Episode 22
Travelling Light E022S01 Transcript
[Title music: rhythmic electronic folk.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode Twenty Two.
[The music fades out.]
The Traveller
Entry NI85014-6: An account of the strange tales told of the region of space known as Lomea's Gyre.
Key words: galactic history; Lomea's Gyre; myths and legends; oral literature; travel and transport.
Notes:
I was approaching the refectory aboard the Tola one day when I heard raised voices coming from within. I discovered Operator Aman in a heated discussion with Doctor Hesje.
“Oh but this is simply absurd!” Hesje was saying. “You cannot possibly be serious!”
“I am always serious,” Operator Aman intoned. “It is my job to be serious.”
Hesje had pulled themselves up to their full height, such as it is, and stood facing Aman with their hands on their hips, furry face twisted in frustration and disbelief.
Aman, meanwhile, resembled nothing so much as a very unimpressed cliff face. She is a very large person in every direction, and is a perfect natural when it comes to looming. Her beautifully tailored uniform, pristine as ever, stood in dark, sober contrast to the bright flourish of Hesje's academic robes.
“Is there something the matter?” I asked, causing Aman to roll her eyes.
“Now, look – you've summoned the monk.”
“I am not a monk. And you are the ones having an argument in the middle of the refectory. If you did not want to be disturbed, you should have taken this some place else.”
“We're not having an argument!” Hesje said quickly. “It's just a-a lively debate.” [nervous laugh]
“I am not debating anything,” Aman put in. “I have set our course and that is final.”
“Oh for pity's sake, Aman! The plasma ribbons of Koom are a once-in-a-century phenomenon. I am not going to miss the atmospheric event of a lifetime because my pilot is scared of ghost stories!”
“My family has been sailing the black for generations,” Aman snapped. “If I wanted advice on navigating office politics and academic back-stabbing, I would defer to you. On matters of space-faring, however, I take my own counsel.”
Hesje made a sound like someone working very hard not to swear, and stormed out of the refectory, robes billowing behind them in a swirl of colour.
“…ghost stories?” I asked.
A glint came into Aman's eye. “Follow me.”
She led the way to the navigation deck. It was a tidy, well-organised space, much as I would expect from a person who memorises transit schedules for fun, with a few ornaments decorating a bank of blinking lights and complicated controls.
Aman leant over these controls, tapping buttons until a holographic star map shimmered into life before us. She tapped another button, and a point on the map pinged, bright and green.
“That's the Tola,” Aman explained. “And over here is Koom, the planet where Doctor Hesje's event is due to occur. And this... is Lomea's Gyre.”
The star map shivered, and a wobbly sphere of colour appeared directly between the Tola and Koom. A line of light connected the two, skirting one side of the sphere in a graceful curve.
“It's a region of space, not a well-defined as it appears here but that shape just about covers it. And that line is the course we shall be taking – no matter what Doctor Hesje may insist.”
“I assume they have suggested traversing this region more directly?”
“Just so. It would be faster, by several days. But some things aren't worth the risk. Tell me – have you ever heard the story of the Mirana da Res? No? Then let me tell you.
The Mirana da Res was a merchant ship some four hundred years ago. It was, by all accounts, a beautiful vessel, crafted by the shipwrights of Terrival, with a set of shimmering solar sails and crewed with as fine a brace of sailors any captain could hope for.
She set sail from Terrival with a hold bursting full of textiles, spices, technology, bound for Port Yadochas and promising profits untold to everyone involved in the venture. But the Mirana da Res never arrived.
The journey started well enough. The captain's log didn't note anything out of the ordinary until around three months in to the voyage, when the ship passed into the region known as Lomea's Gyre.
It started with instrument failures. Strange readings nobody could explain. The captain writes in her log how disappointed she is – she expected better from a ship of the Mirana's class.
Even more frustrating, the engineers can't make head nor tail of it. All their tests are coming back normal. It seems as if everything is working perfectly. But there must be a fault. There has to be. There's nothing but hard vacuum beyond the hull. Nothing that could be causing that kind of interference.
The captain writes that the crew is becoming restless. Long hauls in the black are difficult for anyone, even hardened sailors. But this is more than boredom, more than cabin fever. The crew are on-edge. They tell tales of noises in the dark, a sound like voices on the very edge of hearing.
The captain brushes it off – superstitious nonsense. After all, there is nobody as superstitious as a sailor. But then, as the Mirana delves deeper into the Gyre, her log begins to change. The tone shifts.
She writes of sitting in her cabin after lights out, the security feeds pulled up on her device, frantically checking the corridors. They're empty. They're all empty, just as they should be. So who is it she can hear outside her door?
No. No, she realises, it isn't outside her door. It's behind her, coming through the wall. A tapping, light but persistent. And underneath, a whispering voice, begging her to open up, to let it in, please, for the love of all things holy, let it in. Somehow audible, despite the inches of solid steel at her back – and the cold, empty void of space beyond.
The Mirana da Res was due to arrive in Yadochas in the spring. But sailing schedules are subject to change, and when she missed her arrival date, nobody paid it much mind. It wasn't until late summer when someone raised the alarm – a merchant partner, wondering what had become of their promised cargo.
They needn't have worried. They found the Mirana with its holds still full to bursting, everything accounted for. It was a modular design, of the type preferred in that time – a cargo crate attached to the ship's hull, with no direct access from the interior. That's what saved it.
The rest of the ship was empty. Corridors, cabins, workstations, all of them deserted. Nothing remained. Everything that hadn't been bolted down, blown out into the black when the captain gave her final order to open the air locks and purge the ship – crew and all.
There have been other tales since, of course. These things are never isolated incidents. The Aulus disappeared without a trace after after entering Lomea's Gyre, never to be seen again – except for strange sightings reported at the edge of the Gyre of a ship that vanishes as suddenly as it appears.
When the SS Cariad was reported missing, they feared it had met the same fate. But it was found – found abandoned, its emergency shuttles launched, but with no sign of any systems failure, nothing that would have prompted an evacuation. And the shuttles themselves never resurfaced.
I don't know what's out there, in Lomea's Gyre. I don't know what happened to those ships, or the people who crewed them. But I know that no ship has crossed the Gyre without a tale to tell for it – and I'm not interested in adding the Tola to that list.”
[The sound of the data stick whirring fades in, cutting out when the data stick is removed with a click.]
The Traveller
14th Nisa 850
To the community at Emerraine, who carry the Light.
I cannot tell you what a difference I felt in myself after our brief stay on Ikalu. My encounter with young Eiki and her friend Toikka left me energised and optimistic as I had not been for some time.
I cannot pretend that all is as it was aboard the Tola. There is still some lingering discomfort between myself and the crew. But I understand this as a natural, if difficult, phase of our relationship.
All I can do is continue to live as I always have, striving to be true to my own morals and to be a person I am proud to be. If that person is someone my travelling companions can trust, they shall see that, in time. And if it is not, so be it. It would be… disappointing, but life is sometimes disappointing.
[beat]
Oh, I do hope it does not come to that! I am trying to be sanguine and accept that I cannot force a person to hold an opinion of me that they do not wish to hold. But I really, really wish I could! No. No, it is fine. I am fine. I will be [sighing] patient.
After our visit in Ikalu, we set sail for a stint of several days' travel before our next scheduled landing. These extended periods in the black are not easy on any of us, save perhaps Doctor Tsabec who is always glad of the excuse to bury themselves in research.
For the rest of us, the Tola is simply not big enough to be comfortable for that length of time. Though, even if we had all the space we could desire, the lack of fresh air or daylight, not to mention the natural repetitiveness of life aboard, would, I am sure, quickly begin to grate.
But the old adage is true – misery loves company, and there is at least some satisfaction to be had in lamenting the situation with others. Óli is particularly good for a bit of mutual grumbling. They have a flare for melodrama, turning even the most mundane inconvenience into a tragedy of epic proportions.
The effect is only added to by their conviction, so deeply held that they seem not to even be aware of its existence, that they are, in fact, the fulcrum about which the entire galaxy ought to turn, and so any obstacle to their own happiness is, obviously, a crime of catastrophic proportions.
“I do not see why we should have these long stretches aboard in the first place,” they complained to me, as we sat in the observation deck and enjoyed the novelty of star-gazing at lunchtime.
At least, I was enjoying myself. Óli was languishing elegantly, spreading themselves over a padded bench, artfully framed by the window, their long, embroidered robes falling in colourful drifts about them.
“Surely with today's technology we could plan a route that avoided this kind of thing.” They were tugging at one earring in what I have learnt is a sure sign of agitation.
“It is unconscionable,” I agreed, digging through my food with my eating utensil. “How dare the planets arrange themselves in such an inconsiderate formation?”
Óli glared. “You are making fun of me.”
“That's astute,” I said. “You could petition Operator Aman to take another course – though she did not exactly take kindly to Doctor Hesje's suggestions.”
“Hesje wanted to take us into a ghost-riddled wasteland,” Óli pointed out, with the absolute conviction of one who believes all such stories of spooks and spirits without hesitation. “I just want to go somewhere I can get a decent cup of tea.”
I finished my last mouthful of lunch and set my bowl down, leaning back in my seat with a sigh. “I have been wondering about this.”
“About tea?”
“No. About you. About your being here.”
A flicker of doubt crossed Óli's face. “Do you want me to leave?”
“No! No, I meant here on the Tola. Not here on the observation deck. It is just that… Well. You are clearly a person of some means. I am travelling in this fashion because it suits me and my purpose. Besides which, it was cheaper. I could barter for my berth and earn my keep with labour if I needed to.”
Óli's fingers twitched in their lap, tracing the embroidery. “Do I not seem like a person who could earn their keep?”
“I did not say that. Only, you do not seem like a person who would want to, much less need to. Why not take a passenger cruiser to Kerrin? It would be quicker and more comfortable. You might even have had a cabin large enough that you need not cover every single surface in discarded clothing.”
[laughs] “I do not think there is a cabin large enough to ensure that.”
Their smile was faint, but I was glad to see it.
[Óli sighs] “The truth of it is, I did not choose the Tola. I did not have any choice in the matter. I did not even choose my destination. I am going to Kerrin because the Tola is going to Kerrin. And I am aboard the Tola… because Doctor Duytren is aboard the Tola.”
“Doctor Duytren? You are travelling with her?”
Óli pulled a face. “No. Not with her. But because of her. She was my means of finding passage. She secured my place here. She is the reason I am here and not… Not somewhere else.”
“I do not understand,” I said, frankly. “You knew Duytren before we sailed from Port Taroth? But you have always shown such antipathy for her. You cannot be friends.”
Óli snorted. “That is so like you. It is possible, you know, to be acquainted with a person and not be their friend.”
“But if she helped you, if she got you your place aboard, why do you hate her?”
“I do not hate Doctor Duytren. It is worse than that. If I only hated her, that would be simple.” They let out a sigh, their gaze fixed to where their hands lay in their lap. “I… owe her. [sighs] I owe her a great debt, and I cannot repay it. I could never repay it.”
“You owe her for your passage? But it-it-it is not that much, I could pay her back for you if you had need-”
But Óli interrupted me. “No! Not for the passage.”
“Then… what? What is it that she gave you?”
Óli raised their head at last, their eyes finding mine. They look fragile and beautiful, barely picked out by the dim lights.
“My freedom,” they said, words soft and shapeless in the dark. “She gave me my freedom.”
[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 MiroKai, with accompanying artwork available on our social media accounts.
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[Fade to silence.]
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