Author Topic: EP569: Safe Harbour  (Read 8670 times)

eytanz

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on: April 03, 2017, 03:47:24 PM
EP569: Safe Harbour

AUTHOR: Kristene Perron
NARRATOR: Divya Breed
HOST: Mur Lafferty

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It begins with breath.

In. Wrap my hand around the handle at the bow of the kayak. Out. Drag the boat across the rocks. In and out, in time with the low moan of the fog horn in the distance. I welcome the grey of dawn though my muscles ache from the damp and cold.

Ten years since I set foot on the shores of Barclay Sound, since I smelled the salty sweet decay of the open Pacific. The blood pulses in my veins and no matter how hard I fight it a single word rises from the depths like a corpse: home.

My foot hits a patch of kelp, slippery as oil. There’s nothing to grab but, as I fall, my hands grope anyway. Knee hits rock, followed by hand, and a stab of pain—physical, for a change—pierces right through me.

“Shit!” I say. Sound swallowed by the mist and the water.

Shit, I hear echoing back inside my brain. No, not hear, feel. Sense? See? I’ve never known how to describe it. Whatever it is, it comes as both a question and an accusation and a warning.

I stand and wipe the gravel from my hands and knees. I’m bleeding but that’s unimportant. She’s out there. She’s alive. If not for the fog, I might have seen her spray from shore. This is a good sign. Isn’t it?

A final scrape and the kayak is floating. I pick up the faded yellow and purple life jacket, with its orange safety whistle caked with dirt, and toss it up on the rocks. I won’t need it today.

I look to the shore and everything in me breaks.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

We can do this.

It all begins with breath.


Listen to this week’s Escape Pod!
« Last Edit: April 28, 2017, 03:01:42 PM by eytanz »



Lionman

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Reply #1 on: April 04, 2017, 10:39:17 PM
I thought this story had potential.  I felt it was a major downer to have it end that way.

My father wouldn't have liked it, the good guys died in the end. :-/

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Father Beast

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Reply #2 on: April 05, 2017, 01:16:50 AM
Admittedly, this might be an occasion where the language of the story was so overdone that I had trouble following what was happening, but let me see if I get this straight:

A woman undergoes a nanotech procedure to be able to talk to whales, and becomes pregnant while the nano stuff is in her. The child is autistic or something, and she freaks out when she discovers her husband (formerly an extramarital affair), basically arranged for this to happen. the she goes and DROWNS herself and daughter together as some sort of revenge or restitution or something equally crazy?

I can't bring myself to have pity for those who cause such destruction in their insanity.

I wasn't hot on this story in the first place, but the murder/suicide at the end really killed any enjoyment I might have had.



acpracht

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Reply #3 on: April 06, 2017, 05:16:18 AM
Admittedly, this might be an occasion where the language of the story was so overdone that I had trouble following what was happening, but let me see if I get this straight:

A woman undergoes a nanotech procedure to be able to talk to whales, and becomes pregnant while the nano stuff is in her. The child is autistic or something, and she freaks out when she discovers her husband (formerly an extramarital affair), basically arranged for this to happen. the she goes and DROWNS herself and daughter together as some sort of revenge or restitution or something equally crazy?

I can't bring myself to have pity for those who cause such destruction in their insanity.

I wasn't hot on this story in the first place, but the murder/suicide at the end really killed any enjoyment I might have had.

I understood the ending as the daughter's consciousness moved into the whale via the nanites (which was the mother's intention). It was a bleak ending, I agree, but I don't think quite as bleak as it initially appeared.



Jethro's belt

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Reply #4 on: April 06, 2017, 03:17:37 PM
Listening to it I didn't understand the ending. I thought about it and formed an idea (later confirmed by reading the ending), but with no foreshadowing that I could perceive as such, it just appeared out of the blue in a single sentence and went right by me or perhaps clubbed me senseless. Did I miss something? Maybe some technical talky?



TrishEM

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Reply #5 on: April 10, 2017, 01:52:48 AM
Admittedly, this might be an occasion where the language of the story was so overdone that I had trouble following what was happening, but let me see if I get this straight:

A woman undergoes a nanotech procedure to be able to talk to whales, and becomes pregnant while the nano stuff is in her. The child is autistic or something, and she freaks out when she discovers her husband (formerly an extramarital affair), basically arranged for this to happen. the she goes and DROWNS herself and daughter together as some sort of revenge or restitution or something equally crazy?

I can't bring myself to have pity for those who cause such destruction in their insanity.

I wasn't hot on this story in the first place, but the murder/suicide at the end really killed any enjoyment I might have had.

I understood the ending as the daughter's consciousness moved into the whale via the nanites (which was the mother's intention). It was a bleak ending, I agree, but I don't think quite as bleak as it initially appeared.

This was my interpretation as well.
In the end, I believe, the mother accepted her daughter for what she had become, even though she had been affected through an experimental act without fully informed consent. Although it's not clear that the father would really have tried to mold the girl into another ship-killer, the mother at least feared he would treat her as more of an experimental subject than a person. She thought that enabling the consciousness to move into the whale was her daughter's best shot at growing up free. (Too bad for the whale, but presumably it had already been affected, too.) Her death and her daughter's body's death was the byproduct of that.
That's what I thought was happening, anyway.



Cygnwulf

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Reply #6 on: April 12, 2017, 04:50:37 PM
Admittedly, this might be an occasion where the language of the story was so overdone that I had trouble following what was happening, but let me see if I get this straight:

A woman undergoes a nanotech procedure to be able to talk to whales, and becomes pregnant while the nano stuff is in her. The child is autistic or something, and she freaks out when she discovers her husband (formerly an extramarital affair), basically arranged for this to happen. the she goes and DROWNS herself and daughter together as some sort of revenge or restitution or something equally crazy?

I can't bring myself to have pity for those who cause such destruction in their insanity.

I wasn't hot on this story in the first place, but the murder/suicide at the end really killed any enjoyment I might have had.

I understood the ending as the daughter's consciousness moved into the whale via the nanites (which was the mother's intention). It was a bleak ending, I agree, but I don't think quite as bleak as it initially appeared.

This was my interpretation as well.
In the end, I believe, the mother accepted her daughter for what she had become, even though she had been affected through an experimental act without fully informed consent. Although it's not clear that the father would really have tried to mold the girl into another ship-killer, the mother at least feared he would treat her as more of an experimental subject than a person. She thought that enabling the consciousness to move into the whale was her daughter's best shot at growing up free. (Too bad for the whale, but presumably it had already been affected, too.) Her death and her daughter's body's death was the byproduct of that.
That's what I thought was happening, anyway.
I have this same feeling.   There's so many stories out there about a displaced child being able to 'rejoin' their kind that the ending wasn't actually that hard for me to pick up, but I feel like the story skimmed over some important parts that would have made the ending feel more natural.  there was a distinct lack of detail about the girl's life being unpleasant. Sure, mom's was after she found out but a lot of that seems like she was doing it to herself as well.   
What was in the story about the girl seemed fairly benign, like dad was trying to make things comfortable and happy for her with the teacher and the whale song in the headphones (which we see mom rip away to much screaming and unpleasantness, and dad replace, returning the child to her happy place) and one news story about a whale seeming to attack a sub. 
I feel like if there has been more exposition on the girl being treated like a lab rat or a tool or something other than human, or even a more definite foreshadowing of that to come, the ending might have carried itself off better.  Instead, with what could have been a weird coincidence,  the protagonist takes a huge leap of faith, steals the kid and hauls her out into the ocean on a gamble, saying something about her imperfect research, but we as the readers have no idea what even that tiny bit of information is or where she even got the idea that the nanites could facilitate a consciousness transfer, since that wasn't hinted at before.

tl;dr, interesting concept and I see where it was going, but the explanation of how it gets there is lacking.



Zelda

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Reply #7 on: April 13, 2017, 04:30:53 AM
I understood the ending differently. As I see it the whale (perhaps a whole whale population) was aware of the child and wanted the child brought to her. The whale attack on the sub was intended to put pressure on humans to give the child to her "real family." Indeed the whales by interfering with shipping may have been the cause of some of the human conflicts that are making the world uncertain and dangerous. As for the child, she is at core a whale that has been forced into a human body.

My strongest reason for coming to this conclusion is the way that when the mother and child reach the beach the communication between the child and the whale is much more intense than any communication the mother has been able to have with the child. When the child thinks "mother" the intense response of "daughter" comes from the whale, not from the human mother. Also, I thought that the mother's strong reaction to the sight of the sunken submarine and her understanding of it were influenced by the connection the nanites had made between the mother and the whale. Unlike other humans, she could tell exactly what it meant. That's why it triggered her to set off on the journey with her daughter. The mother realized only she could make peace between the species.

I think there is some support for this interpretation in the way the husband gets wapped up in urgent phone calls and discussions. I think he and his fellow conspirators know that they have caused some of the world's new problems. Their experiment has gone awry in a very dangerous way.

During part of the beginnng of the story I was irritated by how incredibly unethical the experiment was (and the more we learned, the more unethical it got). But other than that I found this a compelling story and I found the ending (which I believe to be a happy one for the child) satisfying.




Ichneumon

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Reply #8 on: April 19, 2017, 02:25:19 PM
I think TrishEM got it right. I am confused why the nanites caused the child to bond or connect with the whale to the point of exclusion of the mother. I would have thought the nanites would have allowed the mom and child to communicate and bond closer than normal. It also made me sad that the scientist was the bad guy.



Ariadnes-thread

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Reply #9 on: April 23, 2017, 05:25:14 PM
This story made me really, really angry. The SF elements aside, this is a narrative of a mother committing murder-suicide in order to kill her autistic daughter.

The SF trappings didn't really do much to change that basic narrative, for me, and as an autistic woman the narrator's actions— and the fact that it seems we are supposed to sympathize with her— were extremely upsetting to me.

Parents killing their autistic kids is common enough that we have an annual Disability Day of Mourning to commemorate these children. The narrative used by these parents is often that of autism as a thing separate from their children, without which their children would be "normal", so the moment in the story where, just before her death, Dylan becomes a normal child, was especially distressing and reminiscent of this narrative.



Katzentatzen

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Reply #10 on: April 24, 2017, 07:42:40 PM
I do love my sci fi with a generous slice of horror. The child having been rewrote for whales by nanotech, yes, fascinating.

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Varsha

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Reply #11 on: July 28, 2017, 01:16:05 PM
Another story about talking to Whale... Wait, no this is deeper. And better.

Was the plan to use whales for the war all along?

Excellent clear narration.



CryptoMe

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Reply #12 on: December 05, 2017, 02:40:14 PM
Okay, my understanding was that the scientist impregnated the main character on purpose to produce a child that was bonded to a specific whale (Scarlet) through inherited nanites. He had done this before and had other children who were bonded to other whales. These children were being used to get their whales to do various things, including military aggression against opponent nations. One child/whale pair had been specifically used to attack and sink the submarine of an opponent nation without leaving a trace of the aggressor nation's involvement (devious!!). The MC doesn't want her daughter used this way, so she takes her to Scarlet, who joins the daughter's consciousness to her own (both consciousnesses now inhabit Scarlet's body), leaving the daughter's dead body behind. The MC, who has exhausted herself to save her daughter (at least her consciousness), dies content, knowing that her daughter has found a safe harbour.

Okay, when I write it out this way, this is an amazing story!! Unfortunately, it didn't really come across in the way it was told. The MC is too distant and there are not enough details to make sure the reader is getting all this information at the right time, as can be seen by the confusion in the various forumite comments.

To sum up, I liked the plot, but feel the presentation needs more work.



Kogi

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Reply #13 on: October 08, 2018, 11:13:09 PM
This story made me really, really angry. The SF elements aside, this is a narrative of a mother committing murder-suicide in order to kill her autistic daughter.

The SF trappings didn't really do much to change that basic narrative, for me, and as an autistic woman the narrator's actions— and the fact that it seems we are supposed to sympathize with her— were extremely upsetting to me.

Parents killing their autistic kids is common enough that we have an annual Disability Day of Mourning to commemorate these children. The narrative used by these parents is often that of autism as a thing separate from their children, without which their children would be "normal", so the moment in the story where, just before her death, Dylan becomes a normal child, was especially distressing and reminiscent of this narrative.

I know I'm reviving a dead thread here, but... I listened to this story this morning (I'm archive-binging until I catch up) and it made me nauseous.  I'm horrified that Ariadnes-thread is the only person who commented on this aspect, as it seemed pretty blatant.  I'm even more shocked that this made it onto an EA podcast, especially with no warnings attached, as I've always found you guys to be really conscientious about discrimination/representation.

The line at the end about Dylan being "[Jenn's] daughter at last" left me utterly hollow of anything but rage.  It's far too close to reality, parents not seeing their autistic kids as their real children, believing that the real kid is hidden under all the stims and touch-aversion, refusing to see the person right in front of them.  Changelings, not human, less than human, less deserving of life and of love than if they were 'normal'... this attitude kills people.



CryptoMe

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Reply #14 on: October 15, 2018, 07:18:20 PM
This story made me really, really angry. The SF elements aside, this is a narrative of a mother committing murder-suicide in order to kill her autistic daughter.

The SF trappings didn't really do much to change that basic narrative, for me, and as an autistic woman the narrator's actions— and the fact that it seems we are supposed to sympathize with her— were extremely upsetting to me.

Parents killing their autistic kids is common enough that we have an annual Disability Day of Mourning to commemorate these children. The narrative used by these parents is often that of autism as a thing separate from their children, without which their children would be "normal", so the moment in the story where, just before her death, Dylan becomes a normal child, was especially distressing and reminiscent of this narrative.

I know I'm reviving a dead thread here, but... I listened to this story this morning (I'm archive-binging until I catch up) and it made me nauseous.  I'm horrified that Ariadnes-thread is the only person who commented on this aspect, as it seemed pretty blatant.  I'm even more shocked that this made it onto an EA podcast, especially with no warnings attached, as I've always found you guys to be really conscientious about discrimination/representation.

The line at the end about Dylan being "[Jenn's] daughter at last" left me utterly hollow of anything but rage.  It's far too close to reality, parents not seeing their autistic kids as their real children, believing that the real kid is hidden under all the stims and touch-aversion, refusing to see the person right in front of them.  Changelings, not human, less than human, less deserving of life and of love than if they were 'normal'... this attitude kills people.

Okay, I am very surprised that people got this vibe from the story. I have autistic people in my immediate family and I didn't get this vibe from the story at all. I think the actual plot of the story had nothing to do with changing the daughter, but rather having the daughter NOT be changed, at least not into an unwitting soldier. I think if the mother could have safely fled from the experiments she would have, without the need for the weird consciousness swapping aspect. But since that wasn't an option, she took what she could get. I'll agree that the story didn't do a good job of making this clear, which may be why some people got the ick factor from it.