CZM Book Club: Hermetica, by Alan Lea, Part One

it wasn't true. I was thinking about big things and the main purpose of those big things is that I'm excited about a bunch of new content that we've got for you. And we're starting that new content this very week because this week I'm going to be reading you and novella. Well, okay, over the next several weeks, I'm going to be reading You and Novella. And I didn't even write it. I'm going to be reading you. Hermetica by Alan Lee and it was published by Detritus Books

in twenty twenty one. Alan Lee is a pen name. It's the speculative fiction pen name for an author you might already know about, and if you don't, you could come to know about. Named Peter Gelderlos and Peter Gelderlos is the author of a bunch of nonfiction books you might have already read, including The Solutions Are Already Here and How Nonviolence Protects the State, and a lot of stuff that talks about the formation of states and movement strategy and all kinds of things. But this is Alan

Lee's debut novella. But if you want to find more from Peter, you can find his essays, his rants, his analysis, and his missives on substack at Surviving Levia Fan or if you just search Peter Gelderlos, which is Peter g elder Loos, and you can find all that on somebs stuck. It's a good substock. I subscribe to it. Hermetica by Alan Lee one. It was when Days found a sheet of tree fiber inside the wall, stamped with black ink and the likeness of words, words referring to Earth, that

they realized things did not add up. Why had they pried open the wall panel in their module in the first place. Destruction of one's module was destruction of hermetica itself, And no behavior was more selfish, more dangerous than sabotage. Of course, Snookums had started it scratching at the panel, not that that would count as a mitigating factor in any reconciliation processed. Days might be invited to join to

address the sabotage. Snookums was a cat, a fugitive, almost certainly inexplicable, at least for the moment, but at the end of the day, a cat, therefore not a citizen, therefore not party to reconciliation processes. In fact, the relevant agreements would probably class Snookum's misdeed as negligent sabotage on Day's watch, even though Snookums was not assigned to Days

did not even appear to be in the system. Days had permitted the cat into the module, had watched as the cat scratched fervently at the wall, had joined in the destructive enterprise, and now everything was unraveling at a terrifying speed. When Days was younger, they knew they wanted to work on the sky. The day Snookums appeared. The sky was a perfect azure and argent dome. It was oppressive in its glory. Days wanted to reach out to touch it, to paint a little wisp of cloud just there,

but they were not allowed. The sky was the domain of others who had been judged and found more worthy. Summarily unfair that a single exam had reduced Days to a peon. After staring a moment longer at the exquisite sky, Days let their head fall chest to chin and trudged off down the block. Days had dosed that morning, but still they could not summon the will to smile a greeting to the people they passed. The mere thought of this failure brought the tears a growing weight, begging release,

a release they could not allow. Some moisture around the rim could fall within the probability shadow of allergies or sleepiness, not likely in their file, but still possible, But a whole fat tear rolling down a cheek would definitely result in Days getting sent home, marking up another sick day, which in itself wasn't a problem. Even at fifteen percent productivity.

Days would not be classed for permanent reconciliation unless they also logged a couple anti social, but it would ineluctably feel like another failure, one more in an unbroken train, going as far back as they cared to look, as far forward as they dared to imagine. Perhaps working on the sky had been an unpragmatically ambitious dream. Designers required the highest aptitude in esthetics, mechanics, and maths. They had to be team players. The sky formed a joint project

with Engineering, Life Sis and Mattillo. Days's high aptitudes and intuitive low scores and teamwork and fine appreciation for suffering had tracked them into palliative therapy. Yet wasn't that, on another level an affirmation of their feelings. Days had the unshakable feeling that it was their destiny to touch the sky. What other dreams could one have condemned to die in

transit for Days's cohort. There was no final destination. Days's office, like all health centers on her Medica, was at the node, just at the end of the block. They paused before going in. It was so low today, the sky as though it began just at the top of the section walls. The walls didn't end Days new Every block was itself a sealed module, but the designers gave them something beautiful to look at overhead, so they wouldn't have to stare at gray walls on all six sides. Days would give

anything to climb into that deep, rich blue. They sighed and walked through the double set of sliding doors, passing through decontamination, Days went straight to their office. Lingering in the common area would all but force the other therapists to ask them how their day was, and Days couldn't bear the thought of that, how's it going? The cruelest question there was. They sat down and let out the tears when they could. They focused on breathing, deep breaths.

It wouldn't do to see a patient like this. Every work assignment brings us close to all of us or none of us. That's what they had been taught. Days was supposed to feel proud of their work as a therapist, but it was impossible not to see the assignment as some kind of failing. They had been early selected for placement in a science cohort, and at the end of it all, Days was barely a technician, while the others

had gone on to great things. True, only one person in the cohort had been selected as a designer, and last they knew, sidetracked into an entertainment project is as far from the sky as Days themselves. And it was also true that officially all jobs were equally valued and prestige ranking was discouraged. Appreciative commentary on this or that work category was boosted or muted accordingly, and even palliative

therapists and cleaning bought repair. Overseers got their digital love, but people could still distinguish what was PSA, what was forced, and what was generally admirable. It was even worse than a science cohort because the peer reviewed structurally could not use the same metrics as the social and if your name never dropped in a PrV, you were definitely nobody. But it was not the lack of name recognition that

chafed days. They could not help make the sky every single day, and in exchange, they had to be classed as permanent reconciliation on their profile for all the cohort to see. If no one ever knew that they made those colors, those moon rises, those soul hemorrhaging sunsets, they would be perfectly happy. It was the fact that they spent three and a half days a week guiding point prods and air jets over the knotted backs and shoulders

of those who did the real work. That they coached the creators of beautiful and important things on corrective posture that stifled their spirit. Once they were breathing normally, Days called the console to life and clocked in. The first appointment came in seating and undressing on the other side of the plexi. They were a young person in mechanics from the next blockover who had started seeking therapy be

a few months ago for soreness and migraines. The two had talked on other occasions when Days was on the up. They had a decent job and reducing distribution loss between blocks the unending quest to make her Metica more efficient. It wasn't genius work, but anything that might accelerate the arrival window was considered at least a little prestigious. Honestly, anything that involved working on the ship and not just on the bodies that filled it or the secondary machines

that serviced it was considered decent. Days had never worked on anyone who had worked on the sky or the engines for that matter. It would be illicit, but Days wondered whether those job descriptions were tracked to higher grade therapists.

The scan was complete, and Days began directing their array of instruments over the patient's back, keeping half an eye on the display that Mr. End all the neural activity, but mostly just following their own feelings on what the other body needed, how it responded to the probing, the vibrations, the digit pressure, the heat and the cold of a dozen different appendages they kept in motion on the other side of the plexi. Days supposed they were pretty good

at what they did. There had even been comments on social that spoke of a magic touch that didn't seem to be PSA. They were pretty sure they had been written by real patients and weren't just machine love to cheer them up for all its prosaic lack of glamour. Therapy was something Days could do when they were down, and when they were up, they could feel what other people were feeling in a way it had surprised Days to learn most other people could not. And that was

the world. Days inhabited a jungle of raw feelings in which they were at the same time cold and alone. But do you know what will keep you, dear listener, from feeling cold and alone? The cold alone embrace of advertising, because you and the advertising can be alone together. And can you really say that you're alone listening to advertising?

Probably here's that, and we're back on a prior appointment, Days had asked this patient if they knew anything about the arrival window, But the mechanic wasn't that high up, and there wasn't really anything else they could ask someone like that, Certainly nothing that had any bearing on their block. The power worked except when it didn't, but it always came back quickly, and emergency systems never failed. Every now and then a PSA went out and they were all

asked to minimize usage between such and such hours. Surely there was a lot of work involved behind the scenes, but what to say? So Days conducted the session in silence. The thought of the arrival window stayed with them, though the arrival window was all always narrowing and widening based on the complex interaction between the colleagues and FIZZ and the ones in engineering in interaction Days was not privy

to and would not understand anyway. But as it stood most recently, her Medico was scheduled to arrive in two to three hundred years at best. Unless bioen COGFIZZ and Metaphizz made some huge advancements, Days would live just past the halfway point. They would never arrive. They would spend their life correcting the knots and cramps of engineers and designers who would put those knots right back in place

with their next week of desk work. Even the ones who had complete HF interfaces, no typing, all verbal in gestural commands had posture problems. After all, many of the high tier specialists voluntarily worked seven days a week to keep their heads sharp. As the old saying went, so as probably an NBS a problem that would never be solved, which meant that Days's entire purpose was to keep fixing those reappearing knots forever and ever unto death, and that

was all there would be. After two more appointments, Days went home for the day, and that's when snookums appeared. Crossing the block almost back to the module. They saw movement out of the corner of their eye. Days turned and there was a cat. None of their neighbors had cats like that. Well, Days couldn't actually be sure. Weeks passed before any one person had the chance to spend

time with even half the people on their block. But getting assigned a new cat that was something people bull horned on social every time, VIDs, anecdote and a flurry of commentary. Days would have noticed a cat like this, ash and coal and tiger stripes with peach cream undertones. The cat had a peremptory gaze, set over a broad, majestic nose that came to the perfect little floor delise pawprint of a tip, a sculpted kiblet of marzipan perched over a pursed mouth, flanked by long fans of whiskers

that bespoke a scornful elegance. The mystery cat ran up to the nearest wall, shoring up its confidence, perhaps, but also inciting attention. Hey snookums, Days said on a whim, not knowing why. They lowered their mask, not strictly permitted out on the street, but no neighbors happened to be traversing the block at this hour. Hey baby, Days made kissing sounds, and Snookums as it were, came hither. The

feel of its fur was so warm and soft. Some kind of liquid pleasure flowed through Days's body, and they drank it up, parched like one coming in from the desert. They immediately felt their trapezius relax, releasing weeks of built up tension. They should have noticed it was, after all, in the center of their limited feel of expertise, but while a patient begged a diagnosis, the self always demurred.

Having rubbed thoroughly against Day's leg, Snookums ran suggestively ahead, right up to the door of the module, Day's module. I don't suppose it's any harm if I borrow you for a bit. As they approached, the module, door slid open, and Snookums waltzed right inside, as though it owned the place. Well, they joked, they can't say I kidnapped you. The bed extracted, and Days plopped down on top of it. Snookums jumped up and soon was atop their lower back, purring and

kneading away. Even more tension dissolved, as though chains had been wrapped around Day's lungs, and they re encountered the tears forced down that morning and so many other mornings. Now there were no more walls and no need to man them, and Days surrendered every last tier to the bed sheets. By the time Snookums jumped off, Days felt

dry and clean, lighter. They let the cat hang around until well after the beginning of the night's cycle, stroking its head and flattering it with a progression of increasingly ridiculous superlatives and then let it out the door. Snookums disappeared into the dark. Later they scrolled through all their neighbour's socials. None of them had a new cat. Days woke up with a certainty that it was a special day. As soon as their feet hit the floor, the bed

retracted and the smell of coffee infused the air. Good morning, they chirped, Good morning, Days. The blinds rolled up with a satisfying rustle, like a whisper in reverse, and Days saw that the designers had outdone themselves again, another beautiful day aboard her Metica. By the time they fell to a crouch, the floor panel had tranced to sturdy foam, and Days launched themselves into a dozen short reps of crunches, squats,

and burpies. As they came down from the final leap, fingers almost touching the module's roof, they were panting joyfully. They did a few stretches while their breathing came down. Heel up on the windowsill, the shower extracted the moment they pulled their underpants down right on cue. The jets were hot and precise, and Days found bliss in the barrage of water. They didn't exactly have time to think before the leader ran out, but to feel. Certainly, they

felt a wonderful day stretch out before them. They toweled off and tossed it, along with yesterday's clothes, into the chute, which closed and backed them away. The shower dehumidified with a gentle roar as Days selected a new set of clothes, a loose baggy shirt and some snug elastic pants that would offer no objections. They thought capriciously if later they

felt like dancing. As soon as they took a seat, the mr shooted out onto the table, piping hot its farther edge, making a perfect tangent with the coffee mug at its side, just the way they liked it. Would you like a dose this morning? No thanks, I'm ready to meet the world on my own today. Module had already predicted that response based on Days's vitals and visuals, but it also knew that being asked and saying no, affirming their ability to go without chemical supplementation, increased the

average time before Days would again need a dose. Breakfast was pretty good. A palette of flavors with names like bacon, mango, and plantain cast across a satisfying diversity of textures. As they finished up the last bites, they decided, Hell, they could go all out. Calendar Yes, Days, who's my social appointment for today? Milty? Oh good? Send a confirmation, also a message recording, Hey, Milty, I'm looking forward to seeing

you today. Do you feel like coming over? I hope so, I'm cooking, don't bring anything, see you at nineteen h buye sending thanks. Shall I set your default to pre confirmation on social appointments? Whaho module, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Days chuckled, Wait and see how we're feeling tomorrow. Yeah, of course, Days. They stood up, pushing the empty mre and mug into their chute. Oh, Days, Milty has confirmed for nineteen h great. It had been about a week

since Days had kept a social appointment. You only got one a day, plus the malty on Sundays and the block party four times a year for everyone in good health. It had been like that ever since the new safety was implemented, back when Days was an infant. It turned out that the population on her Medica, ideal for rapidly settling a new home world, was also the perfect ecosystem for the evolution and incubation of new viruses, and twenty five years ago an epidemic had raced through the close

quarters of the ship. ARPV, popularly known as the Choking sickness, had infected millions. It was only deadly in extreme cases, but it spread asymptomatically, making it exceedingly hard to control. The engineers and medicals had perfected the module and block layout, restricting transit across the entire system. Every cohort in every block was composed of people of the same age, preventing cross generational contagion and protecting the more vulnerable age groups

while streamlining health services. And since then there have been no serious emergencies. They had adapted. What had become vigilance became custom, and life went on. But do you know what is a serious emergency. The amazing sales and deals that are available to our listeners through these advertisements, every

single one of them a serious life altering emergency. And you're thinking, but, Margaret, wouldn't it have made more sense to use as an ad transition that what had been vigilance became custom and how life goes on despite these advertisements. Well you might think that, but I'm holding by serious life altering emergencies. Run, don't walk to probably just press forward fifteen seconds, probably with four times or so, and

we're back mask on and out the door. Days looked around for snookums, but saw no sign of the cat. A number of their neighbors were out and about, and they sang out one good morning after another. The sky was projecting puffy white clouds and a strident sun, and Days relished in the wind whipping about their face. The membrane that closed off the top of every block was permeable to air and precipitation, as her Medica's life support system needed to cycle oxygen, nitrogen, and water vapor on

a shipwide basis. System was far from perfect, and occasionally there were simulated weather events to equalize pressure and chemical distribution. Fortunately, the designers could always anticipate weather occurrences with the data they got from Mettio, and they made sure the sky was always dressed for the occasion. So today the clouds moved from left to right in the same direction as the wind, coming to the center of the block. Days

saw they were building something on the green. As a couple drones hovered about, movers deposited bundles and a couple bots erected a tall pole almost as high as the tallest modules the family units. Was it already time for the next block party? Days wondered what the theme of this time would be. The last one was Chinese New Year, but Days hadn't been feeling well and gave it a miss.

Staying out of the way of the bots, they crossed the green The health center was straight ahead, but the supply node was to the right at the end of the cross street. They had to get ingredients if they were going to cook for Milty tonight, but then they might be late for the first patient and certainly too excited thinking about dinner to focus on work. They could stop by on the way home. It was a fortuitous decision. First in the queue they got a new patient, one

who worked in mettio. Bubbling with curiosity, they bit their tongue until the patient was comfortable and the ensemble of machines were whizzing and worrying over their back. It would not do to stress them out, compound whatever muscle problem had brought them here, and get a low rating on top of it all. Some people loved to talk during the sessions, but others flat out fell asleep. So you're a meteorologist. Days ventured after the patient let out a

particularly appreciative groan. Me, no, days frowned. Nope, I work in meteorology, but I'm actually a botanist. Oh good, a talker. I thought all the botanists were an alimentation, most of us, but not me. You know the bushes and shrubs grow on your block? Uh huh, Well every block has a botanical cohort, you see. To complement the human population spread across our Medica, we actually have quite a biodiversity in

plant species. Of course, everything will need to terraform is in the gene bank, but there's a hypothesis that after a certain stage of KEMPREP we'll have better luck transplanting adult specimens. In any case, with livestock, we have a redundancy, and it's also proven to improve air quality and mental health for the passengers. Wow, well that makes sense. So what's the connection with meteorology. Media's primary job is to monitor the atmosphere aborder Medica. Of course, the atmosphere belongs

to life systems. Their prime directive is to give us air de breathe, but any changes they make have shipwide ramifications and they have to work closely with METEO to roll out those changes and monitor any feedback. Think of METIO as like a shock absorber for life sys AH in botany, well, we're the shock absorbers for the shock absorbers. A meteorology rollout is designed for the health of the passengers while minimizing the kind of discomfort systems ripples can cause.

No one's thinking about the shrubs. So that's where I come in. Weather events an atmosphere in general spell life or death for our botany cohorts, and they're not very high up on the priority chain. Now, your maintenance blocks are collecting chemical data every time they go by, and the block analyzes it and sometimes can make a change autonomously. Schizophrogma needs more watering done, but I combine that with

qualitative commentary on plant health. I can override the block and design a special treatment regime for an unhealthy specimen, And in the case of prolonged malaise, I can make a recommendation to METIO, like to change the weather. You bet if it can keep a cohort from dying off. Of course, like I said, it's low on the priority chain, but sometimes they make adjustments. WHOA, that's amazing. I've never

met anyone who can affect the weather before. So you're in charge of all the plants on her Medica, The patient laughed me. Nah, I just supervise one hundred blocks, no complaints here. That lets me travel way more than your average passenger. But her Medica is huge, and we each got our tiny role to play. If any one person just focuses on themselves, they feel small. But we're doing all together. It's extraordinary. A shadow crossed over Days's heart the first of the day. The patient was right,

it was extraordinary. But Days couldn't help but feel like their life was impossibly small. Was it fair that one person could travel across a hundred blocks, could reach up and touch the sky, could make it rain, and Days had to spend their life between the module and the office, not even one hundred meters apart, touching strangers through a plexi and the intermediary of a dozen probes and appendages.

It was their own fault, of course, If they had studied harder, they could have done better on the aptitudes. They had had all the advantages of an education in science. The other people from their cohort had gone on to

important assignments. They didn't keep up with most of them, but they could see what they were doing on social One a mathematician had created a dynamic encryption system that enabled classified reports to read one another, so that specialists from different working groups and with different security clearances could access relevant information across departments or check their data against another set of data without actually having to view it

in the event they did not have clearance. Another, a molecular biologist, was working on a team perfecting a nanobotic array that could quickly scan, detect, analyze, and repair genetic mutations across an entire organism. Plenty had gone into phizz, and though physics people generally could not speak about their work, it was rumored that one of them was in the nuclear program working on her Medica's propulsion system ZIMP. Days's best friend from the cohort was in higher ed training

the next generation of minds in quantum Mechanics AXA. Another classmate was in socio psych designing optimum human interactions. Definitely not Days's cup of tea, but who was Days to be picky? They were a masseuse running the same dozen routines over variants of the same four problems, over and over and over again. The trainings post aptitudes were simple, a year of anatomy and then a month of technical education for operating the machines. Days had figured it out

in a week. Zimp, on the other hand, had gone through six years of training and had to do hours of reading every week to keep up on the PRVs, and the molecular biologist from the cohort had only gotten a work assignment a couple years ago after eight years of post app training. If Days had been feeling a little better, more social the day of the aptitudes, would the outcome have been any different. They had scored well in analytical and maths, but the low teamwork score had

spelled doom for just about any cutting edge assignment. Dreading the memory, they were back in the unfamiamiliar room. Most of the faces were unfamiliar to cohorts got broken up for testing. The young students in the room were joined by another bond, though, who could fail to recognize the shared anxiety to no one's self in one's peers. The examiner was late. No one was happy about that. The screens at the front of the class already read nine

twenty That was starting time. They were supposed to have two and a half full hours to finish. Days looked around, weighing their peers, growing concern. The ubiquitous Remember the wiki poster hung forlorn on the back wall. There were no windows. At nine twenty four thirty six, the door swished open and the examiner bustled in, taking their place at the head console. Their face was a ste not a sign of fluster or apology. Everyone in the class shifted backs, erect,

hands at the ready atop their desks. The examiner logged in and entered a command, and the console extracted from everyone one's desk. Twenty sets of fingers launched themselves across tactile screens, entering personal ID numbers and passcodes. Any moment the first problem should appear. Instead, the examiner spoke, speaking with strictly forbidden during the aptitudes. But they were the examiner. They could have you removed and failed for the mere

suspicion of impropriety. Before the test begins. You will all go in to configure and set the test time back to nine to twenty zero zero. Use this override a twelve digit passcode appeared on the main screen. That was certainly irregular, and it hardly seemed fair. They had now lost five full minutes from their testing time, and no one ever got through all the problems. Days decided not

to comply. Still frightened to the examiner, they moved their fingers over the tactile so they'd blend in with all the others. Then the test started and the first problem appeared on everyone on screen. Dun dun dun. That's the cliffhanger music. Everyone knows that dun du dun, dun dun't. That's not the cliffhanger music. That's just me making noises with my mouth because I've been talking into a microphone for a while and it makes me lose my brain

a little bit. Anyway, that's the end of part one, well episode one of her Metica by Alan Lee. Join us next week when we find out what happens next and in the meantime Allen Lee. It's a novella published

by Detritus Books in twenty twenty one. You can go check it out now if you want, but you can also check out other stuff done by the same author, Allen Lee as their speculative fiction pen name, and his name for most of his books is Peter Gelderlos, which again includes, for example, the book The Solutions Are Already

Here Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below. And you can also check out Peter Substack Surviving Laff and I don't know what else to plug besides listen next week when I read you the next part of Hermatica by Alan Lee. All Right bye. It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen

to podcasts. You can find sources where it could Happen here, updated monthly at coolzonemedia dot com slash sources. Thanks for listening,