Speaker 1: Cool Media.
Speaker 2: Book Club The Club The Club. Hello, and welcome to
Speaker 2: the Cool Zone Media book Club, the book.
Speaker 1: Club that I started introducing by chanting, which made sense
Speaker 1: back when I was reading to other people and they
Speaker 1: would chant with me, And no longer makes sense because
Speaker 1: I no longer do that, but I feel compelled by
Speaker 1: inertia to continue to introduce book club by chanting.
Speaker 2: Book Club, The Club, The Club. I'm Herst Markert Kiljoy
Speaker 2: And this is the only book club that you don't
Speaker 2: have to do the reading because I do it for you.
Speaker 2: There are probably other book clubs that do reading for you,
Speaker 2: but they're not read by me, are they? Unless I
Speaker 2: have other book clubs, but I'm not aware of that.
Speaker 2: But you know, if you're listening to this in the future,
Speaker 2: who knows what would happen. But do you know what
Speaker 2: else is in the future is our story, our story Hermetica,
Speaker 2: which seems to be set in the far future, and
Speaker 2: it is taking place on a generation ship. It's called
Speaker 2: her Medica. It is by Alan Lee, which is the
Speaker 2: pen name of the usually otherwise nonfiction author Peter Gelderlos.
Speaker 2: And we are on part three of this book and
Speaker 2: it's getting good. Yeah, I'll just wait, it's coming in.
Speaker 2: We got all that set up. What's gonna happen with it?
Speaker 2: Well you'll find out, all right. Here's part three of
Speaker 2: her Medica by Alan Lee, published by Detritus Books. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: by the way, if you're like, wait, what just happened,
Speaker 2: Days had just pulled out a piece of newspaper hidden
Speaker 2: behind a panel in the wall, and okay, I'll just
Speaker 2: read the last sentence of the last weeks. Along the
Speaker 2: top there was a date June twelfth, twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Below a yellowing margin, an article began as vaccine Hope's
Speaker 2: falter choking sickness here to stay. All right, now we're back.
Speaker 2: Days looked closer at the sheet, twisted an edge of it.
Speaker 2: It seemed to be made of some kind of fiber,
Speaker 2: and not one they were familiar with. Well, they'd have
Speaker 2: to do this the old fashioned way. Squinting health officials
Speaker 2: warn that America may have to get used to semi
Speaker 2: permanent confinement measures, as results from the latest vaccine trial
Speaker 2: at the University of Washington failed to deliver good news
Speaker 2: to a nation that is still grieving the catastrophic mismanagement
Speaker 2: during the first two years of the ARP v twenty pandemic.
Speaker 2: Recent studies confirm early fears that the virus may mutate
Speaker 2: too quickly to allow for long term immunity. Officials underscored
Speaker 2: the confinement is a positive measure compared with the inferno
Speaker 2: the virus left in its wake during the period of
Speaker 2: governmental inaction. We will not go back to the horrors
Speaker 2: of the party system, putting the comfort of the few
Speaker 2: before the survival of the many, said doctor Goa, speaking
Speaker 2: from the steps of the National Health Administration. We are
Speaker 2: currently expanding the parameters of our modeling, looking for innoative
Speaker 2: solutions to this crisis. Believe us when we say increasing
Speaker 2: human life expectancy across the board for all Americans is
Speaker 2: our number one metric. If we have to delete elements
Speaker 2: from the old system in order to fulfill that promise,
Speaker 2: we will do so. We ask all Americans to walk
Speaker 2: with us boldly into the future we are building. We
Speaker 2: will respect tradition, but we must cast aside the harmful
Speaker 2: habits that hold us back. Officials are worried about a
Speaker 2: resurgence of last year's unrest amidst an uptick in terrorist incidents.
Speaker 2: All incidents linked to the loss of life have been
Speaker 2: connected to market extremists and traditionalists, who even after a
Speaker 2: million deaths, still deny the pandemic exists. More worrying for
Speaker 2: the administration, however, is the increase in sabotage incidents carried
Speaker 2: out by social extremists relative to the denialists. Social extremists
Speaker 2: have more influence among the general population, and experts worry
Speaker 2: they could lead people astray with unrealistic demands or magical solutions.
Speaker 2: Speaking from the White House, Doctor Hennessy, chair of the
Speaker 2: Planning Commission, warned that social extremist proposals were quote nothing
Speaker 2: but vestigial, anti scientific superstition. They claim to speak for
Speaker 2: quality of life, but by adding archaic, non quantitative metrics
Speaker 2: alongside quantitative metrics, they wreck the whole system. It doesn't compute.
Speaker 2: Tell me what is fifteen times orange. This is intellectual anarchy.
Speaker 2: It's idealistic. It doesn't work. They need to get with
Speaker 2: the program. This is the twenty first century. If you
Speaker 2: can't model it, don't propose it. Increasing quality of life
Speaker 2: metrics before the trial period ends will be necessary for
Speaker 2: the administration to carry the referendum early next year. Otherwise
Speaker 2: the state of emergency will expire and the old constitution,
Speaker 2: which most experts agree is unworkable, would come back into effect. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: the growing pool of pandemic orphans has required officials to
Speaker 2: increase social spending beyond what was ear marked for the
Speaker 2: fiscal year. Social officials promised to look into innoative solutions.
Speaker 2: Speaking from the nssay's offices in Omaha, doctor Ventura gave
Speaker 2: journalists a hint of a new project the social administration
Speaker 2: was exploring at the NSSAY. We believe all life has value.
Speaker 2: Under the old system, orphans were just warehoused and sub
Speaker 2: standard facilities until a family with means could come along
Speaker 2: and adopt them. Need and capacity were inversely proportional. In
Speaker 2: a recession, more kids get abandoned and fewer families can
Speaker 2: adopt them. We are rolling out a new system in
Speaker 2: which the parentless are given everything they need, including a
Speaker 2: top of the line education, and in the meantime will
Speaker 2: track their performance, collect data and produce intellectual value that
Speaker 2: will be immediately useful for the rest of society. Everyone
Speaker 2: wants to contribute. Will give these kids the opportunity to
Speaker 2: contribute from day one from the cradle. Ventura's comments provided
Speaker 2: a rare optimistic note at a time when the scientific
Speaker 2: solutions promised by the Planning Commission seemed unlikely to bear
Speaker 2: fruit given the poor results of the vaccine program. Commission AIDS,
Speaker 2: speaking on condition of anonymity, say that the plans for
Speaker 2: defunding the police will be delayed again given expectations of
Speaker 2: a spike in civil rest. Continued on page twelve. Days
Speaker 2: flipped over the sheet, but page twelve, whatever that was,
Speaker 2: was nowhere to be found. The backside had a large
Speaker 2: illustration of some kind of wheeled vehicle and the beginning
Speaker 2: of another article, Planet Earth Our only hope. Mars probe
Speaker 2: results lead to pessimistic conclusions. In a much delayed report,
Speaker 2: NASA conceded that permanent human habitation on Mars seemed unlikely
Speaker 2: given the results from the last probe sent to the
Speaker 2: Red planet. Obstacles include the toxicity of the Martian regolith
Speaker 2: with its high concentrations of percolites, difficulties in filtering out
Speaker 2: the ultrafying Martian dust particles also toxic, and strong limitations
Speaker 2: on the availability of energy sources and organic chemicals needed
Speaker 2: for terraforming. The report is grave news for sectors of
Speaker 2: the scientific community that have proposed accelerated terraforming on Mars
Speaker 2: as an answer to the cascading chain of catastrophes adversely
Speaker 2: affecting Earth's own biosphere. We will just have to accelerate
Speaker 2: the terraforming of Earth, as it were, to doctor Stewart,
Speaker 2: chairperson of the Climate Advisory Council, that means aggressively re
Speaker 2: engineering the biosphere to design agricultural ecosystems compatible with five
Speaker 2: degree warming, rather than waiting for one to two million
Speaker 2: years of evolutionary adaptation to play catch up. The report
Speaker 2: may also be a death knell for the Space Agency itself,
Speaker 2: one of the few to be kept on from the
Speaker 2: prior government, perhaps realizing the report would spell trouble. NASA's
Speaker 2: leading scientists have been lobbying the Planning Commission to change
Speaker 2: the agency's mandate to a focus on orbital space engineering
Speaker 2: with an eye towards climate mitigation. One of the agency's
Speaker 2: most popular proposals centers on the deployment of orbital mirrors
Speaker 2: to fine tune the quantity of solar radiation that reaches
Speaker 2: the planet's surface. Continued on page seventeen Days was thoroughly confused,
Speaker 2: Shostakovich declaimed ominously, like a fist on the door, Snookum
Speaker 2: sat watching. The dating and the geographical references were all
Speaker 2: Terran Earth was an archaic name for Terra, Yet the
Speaker 2: choking sickness had been an event on Hermetica. Where was
Speaker 2: this sheet from? What was it doing here? The events
Speaker 2: described were a muddle, some of them lining up with
Speaker 2: what they knew of Terran history, and others contradicting it flagrantly.
Speaker 2: Days decided to reach out to a friend, message Zimp,
Speaker 2: Hey are you still up? Do you remember from history?
Speaker 2: What year did her Medica launch? The reply came back
Speaker 2: a moment later, announced by an amiable rising tone, Days,
Speaker 2: how's it going? What a question? Zimp had been assigned
Speaker 2: to a different block after the Aptitudes, but they still
Speaker 2: saw each other on video every now and then, The
Speaker 2: recording continued. You know, you could just ask library, but
Speaker 2: that's an easy one. Technically, it's a trick question. Her
Speaker 2: Medica never launched. It was assembled in orbit, but it
Speaker 2: departed in tearin year twenty twenty two, Seven years later
Speaker 2: we left the Solar system. And what year is it
Speaker 2: now on Terra? Zimp replied, I guess it must be
Speaker 2: twenty fifty. Why do you ask? Oh, just trying to
Speaker 2: work some things out. Hey, do you think we could
Speaker 2: do a video call like soon? Sure? Good night, zimp,
Speaker 2: good night, Days talk soon. And do you know who
Speaker 2: else would like to wish you a good night and
Speaker 2: would love to talk to you so soon? It's the
Speaker 2: sponsors of this show. They always are there to tuck
Speaker 2: you in at night. And we're back the bed extracted
Speaker 2: with fresh sheets, and Days plopped down, cradling snookums against
Speaker 2: their chest. Sleep came fitful, and late the next day,
Speaker 2: Days messaged that they wouldn't be going into work. They
Speaker 2: tried sleeping longer, but it was impossible. Their brain wouldn't quit.
Speaker 2: After half an hour of tossing and turning, they found
Speaker 2: themselves locked in the reenactment of a fierce argument with
Speaker 2: the examiner the day of the aptitudes. It was all imagination.
Speaker 2: They never actually confronted the examiner or anyone else. But
Speaker 2: since the day the results came back, thwarting their dreams,
Speaker 2: whittling their future down to nothing, they had spent many
Speaker 2: hours inside their head protesting the unfairness of it all.
Speaker 2: Who was to say that the examiner's tardiness had not
Speaker 2: disadvantaged them relative to other testing groups as far as
Speaker 2: Days as low teamwork scores, Surely there was more than
Speaker 2: one way to measure teamwork on the aptitudes. At three
Speaker 2: different moments, people's screens were linked in groups of five,
Speaker 2: and each group had to solve a common problem communicating
Speaker 2: over their devices but not speaking directly. Days had not
Speaker 2: integrated effectively into the problem solving, but building an effective
Speaker 2: team could play out differently if people were allowed to
Speaker 2: talk directly, make eye contact, if they didn't have a
Speaker 2: ticking clock hanging over their heads. Other aspects of the
Speaker 2: aptitudes were borderlines shoddy Days could only remember one error
Speaker 2: aside from the examiner arriving late but still in error
Speaker 2: on such an important test did not give a good
Speaker 2: impression in a problem. On a mission spectra, video of
Speaker 2: an experiment appeared on Day's screen showing an unidentified compound
Speaker 2: burning bright green. Before anyone had gotten to that problem,
Speaker 2: the examiner had made another verbal announcement. On problem forty one,
Speaker 2: there was an error and experiment preparation substitute the flame
Speaker 2: color you see on your personal console with the flame
Speaker 2: color pictured here. They gestured and a video of a
Speaker 2: dark red flame appeared on the main screen, but the
Speaker 2: exams were computer evaluated. How could Days be sure the
Speaker 2: examiner was not the one who was mistaken? Puzzled, annoyed,
Speaker 2: they had skipped the question and gone on to the
Speaker 2: next one. How could it possibly be considered fair for
Speaker 2: their future to be determined on the basis of such
Speaker 2: an errant instrument in their head? They always won those arguments,
Speaker 2: but when it was over, they still had to face
Speaker 2: up to the same reality. Annoyed, they got out of bed,
Speaker 2: called for a coffee, reluctantly declined the dose model offered,
Speaker 2: and then squared off again against the wall screen. Take
Speaker 2: me to the library. The wall screen came on, Show
Speaker 2: me her Medica. A grainy schematic appeared, showing the image
Speaker 2: Days knew well from school. Her Medica was an immensely long,
Speaker 2: slender cylinder with a rounded nose and a bulky tail
Speaker 2: where the propulsion reactors were housed. Arrayed sequentially along its
Speaker 2: length were four rings, each connected to the central cylinder
Speaker 2: by gossamer spokes. Given the dimensions of the ship, Days
Speaker 2: knew that each spoke must be incredibly thick, but in
Speaker 2: the schematic they always looked so delicate. The rings were
Speaker 2: modified Stanford tauruses, rather than being a continuous loop like
Speaker 2: a doughnut as in a standard Taurus. Each ring held
Speaker 2: three immense platforms, evenly spaced about the circumference. It was
Speaker 2: like a Taurus, but with three parts of the loop
Speaker 2: symmetrically blotted out In profile, they looked like circular arcs
Speaker 2: with theta of thirty degrees. The rings rotated slowly, and
Speaker 2: all the blocks, every module every person Days had ever
Speaker 2: known were housed on the inside of one of those
Speaker 2: twelve platforms, held in place by the pseudo gravity created
Speaker 2: by centrifugal force. If it weren't for the sky, they
Speaker 2: would have been able to look up and see Hermetica's
Speaker 2: central cylinder about ten kilometers above them, bisecting their view,
Speaker 2: and on either side of it, even farther away the
Speaker 2: other two platforms on their ring. Actually, Days supposed they
Speaker 2: would only see any of that if they turned off
Speaker 2: all the lights on their platform, and if the material
Speaker 2: closing off the top of the platform from their frame
Speaker 2: of reference the inside of the ark was transparent. Otherwise
Speaker 2: above them they would see a massive reflection or glare.
Speaker 2: In any case, Before Hermetica had even departed, its builders
Speaker 2: knew that mental health stats improved greatly if a sky
Speaker 2: were projected diffusing light in replicating the heavens people had
Speaker 2: evolved under on Terra Days tried to remember which of
Speaker 2: the twelve platforms they lived on had that been taught
Speaker 2: in school. Zoom in. The perspective shifted virtgenously, diving in
Speaker 2: close and suddenly dazed. Was looking at their block and
Speaker 2: the eight blocks that flanked it, four of them sharing
Speaker 2: a node with theirs. It was not much wider of
Speaker 2: a view than the one they were stuck in every day, Library,
Speaker 2: Can I get a more intermediate view ship schematics? Since
Speaker 2: the destruction of the wiki, access to precise schematics for
Speaker 2: her Medica are compartmentalized on a need to know basis. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the wiki disaster and the infamous NTK Days had heard
Speaker 2: all about that. They sighed, well, can you show me
Speaker 2: where we're going? Library switched to a live feed from
Speaker 2: a camera. Part of the screen revealed the observation window
Speaker 2: at the tip of Hermetica's nose. Most of it was
Speaker 2: the blackness of space, dotted with a million pin pricks.
Speaker 2: Three of the pin pricks directly in front of them
Speaker 2: were noticeably larger, one of them twice as bright as
Speaker 2: anything else on the screen. Still though, just a pin prick,
Speaker 2: and Days would never get there, never see its planets
Speaker 2: up close? Can we get a view of Terra? The
Speaker 2: solar system is not currently visible from the cameras on
Speaker 2: the rear ring. Would you like the rear view anyway?
Speaker 2: Days sighed again, No, that's all right. Another thought occurred
Speaker 2: to them, bring up Terra in history the decades prior
Speaker 2: to departure. A list of topic headers appeared on the screen.
Speaker 2: What do you have on epidemics? A long list scrolled by,
Speaker 2: listing names, dates, locations, death tolls. Days saw some they
Speaker 2: remembered from basic history, others that were unfamiliar. Dengi fever, ebola, cholera,
Speaker 2: swine flu, yellow fever, AIDS, Spanish influenza, typhus. What about
Speaker 2: choking sickness? Library paused? Choking sickness was not a Terran event.
Speaker 2: Choking sickness ARPV was an event here on her Medica.
Speaker 2: Would you like to see the entry? No, that's all right,
Speaker 2: I'm looking for Terran epidemics. Was there anything else that
Speaker 2: might have been similar? What does ARPV stand for Acute
Speaker 2: respiratory passenger virus passenger virus? Well, that certainly sounded like
Speaker 2: the name of a disease that would break out on
Speaker 2: a ship. What's the last year you have entries for
Speaker 2: in terran history twenty twenty two. Days looked at the
Speaker 2: sheet in their hand. One year before the article was published,
Speaker 2: one year there had been a reference to something that
Speaker 2: had happened a year earlier. There it was unrest. Tell
Speaker 2: me about political unrest from twenty twenty two in America.
Speaker 2: Here is the disambiguation on America. Please specify? Oh, scroll down? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that one United States of America. There are no entries
Speaker 2: on significant political unrest in the United States of America
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty two. Hmm, what about denialists? Here is
Speaker 2: the disambiguation on denialists? Please specify. There weren't many choices,
Speaker 2: and the first one seemed to be a simple dictionary
Speaker 2: definition one who denies an empirically demonstrated fact. How about
Speaker 2: climate denialists. Climate denialists were political pressure groups funded by
Speaker 2: hydrocarbon extraction industries who claimed that the significant increase in
Speaker 2: heat trapping gases in the planet's atmosphere would not trap
Speaker 2: heat in the planet's atmosphere. Hydrocarbon extraction industries in the
Speaker 2: United States began funding climate denialists sometime after nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 2: when their research demonstrated conclusively that their product was, in
Speaker 2: fact changing the chemical composition of Terra's atmosphere in a
Speaker 2: significant way. That didn't sound like what the article was
Speaker 2: talking about. It sounded like bad fiction, but the reference
Speaker 2: had to do with a pandemic, not with the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: Days shook their head, not sure if they were amused
Speaker 2: or appalled by the concept of a global hydrocarbon energy system.
Speaker 2: They thought back to basic chemistry. Sure it made sense
Speaker 2: to transport hydrocarbon fuel for the use in remote locations
Speaker 2: not reached by an electrical grid if none of the
Speaker 2: vehicles involved were large enough to house nuclear reactors, but
Speaker 2: systematically burning hydrocarbons, and vehicles that traveled standard routes, each
Speaker 2: lugging the weight of its own combustion engines or to
Speaker 2: power the entire electrical grid burning the stuff they had
Speaker 2: put tens of millions of years of sequestered carbon into
Speaker 2: the atmosphere in a century. What a relief her Medica
Speaker 2: had left that place behind. Days felt bad for the
Speaker 2: segment of humanity that stayed behind. Still, the present conundrum
Speaker 2: had not become any clearer. Days had come up against
Speaker 2: a wall. The information in the article and the information
Speaker 2: in the library did not add up. Then they remembered
Speaker 2: the second article, the one on the back of the sheet,
Speaker 2: from the talk of failed probes. They inferred that Mars
Speaker 2: had not been settled in the terran year twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: But if Mars had not ever been settled yet, how
Speaker 2: did they manage to send off for Medica a full
Speaker 2: year earlier? Library tell me about the human colonization of Mars.
Speaker 2: After the first unoccupied probes landed on the Martian surface
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy five, work began
Speaker 2: on a larger spacecraft that could transport human astronauts. By
Speaker 2: the time an assembly and launching platform had been manufactured
Speaker 2: in low Earth orbit in nineteen ninety eight, further probes
Speaker 2: to Mars had carried out all the mapping and chemical
Speaker 2: analysis necessary to begin planning the logistics of a human mission.
Speaker 2: Supply drops to the Martian surface began the next year,
Speaker 2: and the first occupied spacecraft was launched from the orbital
Speaker 2: platform in two thousand seven, arriving safely with its twelve
Speaker 2: person crew ten months later. They remained for two Terran years,
Speaker 2: overseeing construction of the research station and launch platform, returning
Speaker 2: safely to Terra in twenty eleven. By that point, it
Speaker 2: was clear that Mars's chemical and circumstellar characteristics were unfavorable
Speaker 2: to terraforming, and it was calculated that it would actually
Speaker 2: be cheaper and faster to terraform an exoplanet in the
Speaker 2: Goldilock zone of another star system, even accounting for a
Speaker 2: journey of several hundred Terran years. Activity based out of
Speaker 2: the Mars Research Station continued, carried out remotely or by
Speaker 2: subsequent human teams. Days scratched their head. They supposed the
Speaker 2: probes mentioned in the article could have been from subsequent
Speaker 2: attempts to explore other avenues of terraforming on Mars, in
Speaker 2: parallel to preparations on the WIKI and her Medica missions. Still,
Speaker 2: it didn't say anything about a research station or any
Speaker 2: human presence on Mars, nor did it mention the two
Speaker 2: ships that had departed the year before, with millions of
Speaker 2: passengers between them. Something didn't add up. But do you
Speaker 2: know what does add up? All of the joy and
Speaker 2: satisfaction guaranteed to you by these products and services and
Speaker 2: We're back. Days looked crossly at the strange printed sheet.
Speaker 2: All published material was vetted and peer reviewed by pertinent experts.
Speaker 2: Affirmations of fact were always qualified. Results that had not
Speaker 2: been rigorously replicated included margins of error or the probabilities
Speaker 2: of some flaw in the design fiction. The old volumes
Speaker 2: of literature stored in the library was clearly marked as such.
Speaker 2: To deliberately publish things that were untrue, that was censurable. However,
Speaker 2: stamping words and ink on some non electronic sheet and
Speaker 2: stashing it behind a wall panel at that stretched the
Speaker 2: bounds of what could be considered publication. An uneasy feeling
Speaker 2: crept up, and a word sprang to mind, sabotage no now.
Speaker 2: Days was getting worked up, trying to find connections to
Speaker 2: explain something that didn't feel right. Their coping mechanism came
Speaker 2: to mind, like a mantra. Name the pattern, break it,
Speaker 2: and change your mental scenery so you can relax. Days
Speaker 2: needed to move around and put the conundrum out of mind.
Speaker 2: They slid on their mask and went outside. The air
Speaker 2: was crackling oppressive. They could tell the atmosphere was getting
Speaker 2: out of sync. The meteorology people would have to do
Speaker 2: an intervention soon. Weather events were always scheduled and announced
Speaker 2: at least a day in advance, but days never checked.
Speaker 2: They liked the feel of intuiting. When they were coming,
Speaker 2: other people on the block didn't seem to notice. A
Speaker 2: dozen were out enjoying the hot, bright day. Keeping their distance,
Speaker 2: Days made their way to the green colorful bunting had
Speaker 2: been stretched between the taller bushes. The pole stood in
Speaker 2: the middle. What's the theme, they asked their neighbor, seated
Speaker 2: on a bench. Mayday, it's a Scandinavian tradition. The neighbor
Speaker 2: tossed out the phrase like it was a truly interesting
Speaker 2: bit of information, though the careful way they pronounced the
Speaker 2: word suggested they could not quite remember. From cursory geography
Speaker 2: lessons long faded in time, where exactly on Tera Scandinavia
Speaker 2: had been Days nodded, recalling something about a dance. Flowers,
Speaker 2: white dresses, colorful lengths of cloth wrapped around a pole.
Speaker 2: They wondered if they'd feel up for it. The day
Speaker 2: the block party came around, The air seemed to pulse angrily.
Speaker 2: They nodded and turned around. Some days Days enjoyed spontaneous
Speaker 2: socializing but today was not one of them. The regulation distance,
Speaker 2: the superficial topics, their neighbor's pleasant apathy, all of it
Speaker 2: got on their nerves. Walking back to their module, they
Speaker 2: heard raised voices from one of the family units. That
Speaker 2: was unusual. The modules were effectively sound proofd someone must
Speaker 2: really be shouting screaming. In fact, the sound was faint,
Speaker 2: but the tone was unmistakable, not the low growl of anger,
Speaker 2: but the high shriek of desperation. Days stopped looking at
Speaker 2: the door four down from their own. Another neighbor passed
Speaker 2: by homeward, head down, politely, giving them all the birth
Speaker 2: they could, since Days was standing in the middle of
Speaker 2: the street. A minute later, another neighbor passed by the
Speaker 2: other way. No one acknowledged the screaming. Trembling a bit
Speaker 2: in the pit of their stomach, Days drew themselves up
Speaker 2: and headed for the door. Something wasn't all right, screaming
Speaker 2: like that they should check in, at least offer some health.
Speaker 2: Just as they raised their hand to buzz, an electronic
Speaker 2: warble sounded from the direction of the green. It was
Speaker 2: a safety drone, worrying agilely past the maypole and down
Speaker 2: the street. Please return to your modules, a therapeutic intervention
Speaker 2: is in bound. Days backed away from the safety drone,
Speaker 2: which took up a position at the door, the bitterness
Speaker 2: of early panic welling up from the pit of their stomach.
Speaker 2: They backed away. The drone repeated its admonition, and Days
Speaker 2: retreated a little farther. Farther down, Module opened their own
Speaker 2: door invitingly, but Days cannot bring themselves to surrender the
Speaker 2: street just yet. They caught the gentle sound of a
Speaker 2: claxon from the far end of the block, and a
Speaker 2: moment later glimpsed a sled and two medics coming out
Speaker 2: of the health center. They had trouble getting the sled
Speaker 2: past the green, what with the benches, the maypole, and
Speaker 2: a park container probably full of decorations for the upcoming festivities.
Speaker 2: One of them spoke a command, and they pulled the
Speaker 2: pole out quickly and efficiently, laying it on the ground
Speaker 2: beside the benches. A warm body pressed against Days's ankle.
Speaker 2: They looked down to see Snookums rubbing anxiously. I know, sweetie,
Speaker 2: it's scary. They rubbed the cat along its cheeks, mouth
Speaker 2: to ear, and it exuded appreciation. The medics were at
Speaker 2: the family unit. Now. The door opened up and they
Speaker 2: went inside, followed by the drone. A minute later they
Speaker 2: came out, supporting one of Daze's neighbors. Between them one
Speaker 2: half of a couple Days did not know so well.
Speaker 2: They had never kept a social appointment, though Days had
Speaker 2: seen them bubbling away in the middle of the crowd
Speaker 2: at block parties. The person had a wild, exhausted look,
Speaker 2: their eyes unfocused. The medics helped them onto a sled
Speaker 2: and strapped them in. The other neighbor came to the
Speaker 2: doorway head bowed, eyes wide, exuding worry, embarrassment, and fear.
Speaker 2: We'll take good care of them. Days heard a medics say,
Speaker 2: if all goes well in a week or two, they
Speaker 2: can come back here. The neighbor nodded on so certainly,
Speaker 2: looking at their module mate, who by now was somewhere else,
Speaker 2: eyes pasted on the sky. We'll send a therapist to
Speaker 2: evaluate later in the day, the medic went on, just
Speaker 2: for secondary effects, stay home and try to relax. You're
Speaker 2: r and art from all work assignments and social appointments
Speaker 2: until you get an all clear. The medics and the
Speaker 2: sled set off back towards the node. The safety drone
Speaker 2: flitted off. Once the neighbor went back into the module,
Speaker 2: the streets were empty. Days went in and had a
Speaker 2: long cry, cuddling snookums on the couch. It happened every
Speaker 2: now and then someone broke down. Interstellar travel was hard
Speaker 2: on the human psyche, and her Medic was the first
Speaker 2: crew to ever do it. They had to learn as
Speaker 2: they went, designing the best most supportive environment possible despite
Speaker 2: being trapped together in a crowded ship with scarce resources. Once,
Speaker 2: when Days was an adolescent, an older person who worked
Speaker 2: as an instructor had a break down and had to
Speaker 2: be trained and supported out of the school by an
Speaker 2: emergency team. It was an important moment for Days because
Speaker 2: of the group counseling that came afterwards. The instructor heard
Speaker 2: voices that other people could not hear. They had been
Speaker 2: told by therapists who came to talk to them and
Speaker 2: help them process the troubling event. Some kids in their
Speaker 2: cohort had snickered, even though it was strongly discouraged to
Speaker 2: mock or disparage the mental state of other passengers. Encourage
Speaker 2: your fellow passengers. Coping mechanisms create a mutually supportive environment
Speaker 2: and only report those behaviors and views that might enable sabotage.
Speaker 2: Those were the watchwords as far as mental health was concerned.
Speaker 2: What had been so important for Days was to hear
Speaker 2: acknowledgment that someone could have different perceptions than those around them,
Speaker 2: that even though such difference could be problematic, it was
Speaker 2: something that happened to people. The fact that therapists could
Speaker 2: speak about divergent experiences in a soothing way help Days
Speaker 2: understand the stark, unmentionable differences they had been perceiving between
Speaker 2: themselves and their peers. From there, it was only a
Speaker 2: a few more steps to realize that maybe what they
Speaker 2: experienced was legitimate, could even be healthy, if there were
Speaker 2: a way to integrate it with the experiences and perceptions
Speaker 2: of their cohort. What had the instructor been shouting? We
Speaker 2: should tell them, We should tell them. Maybe if they'd
Speaker 2: been able to share what the voices had been saying,
Speaker 2: they never would have had a breakdown. But that was
Speaker 2: an optimistic view. That instructor never returned, meaning they had
Speaker 2: never been able to reintegrate. They had been submitted to
Speaker 2: a permanent reconciliation process. Hermenica tried to take care of
Speaker 2: all of its passengers, but some simply could not cope.
Speaker 2: Perhaps the dominant unspoken view was accurate. It was the
Speaker 2: weakest passengers who broke down, and though they all needed
Speaker 2: to support one another, in the end, the only ones
Speaker 2: who would arrive at their destination were those who were
Speaker 2: fit to days. Could be pretty sure their genes would
Speaker 2: not be used in any of the restock cohorts that
Speaker 2: would make up her Medica's future generations. They wondered how
Speaker 2: much longer they could last, When would a medic team
Speaker 2: and a safety drone show up at their door? Dun Dun, dun,
Speaker 2: Catch us next time on Cool Zone Media book Club
Speaker 2: if you want to hear more from Allen Lee. That
Speaker 2: is the fiction pen name of the nonfiction author Peter Gelderlos,
Speaker 2: and Peter Glderlos has a substack called Surviving Leviathan and
Speaker 2: so Yeah. You can check out more of their writing
Speaker 2: there or check out any one of their many number
Speaker 2: of books. Their name is spelled g E L d
Speaker 2: e R l Oos Gelderlos. All right, I will see
Speaker 2: you all next week when we continue Hermetica. Dun Dun dun.
Speaker 2: That should be officially in the title of the book.
Speaker 2: The Dun dun Dun. I actually don't know.
Speaker 1: It must have been a typo that Detritus Books forgot
Speaker 1: to include the dun Dun Dunn Bye.
Speaker 2: It Could Happen Here as a production of pool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media we have visit
Speaker 2: our website coolzonemedia dot com or check us out on
Speaker 2: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can find sources for It Could Happen Here, Updated
Speaker 1: monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,