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0:36

Escapod Episode 982

0:38

Twilight by

0:40

Lily Harper Hello

1:08

and welcome to Escape Pod. I'm

1:10

Merlafferty, your co -editor and host

1:12

for our latest story, Twilight, by

1:15

Lily Harper. Lily

1:17

is a science fiction writer, space

1:19

artist, and debonair transsexual who, perhaps because

1:21

of a great sin committed in

1:23

a past life, was born in the

1:25

UK. Her work

1:27

blends transhumanist themes and technical

1:29

obsession with her background in

1:31

political science and philosophy. This

1:34

is her first published piece of work. It's

1:37

narrated for us by Kat Day. Kat

1:39

is a PhD chemist who was once

1:41

a teacher and is now a professional editor

1:43

and writer. He ventured

1:46

into Pseudopod Towers in 2019

1:48

and became an assistant editor

1:50

in 2021 and deputy editor

1:52

in 2025. The

1:54

best place to find her

1:56

is on Blue Sky at

1:58

chronicleflask .katday.com. And can read

2:00

her regular flash fiction offerings

2:02

at the fictional file, that's P

2:04

-H -I -A -L twilight

2:23

by lily harper

2:25

narrated by cat day

2:27

like the tide

2:29

going out the dream

2:31

slipped between her

2:33

toes and carried with it

2:35

the smell of petrachor and the sound

2:38

of birdsong. Even

2:40

without knowing she was dreaming, she had

2:42

known she was waking up, the

2:44

subliminal chatter of her body,

2:46

quietly running its routine checksums,

2:49

the logs spooling their barren monologue

2:51

into her working memory. First

2:54

came a few moments of

2:57

groggy confusion and then like

2:59

an iron hand gripping her

3:01

cognitive architecture. a kind of

3:03

clarity that tasted like resentment

3:05

and reminded her of Monday

3:07

mornings. Waking

3:11

up always felt like this, packed

3:13

down as she was, crammed into

3:15

a processor too small to carry

3:17

her, like a spring wound tight.

3:20

Waking up wasn't a continuous

3:23

transformation so much as a

3:25

discreet toggle, like a

3:27

light switch. Akir

3:29

opened her eyes and heard

3:31

the forever wind blowing mournfully

3:33

across the dunes. The

3:35

soft creaking of the local flora,

3:37

which had evolved, it seemed

3:39

to harvest energy from the permanent

3:41

gale. Her

3:44

cameras clicked and popped, adjusting

3:46

their focus. Slowly

3:48

crouching to keep her centre of gravity

3:50

low, Akir climbed out of the

3:52

burrow and crested the sandy crease of

3:54

the ridge garden. A

3:57

head spilled an alien vista no

3:59

human eyes had ever seen before

4:01

and she wondered if it was

4:03

a little selfish to think, hopefully

4:05

never would. With

4:07

its weathered dunes and rocky steps,

4:10

the ridge garden overlooked a

4:12

wide plain split into two

4:14

raggedly uneven halves by a

4:16

lush river valley. The

4:18

plains were paved with colonies

4:20

of dark, ground cover plants which

4:23

used a greasy black photo

4:25

pigment in place of chlorophyll. A

4:28

permanent sentinel in the sky,

4:30

the sun hung low and bloody

4:33

to the north. Meyers

4:36

Survey 3 Twilight, the science team

4:38

in orbit were calling it, was

4:40

one of maybe half a dozen

4:42

planets in all the space humanity

4:45

had spread to that was home

4:47

to its own native ecosystem. And

4:49

Twilight's was by far the most

4:51

complex and robust, orbiting

4:53

one of a hundred billion no -name red

4:56

dwarves in the Milky Way. Twilight

4:58

was tidally locked, a sun never

5:00

rose or set, and day and

5:02

night were permanent and deadly fixtures

5:04

of the planet's environment. To

5:07

the north, a seething desert. To

5:10

the south, an ice cap,

5:12

eight miles thick. Only

5:14

between the two, in a

5:16

narrow, windy band around the

5:18

planet's equator, was the

5:20

environment temperate enough for complex life

5:22

to survive. It

5:25

was an achingly beautiful

5:27

place to be, and

5:29

still, Akir had

5:31

been dreaming of earth, of

5:33

sunsets and soil, and

5:36

the singing of birds. She

5:38

began to walk trundling along the ridge

5:40

garden and doing her best not to trample

5:42

any of the local life. As

5:45

she did, she paged through her

5:47

logs, checking for any reported errors.

5:50

The hydraulic lines in her right arm were

5:52

thinning and might be an issue in another

5:54

thousand hours or so. Her

5:57

left knee, which had been binding

5:59

as a wiry local plant tried

6:01

to colonise it, wasn't showing any

6:03

signs of locking up again since she'd

6:05

last cleaned it. Her

6:07

power supply Printed from a

6:09

common pattern, Azure Cooperatives

6:11

Open RTG version 0 .8,

6:13

was still green and would

6:15

be for another 95

6:17

years. The slug of plutonium

6:19

238 churning out a couple of hundred

6:21

watts as it decayed. But

6:24

one of her redundant capacitors was

6:26

throwing errors. She

6:28

hesitated and then put in a

6:30

call. The survey

6:33

ship, Society of Consent, an interstellar line

6:35

layer with a crew of 60, wasn't

6:37

anywhere in the sky and the satellites were

6:39

down again. Something

6:42

about the ways that Twilight's

6:44

magnetosphere interacted with the local

6:46

solar wind made communications unpredictable. One

6:49

of half a hundred mysteries they didn't

6:51

have the time or the manpower to

6:53

solve. Without lungs,

6:55

Akiya's sigh was a heaving of

6:57

her shoulders as she trudged. Thump,

7:00

thump, adjust, thump,

7:04

across the landscape. Stepping

7:06

between the slab -like pavements of

7:08

platyphets that scabbed the ground, their

7:10

skins as dark and deep

7:12

as night and subtly ridged, reminding

7:14

her of the underside of

7:16

mushroom caps. Society

7:18

of Consent was still beyond the

7:21

horizon. That was

7:23

fine. She could wait. It

7:27

was another three hours before her

7:29

link with the survey ship flickered yellow

7:31

and then pulsed a deep and steady

7:34

green. Akia had

7:36

marched a steady half a kilometre or

7:38

so across the landscape, winding her way

7:40

down and into the lush river valley. Most

7:43

of the plants even here were

7:45

low round plates, but more commonly among

7:47

them now were their taller cousins, tiered

7:50

black things that made her think

7:52

of layer cakes. The

7:54

water seemed serene, no fish

7:56

her cameras and motion sensors were

7:58

picking up, except for

8:00

a handful of whip snakes, tall, reedy

8:02

plants that danced in the wind. She

8:06

glanced up at the sky and caught a glimpse

8:08

of the survey ship, barely more

8:10

than a lopsided star, slowly

8:12

wandering over the horizon. If

8:14

it hadn't been for the bracket superimposed

8:16

over it by her comm system, she

8:19

might have mistaken it for a moon

8:21

or a distant planet. A

8:24

voice rendered thin and

8:26

fluting by interference cut

8:28

through the windswept silence.

8:32

Calling for a cure, this is

8:34

Riley Casper. Electromechanical technician and

8:36

ground support, grade B. You

8:38

mentioned a fault in your logs? The

8:41

woman had a nice voice, her

8:43

vowels clipped by an old series

8:45

accent. Good morning,

8:47

Riley," Akiya thought at the

8:49

wandering star. Is it

8:51

morning where you are? I lose track of

8:53

the shifts on the society. I'm

8:55

reading an issue in my interior

8:58

capacitor bank. Eight percent losses on charge,

9:00

discharge. I've also got

9:02

an issue with the hydraulics in my right

9:04

arm, but it's not pressing. Light

9:07

delay to the Society of

9:09

Consent's orbit wasn't much, maybe

9:12

one hundredth of a second,

9:14

but between interference, signal compression, and

9:16

the slow grinding of computer

9:18

hardware and packing everything, the

9:20

effective lag time was on the order

9:22

of a quarter second. Akia

9:24

stopped to contemplate the view.

9:28

Yes! Riley

9:31

said, pulling the word out

9:33

into three long syllables. Yes,

9:35

you've reported in the hydraulics issue

9:38

before six weeks ago by our logs.

9:40

Any loss in function? Akir

9:43

checked her range of motion. Doesn't

9:45

look like it, but the rate of

9:47

leaching into the hydraulic fluid looks higher than

9:49

anticipated. Thought you ought to know. The

9:52

power thing? Another

9:54

delay. Gotcha, Akir. capacitor

9:56

wear like that is a little worrying,

9:58

but if it's only hitting one of

10:00

the advance it should be fine." The

10:02

mechanic hesitated. "'Send

10:04

us your logs, just to be safe,

10:06

though. If it comes down to it,

10:09

we can look at air -dropping your replacement.'"

10:11

She beamed a copy of her system

10:13

log to the survey ship, trying to

10:15

ignore the way doing so, made her

10:17

feel weirdly exposed. Confirmed

10:20

sent. Confirmed recede.

10:22

And I'll send this one to one of our

10:24

code monkeys. They'll go over it with a fine

10:26

tooth go and find out what's up, okay? Great.

10:30

Thanks. The

10:32

wind moaned through the valley, and the

10:34

stalks of the whip snakes danced in

10:36

it gamely. Something darted through

10:38

the water in response, as

10:41

though surprised. So maybe there

10:43

were fish here. Some

10:45

local fauna called out, chittering

10:47

like someone jabbed a pencil an

10:49

electric fan. And a

10:51

moment later, something responded on the far

10:53

side of the gully. One

10:55

of the weird, towering layer

10:57

cake plants spasmed a fibrous

10:59

network of bioluminescent cells stuttering

11:02

to life, hoping to attract

11:04

some animal to help it

11:06

pollinate. Suddenly,

11:09

Akia wanted desperately not to be

11:11

the only thing to see this. To

11:14

feel this. To hear

11:16

this. Is

11:19

that everything I could do

11:21

for you, Akir?" She hesitated.

11:24

Ground support means you're cross -trained, doesn't

11:26

it, Riley? Everyone

11:28

on the mission is, to some extent,

11:31

but yes, Electromech is my main field, but

11:33

I've also got a working knowledge of

11:35

some of the exobiology stuff. The

11:37

woman's paws might not have

11:39

even existed, except Akir definitely felt

11:41

it. Somehow, without changing,

11:44

the woman's voice suddenly sounded

11:46

more gentle. Psychology

11:48

too. She

11:50

realised she hadn't said anything for

11:53

a moment. If she still had

11:55

breath, Akia would have found she was

11:57

holding it. It's

11:59

quiet here. That's

12:03

why you came, isn't it?

12:05

Riley said, her voice crushingly,

12:07

punishingly gentle. To

12:09

get away from everything. I

12:12

didn't call to talk about

12:14

me just maintenance. The

12:17

mechanic made a clicking noise,

12:19

tongue against teeth. Akira hadn't

12:21

had a body in so long that the

12:23

sudden profound sense that she had a tongue of

12:25

her own, that she could

12:28

feel the roof of her own mouth,

12:30

was somewhere between dizzying and nauseating. Some

12:33

distant detached part of her mind wondered

12:35

if there was something wrong with her.

12:46

Why don't you show me how quiet

12:48

it is? Akir

12:51

pushed against her reluctance like

12:53

she was trying to press magnets

12:55

together, her emotions a

12:57

field effect in her mind. Exposed

13:00

or isolated, which feeling

13:02

was worse? She opened

13:04

the link, chewing through bandwidth,

13:07

and soon Riley was seeing something like

13:09

what Akir was, grainier maybe,

13:11

and threw a screen on a

13:14

spaceship, but still. The

13:16

water burbling through a brook

13:18

on an alien world, the

13:20

chittering, the call and

13:23

repeat game of animal mating rituals

13:25

as familiar as birds singing

13:27

serenades. That wind,

13:30

God's long, great

13:32

exhalation, driven

13:34

by the heat of the sun and

13:36

the cold of night. Suddenly

13:40

remembering the feeling of surf between

13:42

her toes from the dream, Akir

13:45

felt the urge to break

13:47

protocol. She waded into

13:49

the shallow edge of the stream, steel

13:51

feet in the water. The

13:53

cold felt about right and came with

13:55

the illusion that she still had toenails,

13:58

the cold biting at them a

14:00

pain that was not entirely unpleasant. Every

14:06

day Akir said, I

14:08

stand somewhere nobody else has

14:10

ever been before. I

14:12

find a dozen new species, no

14:14

human has ever named or catalogued.

14:17

Not some bacterium in pond

14:19

water either, but whole clades

14:21

of new, wonderful life. This

14:24

beautiful, empty world sings to

14:26

me its mournful, mindless winged

14:28

song. And besides

14:30

the others like me,

14:33

I'm the only thing even distantly

14:35

related to a human being who

14:37

has ever heard it, ever

14:39

lived with it. And

14:41

when I sleep, because even

14:44

uploaded mind sleep, whole

14:46

brain emulation means whole brain,

14:49

it's in the name. I dream

14:51

not of frost -bound oceans

14:53

of the southern reach, or

14:55

of the sheltered bays to the

14:58

northern sea, where mimic frogs have

15:00

learned to repeat the hiss of

15:02

my hydraulic legs, but

15:04

of earth, of being

15:06

human again, or else

15:08

of being something better. Something

15:11

whole You came from earth

15:13

Riley made a soft noise

15:15

in the back of her

15:17

throat When was the last

15:20

time you were there? I

15:24

Haven't run the numbers

15:26

on that but it would

15:28

have been oh a

15:30

decade after I died and

15:32

shed my skin after

15:34

the procedure Not accounting for

15:36

relativistic effects Six almost

15:38

700 years Suddenly she felt

15:40

terribly self -conscious, seven

15:42

feet tall and weighing almost four

15:44

hundred kilos, Akia hugged

15:46

herself. God, I'm

15:48

old. The woman

15:50

laughed. Yes, you

15:52

are. And strangely,

15:55

that made it all right. You

15:58

came all the way out here,

16:01

Riley said, slowly, like she was working it

16:03

out, as she said it. And

16:05

it's wonderful and mournful, and more

16:07

than that, it means something. And

16:09

all you can think about is somewhere

16:11

you left behind so long ago that

16:13

perhaps nowhere you set foot would be

16:15

recognisable now. You

16:17

were born in the 20th century. Earth

16:20

now is as far from what

16:22

you grew up with as the

16:24

Hundred Years War or the fall

16:26

of Constantinople was. So

16:28

a past that can't come back. Neither

16:32

of them spoke. A

16:34

paddled glider. A local animal

16:36

she'd been the first to discover. seven

16:38

years ago, darted across the river,

16:40

a blur of black and pink and

16:42

structural blue. Why

16:45

did you come out here, Akia? I

16:49

lost something. I

16:51

can talk about everything else, but I'm still

16:53

not ready to talk about that. That's

16:56

okay, I lost something, Akia

16:58

said again, harder than she meant

17:00

to, and pushing through the sudden profound

17:02

tension in a chest she no

17:04

longer had. Anna I

17:07

couldn't bear to be seen

17:09

again, couldn't bear to be around

17:11

people. I felt like I'd

17:13

been skinned raw by what I

17:15

lost and every touch hurt. Grief.

17:19

I've read that some

17:21

uploads turned themselves into

17:23

observatories on long and

17:25

lonely orbits around distant

17:27

suns, relying on gravity,

17:29

lensing to image distant

17:31

galaxies. Others retreat

17:33

to distant alt clouds and

17:35

cooper belts. burrowing deep into

17:37

cold worldlets that straddle the

17:39

heliopause for some peace and

17:41

quiet. But

17:43

I couldn't do either of those things. More

17:46

than anything, I

17:48

needed to feel, not

17:50

my grief. I

17:52

don't know if I can ever face that,

17:55

but I needed to be in a place

17:57

where I could hear the wind and

17:59

taste the air and feel the water between

18:01

my toes and know it was real. Not

18:04

a memory, not virtual.

18:07

And that was here, twilight.

18:13

And yet here you are, Riley

18:15

said, talking to me. I'm

18:19

lonely, Akiya said.

18:22

Yes, yes you are. You

18:24

know, it's not that weird of a feeling

18:26

if you think about it. We're all out

18:28

here because we're lonely. Akiya

18:31

crouched. lowered her right hand

18:33

into the water. She

18:35

saw three steel fingers,

18:38

improbably dexterous despite their

18:40

heavy -duty segmented design, but

18:43

when rubber grips kissed

18:45

cold water she felt five

18:47

fingertips burn with cold. Idly

18:51

she dragged her hand first one

18:53

way and then the other, gently.

18:57

Something swam up. a fish with a

18:59

nose like a mosquito and then

19:01

darted away. What?

19:05

Life in the universe, shit. Ackir

19:07

replied. Man ventures

19:09

boldly into space to ask, are

19:12

we alone? Well,

19:14

sure, we travelled what 15, 16

19:16

light years? All to

19:18

come study from Orbiter Planet we can't even

19:20

set foot on. On the off chance

19:22

something lived here that was interesting, or even,

19:24

maybe, wanted to say hello. Shit,

19:27

okay, at least you actually

19:29

get to be there. She heard

19:31

the depth of the woman's terrible longing,

19:34

but Riley didn't stop talking. Anyway,

19:36

sure, that's true. But

19:38

we're also all here because we're the

19:41

sort of people who can spend a

19:43

couple of Decades unplugged from interstellar society.

19:45

No homes, no family, no obligations. Not

19:47

exactly a normal psychological profile.

19:50

And all of this? Dreaming of Earth? Being

19:52

so desperate for connection you fake to

19:55

Fault Report? Do you know what I think

19:57

it means? That

19:59

I can't even get brooding on

20:01

an alien planet, right? Akiya

20:04

said, dryly. Ha!

20:06

You deflect with humour when you

20:08

have to deal with your emotions. Riley

20:10

said, I know that trick

20:13

well and I'm not falling for

20:15

it. No, what it means is

20:17

you've grown piece by piece, day

20:19

by day. That you can

20:21

be lonely again is a sign that you're healing. Maybe

20:23

not into what you were before you lost

20:25

whatever it is you lost, maybe

20:27

never that. But you are healing. You

20:29

have been and you didn't even know

20:31

it. It's ironic,

20:34

I know, but you're not

20:36

alone. Like

20:38

old rope, Riley's voice began

20:40

to fray. Communications

20:42

issues? Looks

20:44

like it. Solar activity. Give

20:47

me a second. Faintly, Akia heard

20:49

the woman punching her keyboard. Typing

20:51

so fast, it sounded like someone had

20:53

poured a hundred dice down some

20:55

cut stone steps. Eggheads

20:58

are saying it'll be another six or seven hours

21:00

before we get a clear channel. Twilight

21:02

Sun isn't quite a flare star, but

21:04

it's unusually active. The

21:06

apology in the technician's voice

21:08

made Akia's heart ache. It's

21:11

okay, she said. Do you mind

21:13

if I call you again sometime? Riley's

21:17

voice was almost more static than

21:19

speech. Not at all.

21:22

The bracket around the survey ship,

21:25

high in orbit, flickered

21:27

yellow. A moment

21:29

later, filaments of green and

21:31

gold and red drew themselves

21:33

faintly across the sky. Akiya

21:36

wondered if human eyes would have

21:38

been able to pick up the subtle

21:40

colours of the solar storm, or

21:42

if they were only visible thanks to

21:45

some camera trick. You

21:47

have been healing, Akiya

21:50

thought to herself, and

21:52

you didn't even know it. She

21:56

shifted her weight and

21:58

stepped out of the

22:00

cold, cold

22:02

river. and

22:31

that was Twilight by Lily Harper. It

22:34

struck me that the two characters in

22:36

this story find themselves longing for the

22:39

other's situation or experience. Riley

22:41

longs to see what Akir sees, but

22:43

she's also jealous of Akir's memories of

22:45

the Earth. Akir just longs

22:47

for healing and communication. However,

22:50

they both chose their situation, which

22:52

shows us simply that there's no situation even

22:55

if you choose it that will be perfect. I

22:57

think the human brain's need for frequent

22:59

change applies here because no matter how

23:02

perfect your current situation is, eventually you

23:04

will get bored of it and long

23:06

for a change. And

23:08

while space travel sounds like an amazing

23:10

adventure to us here on the ground,

23:12

very few people portray it in a

23:14

way that makes travel over an impossibly

23:16

long distance not seem as dull as

23:18

hell. It reminds me of

23:21

the movie 2001 because the first time

23:23

I watched it, I felt incredibly

23:25

lonely. that these men

23:27

were living together in space, but

23:29

never speaking. Then I

23:31

figured if I were on that ship, I

23:33

would probably be spaced far earlier than Hal's

23:35

malfunction because I would be talking nonstop to

23:37

fill the silence. Thank

23:39

you for listening to Escape Pod. It's

23:42

a production of Escape Artists

23:44

Incorporated and is distributed under Creative

23:46

Commons Attribution Not Commercial No

23:48

Derivatives License. Share it, don't

23:50

change it, don't charge for it. All

23:52

other rights are reserved by our authors. We

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live on your donations. If

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you can support us monetarily,

23:59

you will support all of

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the Escape Artists podcast and

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everybody who works on them.

24:06

If you can do that, check us

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out at escapepod .org to learn how

24:10

you can donate via PayPal, Patreon,

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you have a question, directly

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email donations at escapeartists .net. Depending

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tax deductible. And if you can't give leave

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a review or tell a friend. Thank

24:27

you for supporting our mission to bring

24:29

free and accessible speculative fiction to a

24:32

global audience. We've been doing

24:34

this for almost 20 years, thanks to

24:36

you. Our music is by permission

24:38

of Daikaiju. You can hear more from

24:40

them at daikaiju .org. That was our show

24:42

for this week. Our quote comes from

24:44

Joseph Campbell. It is by going

24:46

down into the abyss that we recover the

24:48

treasures of life. Where you stumble, there

24:50

lies your treasure. Stay safe and

24:52

as Vonnegut eloquently put it, goddamn it,

24:54

you've got to be kind. We'll

24:56

see you next week.