S1E1 - Touch the Ground

AUDIO) We begin on a space station, hearing the hum of the slow-turning engine. The room is large and nearly empty.

ARCHIVIST: Welcome to the Archives. Our record for review today will be from section 27: Historical Worlds. The planet Ellori is one of our oldest samples, from the fourth wave before the Founding.

Please note that any opinions expressed in these samples belong solely to the speaker on record and do not reflect the views of this station, the archival union, or the Collected Archives itself. If anything in this review causes listener distress or confusion please report to the nearest attendant for assistance. Potential sources of distress include homesickness and colonization. Please also note there will be time for questions and observations once the sample has concluded.

[AUDIO][At the sound of an electronic swoop, the sounds of the space station fade away. They are replaced by a windy, grassy plain.]

JAI: Sure is cold out here. It was so bright out when the meeting broke up this morning I just took off without my sweater. Typical, you’d say, and you’d be right. There’s no way I was going to spend my last day on the planet tucked up in my room or in some looming building with lights buzzing and doors beeping. So here I am at the edge of the woods again, shivering. If only I had my big sister along nagging me about things like sweaters and making sense, and lunch.

(JAI cont) I needed to say goodbye, I guess. After all the time we spent out here pretending the city didn’t exist I couldn’t just… leave. What was I, four when you first dragged me outside the wall? Four, terrified, and absolutely Not going to tell my sister I wanted to go home. You treated this place like it really mattered, like some huge important secret you were finally going to let me in on. No way was I giving that up.

And you were right.

[AUDIO] The grass and stony ground crunches underfoot as our speaker walks slowly toward a city throughout this recording.

(JAI cont) All that time poking around in the dirt and playing with weeds, and we somehow made it into our lives. Maybe after tomorrow, once us noisy colonists are gone you can take your students out here and show them everything. Let them dig their hands into the dirt and feel it like we did, let them fall in love with the weeds. Maybe they’ll find something as special as our Bluestar, and change the world.

[AUDIO] The footsteps stop and Jai crouches down.

They just… smell so good. All of them, even the grass. That green, bitter, windy smell the walls keep out along with everything else. I’m… I’m going to miss that smell. Think the ship monitors will know if I take a bit of it with me? One of the grass pods maybe? A seed cone? They wouldn’t space me for breaking some kind of “alien plant species intermingling” regulation, right?

It’s a huge honor. I know you said you’d rather stay here and enjoy all the elbow room but you know my feet didn’t touch the ground the day they asked me to go. Jai Garonn, the dirt-scientist going into space and making a new world? Can you imagine how much Mom must have bragged? I know it’s about the soil, not me, but they need Me to make it so, well… ok I bragged too. Me and my useless bluestar weeds, turning rocky fields into farmland, freeing the new world from vat-food.

Geh… I hope I can. The first landing team took samples and it seems like what worked here will work even better there, but… I won’t know until we get there and get it to work. Can you imagine if it doesn’t happen? If they cart my dirt-loving self halfway across the galaxy and it turns out I’m wrong? It’s a good thing there won’t be any fuel left for sending people Back!

(JAI cont) I’ll make it work though, somehow. Like you always said sis, we’re like these weeds. We’ll grow through stone and thrive on sunshine and stubbornness if that’s what it takes.

[AUDIO] The footsteps resume, on harder-packed ground quieter with less crunching.

Heh. We… all of us, that’s something we’re taking with us you know? This place. This forest we’ve kept alive for generations just because it was the last one, just because we couldn’t lose. This field full of rocks and grass so brittle it seems dead but keeps growing back. We’re taking all that stubborn, hard, hardy life that’s inside us and we’re going to build a world with it.

[AUDIO] The footsteps pause.

And I wonder… if while we’re building, making forests and farms and cities without walls, if we’re going to use all of that rocky life in us up. It’s special, you know? What happens if we use so much, make that new world so rich and green that we forget how to grow in anything less? Maybe we won’t lose it, but we won’t pass it on to our children, or theirs. Will we make a world where even the people are soft? Part of me thinks that would be the best possible thing, the goal really, to make a world so gentle that we don’t have to be hard, but I don’t know. It’s who we are. It’s how we grow.

(JAI cont) Listen to me, going on like I’m one of your professors. I just… I want to know that while we’re making a new home, we’re not just forgetting this one.

I miss it already. Crowded, loud, rules and all. Since the selection, I’ve been itching to get out of here, to get my feet off this rock and go but… I think I’m homesick already. Can a person even Be homesick for a place they’re still in? I guess maybe they can, or I’m just getting emotional over seed cones for no reason. Or something.

[AUDIO] The footsteps resume, a bit slower and softer.

Anyway, I should head back. There’s a little left to pack and I promised you one more Chef-Jai cooked meal before I go. You won’t hear any of this until I’m way up in the sky, but I want you to know I love you, and I’m taking a bit of you with me when I go. And if you do come out here after I’m gone, dig your hands in the dirt a bit, and tell it I say hello.

Love you sis. I’ll see you tonight.

[AUDIO[ Jai sighs, and the audio continues for a bit before the electronic swoop again signals a change. The sounds of Jai’s world fade away and the sound of the space station returns.

ARCHIVIST: The speaker, we believe, is a young farmer selected for the journey from Ellori for their work in plant-based soil rehabilitation. A few journals of their work on the newly inhabited planet Neshtef still exist today though their methods are considered inefficient compared to newer synthetics. The people of Ellori continued to inhabit their world for a few more generations, sending more and more citizens off-world to found new homes as their own resources dwindled. The final recording traced to that world was from 85 years after today’s sample but was unfortunately lost in the Great Glitch.

This concludes today’s record. This recording will be available for review by our next session. If you have any questions or wish to comment on today’s experience, please visit an attendant and they will happily record your response.

[AUDIO] With a softer swoop, the sounds of the hall fade out to be replaced by the sound of a smaller, softer room. An office.

FIRST ATTENDANT: Well… That was a pointless dive into ancient history. Why Ellori?

ARCHIVIST: You told me they asked for our story, Attendant, and stories have a beginning.

FIRST ATTENDANT: They shouldn’t need stories, or convincing, or coddling. We’ve offered them membership, not entertainment.

ARCHIVIST: They want to know who we are.

FIRST ATTENDANT: And so you’ll show them. Help them choose then, Archivist, and quickly.

ARCHIVIST: Yes ma’am.

[MUSIC[ A sparse, lonely repeating motif with a sound like crystal, a shifting bed of strings underneath.

CREDITS: The Last Echoes is written by Trace Callahan with editing by Evan Tess Murray. Direction is by Evan Tess Murray. Sound design and music are by Trace Callahan. This episode features Tal Minear, Chijioke Williams, and Trace Callahan. We are so glad you’re here to share these stories with us. To find us online, find us at Lastechoes pod, on Twitteer, the Fediverse, and Tumblr or visit our website lastechoes.com. We’d love to hear from you.

Thank you to our season one supporters, including Maddie, Rebekah, Kate, Anne, Christopher, Holly, Tina, Stephanie, and Caroline.

Keep telling your story, the Tuesday lunches and late nights with friends, the paperwork and sunrises. Together, our stories make our whole world. And when all that’s left is an echo, no one’s voice is small.