Episode 17
Travelling Light E017S01 Transcript
H.R. Owen
Hello friends, Hero here, bright eyed and bushy tailed after our break. We've got another fabulous podcast to recommend to you this week. The Pilgrimage Saga is a found-family space opera about five humans and one AI crossing a galaxy in search of their home. It's currently gearing up to release its final season, so there's plenty of episodes to binge while you catch up. Stick around to the end of the credits to hear their trailer and see the show notes for more details.
[Title music: rhythmic electronic folk.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode Seventeen.
[The music fades out.]
The Traveller
1st Nisa 850
To the community at Emerraine who carry the Light.
Blessings of the new month to you, my friends! Of course, by the time you receive this it will no longer be the first of the month. I do not think it will even still be Nisa. But I trust that the delay in their delivery will not diminish the blessings themselves. After all, good wishes hardly go stale.
I am not sure now what the length of delay is. I suppose it depends on the number and quality of relay stations between us. It is strange to think that, no matter how often I write, the time between your receipt of each letter will only increase. I suppose it is not surprising. After all, the further I go, the further I am from you.
If I could have it my way, I would create a version of travelling where one could see all the wild galaxy and all the people in it, and never be more than half an hour on local transit from one's own bed. [laughs]
If I were cleverer, I could offer advice and insights in my missives prescient to the time of year they will arrive in. I could write things like, “Send my regards to our fellow worshippers at next week's annual conference,” and, “The hedges in the temple garden must be flowering about now. I do hope Deryn's hayfever is not too bad.”
But I am not that clever. [sighs] At my best guess, I think it will be… late autumn in Emerraine by now? That brisk, wet cold that always puts me in the mood for hot, spiced bos milk. If I have calculated correctly, please, have a cup for me.
I had not anticipated how strange it would be to experience the seasons out of order. Instead of taking the weather as it comes, in accordance with the slow, steady turn of the year, we hop from climate to climate with every new location we visit. It is a very disconcerting thing to board a ship in springtime and disembark in winter, with only days between the two.
We arrived on the planet Verkaren two days ago, swooping down through the atmosphere to dock in Verkaren City.
The City, like many of the settlements on this planet, is almost entirely subterranean, a sprawling network of tunnels containing everything a modern city could need. It feels more like Makeba Station than the other cities we have been to – contained and controlled in a way Port Limanos or Efferin could never be.
Verkarenites tend to build underground because the planet itself sits at a great distance from its solar star, and so its surface is wrapped in ice all year round. Although, that is not to say the surface is entirely out of bounds.
As I said, we arrived the day before yesterday, but I did not get out to see anything until yesterday itself. I was thoroughly time-addled before that, having arrived at 6AM local time after almost a full day aboard the ship, and I needed to get my bearings.
But yesterday morning I heard on the news feed over breakfast that the weather was clear enough to allow excursions up to the surface. Knowing that this was not an opportunity to be missed, was determined to get out and see something of the planet while this good fortune held.
Nor was I alone in this ambition. For the first time I think since I boarded the Tola, every one of my travelling companions had a day free from obligations.
I might have expected some of them to have made other plans. But for once, our intentions were all aligned, and all eight of us gathered together in a motley bunch and set off for the surface together.
[The click of a data stick being inserted into a drive that whirs as it reads]
The Traveller
Entry NI85001-1: Concerning a unique form of art found on the planet Verkaren.
Key words: arts and crafts; material culture; music; musical instruments; Verkaren.
Notes:
One of the first things one notices upon stepping out onto Verkaren's surface is the sound. I say “one of” – of course, a great deal of one's attention in the first moments of emerging must naturally be taken up by the cold.
The Verkaren City Tourism Board provides cold-weather clothing for tourists and visitors who wish to explore the surface. They bundled me and my companions up in thick gloves, overshoes, head and face coverings, and a sort of fleece-lined, waterproof boiler suit in a bid to keep us from feeling the cold.
I did wonder if this was not rather excessive caution on their part, especially upon taking the lift to the surface and seeing locals ready to step out into the world in what looked to me like perfectly ordinary winter coats and woolly hats. I should have known better.
As soon as we stepped out of the lift docking bay, I was reminded with bodily force just how much difference it makes to be used to something. The fact is, what I think of as “cold weather” after growing up in balmy Emerraine would not amount to much more than a brisk spring morning to most Verkarenites.
Once I had caught my breath – and said a small prayer of gratitude for the foresight and generosity of the Verkaren City Tourism Board – I took a moment to appreciate the view.
It seemed as if the whole planet stretched out in front of me in great, white strides. Ridges and peaks in the ice gave structure to the landscape, casting pale blue shadows flecked with patches of bare, black rock. The sky yawned above, bright and brilliant and so big I felt quite dizzy if I looked up for too long.
Not that I had time for cloud-gazing. I had come to the surface not just because I was curious about it – though there was that, of course – but because I wanted to gain some insight into a rather specific local art form.
Most inhabitants of the planet keep to the subterranean level for their day to day activities. But on warmer days – I say “warmer” for I cannot bring myself to claim the day of my excursion as actually “warm” in anything but the most comparative sense – the locals leave the cosy comfort of the underground tunnel system and venture out onto the ice to create pieces of art like no other.
Ice sculpting is remarkable enough in its own right. But on Verkaren, the artists take their work to another level – or should I say, to another sense. They carve the ice into shapes and curves that not only catch the eye, but the ear as well.
The wind howls across the tundra and wraps itself around these structures, curving this way and that at the whim of the sculptor. And with the wind's vibration, the shapes begin to sing – a strange, formless song of ringing, shimmering harmony.
These structures are known as 'Verkaren harps' in most of the galaxy, and rather more straightforwardly as 'singers' on Verkaren itself. They can be found in most areas of the planet as even on the equator, temperatures rarely rise much above freezing.
Over time, different styles of sculpture have developed in the different parts of the planet, emphasising different aesthetic priorities. As a result, each region has a unique auditory identity.
These identities are so distinct that they say, in times past, travellers were able to navigate across the surface by sound alone – a pleasingly romantic idea, if not very convincing.
Around Verkaren City, harps tend to be visually pleasing and musically abstract. The sounds they make are strange to my ears, even discordant, though I would not say it is unpleasant.
I was astonished to hear that the massive sculptures we saw are in fact a deal smaller than is usual in other regions. They are also more closely spaced, so that one might hear upwards of a hundred voices singing at one time, all in raucous chorus.
Meanwhile, to the north, harp-makers prefer musical exactitude over visual beauty. They use precise mathematics and geometrical equations to create sculptures that sing in key, and space the harps out so that one voice does not overcrowd another.
There are even some sculptors who claim to be able to entice actual melodies from their creations. I wish I could visit them, for I should very much like to know how they account for the rhythmic vagaries of the wind in that case.
It is for good reason that life on Verkaren happens mostly underground. The weather on the surface is frequently, simply unendurable. Temperatures plummet well beyond freezing, and the wind rises to a ferocious pitch, filling the air with flying ice fragments and making it all but impossible to breathe.
For days or even weeks at a time, not a single person who makes their home here can step foot outside. And yet that is when the Verkaren harps must sing their loudest.
The wind roars, and so do they, singing loud and fierce on their creators' behalf, claiming the very air until the people who made them can return to the surface once more.
[Title music: rhythmic instrumental folk. It plays throughout the closing credits.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light was created by H.R. Owen and Matt McDyre, and is a Monstrous Productions podcast. This episode was written and performed by H.R. Owen.
This week’s entry to the archives was based on an idea by Lu, with accompanying artwork available on our social media accounts.
If you've got an idea for an archive entry, we want to hear it. You can send us anything from a one line prompt to a fully written entry through our website, by email, or on social media. For more information, see the show notes.
This episode includes an audience decision. Vote on whether the Traveller should go easy on the other team in the snowball fight or play to win by making a donation at ko-fi.com/monstrousproductions.
Supporters will also receive bonus artwork and additional content, and an invitation to the Monstrous Productions Discord server.
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This podcast is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. The theme tune is by Vinca.
[Fade to silence.]
The Pilgrimage Saga: Season 3 Teaser transcript
[Soft, calming music plays.]
DARCEY: No man is an island, entire of itself.
SAPH: Each is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.
GABRIEL: If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less.
SASCHA: As well as if a promontory were. As well as if a manor of thine own, or of thine friend’s were.
ARMSTRONG: Each man’s death diminishes me, for I am involved in mankind.
HARRIS: Therefore, send not to know for whom the bell tolls.
ALL: It tolls for thee.
ANNOUNCER: The next four episodes to be released are bonus episodes; teasers of things to come. These will be released on a weekly schedule. Then, we will return to our usual release schedule of an episode every two weeks. The first bonus episode, Do We Have a Deal?, releases at midday GMT next Saturday on the 6th of April.
The Pilgrimage Saga is back for its final season. Watch the skies.
[Music fades out].
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