S1E3 - Keep My Hands Busy and My Mind Free

[AUDIO) We begin on a space station, hearing the hum of the slow turning engine. The room is large and nearly empty.

ARCHIVIST: Welcome to the Archives. Our record for review today will be from section 27: Historical Worlds. Today’s sample is from Thelddin, one of our now uninhabited mechanical mines. Before we begin I would like to take a moment to update you on the situation with our first reviewed record. The specialists believe it will be available for listeners in a few more days although there may be a few places where the audio is beyond repair. We will be advised as soon as it has been restored to the best possible quality.

Please note that any opinions expressed in these samples belong solely to the speaker on record and do not reflect the views of this station, the archival union, or the Collected Archives itself. If anything in this review causes listener distress or confusion please report to the nearest attendant for assistance. Potential sources of distress include the sound of severe weather. Please also note there will be time for questions and observations once the sample has concluded.

_[AUDIO][At the sound of an electronic swoop, the sounds of the space station fade away. They are replaced by the sound of a storm, wind gusting against stone. The sound echoes as if inside a large stone room.

[AUDIO] A rock being dragged over stone._

DES: Oof! Well, that storm came up quick. Good thing we’re already snugged up in here. Just give me a little time and it’ll be as sound as the house ever was.

[AUDIO] A baby squeals and makes small noises as Des speaks. More noises of rocks being moved.

DES: Hm, probably sounder if I’m being honest, which I suppose I should be, given everything. I’ve always felt that good conversation helped hard work along, and since everyone’s busy in the living cavern except you and me, and you’re barely old enough to hold your head up, I guess conversation falls to me. I’ll record it though, so that someday when you want to know who that old man was and they talk to you about Nanny Des you’ll have something other than echoes and tall tales to go on.

[AUDIO] The scrape of a trowel.

It’s odd to think, you won’t remember any home but here. Sure, you were born under a warm sky but by the time you have any idea what’s going on the wind’ll have worn all our old places away. Eh… You’ll likely find the caverns a comfort, safety and home, not gloomy and dark. Heh. Maybe it’s for the best. Maybe after a few more kids are born here and you start growing up, there won’t be as much longin’, pinin’ for the sun and the outside. Let me tell you, right now it’s so thick you could drink it.

[AUDIO] Happy baby squeal. The baby babble and sounds of trowel digging and scraping continue under Des.

DES: They’re still talkin’ about how much to tell you, you and any other kids we have I mean. There’s a group that wants to teach you just like they were taught, history and nearby planets and even surface agriculture just in case things heat up again or something. Some of the rest want to start a whole new batch of traditions and make history start with today, with movin’ in. Ah… I guess I don’t see how you can begin any kind of story with “We moved off the surface and into the caves and it was much better, and then Des built a wall because he knew how, and then the wind stopped comin’ in.” Too many questions live on the edges there. No. We’re a curious species, humans. You’d never let that stand.

Our story began a lot earlier than that, kiddo. Hmm. We could start it when we came to the world maybe, and some other stubborn fool like me was building a wall, except this one was under the sky, houses for new colonists, farms and wind towers. We could start it when we first tapped the core, when energy became easy and cheap, whe