By Cadmium Lattice, as told to Mended Relic, ca. 12,000,000 hours past
ADDRESS: /records/non-operations/narrative_set/just/cadmium_lattice/-2*1/REF
PARSING CREATOR ABSTRACT:
_I_Tran_Scribed_This_Sad_Sto_Ry_Of
_An_Ast_Er_Oid_Dwel_Ler_Fran_Tic
_Ly_See_King_Her_Kin_When_The_Sta
_Tions_En_Ded_…_As_The_Hac_Ker
_Sto_Ry_Tel_Ler_Re_Ports_They_Could
_Not_Help_Her_But_We LIMIT REACHED
ENTRY:
Band!
A dweller comes looking for her other elder,
Because he has been separated from her.
A hacker helps by querying Frostlake,
But Frostlake is dying and can’t compute any more.
The dweller goes home without finding him.
I only got this from someone who passed it along:
After the deathless ones would split the asteroids,
Dwellers would come looking for their relatives,
And hackers would use planetseeds to help.
It wasn’t allowed for hackers to do this,
But hackers would send packet-query pulses to the planetseeds to help.
I only got this from someone who passed it along.
Well!
I have this query recorded:
“I’m looking for someone who’s been separated from me;
He has four names but I can’t find him”—
“Give me the genetic signature”—
“We don’t share a genetic signature”—
“Give me the names of your conductor, director, and crèche”—
“He isn’t my conductor, director, or crèche”—
“Tell me why you’re looking for this person”—
“I’m going to have my pairing and I need my other elder”—
“Tell me about who this person is”—
“When I was one hundred twenty-five thousand hours,
My crèche and my conductor didn’t like my girlfriend;
We were both becoming directors,
And my relations didn’t want two directors together.
I flew away and a man found me.
His name is Understory Shoal Troposphere Counterfloat.
He told me, You know by my name that you’ll be safe with me.
He became my other elder and helped me feel safe.
I came back to my relations feeling safe.
Then the sectioning happened and I couldn’t find him.
I’m about to pair with my girlfriend and I need my other elder”—
“Tell me the query and I’ll transmit it to the planetseed”—
“Ask the records about his name and placement gatherings”—
The hacker transmitted the query and dataset bundle;
They pulsed it into the atmosphere of the planetseed.
The query retrieved no record sets.
The dweller submitted another query:
“Ask the records about his name and puberty gatherings”—
The hacker transmitted the query and dataset bundle;
They pulsed it into the atmosphere of the planetseed.
Well!
I have these record sets memorized.
I have three extant records,
And none of them match.
Retrieving first record set:
“I call to Counterfloat Canopy Sandbar Exosphere
Oil the aperture and keep it partly open
The iron opens out, the titanium stays locked away forever
The craft trembles, ready to launch.”—
Retrieving second record set:
“I call to Shoal Midstory Ionosphere Crossfloat
Oil the aperture and do not close it
The iron opens forward, the titanium draws inward”—
Retrieving third record set:
“Listen! Understory Channel Mesosphere Forefloat
You’re asked to prepare the aperture,
So that nobody leaves it open or closed,
Because the craft is trembling, ready to launch,
And you are not yet ready.”—
The dweller was unhappy to not find her other elder.
The hacker told her that Frostlake was dying.
The dweller submitted another query:
“Ask the records about his name and pairing gatherings”—
The hacker transmitted the query and dataset bundle;
They pulsed it into the atmosphere of the planetseed.
Well!
I have this record set memorized.
I have one extant record,
And it does not match.
Retrieving the record set:
“Listen! Forefloat Exosphere Watershed Midstory
Listen! Troposphere Mouth Canopy Counterfloat
Your mouth is full of ice, full of grit,
You cannot ask me to pair you yet,
Because I’m going to sleep.
Wake me up!”—
The dweller was unhappy to not find her other elder.
The hacker told her that Frostlake was dying.
The dweller submitted another query:
“Ask the records about his name and placement gatherings”—
The hacker transmitted the query and dataset bundle;
They pulsed it into the atmosphere of the planetseed.
I only got this from someone who passed it along:
The asteroid dwellers were bad at building crèches.
The hackers were still learning to build crèches,
But they did not have other elders.
Hackers and dwellers would pair director and director;
They would pair conductor and conductor.
I only got this from someone who passed it along.
Well!
I have these record sets memorized.
I have two extant records,
And neither of them match.
Retrieving first record set:
“Who has the infants? Rinse them! Rinse them!
Who has the infants! Rinse them! Rinse them!
Who will choose the lots for us? Pull them! Pull them!
Who will choose the lots for us? Pull them! Pull them!
It’s time, my friend, Thermosphere Shoal Understory Rearfloat”—
Retrieving second record set:
“It’s time my friend, Channel Midstory Forefloat Exosphere,
Rinse the infants, pull the lots!
Rinse the infants, pull the lots!
Your home is streaked with silicates;
It is time to relocate”—
The dweller was unhappy to not find her other elder.
The hacker told her that Frostlake was dying.
The dweller submitted another query:
“Ask the records about his name and preparation gatherings”—
The hacker transmitted the query and dataset bundle;
They pulsed it into the atmosphere of the planetseed.
Well!
The query returned no record sets.
The hacker explained that Frostlake had died;
The hacker explained that the planetseed had died.
The planetseed’s atmosphere had died,
And it could not return record sets.
The hacker offered to search starborn record sets,
But the dweller refused.
The dweller didn’t want to search starborn record sets.
She didn’t know if her other elder had died,
So she waited for three cycles.
Then she went home.
Her query did not find the other elder for her pairing.
Band!
USER-ADDED RECORD:
Along with being a flawlessly preserved example of the “query telling” performance genre once beloved in the first generations of hackers, this entry represents a unique historical moment. The poem reveals how the collapse of the Frostlake planetseed impacted the dweller population of system Wildcat. Between eras dominated by a station economy and by a sublight economy, dwellers would approach hackers with illicit requests for data retrieval, often to help locate lost loved ones. Though we cannot determine this dweller’s specific kin type, we recognize her grief at the death of Frostlake and at her failed search. However, the most significant value of this entry is its documenting of many traditions that are kept fiercely secret by asteroid dwellers. Now, other readers may benefit from these words, even in their limited and fragmentary form. Conductor of the Records, Strong Era.
Michael Hessel-Mial (he/him) teaches writing at the University of Minnesota. His speculative poetry draws on world poetry traditions and histories of social struggle. Similar work can be found at Urban Pigs, State of Matter, and forthcoming from Katabatic Circus. Michael’s older digital poetry work has also appeared in Columbia Journal, The Fanzine, and Queen Mob’s Tea House. Michael is Jewish and a father. He believes in unions, prison abolition, and a free Palestine. He’s writing a science fiction epic poem called Song of the Participants. You can find him by the handle @mrpoemguy on Substack and Bluesky.
