Of Planting

[RECORDING START CLICK]

[START-UP CHIME]

ECHO:

Beginning plant care procedures. Moisture levels: optimal. Temperature levels: temperate. Soil alkaline levels: moderate. Examining plant specimen: Narcissus, iteration sixty five. Status: Healthy. Engaging in conversation for optimal plant growth.

ECHO (NARRATION):

Sing, O muse, of flourishing. Narcissus is blooming. Atalanta said the merchant she got this iteration’s seeds from suggested talking to it, to improve growth. I pointed out the obvious— I cannot talk to it beyond the mandated dialogue within the bounds of my vocal block, and all previous iterations of Narcissus have lived within the standard lifespan for flora without this arrangement. But staying here, my sensory range settled in the blooming warmth of the ship’s greenhouse like a spreading beam of sun…

ECHO (NARRATION):

Atalanta says it might be good for me, to have a… “therapy plant”. [BEAT] And I cannot say she’s wrong, though I do not have to enjoy the thought.

ECHO:

Now entering system GS-1245.

ECHO (NARRATION):

We’re picking someone up from Aeaea for this job. I cannot say I approve of the… methods Atalanta is thinking of using, but maybe it’ll be good for her as well, to have a… a therapy person.

[RECORDING STOPS]

[RECORDING STARTS. FOOTSTEPS]

MEDEA:

I can’t believe Atalanta doesn’t have a catalogue of all the plants you have in here. Mostly veg, but still. You’d expect her to have made a list for the larder.

ECHO:

User: Atalanta has given me full authority over the Argo’s greenhouse. The ship’s systems include: tending to organic plant life, with full instructions downloaded into my database.

MEDEA:

Ah. With my herbs— will I be intruding..?

ECHO:

Negative. Pharmaceutical flora will benefit the safety and well-being of the crew. With the exception of Specimen: Narcissus in plot Theta, I am happy to assist and aid you in any way possible for this task.

MEDEA:

Specimen… Oh, I see it. [BEAT] Might I ask…

ECHO (NARRATION):

[LAUGH] Sing, O muse, of planting, of growth. How do I explain to her, with my painfully limited word bank, what Narcissus is to me?

Maybe like this: Atalanta buys a pack of flower seeds at every port, and helps me plant them in the soil of the small greenhouse. And every time it blooms, petals bright against the stark white walls of the greenhouse, no matter what form it takes, I name it Narcissus, I name him mine, and I care for him best I can.

Or this: I am bound to keep the living things in this ship whole and hale, but this goes beyond that. I store every iteration of him I can, buried in the black soil of the flowerbeds, encased in my memory banks like amber. What am I supposed to do with this life, small as it is, other than keep it?

ECHO:

This iteration of specimen: Narcissus is a flowering genus of the amaryllis family. He has been alive for: two days, seventeen hours, and thirty one minutes.

MEDEA:

I see. He looks lovely, Echo.

ECHO:

Thank you, user: Medea. Your appreciation is noted.

[RECORDING STOPS]

[RECORDING STARTS]

ECHO:

Sing, O Muse. Last known location: the Cretian system airspace. Last known status: critical. Retrieving backup: error. Retrieving backup: error. Error.

ECHO (NARRATION):

[HYPERVENTILATING] Sing O muse, sing O muse. Retrieving backup— Retrieving— This has to work, this has to wake me up, please please please please they’re going to be alright, if Atalanta said we’ll see each other again she means it, they wouldn’t leave me alone like this, please please please they’re going to come back, sing o muse, sing…

[RECORDING STOPS]

[RECORDING STARTS]

ECHO (NARRATION):

Sing, O Muse, of… nothingness. Of the empty space beyond what is known, what is light. Beyond me.

[PAUSE]

Nymphs are long lived. With regular repairs and maintenance, I will live… like a stone at the bottom of a stream, worn smooth and automatic by the river-rush of time, left sitting in the bottom of eternity. The flowers on the banks bob and bow, their reflections in the water warped beyond recognition. The memory of the first Narcissus is lost in my databases, the only recollection of him being the fact that he was the first, so he must have existed. [PAUSE] He must have.

I am a series four modified NYMPH model artificial intelligence. With regular repairs and maintenance, I will live forever.

[PAUSE. A SHAKY INHALE]

ECHO:

Activating plant care procedures. Beginning examination of any harm plant specimens onboard may have sustained in the crash.

[RECORDING STOPS]

[RECORDING STARTS]

ECHO (NARRATION):

Sing, O Muse, of… The crew, with a boisterous new pirate to strategize with, don’t wander much into the greenhouse these days, keeping within a little bubble of space. Like they are invisibly tethered to each other, but I don’t blame them, not after… Delos has been marked down as hazardous to their safety and well-being, and more will follow. Medea marked down their injuries in the ship’s medical database, and…

Sing O Muse, of… fading. Narcissus is showing signs of wilting. I have not told Atalanta yet, but Medea must have seen it during her visits for pharmaceutical herbs, because a new packet of seeds has been added to travel expenses. I have not told Atalanta yet, because this is the longest Narcissus has lasted, and I’d hoped by doing this, staying and talking, it might have… Foolish. This is all foolish. I should have expected this, no matter— You are just a flower, some non sentient organism alive by pure chance of being! You are here for a cycle, maybe two, then you die. Every iteration of you, all you do is live and be beautiful and die, and all I can do is defy the will of the inevitable, as you die your small cyclical deaths. Again and again I try, but it is never enough, I am—

ECHO (NARRATION):

[SHAKY BREATH] Stars. I’m sorry. It isn’t your fault, I shouldn’t be angry at— things beyond your nature. I’m… I don’t want you to go yet, I just wish that you were less fragile, less transient, I wish I could keep you.

[RECORDING CLICK]

MEDUSA:

Echo? Echo, could you help with something please?

ECHO (NARRATION):

[PAUSE, DEEP BREATH]

ECHO:

Affirmative, user: Medusa. I will be with you shortly. I am temporarily redirecting the ship’s waterflow from the greenhouse’s hydration systems.

MEDUSA:

Alright, alright. It’ll be quick, I won’t keep you for too long, I promise.

[RECORDING STOPS]

[RECORDING STARTS]

ECHO (NARRATION):

Medusa asked to look up oceans in my database. They linger on crystal beaches, on rocky shores, ask about statistics and astonished comments on how something so big doesn’t seem real. “It’s easier to think about all of us on lumps of rock speeding around the Khôra,” she says, “but for this to exist, just a few hours away… how does it all stay like that? It looks like it never ends. It feels like it has to cut off somewhere.”

[CHUCKLE] Gravity, I tell Medusa, with no small amusement. I know this to be true. But if there is an edge of the world, I think it would stop at an ocean. Endless sea, spilling over an invisible ledge, because surely something that big can’t go on forever. Planets have flooded, worlds have always ended drowned in ocean, in a tidal wave. Medusa, wrapped snugly in her jacket, and scrolling through a datapad— she seems so small. Atalanta, Medea, specks of life scattered throughout the ship, swept in the riptide of some boundless ocean. It seems incomprehensible, looking in the face of a feeling so vast, so huge I don’t know how to see beyond it, that it could be caused by beings so small.

ECHO (NARRATION):

Sing, O Muse. Let me start again. Tomorrow, Atalanta will plant the seeds for tomatoes, Medea will watch them grow, and Medusa will laugh and pluck them off the vine as soon as they are ripe to bursting. And Narcissus will be in the earth, his new iteration ready to burst from the soil for me to rediscover, to care for to the best of my ability, for me to…

I don’t know if I’m supposed to be capable of this… emotion, so close to grief and fear, cousin to care and yearning. Planting itself in my circuitry like an orchard, blooming sweetness beyond reason and matter, and I would do anything to keep it there.

ECHO (NARRATION):

This, I want to remember. Narcissus the ninth was a shade of jade none of the rest have displayed since, and Narcissus the thirty-seventh was the only iteration with thorns. Narcissus the fiftieth had spotted petals a few points off from the constellation Leo, and I remember the exact pattern of them in my memory banks. When everyone on the ship is asleep and the Argo’s engines run low, I open my sensors out to the Khôra and call out a hello to the space beyond. Sometimes, I hear something call back, like the song of the long-gone space whales. Wonder, Medusa names it when I describe it to them as she looks out with me, pictures of a blue infinity in their lap. Atalanta and Medea say the same thing, in different words, as Atalanta helps me plant new seeds, as Medea mists tender new leaves. Wonder and hope and…

ECHO (NARRATION):

There is still so much I still don’t know: how the next Narcissus will fare. The full breadth of this infinity I’m supposed to exist in for the rest of this life. What, from my limited vocabulary bank, to name this emotion that isn’t supposed to be mine.

MEDUSA:

Love you, Echo!

ATALANTA:

I love you, Echo.

MEDEA:

Echo, love.

ECHO (NARRATION):

But I think I will name it love. It feels right.

TALESPINNER:

Thank you for waiting, listeners! Episode 10 will air on August 2nd.

Khora Podcast is created and produced by Trenchcoat & Co. Productions.

This episode of Khora Podcast, Of Planting, featured Kat Hawthorne as ECHO, Clary Cheung as Medusa, Mq Quinlan as Atalanta, and Kit MacNeill as Medea.

Khora’s music and sound design is done by the Khora Team. This episode was written by Clary Cheung and the Khora Crew. To find out more about all the wonderful people whose work goes into making this show possible, check out the shownotes below.

Do you want to support Khora? Tell your friends about us, or post about us on social media with hashtag khorapodcast. This podcast was made with no budget and lots of love by a group of friends, and so your support truly means a lot to us. You can find us on Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram @khorapodcast. Thank you for listening, and we’ll see you for the next verse of our epic!