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

who knows what would happen. But do you know what else is in the future is our story, our story Hermetica, which seems to be set in the far future, and it is taking place on a generation ship. It's called her Medica. It is by Alan Lee, which is the pen name of the usually otherwise nonfiction author Peter Gelderlos. And we are on part three of this book and it's getting good. Yeah, I'll just wait, it's coming in. We got all that set up. What's gonna happen with it?

Well you'll find out, all right. Here's part three of her Medica by Alan Lee, published by Detritus Books. Oh yeah, by the way, if you're like, wait, what just happened, Days had just pulled out a piece of newspaper hidden behind a panel in the wall, and okay, I'll just read the last sentence of the last weeks. Along the top there was a date June twelfth, twenty twenty three. Below a yellowing margin, an article began as vaccine Hope's

falter choking sickness here to stay. All right, now we're back. Days looked closer at the sheet, twisted an edge of it. It seemed to be made of some kind of fiber, and not one they were familiar with. Well, they'd have

to do this the old fashioned way. Squinting health officials warn that America may have to get used to semi permanent confinement measures, as results from the latest vaccine trial at the University of Washington failed to deliver good news to a nation that is still grieving the catastrophic mismanagement during the first two years of the ARP v twenty pandemic. Recent studies confirm early fears that the virus may mutate

too quickly to allow for long term immunity. Officials underscored the confinement is a positive measure compared with the inferno the virus left in its wake during the period of governmental inaction. We will not go back to the horrors of the party system, putting the comfort of the few before the survival of the many, said doctor Goa, speaking from the steps of the National Health Administration. We are currently expanding the parameters of our modeling, looking for innoative

solutions to this crisis. Believe us when we say increasing human life expectancy across the board for all Americans is our number one metric. If we have to delete elements from the old system in order to fulfill that promise, we will do so. We ask all Americans to walk with us boldly into the future we are building. We will respect tradition, but we must cast aside the harmful

habits that hold us back. Officials are worried about a resurgence of last year's unrest amidst an uptick in terrorist incidents. All incidents linked to the loss of life have been connected to market extremists and traditionalists, who even after a million deaths, still deny the pandemic exists. More worrying for the administration, however, is the increase in sabotage incidents carried

out by social extremists relative to the denialists. Social extremists have more influence among the general population, and experts worry they could lead people astray with unrealistic demands or magical solutions. Speaking from the White House, Doctor Hennessy, chair of the Planning Commission, warned that social extremist proposals were quote nothing but vestigial, anti scientific superstition. They claim to speak for quality of life, but by adding archaic, non quantitative metrics

alongside quantitative metrics, they wreck the whole system. It doesn't compute. Tell me what is fifteen times orange. This is intellectual anarchy. It's idealistic. It doesn't work. They need to get with the program. This is the twenty first century. If you can't model it, don't propose it. Increasing quality of life metrics before the trial period ends will be necessary for

the administration to carry the referendum early next year. Otherwise the state of emergency will expire and the old constitution, which most experts agree is unworkable, would come back into effect. Meanwhile, the growing pool of pandemic orphans has required officials to increase social spending beyond what was ear marked for the fiscal year. Social officials promised to look into innoative solutions.

Speaking from the nssay's offices in Omaha, doctor Ventura gave journalists a hint of a new project the social administration was exploring at the NSSAY. We believe all life has value. Under the old system, orphans were just warehoused and sub standard facilities until a family with means could come along and adopt them. Need and capacity were inversely proportional. In a recession, more kids get abandoned and fewer families can

adopt them. We are rolling out a new system in which the parentless are given everything they need, including a top of the line education, and in the meantime will track their performance, collect data and produce intellectual value that will be immediately useful for the rest of society. Everyone wants to contribute. Will give these kids the opportunity to

contribute from day one from the cradle. Ventura's comments provided a rare optimistic note at a time when the scientific solutions promised by the Planning Commission seemed unlikely to bear fruit given the poor results of the vaccine program. Commission AIDS, speaking on condition of anonymity, say that the plans for defunding the police will be delayed again given expectations of a spike in civil rest. Continued on page twelve. Days flipped over the sheet, but page twelve, whatever that was,

was nowhere to be found. The backside had a large illustration of some kind of wheeled vehicle and the beginning of another article, Planet Earth Our only hope. Mars probe results lead to pessimistic conclusions. In a much delayed report, NASA conceded that permanent human habitation on Mars seemed unlikely given the results from the last probe sent to the

Red planet. Obstacles include the toxicity of the Martian regolith with its high concentrations of percolites, difficulties in filtering out the ultrafying Martian dust particles also toxic, and strong limitations on the availability of energy sources and organic chemicals needed for terraforming. The report is grave news for sectors of the scientific community that have proposed accelerated terraforming on Mars as an answer to the cascading chain of catastrophes adversely

affecting Earth's own biosphere. We will just have to accelerate the terraforming of Earth, as it were, to doctor Stewart, chairperson of the Climate Advisory Council, that means aggressively re engineering the biosphere to design agricultural ecosystems compatible with five degree warming, rather than waiting for one to two million years of evolutionary adaptation to play catch up. The report may also be a death knell for the Space Agency itself, one of the few to be kept on from the

prior government, perhaps realizing the report would spell trouble. NASA's leading scientists have been lobbying the Planning Commission to change the agency's mandate to a focus on orbital space engineering with an eye towards climate mitigation. One of the agency's most popular proposals centers on the deployment of orbital mirrors to fine tune the quantity of solar radiation that reaches

the planet's surface. Continued on page seventeen Days was thoroughly confused, Shostakovich declaimed ominously, like a fist on the door, Snookum sat watching. The dating and the geographical references were all Terran Earth was an archaic name for Terra, Yet the choking sickness had been an event on Hermetica. Where was

this sheet from? What was it doing here? The events described were a muddle, some of them lining up with what they knew of Terran history, and others contradicting it flagrantly. Days decided to reach out to a friend, message Zimp, Hey are you still up? Do you remember from history? What year did her Medica launch? The reply came back a moment later, announced by an amiable rising tone, Days,

how's it going? What a question? Zimp had been assigned to a different block after the Aptitudes, but they still saw each other on video every now and then, The recording continued. You know, you could just ask library, but that's an easy one. Technically, it's a trick question. Her Medica never launched. It was assembled in orbit, but it departed in tearin year twenty twenty two, Seven years later we left the Solar system. And what year is it now on Terra? Zimp replied, I guess it must be

twenty fifty. Why do you ask? Oh, just trying to work some things out. Hey, do you think we could do a video call like soon? Sure? Good night, zimp, good night, Days talk soon. And do you know who else would like to wish you a good night and would love to talk to you so soon? It's the sponsors of this show. They always are there to tuck you in at night. And we're back the bed extracted with fresh sheets, and Days plopped down, cradling snookums against

their chest. Sleep came fitful, and late the next day, Days messaged that they wouldn't be going into work. They tried sleeping longer, but it was impossible. Their brain wouldn't quit. After half an hour of tossing and turning, they found themselves locked in the reenactment of a fierce argument with the examiner the day of the aptitudes. It was all imagination.

They never actually confronted the examiner or anyone else. But since the day the results came back, thwarting their dreams, whittling their future down to nothing, they had spent many hours inside their head protesting the unfairness of it all. Who was to say that the examiner's tardiness had not disadvantaged them relative to other testing groups as far as Days as low teamwork scores, Surely there was more than

one way to measure teamwork on the aptitudes. At three different moments, people's screens were linked in groups of five, and each group had to solve a common problem communicating over their devices but not speaking directly. Days had not integrated effectively into the problem solving, but building an effective team could play out differently if people were allowed to talk directly, make eye contact, if they didn't have a

ticking clock hanging over their heads. Other aspects of the aptitudes were borderlines shoddy Days could only remember one error aside from the examiner arriving late but still in error on such an important test did not give a good impression in a problem. On a mission spectra, video of an experiment appeared on Day's screen showing an unidentified compound burning bright green. Before anyone had gotten to that problem,

the examiner had made another verbal announcement. On problem forty one, there was an error and experiment preparation substitute the flame color you see on your personal console with the flame color pictured here. They gestured and a video of a dark red flame appeared on the main screen, but the exams were computer evaluated. How could Days be sure the examiner was not the one who was mistaken? Puzzled, annoyed, they had skipped the question and gone on to the

next one. How could it possibly be considered fair for their future to be determined on the basis of such an errant instrument in their head? They always won those arguments, but when it was over, they still had to face up to the same reality. Annoyed, they got out of bed, called for a coffee, reluctantly declined the dose model offered, and then squared off again against the wall screen. Take me to the library. The wall screen came on, Show

me her Medica. A grainy schematic appeared, showing the image Days knew well from school. Her Medica was an immensely long, slender cylinder with a rounded nose and a bulky tail where the propulsion reactors were housed. Arrayed sequentially along its length were four rings, each connected to the central cylinder by gossamer spokes. Given the dimensions of the ship, Days knew that each spoke must be incredibly thick, but in

the schematic they always looked so delicate. The rings were modified Stanford tauruses, rather than being a continuous loop like a doughnut as in a standard Taurus. Each ring held three immense platforms, evenly spaced about the circumference. It was like a Taurus, but with three parts of the loop symmetrically blotted out In profile, they looked like circular arcs

with theta of thirty degrees. The rings rotated slowly, and all the blocks, every module every person Days had ever known were housed on the inside of one of those twelve platforms, held in place by the pseudo gravity created by centrifugal force. If it weren't for the sky, they would have been able to look up and see Hermetica's central cylinder about ten kilometers above them, bisecting their view, and on either side of it, even farther away the

other two platforms on their ring. Actually, Days supposed they would only see any of that if they turned off all the lights on their platform, and if the material closing off the top of the platform from their frame of reference the inside of the ark was transparent. Otherwise above them they would see a massive reflection or glare.

In any case, Before Hermetica had even departed, its builders knew that mental health stats improved greatly if a sky were projected diffusing light in replicating the heavens people had evolved under on Terra Days tried to remember which of the twelve platforms they lived on had that been taught in school. Zoom in. The perspective shifted virtgenously, diving in close and suddenly dazed. Was looking at their block and the eight blocks that flanked it, four of them sharing

a node with theirs. It was not much wider of a view than the one they were stuck in every day, Library, Can I get a more intermediate view ship schematics? Since the destruction of the wiki, access to precise schematics for her Medica are compartmentalized on a need to know basis. Yeah, the wiki disaster and the infamous NTK Days had heard all about that. They sighed, well, can you show me where we're going? Library switched to a live feed from

a camera. Part of the screen revealed the observation window at the tip of Hermetica's nose. Most of it was the blackness of space, dotted with a million pin pricks. Three of the pin pricks directly in front of them were noticeably larger, one of them twice as bright as anything else on the screen. Still though, just a pin prick, and Days would never get there, never see its planets up close? Can we get a view of Terra? The solar system is not currently visible from the cameras on

the rear ring. Would you like the rear view anyway? Days sighed again, No, that's all right. Another thought occurred to them, bring up Terra in history the decades prior to departure. A list of topic headers appeared on the screen. What do you have on epidemics? A long list scrolled by, listing names, dates, locations, death tolls. Days saw some they remembered from basic history, others that were unfamiliar. Dengi fever, ebola, cholera,

swine flu, yellow fever, AIDS, Spanish influenza, typhus. What about choking sickness? Library paused? Choking sickness was not a Terran event. Choking sickness ARPV was an event here on her Medica. Would you like to see the entry? No, that's all right, I'm looking for Terran epidemics. Was there anything else that might have been similar? What does ARPV stand for Acute respiratory passenger virus passenger virus? Well, that certainly sounded like the name of a disease that would break out on

a ship. What's the last year you have entries for in terran history twenty twenty two. Days looked at the sheet in their hand. One year before the article was published, one year there had been a reference to something that had happened a year earlier. There it was unrest. Tell me about political unrest from twenty twenty two in America. Here is the disambiguation on America. Please specify? Oh, scroll down? Yeah,

that one United States of America. There are no entries on significant political unrest in the United States of America in twenty twenty two. Hmm, what about denialists? Here is the disambiguation on denialists? Please specify. There weren't many choices, and the first one seemed to be a simple dictionary definition one who denies an empirically demonstrated fact. How about

climate denialists. Climate denialists were political pressure groups funded by hydrocarbon extraction industries who claimed that the significant increase in heat trapping gases in the planet's atmosphere would not trap

heat in the planet's atmosphere. Hydrocarbon extraction industries in the United States began funding climate denialists sometime after nineteen sixty eight, when their research demonstrated conclusively that their product was, in fact changing the chemical composition of Terra's atmosphere in a significant way. That didn't sound like what the article was talking about. It sounded like bad fiction, but the reference had to do with a pandemic, not with the atmosphere.

Days shook their head, not sure if they were amused or appalled by the concept of a global hydrocarbon energy system.

They thought back to basic chemistry. Sure it made sense to transport hydrocarbon fuel for the use in remote locations not reached by an electrical grid if none of the vehicles involved were large enough to house nuclear reactors, but systematically burning hydrocarbons, and vehicles that traveled standard routes, each lugging the weight of its own combustion engines or to power the entire electrical grid burning the stuff they had put tens of millions of years of sequestered carbon into

the atmosphere in a century. What a relief her Medica had left that place behind. Days felt bad for the segment of humanity that stayed behind. Still, the present conundrum had not become any clearer. Days had come up against a wall. The information in the article and the information in the library did not add up. Then they remembered the second article, the one on the back of the sheet,

from the talk of failed probes. They inferred that Mars had not been settled in the terran year twenty twenty three. But if Mars had not ever been settled yet, how did they manage to send off for Medica a full year earlier? Library tell me about the human colonization of Mars. After the first unoccupied probes landed on the Martian surface in nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy five, work began

on a larger spacecraft that could transport human astronauts. By the time an assembly and launching platform had been manufactured in low Earth orbit in nineteen ninety eight, further probes to Mars had carried out all the mapping and chemical analysis necessary to begin planning the logistics of a human mission. Supply drops to the Martian surface began the next year, and the first occupied spacecraft was launched from the orbital platform in two thousand seven, arriving safely with its twelve

person crew ten months later. They remained for two Terran years, overseeing construction of the research station and launch platform, returning safely to Terra in twenty eleven. By that point, it was clear that Mars's chemical and circumstellar characteristics were unfavorable to terraforming, and it was calculated that it would actually be cheaper and faster to terraform an exoplanet in the Goldilock zone of another star system, even accounting for a

journey of several hundred Terran years. Activity based out of the Mars Research Station continued, carried out remotely or by subsequent human teams. Days scratched their head. They supposed the probes mentioned in the article could have been from subsequent attempts to explore other avenues of terraforming on Mars, in

parallel to preparations on the WIKI and her Medica missions. Still, it didn't say anything about a research station or any human presence on Mars, nor did it mention the two ships that had departed the year before, with millions of passengers between them. Something didn't add up. But do you know what does add up? All of the joy and satisfaction guaranteed to you by these products and services and We're back. Days looked crossly at the strange printed sheet.

All published material was vetted and peer reviewed by pertinent experts. Affirmations of fact were always qualified. Results that had not been rigorously replicated included margins of error or the probabilities of some flaw in the design fiction. The old volumes of literature stored in the library was clearly marked as such.

To deliberately publish things that were untrue, that was censurable. However, stamping words and ink on some non electronic sheet and stashing it behind a wall panel at that stretched the bounds of what could be considered publication. An uneasy feeling crept up, and a word sprang to mind, sabotage no now. Days was getting worked up, trying to find connections to explain something that didn't feel right. Their coping mechanism came to mind, like a mantra. Name the pattern, break it,

and change your mental scenery so you can relax. Days needed to move around and put the conundrum out of mind. They slid on their mask and went outside. The air was crackling oppressive. They could tell the atmosphere was getting out of sync. The meteorology people would have to do an intervention soon. Weather events were always scheduled and announced at least a day in advance, but days never checked. They liked the feel of intuiting. When they were coming,

other people on the block didn't seem to notice. A dozen were out enjoying the hot, bright day. Keeping their distance, Days made their way to the green colorful bunting had been stretched between the taller bushes. The pole stood in the middle. What's the theme, they asked their neighbor, seated on a bench. Mayday, it's a Scandinavian tradition. The neighbor tossed out the phrase like it was a truly interesting bit of information, though the careful way they pronounced the

word suggested they could not quite remember. From cursory geography lessons long faded in time, where exactly on Tera Scandinavia had been Days nodded, recalling something about a dance. Flowers, white dresses, colorful lengths of cloth wrapped around a pole. They wondered if they'd feel up for it. The day the block party came around, The air seemed to pulse angrily. They nodded and turned around. Some days Days enjoyed spontaneous

socializing but today was not one of them. The regulation distance, the superficial topics, their neighbor's pleasant apathy, all of it got on their nerves. Walking back to their module, they heard raised voices from one of the family units. That was unusual. The modules were effectively sound proofd someone must really be shouting screaming. In fact, the sound was faint, but the tone was unmistakable, not the low growl of anger, but the high shriek of desperation. Days stopped looking at

the door four down from their own. Another neighbor passed by homeward, head down, politely, giving them all the birth they could, since Days was standing in the middle of the street. A minute later, another neighbor passed by the other way. No one acknowledged the screaming. Trembling a bit in the pit of their stomach, Days drew themselves up and headed for the door. Something wasn't all right, screaming like that they should check in, at least offer some health.

Just as they raised their hand to buzz, an electronic warble sounded from the direction of the green. It was a safety drone, worrying agilely past the maypole and down the street. Please return to your modules, a therapeutic intervention is in bound. Days backed away from the safety drone, which took up a position at the door, the bitterness of early panic welling up from the pit of their stomach. They backed away. The drone repeated its admonition, and Days

retreated a little farther. Farther down, Module opened their own door invitingly, but Days cannot bring themselves to surrender the street just yet. They caught the gentle sound of a claxon from the far end of the block, and a moment later glimpsed a sled and two medics coming out of the health center. They had trouble getting the sled past the green, what with the benches, the maypole, and a park container probably full of decorations for the upcoming festivities.

One of them spoke a command, and they pulled the pole out quickly and efficiently, laying it on the ground beside the benches. A warm body pressed against Days's ankle. They looked down to see Snookums rubbing anxiously. I know, sweetie, it's scary. They rubbed the cat along its cheeks, mouth to ear, and it exuded appreciation. The medics were at the family unit. Now. The door opened up and they went inside, followed by the drone. A minute later they

came out, supporting one of Daze's neighbors. Between them one half of a couple Days did not know so well. They had never kept a social appointment, though Days had seen them bubbling away in the middle of the crowd at block parties. The person had a wild, exhausted look, their eyes unfocused. The medics helped them onto a sled and strapped them in. The other neighbor came to the doorway head bowed, eyes wide, exuding worry, embarrassment, and fear.

We'll take good care of them. Days heard a medics say, if all goes well in a week or two, they can come back here. The neighbor nodded on so certainly, looking at their module mate, who by now was somewhere else, eyes pasted on the sky. We'll send a therapist to evaluate later in the day, the medic went on, just for secondary effects, stay home and try to relax. You're r and art from all work assignments and social appointments until you get an all clear. The medics and the

sled set off back towards the node. The safety drone flitted off. Once the neighbor went back into the module, the streets were empty. Days went in and had a long cry, cuddling snookums on the couch. It happened every now and then someone broke down. Interstellar travel was hard on the human psyche, and her Medic was the first crew to ever do it. They had to learn as they went, designing the best most supportive environment possible despite

being trapped together in a crowded ship with scarce resources. Once, when Days was an adolescent, an older person who worked as an instructor had a break down and had to be trained and supported out of the school by an emergency team. It was an important moment for Days because of the group counseling that came afterwards. The instructor heard voices that other people could not hear. They had been told by therapists who came to talk to them and

help them process the troubling event. Some kids in their cohort had snickered, even though it was strongly discouraged to mock or disparage the mental state of other passengers. Encourage your fellow passengers. Coping mechanisms create a mutually supportive environment and only report those behaviors and views that might enable sabotage. Those were the watchwords as far as mental health was concerned.

What had been so important for Days was to hear acknowledgment that someone could have different perceptions than those around them, that even though such difference could be problematic, it was something that happened to people. The fact that therapists could speak about divergent experiences in a soothing way help Days understand the stark, unmentionable differences they had been perceiving between

themselves and their peers. From there, it was only a a few more steps to realize that maybe what they experienced was legitimate, could even be healthy, if there were a way to integrate it with the experiences and perceptions of their cohort. What had the instructor been shouting? We should tell them, We should tell them. Maybe if they'd been able to share what the voices had been saying, they never would have had a breakdown. But that was

an optimistic view. That instructor never returned, meaning they had never been able to reintegrate. They had been submitted to a permanent reconciliation process. Hermenica tried to take care of all of its passengers, but some simply could not cope. Perhaps the dominant unspoken view was accurate. It was the weakest passengers who broke down, and though they all needed to support one another, in the end, the only ones who would arrive at their destination were those who were

fit to days. Could be pretty sure their genes would not be used in any of the restock cohorts that would make up her Medica's future generations. They wondered how much longer they could last, When would a medic team and a safety drone show up at their door? Dun Dun, dun, Catch us next time on Cool Zone Media book Club if you want to hear more from Allen Lee. That is the fiction pen name of the nonfiction author Peter Gelderlos, and Peter Glderlos has a substack called Surviving Leviathan and

so Yeah. You can check out more of their writing there or check out any one of their many number of books. Their name is spelled g E L d e R l Oos Gelderlos. All right, I will see you all next week when we continue Hermetica. Dun Dun dun. That should be officially in the title of the book. The Dun dun Dun. I actually don't know.