10 characters: Marissa, Hu, Mayor, Announcer, Peters, Human Computer, Ambassador Five, Stone, Newsreader, Earth Controller
Click on a character's name to get their lines highlighted.
Hu (21 lines, 283 words, 10.18%) - [Steph X] Hu Jia. Communications. Both internal loudspeaker stuff, hailing people, and talking to Earth.
Marissa (21 lines, 220 words, 7.92%) - [Virginia Hargrove] Marissa Flint. 26 years old, older sister of Larissa. Overprotective toward Larissa but means well. Essentially raised Larissa since mother died and father was often absent. Can be a bit antagonistic when she takes a dislike to someone.
Peters (5 lines, 540 words, 19.43%) - [David Loftus] Salish Peters, chief mechanic. Great-grandfather was the first mission commander, and he never tires of telling people so and relating the stories of Earth he remembers hearing from great-grandpa. Sensible, direct, kind of average working Joe. Middle aged, has husband and two grown kids.
Stone (5 lines, 54 words, 1.94%) - [John Gaunce] Doctor Stone. Willing to do whatever it takes to save patients, even if it goes against the laws or morals of society. Is frustrated by societal resistance to experimentation and progress, thinks Earth-sourced ethics need to be updated for life in interstellar space. Just a touch of mad scientist, but really means well and the audience will be torn on whether to approve of the methods.
Mayor (1 line, 700 words, 25.19%) - [Roger Arnold] The leader of the asteroid, as yet unnamed as everyone just calls him mayor because he's been mayor so long and will continue in the role as long as he wants. Tends to be impatient and sarcastic with underlings but can turn on the charm and make a good speech when needed. In his 60s but not thinking about retirement.
Ambassador Five (1 line, 190 words, 6.84%) - [espeak] Ambassador Five is a Centaurian. They communicate non-verbally, so in order to be understood by humans they wear machine translators.
Newsreader (1 line, 268 words, 9.64%) - [Kathleen Li] Person on Earth who reads news summaries for transmission.
Earth Controller (1 line, 371 words, 13.35%) - [Mary-Anne Stanek] Representative for Earth's space agencies serving as the face of Earth's relations with 253 Mathilde.
Human Computer (2 lines, 9 words, 0.32%) - [Kathleen Li] The voice of 253 Mathilde's central computer. Emotionless, calm. Make sure words are clearly enunciated, don't try to make it too computery as I'll add that effect in post.
Announcer (2 lines, 144 words, 5.18%) - [Erin Suminsby] Reads opening, closing and credits.
Script format: Margined | Marginless (for phone viewing)
Listen along as you read:
1 SOUND: communications room tone
2 SOUND: door opens, footsteps approaching fast
3 Marissa: Sorry I’m late, chief Hu!
4 Hu: What happened this time, Marissa?
5 Marissa: They sent my sister home to finish her convalescence, that means I have to take care of her now.
6 Hu: In the future please try to let me know in *advance* if you need to take some hours off for that.
7 SOUND: marissa sits in chair
8 Marissa: So what’ve we got today?
9 Hu: We’ll start with outbound. First up is the mayor’s report. The antenna is aligned, the message is queued, all you need to do is hit send.
10 Marissa: My pleasure.
11 SOUND: button is tapped
12 SOUND: transmission data sounds, fading out behind the mayor
13
Mayor:
Two-fifty-three Mathilde daily mission report number 33,707. I hope all is well for everyone at mission control in Houston and around the Earth. Unfortunately, things have become… more complex… here in our world. I fear both my own position and the mission itself have been compromised by recent events.
You’ll recall the details of the little insurrection by Doctor Stone and Ahmadi from my recent reports, and my concerns about the rule of law in our society following Judge Lee’s joke sentencing. Since these events, it has become ever more clear that I’m not in control of the situation the way I need to be to ensure mission stability. I was able to fire former detective Ahmadi, but it’s outside my constitutional powers to remove Doctor Stone or Judge Lee. I did request their resignations, but neither complied. With this in mind, I find I must ask for Earth’s help in repairing this travesty of justice and removing the Doctor and the Judge from the positions they’re no longer morally fit for… and more importantly to discourage future similar freewheeling behavior that could more directly imperil our mission.
You may think that you don’t have much influence over what people think out here over 18,000 astronomical units away. But I assure you, our people *will* listen to the united voice of the ten billion people of Earth. The incoming data streams are a highlight of the day for everybody and every news report or holotainment means more to us than you could know – especially to the returnists, who idolize Earth more than any of us.
I hope it will be understood that I don’t make this request lightly, and I make it only because I fear for the continuation of the mission. Returnist sentiments have been quietly growing over the years. I fear that my weakness – my demonstrable inability to do anything about these prominent people who’ve defied the law – will quickly bring their sentiments out into the open where with the right spark they might spread like wildfire.
It may be difficult for you on Earth to understand the returnist mindset. After all, even if we reverse course today it’ll take us a century to cancel out our velocity and another century to re-accelerate to Earth, and we’ll all be dead by then. What you need to understand is that there’s a fervent, growing belief that the Centaurian hibernetic suspension technology could be adapted for use on humans if we put our minds to it, or forced the Centaurians to put their minds to it.
That’s why it’s so critical that I come down hard on those like Stone and Ahmadi who plot unauthorized dealings with the Centaurians – if returnists think they can get away with it, they may try to seize a suspension pod for research, or worse. I know Earth agrees that a good relationship with the Centaurians is absolutely essential for the success of our mission, and any betrayal of their trust could end the mission.
It’s with all of this in mind that I calmly but sincerely urge mission control, the United Nations, national leaders and whoever else with influence you can get on board to call for the removals of Doctor Stone and Judge Lee and a re-trial of Stone and Ahmadi.
I only hope that I’ll be able to hold things together here for the seven months until we can hear your response. It won’t be easy. I realize I have non-constitutional options for their removal, but without the united voice of Earth behind me I fear that path would lead us to a disastrous societal breakdown – perhaps not immediately, perhaps not for decades or centuries, but it’s my duty to ensure that nothing I do today imperils the next 682 years. The precedent which non-constitutional removals would set would enable future mayors to rule by decree, destroying the very thing I want Judge Lee removed to protect: the rule of law. Without the rule of law, the future becomes unpredictable and the mission cannot be assured.
Thank you, people of Earth, for your attention and prompt consideration.
14 SOUND: opening theme
15
Announcer:
QuietPlease dot org presents “253 Mathilde”.
At the turn of the 22nd century, the asteroid 253 Mathilde was converted into an interstellar spaceship. Now 92 years into a 780 year mission, generations have come and gone.
Episode four - Data Stream.
16 SOUND: communications room tone, use that beepy effect
17 SOUND: cat meows
18 SOUND: patting lap
19 Hu: Here, Pepper. Come on up!
20 SOUND: cat jumps onto lap and purrs. But how would the jumping sound in that gravity?
21 Marissa: Why does she always jump on *your* lap but keeps *me* at arm’s length?
22 Hu: Maybe she understands rank?
23 Marissa: Maybe she just knows you’ll make me get up again too soon.
24 Hu: It’s the art of delegation.
25 SOUND: door opens, Peters strides in
26 Peters: [excited, but not showing it in an extreme way] Chief Hu, Assistant Flint, I have a voice report for immediate transmission to Earth, I think you’ll want to hear it also. And disseminate it as you see fit.
27 SOUND: cat meows questioningly
28 Hu: Shouldn’t you clear that through the mayor first, Peters?
29 Peters: I sent the same report to his multicom half an hour ago but he’s busy with some meeting. I don’t imagine he’ll have any objection, and this is way too important to keep under wraps if he does.
30 Hu: You’ve sent us the audio?
31 Peters: Yes, just before I came in.
32 SOUND: more purring
33 Hu: I’ll get right on it.
34 Peters: [wryly] Thanks, I can see you’ve got your hands full.
35 Marissa: [joking with a twinge of jealousy] … of fur.
36 SOUND: peters exits, door closes
37 Hu: Computer, locate latest audio file received from Chief Mech Peters designated for communications section, and confirm age.
38 Human Computer: Located. File is 2 minutes old.
39 Hu: Queue that up for simultaneous local play and transmission to Earth.
40 Human Computer: Beginning playback and transmission.
41
Peters:
My investigation into the explosion that damaged our primary reactor is complete. The source of the explosion was a milligram of a previously-unknown compound with an incredible reactivity and energy density. And I've established that this compound comes from deep within two-fifty-three Mathilde itself!
As you know, our world is a sort of conglomeration of different proto-asteroids which have differing composition. Our strategy for processing asteroid ore into reactor fuel and propellant was based on what we found in core samples down to about two kilometers, and what we could deduce from gravitational anomalies. In a world with a fifty kilometer diameter, two kilometers is barely scratching the surface. We could've made it all the way to Proxima without digging any deeper, but fortunately our mines are mostly vertical and after 92 years the deepest of them has now reached 6 kilometers. It's this mine shaft which supplied the ore containing the unexpected impurity that led to the explosion -- ore processing didn't catch it because their processes assumed something that small couldn't be problematic.
I had ore extraction section take a core sample from as far below the shaft as they could, and they got down to 7 kilometers. Their sample shows rapidly increasing levels of the new compound, becoming almost a solid block at the bottom!
You might be thinking this is just a minor inconvenience and we'll have to take our ore from closer to the surface to prevent another explosion. That's the conservative option, but you need to understand there's a huge, almost unfathomable opportunity here. This new compound is the greatest fuel we could ever hope for, and it's incredibly abundant, if only we could harness it. We don't need that kind of power for the reactor itself, but imagine what the *engines* could do with it!
There are no certainties, but I believe if we dedicate ourselves to the task, in a matter of a year or two we can retrofit our engines to burn this new fuel. With the energy density I’m seeing, the results would be staggering.
As you know, our current always-on engines accelerate the immense mass of our world at around a millimeter per second per second – which may sound slow, but it’s got us going pretty damn fast after 92 years. With this new fuel, properly used, we should be able to reach up to *4 meters* per second per second! That’s so fast we’d be feeling Mars-like gravity from it, I don’t know if our bodies could even medically handle it! And there’s enough fuel to maintain that acceleration for decades! We could get to the Centaurian home world, and even back to Earth again, easily within our own lifetimes!
42 SOUND: cat eating food from bowl
43 Marissa: [excited] Wow, can you imagine?! Our own generation completing the mission?!
44 Hu: [skeptical] It’s just a theory. Sounds like Peters hasn’t run it by anyone else yet. He’s probably wrong, probably missing something.
45 Marissa: You don’t seem very excited.
46 Hu: I’m not.
47 Marissa: Don’t you *want* to get to Proxima? Or Earth?
48 Hu: To be honest with you, not really. This is my home, always has been, I’ve been happy to think it always would be. Why would I want to disrupt my life and leave everything I’ve ever known to jump into some incomprehensibly complicated planetary society?
49 Marissa: Because it’s what we’re here for, our purpose!
50
Hu:
Yours maybe. *My* purpose is handling our world’s communications.
Speaking of that, please reorient the dish for transmission to Proxima.
51 SOUND: making the needful adjustments with typing and touch
52 Marissa: Oh, wow, I’ve never done that before.
53 Hu: Do you need help?
54 Marissa: No, I got it.
55 Hu: Seems that Ambassador who helped your sister wants to file a report about the incident with his people.
56 Marissa: Well, I certainly owe him that much. The dish is in position now.
57 Hu: Queue and transmit.
58 SOUND: that data stream effect from earlier again
59
Ambassador Five:
As usual, I offer my report in a human language for the ease of their communications officer Hu Jia, and as a gesture of good faith to establish that nothing is being discussed behind the backs of the humans. Their confidence in us must be maintained for the mission to succeed.
The past few days have been my first time awake in 33 years. I find myself concerned by how this society is developing. The new mayor seems a very rigid type with preconceived notions, which he's willing to let his own people die to maintain. Parts of the population clearly don't respect the mayor, and in the past few days I know 4 of them have been openly defiant of him. I fear a potential for open conflict. If such a conflict were to play out here the way it has so often in human history, the mission would fail.
I don't mean to be too alarmist. You have nearly seven centuries before you have to make a decision on how far we can trust the humans. I merely offer my thoughts for your evaluation as part of the larger tapestry.
60 SOUND: communications room tone
61 Hu: Almost time for the day’s incoming data stream. Have you got the dish realigned for it?
62 Marissa: Yes, chief.
63 SOUND: door opens, footsteps enter
64 Marissa: Hi Doc.
65 Stone: Just wanted to check in with you real quick about our patient. How's it going?
66 Marissa: She's making progress physically. She's already hopping around on her good leg -- doesn't like the crutch, says hopping makes more sense in our gravity. She's doing the physical therapy exercises, though I have to nag her about it sometimes. But I'm worried about her *mental* recovery.
67 Stone: Is she showing reduced mental capacity?
68 Marissa: No, nothing like that. But it's like she's not sure who she is anymore.
69 Stone: An existential crisis? Hm, I hadn't considered that possible outcome.
70 Marissa: She says she's of two minds, and I guess it's literally true. I'm afraid it may lead her into depression.
71 Stone: Well, she's been through something nobody else has ever been through. We should schedule her a therapy appointment.
72 Marissa: Good idea, I'll talk to her about it.
73 Stone: Alright, I'd better be going.
74 SOUND: doc exits, door opens and closes
75 SOUND: incoming data sound
76 Hu: Here comes today's data stream.
77 SOUND: data stream sound
78
Newsreader:
Good evening, this is the voice of Earth with today’s two minute news summary. A riot broke out this morning in Tehran over the city government's new plan to restrict public access hours for holotainments. In India, the evacuation of Mumbai continued apace after the city's sea walls were declared unsafe last week. California signed a controversial new trade deal with Chile, while protesters in Sacramento called for an increase in the universal basic income. The war between Columbia and Venezuela flared up again as Columbian troops took control of two villages, and the United Nations again called for a cease fire. In more positive news, Mars reports agricultural output has doubled in the past year since the introduction of the new soil detoxification process. The new hyperloop officially opened between Kerala and Islamabad. Writer June Holland celebrates her 125th birthday today, publicly attributing her longevity in equal parts to her structured routine, loyal family, eight organ transplants and daily cellular rejuvenation injections.
It came and went for you out there a few months ago, but here on Earth tomorrow is the hundred and second first contact day, and our people across all our nations are excited for it. A Centaurian descended from the group who remained with us will be making a speech on human-Centaurian friendship for the occasion, and we’ll include that for you in tomorrow’s news transmission. Meanwhile, we want to extend our best wishes to everyone on 253 Mathilde and thank you for your tireless efforts to extend the open hand of humankind into the stars. We’ll be thinking of you.
79
Earth Controller:
Urgent message for mayor’s eyes only.
Hello again, mayor. I'm sorry to say things have just gotten a lot more complicated for both of us.
You’ve heard about our Solar Gravity Lens 2 project, which uses a constellation of spacecraft in interstellar space positioned so they can use the focal region of our sun to magnify exoplanets for direct imaging. It came online last month, and we’ve finished integrating the images to create a much higher resolution picture of the Centaurian home world than we've ever had before.
I'll just put this bluntly and save you some time: it's *not* the Centaurian home world. The planet you're headed for shows no signs of any civilization like what was described to us. Our best guess is it's just a relay station they're routing messages through to disguise their actual location.
We have no idea why they'd lie to us. We're still considering when and how to confront the Centaurians here on Earth with what we know. It'll have to come out soon because the Solar Gravity Lens project wasn't a secret, they must be expecting their lie to be exposed any day now.
We're leaving it up to you to decide whether and when to reveal what you now know to your Centaurian ambassadors. We do ask that you restrict them from making any transmissions until further notice.
I'm sure you're more aware than I am of the potential dangers of this news reaching the rest of your people. It's one thing to ask people to spend their entire lives ensuring their descendants can visit the Centaurian home world... but then to tell them it's all been a lie and they're on course for an empty world of marginal habitability, I don't imagine it'd be good for morale.
Of course we do want you to maintain course, at least for the moment, while we investigate. We've got hundreds of years to figure this out. Please tread carefully. There are too many unknowns at this point and no reason to rush into any irreversible action that could be a big mistake. Don't make me regret arguing that we should tell you about it. Best of luck to you and your mission.
80 SOUND: stretching, chair squeaking
81 Hu: Been a helluva day, hasn't it? Marissa, can you drop off the cat at hydroponics on your way home? That's her next rotation.
82 Marissa: Sure thing, boss.
83 SOUND: meow
84 SOUND: closing music
85 Announcer: You've been listening to Two Fifty-Three Mathilde, episode four - Data Stream. Created, written, produced and directed by Paul Knierim. Communications Chief Hu Jia is portrayed by Steph X. Assistant Marissa Flint is Virginia Hargrove. The mayor is Roger Arnold. Ambassador Five is espeak. Chief Mech Salish Peters is David Loftus. The newsreader was Kathleen Li. The Earth Controller was Mary-Anne Stanek. The announcer is Erin Suminsby. Sound effects and music courtesy free sound dot org and free p d dot com. Additional music by audionautix dot com. This program is licensed for free reuse and redistribution. Hear more episodes at quietplease dot org slash two fifty-three.