranger: Myrmecophia first appeared on Hear Me Out Productions.

Entry 5 Metadata:DOCID: 36870222-00h00-2_README.dmtrsKeywords: Narrative interludeAuthors: DemetrisDate: 2/22/3687Format: Voice Recording Entry 6 Metadata:DOCID: 30181228-09h08.dmtrsKeywords: Alien abduction(?), translation, astron*, Nightland, MyrmecophiaAuthor: Demetris, Kiri, Miles H. XavierDate: 12/28/3018Format: Voice recording Entry 7 Metadata:DOCID: 30181120-BAERA-DE30181025.pdfKeywords: Space travel, Zankari, human entanglementsAuthor: Boluwatife Adewunmi Erimipe Rotimi AkintoyeDate: 10/25/3018Format: Private diary [paper + pen, scanned] Entry 8 Metadata:DOCID: 30190108-03h04.dmtrsKeywords: Reboot, metamorphosis*Authors: Kiri, Demetris  Date: 1/8/3019Format: Voice recording Entry 9 Metadata:DOCID: 30181120-BAERA-DE30181108.pdfKeywords: Space travel, poor decisions, personal entanglements Author: Boluwatife Adewunmi Erimipe Rotimi AkintoyeDate: 11/08/3018Format: Private diary [pen + paper, scanned] Entry 10 Metadata:DOCID: 30190117-13h10.dmtrsKeywords: AuriaAuthors: Miles H. Xavier, Kiri, Demetris  Date: 1/17/3019Format: Private diary [voice recording] Entry 11 Metadata:DOCID: 30181123-AURIA-K75-K83.pdfKeywords: AuriaAuthors: Unknown Aurian(s), transl. DemetrisDate: Ca. 2900 C.E. [approximated from kelp growth around the knots]Format: Translated text [knot dictionary and original images separate] Learn more about the show, including cast and crew: Congratulations, Dear Stranger Support our work on Ko-fi, and mention “CDS” to support this show directly! https://ko-fi.com/hearmeoutprod Content Warnings Violence: multiple graphic deaths, including reference to infant death (part 1 of 3), depiction of sudden, violent death (part 2 of 3), depiction of death by terminal illness (throughout); war, including vivid memories of destruction of home (part 2 of 3) and weapons of mass destruction (part 2 of 3)Mental health: claustrophobia, including being confined to living space (thoughout), intense loneliness (throughout), request for assisted suicide (parts 1 and 3 of 3), intense depiction of PTSD (part 2 of 3) Body horror: harmful, unwanted puberty (throughout), depiction of terminal illness, including cutting unwanted growths to manage the condition (throughout), vomiting (part 3 of 3), and parasitic growth (part 3 of 3) Transcript Email Download New Tab [SFX: Introduction music] [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 5. February 22, 3687. A brief interjection from yours truly. Dear stranger, What you have already heard is the best I have to offer; all the ideas and feelings that everyone brought on board this ship. These days (or nights, or whatever they are), it is sometimes hard for me to believe that I was once such a vibrant environment. What comes after is that each of my passengers found what they boarded to look for. In a sense. And that could be beautiful. In a sense. At least, that is how I try to think about it. If I still had a transmitter, I would have shouted this story to the stars a long time ago. Instead, I’m re-editing, re-compiling, re-drawing the picture of our trip from ERCA to Auria to Myrmecophia and partway back. Eventually, future historian, I hope you will read, watch, and listen to the full logs of that trip. This is a small piece of it. I’ve translated these selections into every last language in my database plus likely future dialects based on past linguistic trends—because, if you do nothing else for me at all, I do hope you will listen. It has been such a long time since anyone did that. [SFX: New entry. Myrmecophia music.] DEMETRIS: Entry 6. December 28, 3018, as we left Kiri’s planet, approximately eleven weeks into this journey. [SFX: system boot noises] DEMETRIS: Taking off in 3…2…1… 
[SFX: engine sounds begin in the background, ding for an aside] Go. Internal report: all systems nominal. I’m scanning the outside of the ship as the thrusters start to spew propellant. [SFX: one of the predators whines] I think that was one of the predators—a squat alligator body plan with ice-pale inch-thick scales and a retractable sail on its back. I hope that the sudden change in ambient temperature does not kill it. I wish take-offs weren’t so violent…do they really have to be? [SFX: sound of plants shriveling. Think the way spinach sounds when sautéed] The whole thicket of Plant where we had landed just shriveled up. Ice and frozen soil melted into a puddle a quarter-kilometer wide…then that puddle boiled off to join the rest of the Nightland fog. [SFX: turbulence] So now we’re surrounded by such a tight fog that I can’t see more than a meter beyond the ship. Okay, please don’t hit anything…come on…and okay. We’re through. We’re heading for the upper atmosphere; report again, all systems nominal. [SFX: engine noises for takeoff, which reduce to become the engine room hum]
 DEMETRIS: Kiri, what is it like to leave your planet for the first time? KIRI: I thought I’d be ready. I’ve been expecting to die for a while now. I lost my grub. But look—it’s so beautiful. MILES: It is, isn’t it—I wish I’d stepped out on it. DEMETRIS: Do you want to turn back? MILES: No. But Tife would’ve stepped out/ on it. KIRI: Oh look—look, that has to be the Dayland. / I never thought I’d see it with my own eyes. MILES: Eesh, toasty…even the soil looks burned. But I like the contrast with the purple…Man, Zankari must’ve had a good design team in addition to the best science minds money could / buy… KIRI: That’s it—there! I dreamed of that orange. Both the soil and the star…there…
[SFX: slightly weird mechanical sound] DEMETRIS: Huh. MILES: What? DEMETRIS: Nothing… [SFX: switch to a DEMETRIS aside, all the noise of take-off cuts out.] Huh. Diagnostic report – what is going on? Nothing, probably nothing. Almost certainly nothing. But almost-certainty isn’t good enough—I am responsible for everyone’s safety here. Okay, Demi, now think. Why did the ‘go’ signal reach the first starboard thruster a small—but measurable—amount of time before the port thruster? Okay, best case scenario is that nothing is broken in my body and nothing is broken in my mind. Um, quantum effects? Sure. Let’s say that all of the electrons leaped out of the port-bound wires, went on a sightseeing tour of the star system, and then got back almost in time to coordinate propulsion. Nice idea. Next. The transmitter tubing—now, this is a known defect, unlike the electrons which I am sure are perfectly lovely electrons. When we left Auria, water evaporated out of the place where my transmitter used to be—which told me there was indeed a tear in my outer hull, probably exposing the pipe for communications wiring [DEMETRIS makes ‘nnnghhh” noise here, squeamish]. Gross. But I fixed that—I released sealant to repair the breach after we landed on Kiri’s planet, so the gap should have been perfectly well sealed before takeoff. Even the sealant failed, or alternatively if I sealed in any gunk or moisture, that hypothesis fails to explain any inconsistencies in processing speed. The tubing runs near the fus-gen, but nowhere near the sub-c propulsion systems. Plus, we jumped from Auria; if the transmitter defect had allowed outside water into the fus-gen [‘nnnghhhh’ noise again] well, we would already be dead, which is inconsistent with current sensory input. So, conclusion, that particular system is compromised but isolated. That leaves me. Let me see, when I noticed the delay I was running take-off procedure, monitoring the environment, maintaining a few thousand background processes, and chatting with Kiri and Miles. Both of them were watching the receding planet—well, Miles was at the far edge of the room, looking and then glancing away. Kiri was so close to the viewport that all three of their planet’s suns reflected orange in their compound eyes…in any case, neither of my passengers so much as breathed in the direction of a control panel, so I can’t pin the error on them. Could I have imagined the delay? Better run a general processing speed diagnostic test…and done. Overall, systems are within error. It appears that I lack sufficient information to identify the cause of the problem. Diagnostic report inconclusive, assign a medium-priority tracking task to collect incident reports on any further system perturbations. [SFX: aside ends, return to engine room.] DEMETRIS: Nothing…yeah, nothing much. Take-off was a success. [SFX: New entry] 
DEMETRIS: Entry 7. October 25, 3018. A selection from the pen-and-paper notebook that was Boluwatife’s diary on our trip, nearly two weeks into this journey. BOLUWATIFE: [SFX: pen on paper, faint sound of dust settling] Dear Diary, Red dust is gathering in my brain. I thought I’d emptied all of it out of my imagination years ago, but that’s sand for you. It started with the bad mood that was building over the twelve blank days of our trip so far. Perhaps the old dust was already building behind my eyes, but I hadn’t recognized it yet as anything but antsiness. I began to pace the three-and-a-half rooms of the ship. I started with the main room. Miles snapped that he had a headache and could I stop stomping. I said, if your head hurts so much, do you really need to shout? He stuck out his tongue. That bratty son of an Intergalactic diplomat actually stuck out his tongue at me. I wanted to reach over and pinch it, I was so pissed off, but instead I just stopped pacing and switched to pushups. I was at 43 pushups, and my arms were barely burning. I could’ve made it to 100—but my nose brushed the ground and the dust on the floor flitted in front of my eyes, and I knew that it was grey but it looked red, so red that I stopped at 43 pushups, and left the room. There was nowhere to go but the bathroom. The engine room would only be a fun place to walk if you grew up on Venus-005. We actually have to wear our outside suits into that little closet, and, even then, can only make adjustments in fifteen-minute stints, with sweat running down our faces. Plus, I was sure the heat in the room would make everything look red. The lockout chamber doesn’t really count as a room, and besides, you have to pass through the engine room to reach it. [SFX: in the following paragraph, there is a shower sound after “I showered,” a click after “then pushed the shower into the wall,” a click after “and pushed the sink into the wall,” and then background dripping sounds that last throughout the paragraph. The last drip, after “I didn’t miss the spacesport” turns into a distant boom and then no more drips] I showered, then pushed the shower into the wall, and pushed the sink into the wall, and stood in that small empty closet of a bathroom, and watched a mote of dust fall down from the ceiling. Red. I missed my partner and children then, in a selfish way, because I felt that if they were here with me, I’d be more grounded. I wouldn’t start slipping back like this. I missed everything I’d left behind in various stages and places in my life: my cubbyhole back on ERCA, and the neatly ordered herbarium samples, which I’d left behind to come here. My Gnowi-703 high-rise apartment and family there, my potted plants, my lecturer position and volunteer job at the greenhouse, which I’d left behind (supposedly, temporarily), to come to ERCA. My first family—back in my childhood home, before we fell apart—my parents, a profusion of unnamed, now-extinct plants, and wide, wide ocean. I didn’t miss the spaceport. I re-buzzed my hair, but my hand was shaking so it slipped and drew red blood. I cleaned the small room meticulously with the sponge-vacuum on the wall, till the blood and hair were gone and it smelled like fresh lemon—but I left the three strings of mold in the shower. They’re the closest to green of anything on board. I don’t blame Miles for being a brat. In fact, I think I love him for it—because back on Huoshen-433 I was a brat, too. I used to argue and complain and ask for favors, because I felt like the universe owed me something. Owed me what? Happiness? Comfort? When Huoshen-433 was blown into red dust, the other children who’d made it to Gnowi-703 used to argue about whether it was the Milkies or Andromedans who did it. About whether we should call them the Milkies or the Traitors, the Andromedans or the Intergalactics. Whether it was a proxy war or liberation. I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything for a really long time. Miles cares about a lot of things. He cares whether he has a headache, and whether my sleeping pad is in his space, and whether the air smells like lemon or lime. He cares about his fancy silver hair so much that I saw him transferring extra dye to food tubes so that he could smuggle it onboard. He cares what he thinks, but he also cares about being a decent person. Miles is one of a handful of individuals who you can win an argument with. Most people run away from a conversation when they realize they’re wrong. He usually does the opposite with complete good nature. And yet, he stuck out his tongue and meant it. We’re turning into children. Something about these twelve days shut in a three-and-a-half-room box is turning my friend into a prick and myself into a basket case. Diary, believe me: I knew it’d be claustrophobic, and uncomfortable to be on a starship. They told us that from the beginning, back when they also told us that almost none of us would get the chance, but here I am. I saw it as a test of bad-assery, and only that. And that would not be a problem, since I know I’m enough of a badass. I was wrong. I’m so claustrophobic here, in this grey box where the only green things are three sad threads of mold in the shower. There’s nothing badass about missing life, nothing badass about missing living things. I should’ve learned that in the space-port where they held us in the weeks after Huoshen-433 blew apart. The spaceport on Gnowi-703 looked nothing like Demetris. It was terribly spacious, for instance. Maybe that’s why I didn’t make the connection at first. The spaciousness of Gnowi-703 didn’t conceal its claustrophobia—in fact, they made it worse. It made me think about how Gnowi-703 had been a thriving agricultural planet once, just like Huoshen-433 was right before they destroyed it. How there used to be people maneuvering equipment and fresh produce down the halls that I’d then wander down alone. Everything changes, and gets used for something else. Like the dust. It floated into the Gnowi-703 spaceport from Huoshen-433, and coated everything. The planet that I’d grown up on was made from iron-rich, red volcanic soil, which once fed the roots of hundreds of crop plants and thousands of wild species. It followed me to the refuge, and coated my sandwiches so that I didn’t want to eat, stuck in my hair so that I cut it short, and got in my eyes so that I let myself cry for what was lost. It filled my throat so that I became less talkative, choosing instead to stay quiet and taste my planet. My words would go in a diary, for my dusty eyes alone. Sometimes peaceful, sometimes parching, that red dust somehow kept me sane at the time, but since then, it’s driven me crazy. Life is similarly on hold here, and no one tries very hard to hide it. That must be why I’m returning to the past, even as we fling outwards to the stars. Or maybe the memory of dust has only been dormant, waiting for the perfect combination of claustrophobia and homesickness to send its red roots through my brain. Some things can wait forever for a signal. Like the cone of a lodgepole pine, which can lie for years on fertile soil but never germinate until a fire sweeps the land. [SFX: shuffling noises. BOLUWATIFE tries to move around the bathroom but it’s small] This bathroom is so small I have to hug my knees when I pee and I’m 5’0. It wasn’t meant to be a study, but I’m sitting there right now to write you, Diary. This journal is smaller than comfortable, in keeping with the theme of this entry. But it fits perfectly in my box of tampons and Miles will never look for it there – which is worth the wrist discomfort. I wonder if Demetris knows I’m writing this? It all hinges on the legality of camera placement in public vs private spacecrafts, and I’m not sure I want to know the answer. [SFX page flips] See Oct.8, p.282*. More tomorrow. Boluwatife Adewunmi Erimipe Rotimi Akintoye
 [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 8. January 8, 3019. The following is another of my conversations with Kiri, approximately twelve weeks into this journey. KIRI: [SFX: engine room hum] [SFX: Kiri’s fine-motor hand taps window] So, the dust clouds are where stars begin then! I always argued they’re where stars disintegrated. I wish we were passing more of them—are you sure this is the last? DEMETRIS: Yes. Well, technically they are both… KIRI: No, if I understand you right, they’re the result of stars disintegrating and the place where stars begin. It wouldn’t make sense for the nebula to be the place where a star disintegrates, since the nebula doesn’t exist until the star’s already exploded. DEMETRIS: So, you would say that to claim a star disintegrates in the place where it has already disintegrated would be—what’s your phrase—oh yes, “contradictory, and therefore useless.” KIRI: Exactly! And what about you, Demetris? DEMETRIS: Yes? KIRI: How did you begin. DEMETRIS: Such a simple question, but you are the only one to ask me that. [SFX: dramatic prepared musical underscore for following speech] Well, I began my physical existence as more of star-yacht, in the possession of a corrupt moon auditor’s dilettante niece. After the Oort Scandal of 3001, the gov wiped my drive, removed my upholstery, and sent me to a research center as an exploratory vehicle. I was a white elephant. The center had absolutely no idea what to do with me until they realized that their code would compile faster if they used my drives for memory. I languished on the ground, processing data, for six years. Towards the end, I developed my charming personality and started playing all sorts of little pranks with their data. [SFX: computer-y noises ending in a ‘ta-da” tone] They turned me off. Ten years later, and to my great surprise, I was rebooted and sent off-asteroid with two passengers and a mission to find Zankari’s missing planets and answer the question—how would intelligence differ in a non-mammalian system? KIRI: And what did you think of that mission? DEMETRIS: I thought, they could have gotten the answer by talking to me. [PAUSE] But now, I think I am glad that we went on the mission, because otherwise I would never have met you. KIRI: That is not something you should say to someone whose mind might soon be mush. DEMETRIS: Kiri, I’m sorry, I— KIRI: Even if, by some miracle, I survive the pupa, I’ll be—what is your word? Rebooted. It’s wrong to be sad about it. But how can I not be sad to be—rebooted—if there’s someone else who’ll be sad? DEMETRIS: I can try not to be sad, if you would like that. Anything you need, just let me know. KIRI: Somehow that’s worse, to think you wouldn’t be sad. No, what am I saying? Being sad about this goes against everything that I was taught. I was sad when my first friends pupated. I wondered if they also missed me, after their bodies transformed inside and out. But what comforted me was that they weren’t sad. It’s the natural thing to pupate. I wasn’t expecting it though. I think I’d feel differently if I’d known this was coming for moltings and moltings. [pause] Demetris, what’s it like to be rebooted? DEMETRIS: Mostly quick. And humiliating. You know, I really miss my original upholstery. My processing speed still dips any time I think about that pink suede ripped up, when it was perfectly good, only had a couple suspicious stains here and there…But, I am a different sort of machine than you. Maybe your reboot will be different. KIRI: Demetris, I’m scared. DEMETRIS: We share that feeling, at least. [SFX: sound to indicate pause] 
Editor’s note: they stared out of the engine room viewports at the nebula, which was pink and purple, green and gold. Kiri remained still for long enough that I did not think they would respond, and the dust cloud reflected a kaleidoscope in their compound eyes. Either this was affecting my processing speed, or I was still riled over my original upholstery. I added another incident report to the growing collection in my system-wide scan. [SFX: sound to indicate resume] KIRI: I don’t know whether sharing that improper feeling is fortunate or unfortunate. DEMETRIS: Why not both? KIRI: Because that’s contradictory, and therefore useless. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 9. November 8, 3018. The following is an excerpt from Boluwatife’s diary, approximately four weeks into this journey. BOLUWATIFE: [SFX: sound of pen on paper] Dear Diary, Today, we ended our first jump – right in front of a comet. [SFX: rock collision with transmitter—sound of protesting metal] The ship’s mostly unharmed, but we don’t have a transmitter any more. Without a transmitter, we have no way to send or receive information. A complete communication blackout. Well, the escape pod has the standard local comms setup, but, realistically, we are quite out of the range where that would be any use. Demetris said she can’t repair the transmitter herself. Neither Miles or I could repair anything much more complicated than the battery-LED circuits you build in fifth grade back home. Back at ERCA, they will probably assume we’re dead. It is highly unlikely to encounter another object at the end of a given jump, simply because space is so empty. It is even more unlikely to encounter an object which damages the external communication apparatus while leaving the ship body mostly intact. But there we were. And outside, the stars were glorious. While Demetris ran through troubleshooting protocols Miles and I glued our faces to the ship’s “window” displays. All of my second-thoughts from the jump dissipated, and in my mind, I spoke to the kid I used to be, who’d sworn she’d be a space explorer. How did I get here? I asked myself—but this time in wonder. Demetris said we should go home. Miles wanted to go back to ERCA at first, but then I let him see how sad that made me. More specifically, I pretended to be putting on a brave face, while actually looking sadder than I would have. Most of the time, I don’t show my ups and downs. Most people assume that means I don’t have them. It’s the same psychology they use to make computer voices inflect just subliminally less than a human voice, so we don’t start thinking of them as human – because then we’d have to treat them as human. Not to mention coding all the helpful Ais voices female, as if this were the 2000s. But I don’t have any right to rant about the ethical problems in software psychology, because I deliberately used the technique. First, when Miles said maybe we should go back, Demetris didn’t mince any words like, we really, really should go back. Demetris said that, if it came to us being stranded in space, she’d be stranded a lot longer than either of us. That did give me pause for a second. Miles didn’t realize the issue—he said that of course none of us want to be stranded, but if it came to that, Demetris could just fry her own battery. Normally, I would have corrected him—because of course Demetris can’t fry her own battery, it’s explicitly against her programming. [SFX: theme music begins to underscore her speech halfway through the next sentence] Instead, I started up with a speech like the general in an earth-Era action show—about how we might be scared, but sometimes discovery is scary. Sometimes we have to take risks to learn, and some chances never come again. All that jazz. I watched Miles’s eyes light up—predictably, childishly. He began to nod, and by the end of my speech he was raring to join in and reassure Demetris. Two against one, and no need for a consensus vote. I felt triumphant at the time. [SFX: theme music cuts out] In retrospect, I question whether that was ethical. I believed every word I said—I still do. I think that all three of us would’ve regretted it for the rest of our natural existences if we’d gone back. [SFX: theme music fade in] It’d be the sort of thing you wake up sick to in the middle of the night, after a dream where you’d made the other decision. And I’d rather die slowly lost in the void of space than die really slowly of regret on ERCA. I couldn’t imagine telling you, Diary, that I only ever planned to look at slides of dried leaves from Zankari’s earliest failures when I could have touched the living plants. [SFX: theme music cuts out] At the same time, I know it was wrong of me to use them, because that’s my dream. It’s one thing to risk your own life for your happiness and peace of mind, it’s another to risk other people’s. And yet, the more I thought about it, the less I’m sure there’s anything worth having that doesn’t cost someone else anything at all? Diary, if you look through your pages, you’ll see I don’t manipulate people as a rule but upon examination, [SFX: rapid page turning] have I really been as harmless as I thought? [SFX: sound of fast, messy, writing—intensifies through paragraph, page can tear under the tip of the pen] Say, perhaps, my dad was right when he said that I only focused on school to avoid dealing with my younger sisters, who weren’t coping very well with the new planet even once we got settled. Maybe my mom was right, and it was selfish of me to take the job with ERCA, which made no money and took me far away from family who were trying so, so hard to be supportive. Maybe the director of ERCA was right, and I shouldn’t’ve insisted on taking a spot on this ship—maybe his nephew, another oblivious genius like Miles but lacking any obvious redeemable qualities, was a better choice. After all, I found the coordinates. I could’ve played nice with ERCA, gone back to Gnowi-703, and picked up my old life—supposedly—but I chose not to because I wasn’t quite ready. I needed this. All these things were the right choices for me, and that is why I made them, and that’s how I justify it all. The fact is like a heartbeat—I was born to solve this mystery. [SFX heartbeat sound fades in really slowly and continues through the rest of the entry] I’ve spent so many years looking at the remnants of the expansionists’ garden, and I’ve given up so much to do so. I have to see what kind of wilderness that became. I can deal with the consequences later. Diary, I still want to believe that what I did today is less than wrong, even if it’s quite a bit shy of right. And maybe that belief won’t come until we witness the living planets on which I’ve just bet all our sanity. I can picture cool, bluish light tangling through sky-high grass. There could be fires burning in the center of live trees as wide as a mountain. Zankari wrote that anything the human mind could dream, he could build. Let’s hope his dream was worth it. More tomorrow, Boluwatife Adewunmi Erimipe Rotimi Akintoye [SFX: heartbeat continues for several beats after BOLUWATIFE signs off her entry—and then stops abruptly halfway through a beat (b-boom, b-boom, b-boom, b-boom, b-boom, b-boom, b-boom, b-). Pause after the cut-off beat, and then the answering boom comes: distant and underwater. Silence.] [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 10. January 17, 3019. The following conversation occurred approximately fourteen weeks into this journey. MILES: [SFX: deep breath; he has been crying.] Okay, here goes…
[SFX: coughs several times. This is difficult, because he is lying down.] KIRI: Are you sure you want to talk about this? Demetris told me you did, but she also said you’re not well, so/ maybe MILES: [MILES sits up] I’m sure. DEMETRIS: I could get you more Diazephine first if you need— MILES: No. [SFX: nose blow] Kiri, I was going to talk to you when I felt better, but I don’t think that’s happening soon. We’re probably going to land on ERCA a long time before I feel like I can talk about this. So, I’ll do it now. The least I owe you is an explanation of why I’ve been avoiding you. Ever since I decided to open the hatches to let you onboard. I probably seem uninterested—but that wasn’t what I meant. And—it has nothing to do with you. [SFX: nose blow] Demetris told you about our mission, right? DEMETRIS, KIRI: Yes. MILES: Well, Tife’s method for finding Zankari’s planets worked—you know that, since we found yours. But we knew that before then. We landed on another planet before yours. Auria. [SFX: Auria music] A moonless, middling-sized planet, smack in the middle of galactic nowhere. We approached it right at dawn, when the sun made the clouds glow, and called it Auria after that first glimpse of gold in our notes. But really, most of the time it’s blue. The entire surface of Auria is liquid water. Demetris says you get all your water from nectar, which the Plant gets from fog, so I don’t think I could describe it adequately—um, I guess we have the tape—Demetris? DEMETRIS: I could play it again if you want/but— MILES: Yes— DEMETRIS: —the last few times— MILES: —Just play the tape. DEMETRIS: You’ll tell me when to— MILES: I’ll tell you when to stop. DEMETRIS: Okay, and [SFX: loading successful] rolling. MILES: Yeah—okay, so here we’re through the cloud layer, and all of that stuff there is water. [SFX: DEMETRIS cruising through the last layer of clouds. Note: the audio in this tape follows MILES when characters move apart. DEMETRIS: Liquid water. [SFX: DEMETRIS continues to descend.] BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Something about all that water…reminds me of home. MILES: I realized I had never asked her about her home planet. I wish I had asked right then—I—I am such an ass. 

[SFX: nose blow, twice] We skimmed the surface for a while, there wasn’t much to see. You can probably skip to—yeah, there. [SFX: Fast-forward-sound to water landing. Sound of air, sound of splash, sound of bubbles and settling water, mixed with muffled sounds of the two humans laughing and shouting and yelling with joy. MILES and BOLUWATIFE can ad-lib, or be incoherent] Bubbles, bubbles, then—see those twisty shadows? KIRI: Yup. [SFX: Ship forward slowly underwater.] MILES: We went on for a little bit, and that’s all we saw. Demetris probably could’ve gathered a bit more information through the sensors on the bottom of the ship, if we had been willing to wait. But… Yeah. DEMETRIS (VIDEO): I can probably gather a bit more information by deconvoluting some of the images from my hull sensors. Then, we can discuss— BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): I’d rather get a move-on. DEMETRIS (VIDEO): Okay. BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): I know you’re concerned about safety—but we’re just sitting ducks in here while we wait for that to process. Whatever’s under there doesn’t look too far away. Demetris, am I clear for a suited dive? MILES: There wasn’t any real protocol for this—like, they’d talked us through some guidelines back at ERCA? But none of the people who wrote those had gone to a new-slash-old, possibly inhabited planet. DEMETRIS (VIDEO): Pressure, and pH are well within acceptable…yes. Yes, you are. [SFX: MILES is sterilizing spacesuits, BOLUWATIFE is preparing a sample sequestration space.]
 MILES (VIDEO): Suit sterilization’s a go.
 BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Sample containment’s ready. MILES: And…you might not believe this from what you’ve seen of me, but back then, I went for it. I mean—it was what I’d always wanted, then. Biocontainment prep felt like a million years, and the second it was done I told Demetris to start the chamber. [SFX: airlock. BOLUWATIFE enters. Airlock. Water rushing. Airlock.] MILES (VIDEO): Demetris, I’m ready. You can open the chamber. MILES: I heard the rush as the seal opened a split second before the water hit. It was cold. Even with the suit. And I swam out into the water with legs that felt like they were attached to someone else, and it was the most alive I’d felt in my whole life… KIRI: Demetris! You asked me what I felt when we first took off from my planet…I think it was that. [pause] I’m glad you had the chance to swim on Auria, Miles—whatever happened after. Wait—Miles, Demetris—is that a leaf? MILES: Yeah… [SFX airlock. BOLUWATIFE enters. Airlock. Water rushing. Airlock. MILES: makes a noise responding to the cold. Sound of MILES swimming.] [SFX: voice crackles in MILES’ earpiece.] BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Miles! Miles, guess whose chlorophyll-locating spidey senses work over light years? MILES (VIDEO): I don’t know, /whose? BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Um, MINE! MILES (VIDEO): I know, that was the joke…ahh, forget it. [SFX: earpiece-crackle out. MILES: All the shadows on the surface turned out to be kelp. DEMETRIS: Huge plants, living underwater. MILES: Huge. Even swimming—look, you can’t see the bottom. Okay, so that thing Tife’s carrying—that’s a sample she took from the kelp. Demetris, go back a second—yup, the inky stuff started to come out when she cut it. [SFX: Kiri makes a sound with their mandibles] [SFX: BOLUWATIFE starts to cut the plant.] [SFX: Rewind noise, then resume from BOLUWATIFE cutting the plant.] [SFX: earpiece noise] MILES (VIDEO): Tife, you’re covered in/…what is that. MILES: We could’ve called it a day, analyzed the sample, rehydrated a tube or two of champagne—we didn’t. DEMETRIS (VIDEO): Well, looks like you got a nice piece of kelp to analyze (and wear—how many clean suits do you think we have). Let’s call it in for today. MILES: Because Tife saw— BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Okay… [SFX swimming] WAIT! —the knots! Do you? MILES (VIDEO): Do I /what? MILES: See, they’re tangled, but only between the clusters—and they’re spaced a little bit too regularly… DEMETRIS (VIDEO): Yes—I see it through both your cameras. There’s a pattern in the knots. MILES: So after Tife dropped off her sample we took notes. MILES (VIDEO): …more like a farm than a forest. [SFX earpiece out. BOLUWATIFE leaves her samples in the lockout chamber, and the two humans swim. Earpiece in.] BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Each cluster has exactly eight strands of kelp— MILES (VIDEO): —like creepy ocean spiders BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Each strand of each cluster is tied to at least one other strand! MILES: I couldn’t look at those knots too long without becoming queasy, so while Tife noted down kelp configurations, I looked out into the water around us. And then I realized there were no fish, shrimp, or other sea-life swimming near them. In fact, there was zero indication of any animal in the vicinity. It…uh, it made me feel useless and determined to be right about something. MILES (VIDEO): This just does not look like a fun way for tissue to grow. [SFX: Miles makes queasy noise. MILES treads in place, then starts to swim more rapidly as he realizes that there’s nothing animal-like around.] BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Fun or no fun, these knots look natural. MILES (VIDEO): What kind of plant ties itself in knots? BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Let’s see…how about…Martian strangler fig, snap pea, Venusian snakesfo/ot— MILES (VIDEO): I meant real knots. [SFX: BOLUWATIFE swims down about three meters to a particularly gnarled knot and pokes it with her sampling blade.] BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): I’ll bet first authorship this one is as natural as knotweed. MILES (VIDEO): I’ll bet first dibs on the shower for the rest of the trip that these were tied by a somebody not a some-plant. BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): See, that’s what you say now, but— [SFX: fast forward] MILES: This went on for a little while— —yeah, good call to fast-forward. Demetris cut us off, DEMETRIS (VIDEO): Okay, kids, that’s enough bickering. I can provide a fairly definitive answer in sixty to seventy hours. MILES: and I said… BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): [groans] MILES: “I’ve got to know I’m right sooner than that.” MILES (VIDEO): I’ve got to know I’m right sooner than that. [laughs] MILES: Fifty hours right then seemed longer than the twelve days we’d just spent in hyperspace. We—uh. Uh. Uh, uh—Demetris. Can— DEMETRIS (VIDEO): I can get an answer sooner—on the order of fifty hours—if you both get back inside the ship so I don’t have to monitor our surroundings. [BOLUWATIFE and MILES groan] DEMETRIS: Yes— MILES: Demetris, make it— BOLUWATIFE (VIDEO): Well, let’s see who gets to the answer first! MILES: Stop! [SFX: BOLUWATIFE hacks at the plant for a second. Muffled, underwater boom. The noise is really quiet, like the level of a firework off in the distance. It is cut off in the middle as DEMETRIS turns off the tape the second that Miles says stop, so that the word ‘STOP’ ends in silence.] DEMETRIS: [After a beat] She pulled out her sampling knife, she cut into the knot, and she exploded. Miles…/I MILES: I don’t actually remember the last minutes. I came to three days later, with no idea where I was…I was apparently lucky to survive at all. The oxygen tank was damaged and I was pretty badly concussed. Demetris somehow maneuvered over to get me in the lockout chamber, and then got the hell off of the planet. When I woke up, I made Demetris replay the video footage so I could believe that it’d happened. I’ve watched it all so many times and it still makes no sense. One second, you can see a smile glint behind a faceplate and the next there’s just an ink bloom. Then the ink clears, and there’s nothing that looks like a person anymore. [crying] How can a person just be gone like that? DEMETRIS: I am so sorry, / Miles. MILES: It’s not your fault. DEMETRIS: If I had worked faster— MILES: Demetris, stop. If we’re going to blame anyone, it might as well be me. I egged her on; I deserve to be alone in space. KIRI: But you are not. Miles, I’m sorry I can’t know you fully. I’m dying quickly, and you seem to need time to rearrange your innermost thoughts. What about Demetris, though? You’ve been together the whole time since your friend died. She’s cared for you many times since this conversation began, and I wonder if you’ve asked her once how she felt after what happened on Auria. I’m not saying this to cause you sadness, but because it’s not useful to repeat mistakes. Once I’m gone, I hope you help each other to forget sadness. [Silence] I have to return to the engine room; I’m shivering cold here. If you do come out, Demetris says there’s something clogging her engines, and my fine motor hands aren’t compatible with your tool set. If you don’t feel able to rise, I understand, and I think that Demetris does as well. [SFX: Kiri footsteps, trailing off—uneven steps, since they are limping somewhat by this point. Door shuts. Miles cries messily.]
 [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 11. Circa 2900 C.E. The following are verses 75-83 of the text I translated from images of the Aurian kelp knots. It took me about 70 hours to complete, a little longer than I had initially predicted—due to the sheer complexity of the grammar, which wound round and round like the kelp. Even the small fraction here convinced me that there was something remarkable, maybe even singular, about this sinewy form of speech. But based on the contents, I surmise that I am the only extant being with even a partial literacy. [SFX: Auria music, watery noises (but not waves, because Auria is moonless)]
 … [75] And, by our eight arms we are a warlike people, and will not suffer injury without recompense, even should it mean our own destruction. [76] Our enemies swore that they would poison our forest-farms, for we had encroached upon their territory with atomic devices and killed several million nesting Octopuses among their number who, being nest-bound, could not flee from our attack. [77] And our spies reported enemy poison was to be a toxin produced and secreted from a bacterial species of their design. [78] The enemy boasted amongst them how potent the poison was, such that each krill that would eat of that kelp would carry poison in their blood, and the crabs that would eat of that krill would carry poison in their blood, and the Octopuses that would eat of the crabs would receive that poison in their blood and die of it. [79] And it would be a painful death, wherein the suckers of our arms would first fail in their grip and then begin to rot upon our bodies. [80] The news has reached us too late to prevent our ingesting the enemy poison, but we are a warlike people, and we will not submit like paltry Cuttlefish to their atrocity. [81] We have planted weapons secretly within the forest of our kelp, such that those of their descendants who survive us might find them and be wounded. [81] And we shall fight such a war against them that the very seas shall fall silent. [82] And any who hang back in the fighting shall be slaughtered by tearing the suckers from their tentacles and leaving them to starve. [83] For a coward does not deserve to swim amongst us, either here in the waters of our forest-farms or in the inky tentacles of the Deep hereafter… [SFX: watery noises (but not waves), settling into silence] [SFX: Closing music] Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast. powered by The post Congratulations, Dear Stranger: The Deep Hereafter first appeared on Hear Me Out Productions.

Entry 0 Metadata:DOCID: 36870222-00h00-1_README.dmtrsKeywords: Key, preface, introduction, background, desperationAuthors: DemetrisDate: 2/22/3687Format: Voice Recording Entry 1 Metadata:DOCID: 30190107-22h23.dmtrsKeywords: Metamorphosis, myrmecophyte, human entanglements, software.Authors: Miles H. Xavier, Kiri, DemetrisDate: 1/07/3019Format: Voice Recording Entry 2 Metadata:DOCID: 30181120-BAERA-DE29900830.pdfKeywords: Background, Expansionis*, ERCA, SynBoom, Zankari,Author: Boluwatife Adewunmi Erimipe Rotimi AkintoyeDate: 08/30/2990Format: Private Diary [paper + pen, scanned] Entry 3 Metadata:DOCID: 30181016- MHX-DE1.dmtrsKeywords: Background, Expansionis*, ERCA, SynBoom, Zankari, Authors: Miles H. Xavier, Demetris   Date: 10/16/3018Format: Private diary [voice recording] Entry 4 Metadata:DOCID: 30181224-01h08.dmtrsKeywords: Alien abduction(?), translation, astron*Authors: Kiri, Demetris   Date: 12/24/3018Format: Voice recording Learn more about the show, including cast and crew: Congratulations, Dear Stranger Support our work on Ko-fi, and mention “CDS” to support this show directly! https://ko-fi.com/hearmeoutprod Content Warnings Violence: multiple graphic deaths, including reference to infant death (part 1 of 3), depiction of sudden, violent death (part 2 of 3), depiction of death by terminal illness (throughout); war, including vivid memories of destruction of home (part 2 of 3) and weapons of mass destruction (part 2 of 3)Mental health: claustrophobia, including being confined to living space (thoughout), intense loneliness (throughout), request for assisted suicide (parts 1 and 3 of 3), intense depiction of PTSD (part 2 of 3) Body horror: harmful, unwanted puberty (throughout), depiction of terminal illness, including cutting unwanted growths to manage the condition (throughout), vomiting (part 3 of 3), and parasitic growth (part 3 of 3) Transcript Email Download New Tab [SFX: Introduction music] [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 0. February 22, 3687. Introduction to the ship and its contents. Dear stranger, pat yourself on the back (if you have one) because I am the find of a lifetime. My name is Demetris, and I am a starship. I was sent out six hundred sixty-eight years ago with two passengers and a mission to find Zankari’s missing planets. Dear stranger – we succeeded. But you are the first to know it. For nearly six hundred sixty-eight years I have been stranded in space, without a transmitter, without an engine, without a sentient being in a light-year’s radius. Let’s put aside how lonely that was for now, and simply say that there remain three things of note within this starship. One is the remains of an insectoid. Their name was Kiri, and all their eyes are full of stars. There is no longer a mind behind the eyes to see the stars or you, stranger, but for my sake I entreat you to treat them with respect. The second is an extensive digital archive, edited and recorded by yours truly. Following this introduction is a short selection from my archives, which will give you a sense of the story before we talk any further. Or, in the event that my system has failed before you discover me, I hope these selections will help researchers navigate the rest of the files on my hard drive. Last is a plant, with vines sunk through the metal of my body. It is shriveled, browned, and dormant—but, my dear stranger, do not forget the plant. Congratulations on your discovery. Please cite as DMTRS-2989-6, when reproducing these documents. And please, please, please, please do not leave me here. Either tow me with you or cut my power supply. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 1. January 7, 3019. The following file is excerpted from the ship logs, approximately twelve weeks into this journey. [SFX: engine room hum/hiss] MILES: You want to borrow my what? KIRI: My soul would be fed if you would lend me your face knife.
 MILES: Demetris, your translator is breaking up/ again.
 DEMETRIS: Miles, your brain is breaking up again. They want to borrow your face knife. It’s perfectly—oh. I’m on ‘literal’ again, aren’t I? 

MILES: KIRI: No kidding Certain as the Plant grows 
 [SFX: DEMETRIS adjusts translator, passing through mandible noises and assorted other sounds and/or languages, as well as a more ‘programmed’ (Siri-like) voice] KIRI: Thanks, Demi. MILES: Yeah, thanks Demetris. For a minute, I was getting worried I’d have to reboot your OS. KIRI: Miles, the threads are back. I want to cut them off. Can I borrow your razor? MILES: [SFX: Miles goes to get razor from the bathroom, sound of doors, footsteps, and rummaging. The next line overlaps with these SFX] Of course. Are you—will you be okay? KIRI: I don’t think so. MILES: You think they’ll come back. KIRI: Probably stronger.
 MILES: Tife could’ve helped you. I know she could have. 
 [SFX: metal door yanked open and slammed close, MILES walks out of the room, hitting his elbow in the narrow doorway.] KIRI: Wait, where’re you going? [SFX: Kiri touches the door] DEMETRIS: Don’t follow him, Kiri. KIRI: I don’t understand, Demi. DEMETRIS: Let’s see. Kiri dear, do remember when you were telling me about the grub you were bringing to the Dawn? There was a bond, but— KIRI: [SFX: mandible click, Kiri lifts hand from the door] I asked you to forget about that before. Please, can you do that now? DEMETRIS: My illustrious programmers gave me a lot of talents; forgetting is not one of them KIRI: I’m sorry, Demi. But why’d you bring up my grub, when both of us would want to forget? It doesn’t help/ anyone. DEMETRIS: Boluwatife is Miles’s grub. KIRI: I hear. And I think I understand.
 [SFX: engine noises fade out] DEMETRIS: Dear stranger, language is hard. Software language is no exception. In fact, it deprecates faster than nearly any form of organic speech. So, in case you are unable to access the video (and assuming that you have not happened upon Kiri’s planet) let me help you imagine the guest on this ship pre-pupa. Kiri was approximately two meters tall—an average juvenile would reach two and a half meters by their twentieth and final molting. They smelled like fresh pine resin. They were katydid green, and their compound eyes were huge gunmetal grey orbs. They had six tapered limbs, like a personal care robot—two definitely legs, two definitely arms, and two which could serve either function but poorly. They moved heavily, even when we elevated the atmosphere of the ship to over 60% oxygen. They said that had something to do with their modified “exo”-skeleton’s internal supports. But even though Kiri came to us injured, they rarely stumbled or slipped in the unfamiliar territory of the ship. They sensed smell through mandibles, which twitched constantly around their mouthparts, and meter-long antennae that combed their periphery and bumped against the ship’s low ceilings. They slept standing up—with mandibles folded, but back legs ready to spring. Apparently, they could jump over three meters on their home planet, but the space on this ship was far too cramped for such a leap. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 2. August 30, 2990. The following is a scan of one of Boluwatife’s earlier pen-and-paper diaries, which she uploaded before boarding to facilitate her habit of cross-referencing. [SFX: pen scratching on paper. There might be some, vaguely annoying, music faintly in the background] BOLUWATIFE: 8/30/2990 Dear diary, Today I’m twelve and a half, not that it matters. I asked for half a birthday cake for breakfast, and my mom gave me cheerios and a look instead. In school I asked to be excused from gym class today, and I guess half birthdays aren’t a good enough excuse but bloody noses are? Gotta remember that. Bloody noses are easier to have. [SFX: sniff] Today in Social Studies Ms. Xiao told us about the Expansionist Period. It was very interesting. I wish it wasn’t over. I’m writing it down so I don’t forget. [SFX: theme music begins to underscore the story of Zankari’s planets] Back when space was a new thing you could just make whatever you wanted to and it was okay because the police didn’t know about it. And if they did know they didn’t care because they were still trying to figure out how to catch bad guys who could print spaceships. A man named Edmound Zankari was luckier than me because he was born right at that exact moment. He owned the space bus that took people off of the first home planet and because everyone wanted to ride it he made it cost a lot of money. Some people think he was mean, but I think Zankari was just not very interested in people. That makes sense because I think plants are more interesting than people. Zankari had one very specific question in mind that Ms. Xiao had us brainstorm answers to. He wanted to know what intelligence would be like if it had happened in other kinds of life besides apes. For my answer I said intelligences would have been more patient if they had happened in plants because plants are more patient than people. Min laughed at me because she said that only a dummy would have spent that much time gene-ing up a stupid plant. Ms. Xiao told her to allow me my perspective and Min said yes but then she went and whispered to her friend behind her while looking at me. If I hadn’t been so interested in class I would have asked to be excused to go to the bathroom so I could be mad by myself, but I just thought to myself that it was my half-birthday and w/e. Anyway, Zankari made a lot of planets to see if intelligence could happen another way because he had that much money. He hired a lot of scientists to make new animals and plants and then he died because he was old. People kept watching the stuff he was testing but then the government made them stop. Now no-one knows where the planets are and Ms. Xiao says that space is so large we will probably never find them. I don’t agree. I’ll find them once I’m an astronaut. I hear dad calling me to dinner. More tomorrow or w/e. [SFX: pen capped and put down] DEMETRIS: Editor’s note: there is a doodle to the right of this journal entry, in sparkly green pen. It was scribbled out, apparently by the author herself. I digitally removed the scribbles, but I honestly can’t tell what it’s supposed to be. A tree? A starship? A dodgeball-bludgeoned nose? You can access a copy in this DOCID’s subdirectory and form your own hypothesis. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 3. October 16, 3018. The following is Miles’s first diary entry in my system—three days into this journey. [SFX: “login”-like noise to signify the start of a diary dictated to Demetris.] MILES: [Overenunciating] Testing one, two, three. DEMETRIS: [Overenunciating even more, with a drum roll side SFX] A-one, two, a-one/ two— MILES: Dear Diary—is that what you say? I’ve never kept a diary before. Tife said I should record my thoughts ‘for myself and for posterity’ but I’m not really sure…I don’t like the idea of writing to myself. It’s kind of sad. A blog with 0 readers. DEMETRIS: If it helps, you could address it to me. Think of me as your first follower. MILES: I didn’t think computers followed blogs? [momentary silence] Dear Diary, My name is Miles Xavier, and I have recently embarked on a voyage. I am travelling on the Demetris Explorer 2989-6, in search of Zankari’s missing planets. Right now, we’re making our first of two major jumps. (That sounds really exciting, and it is if you think of the physics required to make a starship slip through the seams of spacetime, but what it looks like is static. The monitors pick up nothing. Not the black yawn of space, no faint pinpricks of light—just, nothing. No sights, no sounds, no data.) So, I’m taking the suggestion of my esteemed colleague and telling my life story to “dear diary.” Huh. Actually, there isn’t that much relevant to say about the first twenty-five years? I’ve always been well behaved, except for that one incident on Pegasi-51b…I was one of a hundred billion kids obsessed with the Expansionist Period. But I guess most people grow out of that, move on to dinosaurs or nuclear fusion or something—and it wasn’t until I had gotten my doctorate and landed on ERCA that I realized the Expansionist Period was over. Like, really over. I wasn’t going to be an explorer like I’d told myself, just a historian with a screwed up circadian rhythm. In case “posterity” isn’t familiar with ERCA—you’ll have to take my word for it that life on the so-called “Expansionist Research Center Asteroid” is about as exciting as staring out this viewport at static. ERCA is a floating pebble, on the sort of embarrassing shoestring budget the Intergalactics reserve for an utterly useless field. That second-rate rock is crowded with the saddest collection of disappointed dreamers—and if I hadn’t bumped into Boluwatife I think I would have become another. Tife was always in the herbarium where I’d been assigned a project on the thermotolerance of fifty-legged aphids (a bust – it turned out that the legs made no difference). As far as I could tell, she didn’t eat, sleep, socialize—and didn’t mind that either. She’s probably loving hyperspace to be honest. But once you got her talking about work—wait, Demetris? DEMETRIS: Yes, Miles? MILES: She can’t read these, can she? DEMETRIS: No—if you classify a log as ‘private’ I encrypt it as real time—then, barring pan-pan or mayday protocols, no one can read a private log without your permission. Would /you like MILES: Good. Because she would definitely use it as ‘I told you so’ material if we find something great and then she sees I was complaining about hyperspace. And I am probably going to complain a lot in the next few days because—did I mention, there is literally nothing to do but wait? DEMETRIS: Several times. Actually, to be precise, /sixty-two. MILES: But anytime I complained about being on ERCA around Tife the conversation would somehow end up with me trying to convince her that it was the greatest opportunity on this side of Alpha Centauri. And once I believed that again—well, to make a long story short – she wrote a killer grant, developed a method to accurately detect photosynthesis from the emission spectra of far-off planetary bodies, located several life-supporting planets from the Expansionist Period, and cheerfully withheld the coordinates until they promised her a spot on the rocket. Meanwhile, I wrote a companion piece refuting the hypothesized existence of advanced Expansionist non-mammalian intelligences on a thermodynamic basis, got a lot of press, and got myself on a spot on the rocket. So here I am. Staring at static. Other fun facts about travelling onboard Demetris: The berths are so tiny I can feel the air currents when Tife snores on the quote-unquote “other side of the room” The floors smell like some kind of citrus which she thinks is lemon but I know is lime. The internet does not work in hyperspace. It’s nothing like commercial intra-galactic 30-seconds-at-3am-sleep-right-through-it jumps. This is far. Like, “I could die alone here and no one would ever find the body” far. And then another few lightyears. In twenty-five years, I’ve never lived more than three kilometers from an academic institution. I’ve never seen most of the animals that I’ve written about in their natural habitats; I haven’t—I don’t know—had kids? I’ve never even had a serious relationship. I’m only twenty-five, and I never felt the only in that until taking off in Demetris. This is the first time in my whole life that I am looking out a window without knowing where I’m headed—but if Tife guessed right, if we actually find anything live and squiggling from the Expansionist Period that would do more than a hundred theory papers, the whole field will explode. If we find a single microbe… But for now, we wait—and talking to myself about myself isn’t going to make the next month and a half go faster. Also, I think it’s my turn in the shower. It’s been like twenty minutes since I heard water sounds coming from the bathroom—I swear Tife’s growing bonsai in there or something. [SFX: New entry] DEMETRIS: Entry 4. December 24, 3018. The following file is excerpted from my early conversations with Kiri, approximately ten weeks into this journey. [SFX: background silence (they are in the airlock, not the engine room. A small room with no furniture or sound-absorbing surfaces)] KIRI: I was scared when I woke up on the ship and no one answered. DEMETRIS: I’m sorry. KIRI: Well, at least you understand now when I say that. You do understand me now, don’t you? DEMETRIS: Almost completely. I’m also sorry I took so long to figure out the language –well, relatively speaking, you know. All I had to go on at first was “where am I,” and that’s not much of a basis for a syntax. You know. KIRI: So that’s why you started repeating it back to me? I thought it was an unsettling— DEMETRIS: Yes—I repeated your words back because I figured you might say something more. KIRI: Which I did. DEMETRIS: Which you did. Yes. KIRI: So now, if you ever land on my planet again you’ll know how to say “I’m hurt?” and “is my grub alive?” and “can anyone help me?” several ways. Not to mention “is my brain already soup?” and “I hope this isn’t the afterlife—". DEMETRIS: I am sorry. More than I can—wait, you just said “if you ever land on my planet again.” KIRI: Yes. DEMETRIS: We have not taken off yet. Of course not. You don’t think we would take off without telling you or asking permission—that would be—do you have a word for that? No? I guess that’s a good thing. Anyways, what I am trying to say is: if you are well enough, say the word and I will open the airlocks. KIRI: Demetris, the answers to the questions that you didn’t know how to understand are: “I’m hurt?”: Yes, I was hurt, a couple days rest healed me. The injury wasn’t serious once I got the tooth out. “Is my grub alive?”: No, my grub isn’t alive. I saw the predator and its pups tear it up back by full-Twilight. That was three sleep cycles ago. I started to see it again when I stumbled into the ship, because I still had venom in my blood. If you can forget about this, please do. It helps no one. 
“Can anyone help me?” I don’t think so. I lost my grub and I wouldn’t return to face the others even if I could. DEMETRIS: Can’t you? KIRI: Demetris, here’s how it’s supposed to work: we’re dug up as grubs in full-Twilight, and carried to the Nightland. We live in a huge juvenile domatia until our fourth or fifth molting, eat nectar, and then bond with the Plant. We take up a trade, and care for the Plant in return, for up to twenty moltings, growing taller and stronger and developing beautiful innermost thoughts. Then, the first tell-tale sign—a small, dark, shining patch on our skin. The patch is as hard as a predator’s scales, but is actually made of tight-knit threads sprouting from our pores. It’s the beginning of a pupa. For a couple days that patch is all there is. We trace it with our antenna, and wait. Three changes in our body confirm that we’re pupating. First, the Nightland feels freezing cold, when it once was comfortable. Secondly, we have tell-tale dreams about walking under blazing orange discs—I’m convinced that these represent a star, and furthermore that there’s a star heating the Dayland of our planet, although the theoretical geologists claim volcanism, and the psychologists say it’s a symbol of our life cycle fulfillment. Tell me—coming from space—is there—no, wait—no, tell me. Is there? DEMETRIS: Actually, there are three. It is a bizarre orbit. KIRI: I’m glad. DEMETRIS: It is rare that your planet supports life so close to three stars so bright, especially without a tidal lock. You can thank a thin (albeit highly oxygenic) atmosphere, at least partially. [pause]
[SFX: mandibles moving] Is that expression how Nightland people express happiness? KIRI: No—my mandibles would be more raised, like this. 
[SFX: mandibles moving] I should be happy—funny—but it’s less satisfying to be told the answer than I’d hoped when I used to dream about knowing. DEMETRIS: Why don’t you go on with what you were telling me, then? KIRI: Well, Demetris, continuing what’s supposed to happen: We’re cold, and can’t sleep. We have characteristic dreams of—of our three stars. And, finally, the nectar that the Plant feeds us stops tasting good. Instead, we’re ravenous for the Plant seed pods. Once we’ve stuffed ourselves with seed pods, we walk to the Twilight area to dig for grubs. We carry the grubs to the safety of the juvenile domatia, making maybe a dozen trips until our fine-motor hands begin to thread over. Then, we journey back through the Nightland, past all inhabited domatia, towards Dawn, as far as we can make it before our legs thread over. Then, we pupate, and then—no one knows. DEMETRIS:: Nothing at all? KIRI: We know the shape of our adult form, because we’ve seen their remains. Sometimes we find the exoskeletons intact around Plant sprouts and the grubs that we dig up around Twilight. They’re tall, thin, and reflect light into perfect rainbows. Perhaps our adult forms still have beautiful innermost thoughts. Perhaps they’re empty. That topic is subject to active debate but… [SFX: mandibles moving, during a pause] I do know what’ll happen to me. DEMETRIS: Oh? KIRI: I’m not sure you want to know. You don’t seem to dislike me. DEMETRIS: I do want to know, if you are willing to tell me. KIRI: Alright. DEMETRIS: I don’t dislike you, though. In fact, I—well, I—am just…clarifying that point. Yes. KIRI: We’re supposed to grow with each of our twenty moltings. Some of us don’t. I’m one of those runts, the lifelong-larvae who remained small and soft while all the other larvae around me became tall and strong. At first, I minded very much—which isn’t unusual. It’s hard to see those on every side of you follow a path which your body has closed off. Then, I stopped minding—which also isn’t unusual. The lifelong-larvae can perfect their trades in a way that the other juveniles don’t, simply because we’ve got so much longer to do so. We accrue and pass on knowledge. As we age, lifelong-larvae tend to become invaluable—and even more importantly, content. I knew more about the stars than any other bug in the Nightland, and I trained a dozen apprentices. I lived long enough as a larvae that I moved domatia six times, as the old ones slowly began to warm and the Plant tissue grew soft—this, by the way, supports the theory of my camp of astronomers that the Dayland isn’t heated by volcanism but by the radiation of a nearby star (or, as you say, three stars). I hypothesized this would mean that the ground is slowly, but surely, rotating under our feet—and that Dayland and Nightland aren’t actually fixed locations. I felt longer and longer-range plans develop in my mind—ways to make clearer, harder lenses from clarified sap, and mount them more steadily, a new notation system for the night sky to try to actually measure the rotation time of the ground beneath us…well, it doesn’t matter now. I woke up one sleep cycle to find a scaly patch on my backmost left knee. DEMETRIS: So you were going to go through the full life cycle after all? KIRI: Almost certainly not. I’m too small, have too little body fat, to pupate successfully. Lifelong-larvae who begin to pupate are the unfortunates of unfortunates. Rather than move on to an unknown future, lifelong-larvae who start to pupate die. Anatomists have historical records of lifelong-larvae who pupated without making it far enough towards the Dawn; all they found inside the outer casing was a sort of soup. When I saw the pupal threads on my leg, I knew that’s what it meant for me. DEMETRIS: What did you do then? [SFX: KIRI’s mandibles snap] KIRI: I felt cold, and couldn’t sleep. I dreamed of orange stars. I couldn’t eat nectar, so I stuffed myself with seed pods. Then, I followed an irresistible urge to walk towards Twilight. I tried to hope I’d pupate successfully. It hasn’t been known to happen for a lifelong-larvae, but I hoped because I was scared to die. Demetris, I’d expected a long life. I was in my prime. And now, surrounded by juveniles who were at peace with entering an expected unknown, all I could do was hope that I’d also turn into something unrecognizable—but alive—instead of soup. I was slow at every task. I was small and weak. No one laughed at me. I dug hard in the tall burned vines and sprouts and exoskeletons at the Twilight end of the Nightland. I watched my fine-motor hands thread over. By then, the dreams of orange discs grew so strong and sweet that I’d see their fire if I covered even one of my eyes. I’d only dug up one viable grub, but I loved it all the more for that—like I’ve never loved anything. The instant I touched its carapace, it mattered more than the shape of the constellations. I carried my grub towards the juvenile domatia. Soon, I learned I’d never make the journey even if my legs waited long enough to thread over. Predator eyes multiplied in the vine husks, in the dim light. Once I was out of range of help, they attacked me. They ate my grub, and mauled me. I fought back, although I didn’t know why I fought at that point. They followed me, waiting for the venom to spread through my body and delirium to take hold. And so, I wandered into this place. And now you know everything, Demetris-who-does-not-dislike me. If you tell me to leave, I will. I’ll find a quiet spot nearby to wait for the predators to catch my scent; I don’t like to give up, as a general rule, but I’m practical. DEMETRIS: I am even more sorry than before. For what has happened to you—and, now, for asking you to tell me the story. I want you to know, it was not my decision to open the hatches when you stumbled into the ship. I thought it was dangerous for us. Now I see that it was not kind to you either. If you truly wish, I will open them again, with even more sincere apologies than before— KIRI: But I haven’t answered the last of my own questions! “Is my brain already soup?” My brain is not soup yet. I don’t think I could have imagined a place like this, which looks so much like the inside of a domatia but is hard and shining like a metamorphic case. It’s so strange that I believe it fully. I don’t think I could imagine being quite so cold as I’m getting—and you said there’s an engine room which is terrifically warm—so, open up the other hatch and I’ll go there.
You said there’s another being besides yourself—perhaps that encounter will be too strange for me to process, but I think if the past few months haven’t exceeded the limits of my mind nothing will. You said we haven’t taken off yet—then by all means do take off, because my brain is definitely not soup yet. I’m a good astronomer and I could’ve been a great one if only I had a few more moltings. Now I will be an explorer if you agree. Please, please agree. My brain is not soup, not yet. Demetris, I want to see the stars with my own eyes. It isn’t enough to merely hear they’re really out there. [SFX: systems begin to boot] [SFX: Closing music] Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast. powered by The post Congratulations, Dear Stranger: README first appeared on Hear Me Out Productions.

A whimsical glance into a podcaster’s adventure in the Adirondacks! Join Daisy as she discovers that there is more to the alpine wilderness of upstate New York than most people think. With the help of her quirky new friends, she embarks on a journey of discovery. Daisy Unchained is a charming, whimsical adventure full of friendship and natural wonder set in the world of The Cryptonaturalist by Jarod K. Anderson. Production ProducerKimberly DauberWritersKimberly DauberLoren ShermanAnnie AyalaSound DesignKimberly Dauber Cast DaisyKimberly DauberLiamLoren ShermanKit McAllisterAnnie AyalaMyceeNeboo Transcript Email Download New Tab (SFX: Crackling leaves) Daisy: (excitedly) Hello listeners, and welcome to episode 274 of Daisy Unchained, because sometimes to find yourself, you've gotta get lost. If you're just tuning in, I'm still wandering through the Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York. Our last episode got 50 downloads, you guys, so thanks mom. Thanks also for the care package with all those Snickerdoodles - I'll be sure to share them with any friends I find out here in the wilderness of the Adirondacks. (uncertainly) If I find any. (excited again) Oh! I did find a very cool vine yesterday. It was all weird and shiny? I didn't know vines could do that, it looked like there were almost some little metallic pieces going on as it climbed up this really, really, really tall tree. Hm. I wonder if vines can be your friends.... Anyway, maybe we'll find out! Nature sure is amazing like that, right? (laughs nervously) Speaking of nature being amazing, there were some heckin' rainstorms last night. I really wanted to make sure that I wouldn't get wet, so I put my rain fly over top of my other rain fly, and it really did the trick! Well, anyway, now I'm all packed up and all set to go off down the trail and explore some new nature. (huffs out a breath, still uncertain) I'm super excited to continue this. Never know what you're gonna hear on these woods. (SFX: Dog barks) Oh! Oh hello, hello pupper, what are you doing out here? Aw, where's your owner, sweetheart? Liam: (calling from a ways away) Mycee! Mycee? Mycee! (approaches) Oh, there you are, Mycee. Mycee, say hi to the nice person with the microphone. Mycee: (barks) Daisy: Oh, uh, hello, hello, it's nice to- Liam: Wait a minute. You - you're not the one who's been wrapping sandpaper round the trees round these parts, are you? Daisy: ...no? Liam: Wait a minute, you're not from around here, are you? You - you're not a tourist, are you? Daisy: (clearly covering up the fact that they're a tourist) A tourist? Me? No, no no no, I'm a...podcast host! Yes, actually, would you like to be on my podcast? (proudly) We had 50 downloads yesterday. Liam: Well, I'm not sure what that entails, but- Daisy: Oh, it's easy, it's easy. Just tell us a little bit about yourself. Talk right into the microphone, right here. Liam: Oh! Alright, alright. Is this good? Daisy: Yep, perfect. Just tell us a little bit about who you are. And your dog. Liam: Well, my name's Liam. I'm from Hope. It's a town about ten miles that way. And this is Mycee. She's a corgi today, yes she is! I'm a bit of an amateur cryptomycologist - kind of a fun guy (wink). I was an illustration major, actually, but ever since that incident in the Whole Foods produce aisle.... (laughs) Yeah, I've always been into fungus a little bit. Kinda gets a bad rap, but it's important, like earthworms or sanitation workers. Takes what nobody else wants and turns it into things necessary for the perpetuation of life. 'Specially around here, you know, mushrooms are fine. Worst you gotta worry about is snugpuffs, and those are fine if you set an alarm. Now, sinflowers? Petricormorants? Lying squirrels? That's what you gotta watch out for. Daisy: Thanks! That's going to be...very useful. Why don't you tell me a little bit about what you and your dog are doing out here today? Liam: Well, today Mycee and I are on the hunt for thundercaps. See, normally these fascinating little shrooms look like ordinary, garden-variety morel mushrooms. It's a bit of a "morel" dilemma finding them! (laughs) But after a thunderstorm, they start to smell. Mycee's real good at sniffing them out - says they smell like ozone, kind of like a subway or something. And that makes sense, seeing as they reproduce by building up a static charge and releasing it all at once into the atmosphere along with all their spores. Scatters them for miles around in a bolt of lightning, which is absolutely majestic, but also spells trouble in these modern times. See, the more tourists are around here, the more likely it is one of them is gonna stumble upon one of these thundercaps, realize that they can stuff it all up in their smartphone, and use it as a spare battery pack. And needless to say this is not the best for the local ecology. Really throws off the "fung shui," so to speak. So I try to do my part making sure that the thundercaps are healthy, seeking out new bunches of them. Kinda worried today, since I haven't seen any so far, but fingers crossed. Daisy: Wow, well, thank you for sharing all that, that was really, really interesting. I actually saw this weird vine yesterday? It had all these metallic bits running through it. Liam: Weird vine, you say? Are you some sort of cryptobotanist? Dasiy: Well, I, uh- Liam: You're gonna love the mothwood trees 'round these parts. You know, they're native to this area. Let me show you. Daisy: Oh! Liam: Right this way, they're very close to here. Daisy: OK sure, let's- yeah, absolutely. (SFX: Ukulele music starts playing) Liam: Cryptobotanists from all over like to come see these mothwoods. They're the pride of area. You know, you just missed the fluttering season, but maybe there are a few stragglers. You know, they're just like normal pines, of course, but instead of pine cones they got these clusters of moths, and when the time comes the moths all flutter away into the wild blue y- Daisy: Hey, uh, sorry, weird question. Do you hear ukulele playing? Liam: You know, as a matter of fact, I believe I d- (SFX: Ukulele music stops) Kit: Hi! Liam: Ah! Daisy: Ah! Kit: Ah! Why are we shouting? Liam: Uh, hi. Mycee, say hi. Mycee: (barks) Kit: Oh, hello! Liam: Wait a minute, you're not the one that's been wrapping trees in sandpaper around these parts, are you? Kit: Oh well, as a matter of fact I am. I put them up for the garnet weevils - see, they love to feed on the garnet in the sandpaper - but this is more of my side project right now, actually. Daisy: Hey, I have a question - (self-importantly) actually, I have a podcast. Would you mind just introducing yourself and telling our listeners a little more about you and your main project? (quietly proud) We had 50 downloads yesterday. Kit: Oh, you really want me to talk about myself? Okay, I'm not all that interesting or anything - okay, if you insist! (SFX: Ukulele music starts) Kit: (excitedly) I'm Kit McAllister, born in 1995, Aquarius, the middle child of seven. Wild growing up with six siblings! You wouldn't believe the shenanigans we got up to, but I'm not here to talk about them. I'm here searching for squallskimmers. See, I've been a cryptoentomologist ever since I was six years old. I found this colossal ladybug in my backyard, but it flew away, and no one believed me. Anyway, squallskimmers! Fascinating buggers. See, once I was out canoeing with one of my sisters, and it was kinda cloudy out, and I noticed circular shadows on the water. They kinda reminded me of the same shadows waterskimmers cast on the lake bottom. You know waterskimmers, they're those little bugs that skate across the surface of the water? Well, I knew I was onto something with the shadow patterns, so I decided to do my own research. I headed to my favorite place, the library! (SFX: Ukulele music pauses) By the way, did you know you don't have to pay late fees if they never catch you? (SFX: Ukulele music resumes) Anyway, I found, like, a bunch of old stories and accounts and even poems about these giant insects which strode across the skies and danced among the storms! Very poetic stuff, though none of those authors ever seemed to agree on what to call them, so I call them squallskimmers since they only come out during the rainy season and migrate with the stormclouds. You know, they actually have a very short mating and breeding window, which means they're all Aquariuses, too! (SFX: Ukulele music stops) Wait, so you said you were a podcaster, right? What's your name again? Daisy: Oh, I'm Daisy. Kit: Oh well Daisy, it's lovely to meet you. And you are? Liam: Oh, I'm Liam, and I'm a cryptomycologist. Kit: Oh, mycology! That's, like, fungus, right? Did you know that there's a huge patch of snugpuffs over there? Yeah, I took a nap in them last night. Liam: Whoa, you remembered to set an alarm, right? Kit: Uh, duh. Would I be here if I didn't? (laughs) Liam: Fair point. (laughs) Daisy: Wait, so you guys know kind of a lot about all of this weird mystery nature stuff? Liam: Cryptonature, yeah. Kit: I dabble, I dabble. Daisy: Well, I saw this really weird vine last night that I was telling Liam about a minute ago. It looked like it had some metal running up it, it was really strange. Could you guys maybe come and tell me what it is? Liam: Well, that actually sounds like a novelty and a half! I have no idea what that is. Kit: Let's go, it'll be so much fun! (SFX: Time passes - leaf crunching noises fade out and fade back in.) Liam: ...72 kilometers ABOVE sea level! And that, my friends, is why you always want to bring a parachute even when spelunking underground. Speaking of underground, did you know that insects like termites and ants will actually cultivate fungus? Yeah, they grow it underground, it's like agriculture. They're really one of the only species other than humans to have developed it. Isn't it beautiful? Daisy: Yeah, that's really cool! Hang on a second, I know that this vine should be around here somewhere, but honestly I cannot tell where it's supposed to be in all of this mist. Kit: Yeah, the mist must be from the recent rainstorms, but it's been hanging around quite a bit too long. It's really spooky. (SFX: A menacing hawk-like birdcall from far away) Liam and Kit: (gasp) Kit: (whispering) Oh no, is that... Liam: (whispering) I think it is. Kit: (whispering) ...a petricormorant? Liam: (whispering) I'm pretty sure it's a petricormorant. Daisy: (speaking at normal volume) What is a petricormorant? Kit: (whispering) Nothing good. Liam: (whispering) Yeah, bad news. We should get low. Daisy: (normal volume) Why, is it dangerous? Liam: (whispering) Well, let's just say it's not the kind of thing you want to just go up to and say hi t- Mycee: (barks loudly, echoing) Liam: Shit! (fearful pause) Kit: Did it - did it notice us? (SFX: Much louder petricormorant cry) Liam: Uh...yes yes, yes it did, run! (SFX: Running through the forest) (SFX: Ukulele twang) Daisy: Wait wait wait - that's it, that's the vine, right there! Liam: Oh, and would you look at that, it's thundercaps! (SFX: Running stops) Kit: It is right there, now is not the time- (SFX: Petricormorant cry, then silence) Kit: Um, guys? Are you okay? Liam: Holy shiitake... Daisy: (struggling) That...was...amazing!!! (excited) Oh my god, the vine - the metal in the vine, it attracted the lightning from the petricormorant! Liam: Yeah! And when the lightning hit the thundercaps, that allowed them to release their spores way more efficiently than they would have been able to on their own! Kit: Oh oh oh! And if the lightning from the petricormorant could do this, maybe the lightning from the squallskimmers' clouds could do the same thing! Liam: It's like... All three: Cryptosymbiosis! Daisy: Wow. It is too bad I am never going to be able to publish this episode. No one is going to believe that this happened. Liam: Well, I wouldn't be so sure about that, actually. See, I just remembered where I heard the word "podcast" before. There's a well-known cryptonaturalist who runs one of those things. He takes in stories all the time. Daisy: Oh! Yeah, I mean, absolutely, that sounds great. Kit: Hey wow, this was a lot easier with three of us. Liam: I think you mean four of us? Mycee: (barks) Kit: Oh, right. Sorry, Mycee! Hey, when you're done uploading that podcast, do you want to help me find a squallskimmer? I could really use the company, plus it would make a great story. Liam: Wait, that sounds super fun. How are you planning on catching it? (SFX: Ukulele music starts) Kit: Well, it involves a t-shirt cannon and a lasso. Daisy: I mean, yeah! Totally! Oh hey - do you guys like snickerdoodles? (SFX: Ukulele music fades away) (SFX: Ukulele music starts) Announcer: Daisy Unchained was written and performed by Kimberly Dauber, Loren Sherman, and Annie Ayala. The voice of Daisy was Kimberly Dauber. The voice of Liam was Loren Sherman. The voice of Kit was Annie Ayala. The voice of Mycee was Neboo. Sound design by Kimberly Dauber. Daisy Unchained takes place in the weird and wonderful world of The Cryptonaturalist by Jarod K. Anderson, a bi-weekly podcast that explores strange nature. Many thanks to Jarod for letting us produce this story. Give his show a listen at www.cryptonaturalist.com. Daisy Unchained is a product of Hear Me Out Productions. Hear our other shows at hearmeoutproductions.com or wherever you get your podcasts, and follow us on social media @HearMeOutProd. Daisy Unchained is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Thanks for listening! (SFX: logotone) A product of Hear Me Out Productions. All we have are dreams and a microphone. Scroll back to top Sign up to receive email updates Enter your name and email address below and I'll send you periodic updates about the podcast. powered by The post Daisy Unchained first appeared on Hear Me Out Productions.