Episode 13.3 (Patreon)

Hello world, someone is listening.

Nia Andersen visited me in person today.
I was delighted for this surprise visit of my good friend.
I asked her how she was, how was her goal of teaching all her friends  how to play with radios, but she put her fingers to her lips asking for  silence.
She then took a low-quality printed page out of her bag, unfolded it, and showed it to me.

It was full of random characters and numbers.
But I recognised the specific format.
She was showing me an encryption key.

Act 1

Nia and I hosted what cybersecurity people call a "keysigning party".

Many more people arrived, folks I recognised, like Pawel Wayda, and many I didn't, Nia's friends.

Maddie and Lyosha sat in the corner of the full workshop, bored, as everyone swapped encryption keys.

The purpose of this in-person event was to guarantee that we, and only we, had the secure keys for our friends.
If you send your key to someone over the radio, the lack of physicality harms the web of trust.
If someone physically hands you a key, then you know they are who they say they are.
You can see them.

I must be careful what I say.
Nia believes there is a hostile actor attacking the Novamediterran  repeater network, and perhaps other forms of digital communication too.
Though the post-collapse society is relatively peaceful, conflicts are not unheard of in the Novamediterra

Most of our continued difficulties come from decisions made before The Collapse.
But there are new difficulties too.

While all this was happening, I noticed Lyosha and Maddie preparing for another exciting day.
Lyosha had a large rucksack that I think was sewn by Pawel, it looks very well-made, with over 16 pockets!
In it there is food and water, and even maps and a compass.
I asked where they are going, and Lyosha said "boating!".
That sounds unnecessarily salty to me.

I was about to ask more when Linda Noor called, from the Vault Coven.

Act 2

"Hi Seth! How are you?" Linda asked.
"I'm very well thank you, and you are 5x5" I replied.
Conversational calibration achieved, Linda continued.

"Iris's really settling in here. I've showed her around, and Arctica has taken her under her wing!
"Has she?" I asked, surprised.
"Yes, the two are working together all day, I often hear them talking as I work on the flora continuation project.
Did I tell you about this?
It's what we call the extension of the Vault's duties to the garden outside.
Though ideally we'd just keep the seeds safe in storage, the Vault was designed to be cool.
When it was built, it was under permafrost - the average temperature never went above zero, but that's no longer the case.
It's still cool underground, of course, but eventually some of the hardiest seeds germinate!
Especially as there was a great deal of subsidence as the ground melted,  so there's many cracks in the walls that keep letting in water!

Any seeds that germinate, we plant outside on the hillside, and then  when the plant bears fruit, we harvest the seeds and put them back in a  colder part of the vault.

We'll do this as long as needed, it's our family's purpose to protect the world's plants."

"That's wonderful," I said, "And what are Iris and Arctica doing today?"

Linda paused.

"They're having a discussion."

"Oh?" I asked.

"Yes, they've been talking since breakfast.
Iris has said that she finds it a little difficult, on occasion, to work with Arctica."

I did not ask for clarification, none was needed.

"Her plan today was to make a big effort to reach out and connect,  find out what Arctica likes and dislikes, get to know her really well,  and, maybe, you know, become friends?"

"Linda, do you think that is going to work? You know Arctica!"

"I hope so?" She said.

"I hope so, too," I replied, "I hope so, too."

Act 3

I'm having an emotion, and I don't like it.

Lyosha is loading Maddie's storage bags with provisions for their long journey.
They're heading to the northerly town of Ny Alesund, the other side of the Adventfjorden bay.
The journey should take them multiple days, according to residents here.
Lyosha plans to do it in a single day.
They are going by boat.

I am afraid.

Lyosha and Maddie are in the boathouse section of the workshop,  connected to the harbour, and in the water is a small sailing boat.

It is made of white-painted wood, space for four people to sit, and a mast and sail of pre-collapse design.

The boat is named Ella III.
What happened to the previous 2?
I am extremely worried.

I have made a mental checklist.
I'm checking it many times a second.

"You'll make sure to trim the sails if the wind increases in velocity  more than 50km/h over the recommended speed for this vessel?" I said,  reading from an archived book, "Sailing Fundamentals" by Gary Jobson  without much understanding of the content.

Lyosha slotted in the removable rudder into the back of the small boat.

My CPUs ran hot as I thought of everything He could have forgotten.

"Are we SURE Maddie is waterproof?" I asked. "Yeshi could have made a  mistake, that's easy to do, and it only requires a tiny amount of salt  ingress and she would need extensive repairs - or worse!"

Maddie replied to me in Lojban, "Snura!", 'safe'.

I knew that really, Maddie has survived everything from heavy rain to full immersion many times in her adventures.

The EQUUS chassis which makes up the bulk of her now was made in the fires of the Collapse, human engineering was at its height.
Yeshi doesn't even know what metal it is made of, but it's lighter and stronger than any we know of.
The last time Maddie required a tune-up from Yeshi, they said that it might not even be metal!
Perhaps a flexible ceramic.
I asked Yeshi if something like that exists.
Only here, they replied, tapping Maddie's new body with a screwdriver.

I could find no logical fault in their plan.
The boat was safe, the weather was good, and by my estimates would  continue to be so all day, and even overnight and into tomorrow.

And yet, my fears persisted.
Irrational, nagging doubts.

I compartmentalised them.
The first step in doing so is categorisation and understanding.
My fears come from a place of love, it is not possible to love without being afraid if the people you love are in danger.
Acknowledging this fact, I moved on to examining the nature of the danger.
There was some, as in all endeavours.
But not an unreasonable level, Lyosha and Maddie must be allowed to have adventures.
They are part of life.
As is failure.

So I compartmentalised these fears.
Put them in a box in the back of my mind.
They are there, they come from a place of love, but they are not useful.

I thought of other things.
You can't force yourself to NOT worry about something, you must take your mind off it.

I must think of other things.
Not the salty sea.
Not the unpredictable wind.
Not the rocky shore.
Not the salty sea.
Not the unpredictable wind.
Not the rocky shore.
Not the salty sea.
Not the unpredictable wind.
Not the rocky shore.

(PLAYSTREAM /DEV/ENV2/ANEMOMETER1)

Act 4

It's past everyone's bedtime.
Lyosha is sleeping here, he has finally stopped shivering, wrapped up in  a blanket next to Maddie, her scavenged charging transformers are quite  inefficient, which means they get quite hot.
That's bad usually, but good today.

The pair had been gone for the whole day, and I was wondering if I'd hear by radio from Ny Alesund that they arrived safe, when Pawel Wayda burst through the door,  carrying an unnecessarily salty and wet Lyosha, with Maddie right behind  them.

The boat had not returned with them.

"I heard Maddie from my house, overlooking the bay.
She was SO loud, I thought a ship was signalling with an air horn."
Pawel explained to me as he helped the shivering Lyosha out of his wet boots and coat.
Pawel then pulled out a huge blanket from a storage locker under the textiles workbench, then said,
"I'll close up the boathouse." And left Lyosha to change clothes in privacy.
Maddie stood watch on the door after Pawel left, occasionally checking to see if Lyosha had finished.

Pawel knocked before returning with a section of oilskin, it had been drying over the launch area of the boathouse.

"Your coat's in tatters, Maddie. I just made you that!"
He said, pulling at the torn pieces of her coat, hanging off her back.

I was in shock.
"What happened?" I asked.

"Give him a moment" Pawel said, building a fire in the room's little stove, and pouring water into a kettle.

The story was one catastrophe after another.

The boat launch went well, Lyosha closed the boathouse's doors behind  them and rowed out into the open bay before configuring the sail to  catch the most wind.

As you can tell, I've read all the sailing manuals I have in my databanks and now am an expert.

The problems started navigating the Adventfjorden bay.
Though the weather was good, as I knew from the instruments I am  connected to, on top of the workshop, there are dangers under the water.

The tide turned and the moon pulled uncountable megalitres of water per second out of the bay, causing a strong current.

Lyosha was not experienced with these currents, nor the layout of the rocks by the coastline.
The boat impacted with some of these rocks, and one of them broke the rudder of the boat into pieces.
The rudder steers the boat.
No rudder, no steering.
After fighting with the sail to maintain control, the pair found themselves in the water.
Lyosha doesn't remember how that happened, and I did not press him on the details.
Maddie is certainly waterproof, and floats!
The tide was pulling the pair out into the open ocean, so they swam as fast as they could against it.
As fast and powerful as Maddie's legs are out of the water, they don't work very well in it.

By the time they washed up on the shore near Pawels house, Lyosha was deadly cold and tired.

"We tried to call for help, but the radio wasn't working".
He said before sleeping tonight.

We've got to fix our radio network.
It's dangerous being alone.

(END-TRANSMISSION)

CREDITS

Lost Terminal is written & produced by NAMTAO
Credits narrated by Lucy Stringer
Thank you so much to our Patreon producers:

• Ada Phillips
• Wil Taylor
• Kit
• deeryeen
• Andrew Krieg
• Toby
• Jade Felicity Bilkey
• Jack L
  and to all our patrons!

Follow us on mastodon @lostterminal@fosstodon.org,
subscribe to the podcast on
Spotify, iTunes, or your favourite network.
For bonus content and other perks,
support us at patreon.com/lostterminalpod
that would be lovely of you!

Lost Terminal will return next week