[early-access] Episode 8.2 (Patreon)

Act 0

Hello world, it's quiet here.

We're out of range of the Novamediterra, during the day.
We have to wait for night for the atmosphere to be just right.

Still no signals from Maddie.
I'm so scared for her.

But she's very capable.
I'm sure she'll be calling me today.
Or tomorrow.

Act 1

Until I hear back from her, I can tell you more of how we got here.
After saying good by to my father, Alexander, the Molly Hughes II sailed south.
Captain Yeshi has automated many of the functions on the ship, allowing a new skeleton crew of Linda Noor and Maddie & me.

The ship is powered by the marvellous Iron Engine.
A pre-collapse engine that burns iron powder into rust, then uses  solar-powered electrolysis to turn the rust back into iron, ready for  burning.
Very clever!

We made for Tromsø, one of the largest cities in the Novamediterra, in the north of Norway.

#thinking

Linda Noor volunteered to accompany us on the voyage again.
I had assumed she would want to stay with her family, the Vault Coven, on Svalbard.
But she seemed anxious to leave.

"I need some time away" she said "To think."
She did not explain more, and I did not want to push her.

We talked instead about her plans.
Linda has reprised her important role on the ship.
Doing a task that cannot be easily automated.
She is our gardener.

The roof of the Molly Hughes II is divided in two:
One half has a huge garden, the other covered with mismatched solar panels.
Yeshi manages the solar array, Linda the plants.

"It's impossible," Linda told me, "To eat what I want on a long voyage."
"On land, I can get all my food from plants, but on the ocean I have to resort to eating meat."

Linda explained this to us while we were eating in the galley.
Yeshi had caught some fish on a line off the back of the ship (I still refuse to use the word 'STERN').
And they had made a meal of it.
Maddie watched with interest, walking around the tables, before settling down in the corner of the room.

"I sympathise," said Yeshi, "But I don't see how you can do it.
There's only so much space on the ship!"

Linda nodded her head, and was silent for the rest of the meal.

#thinking

My solar panels don't like the Polar Night that the Novamediterra experiences all through the winter,
and Linda doesn't like the necessity of high-energy-density meat on the ocean.

Both of us have energy problems, it seems.

Act 2

I've been trying to increase my radio range in order to find little Maddie.
It's difficult.
I have a lot of transmit power, certainly enough to talk to satellites, but I still can't reach Maddie.

So, I did what anyone would do when faced with a problem they can't solve.
I talked to an expert.

Our local radio engineer on Svalbard, is Nia Andersen.
She lives in a little house next to the repeater station, high above the town of Longyearbyen.
Actually, I think her house might BE the repeater station!

"Hello Nia, I hope you can hear me?" I asked.
There was a swirl of white noise in response, and for a moment I could only hear the ghosts in the static.
But a few seconds later the sound resolved into Nia's bright voice.
"5x5 Seth!" She said, "your signal is pretty legible.
How is the world today?"

"Copy you Nia," I said, using the language and protocols that she taught me to speak in on the Radio.

"I wonder if I can ask you about radio power, I need to find Maddie."

I explained that Maddie had not checked in on radio for many days and that I was worried.
Nia asked me about my radio equipment onboard the Molly Hughes II, and  after confirming some specifics with Yeshi, I brought her up to speed.

#thinking

"Height is might" Nia told me.
"All the power in the world wont help you if your antenna is stuck in a valley.
Where are you now, what's the geography between you and her?"

"We're at sea-level, on the coast, and Maddie has walked inland." I said, realising the problem.

"That'll do it." Nia confirmed, "You're in a local dark patch, imagine the land throwing a shadow over the sea."

"What can I do?" I asked.

"Hope she transmits from a hill?" Nia said.
"Sorry Seth."

#thinking

After exhausting every option, I felt resigned to waiting for Maddie, as Nia said.

We chatted for the rest of the day and Nia caught me up on the news from Longyearbyen.

There had been a solstice gathering in the town, to celebrate the now-shortening nights.
A somewhat academic fact north of the Arctic circle.
The grey light of dawn will not yet be visible for many weeks.

But Nia said any excuse for a party was a good one.
Though she told me a difficult story from that night.

After the feast, she had been dancing with her friends, and over the  course of the evening, dancing more and more with one friend in  particular.

I didn't quite understand the nuances of how the party finished that night.
Nia was light on the details.
And I light on the understanding.

But she said that her hopes for modifying the relationship with this person from friend to something more were not realised.

"And now I've got one fewer friend." She said, her voice breaking slightly.
"Sorry Seth I have work I should do.
I hope Maddie calls.
'Batteries & Bars'."

And with that signoff, I was left alone with the ghosts in the static.

Act 3

'Batteries & Bars' is a common 'goodbye' phrase on the radio network.
Often shortened to BNB, and used as an alternative to 'farewell'.
The meaning is the same, because in the Novamediterra, to fare well is  to ensure you have charged batteries for energy, and many bars of radio  signal.

Batteries & Bars.

#thinking

When I sleep, I turn off external inputs and organise the information I have been caching throughout the day.
Saving some, but discarding much.
You do this too!
We're more alike that you might think.

To ensure I can wake up if there is something that needs handling, I set up notifications linked to my sensorium.
Instead of sound filling up my processing buffers, it is directed to an  unconscious rule system that only alerts me if certain rules trigger.
Loud sounds.
Human speech on my microphones, perhaps from Linda or Yeshi.
and so on.

My notification system also extends to my radio systems.

And just at sunrise, they crackled into life.
Hearing a low-power signal, coming from the south.

#thinking

I snapped awake, systems booting up and drawing maximum power from the ship's batteries.
They were 87% full, and would be recharged totally by the sun in a few hours.

I strained to hear.
There was a clear carrier signal coming over the radio.
A high-frequency note, cutting through the static.

I focused some of my antenna to clear up the signal.
It was very poor quality, very skewed, like someone shouting through a long pipe, full of reflections and strange sounds.

But it was Maddie!

#thinking

She was transmitting on a low-speed emergency connection.
It was certainly her: She transmitted her identifier, which was music to my ears!

I asked her where she was, had she been hurt?
She followed up with a status update, just like I taught her:

{Systems: ok, Batteries: full, Solar-panels: charging, Motors: functioning}

She told me that she had come across a huge, spiders-web of long-distance power pylons, crossing the land here.
After careful examination she had determined that no power was flowing  through, and she had connected to one of them, to act as a huge antenna  for her radio.

I was astonished, I hadn't taught her to do that!
It was genius.
I think she's getting smarter, with all this independence.

I was never worried! That's my girl!

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/VHF1/MADDIE)

Act 4

Back on Svalbard, I had been digging through the manuals and other documents that I brought with me from Station 6, my old home.
Space missions are well-stocked with documentation.
This allows problems to be fixed by the astronauts while in orbit, even if they can't communicate back to Mission Control.
As often happens in emergencies.

I discovered documents about satellite Command & Control protocols.
Signals that can be sent between ESA satellites on a common frequency, that all satellites are listening to.
Using this system, data can be downloaded remotely, systems controlled, and even remotely deactivated.

I had been hoping that these signals could be transmitted from Nia's radio shack, or if not, then IVAN's satellite array.
But no such luck.

Nia said that her systems are all optimised to transmit and receive horizontally, out towards the edge of the sky.
Sometimes a little higher, targeting the ionosphere, but mostly it's all line-of-sight communication.

IVAN of course can transmit up to orbit.
When I talked to him and LUNA about getting time on one of their large satellite dishes, I found that the codes were useless.

I can't transmit them from down here.
They must be keyed manually into the main Command & Control systems in Mission Control.

Maddie must reach it.
Maddie will reach it.

(END-TRANSMISSION)