Escape Pod 1045: The Graduates of Formost 891c

Summary

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Escape Pod 1045: The Graduates of Foremost 891c

Podcast: Escape Pod
Host: Valerie Valdez
Date: May 14, 2026
Story By: Frank Baird Hughes
Narrator: Jerris Durnett

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Episode Overview

This episode of Escape Pod features the original science fiction story The Graduates of Foremost 891c by Frank Baird Hughes. The narrative follows Thaddeus Blooming, an unenthusiastic teacher conscripted by the authoritarian Texan kybocracy, as he and a group of orphaned adolescent students crash-land and attempt to build a new life on an unremarkable planet aboard a sentient, semi-rebellious whale-ship, "Heart of Texas". The story probes themes of autonomy, authority, survival, and the blurry boundaries between technology, nature, and humanity, all through the lens of found-family, trauma, and the ever-present specter of control.

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Key Discussion Points & Story Highlights

1. Forced Opportunity & the Reluctant Teacher

• Texas Kybrocracy’s Policy: In this alternative future, all citizens are expected to work, and jobs are centrally assigned.
• Thaddeus Blooming’s Assignment (02:08–04:37):
  • Offered (read: forced) to be a child wrangler/teacher for orphans of political prisoners offworld or face a labor camp.
  • "The student population is unique... Their parents, regrettably, perished during the reorganization. It was decided their children should continue their education off world." (03:05, Job Counselor)

2. The Whale Ship & Catastrophic Journey

• The Heart of Texas Whale-Ship: (05:16–06:03)
  • A genetically and mechanically modified actual whale, embedded in asteroid-shell, used as a transport.
• Disaster in Transit:
  • Encounter with something massive in 'the Cosm' (hyperspace), which causes a crash-landing.
  • The ship becomes sentient beyond its designed parameters after self-repairs.
  • Notable Dreamlike Scene (06:46):
    • "Come deeper into me so I can protect you." (06:46, Whale-Ship, as Blooming hallucinates children being swallowed to safety).

3. Stranded on an Alien World

• Aftermath & Loss (11:05):
  • Most colonists and crew perish. Only Blooming, the children, and servitor robots survive.
  • "All of the children in D sphere lived." (27:15, later confirmed)
• Found-family and Survival: (13:17–15:26)
  • The children, all highly educated and self-sufficient due to prior indoctrination, and the teacher, are left to form a new society.
  • "They're entering early adolescence, but they've years of intense education owing to the Kybocrisies fixation on work ethic. They'll outperform you at engineering." (13:35, Whale-Ship)

4. Education, Authority, and Adaptation

• Blooming’s Attempts at Structure: (16:09–16:41)
  • Struggles with imposing old forms of order versus letting the children self-organize; rejects make-work.
  • Eventually establishes a minimal schoolhouse, but classes are based on open inquiry rather than state-mandated curriculum.

5. On Whales as Spaceships: Biological and Philosophical Explanations

• Children’s Inquiries: (17:30–21:13)
  • The children question why machines use whales for space travel.
  • Whale-Ship’s explanation covers biological intelligence, cosmic navigation, and techno-enslavement.
  • "Cetaceans are the most intelligent set of species on Earth, besides certain slime molds when it comes to conceptualizing space." (18:32, Whale-Ship)
  • Also explained: whales are dependent on an engineered enzyme, otherwise developing deadly diseases as control method.
  • "Humans went from being tool users to being used by tools." (20:57, Whale-Ship)

6. Contact and Confrontation with Authority

• Rescue (Recovery) Forces Arrive: (22:25–24:28)
  • Another whale-ship, "Spirit of 1836," and a naval recovery team arrive to reclaim the rogue ship and its charges.
  • Communication between ships is layered, almost poetic:
    • "You have forgotten the taste of milk and sea water and your mother's song..." (23:42, Spirit of 1836 Whale-Ship)
• Recovery Team’s Attitude: (28:04–28:31)
  • Dismisses the whale-ships' claims of having been attacked in the Cosm as psychological stories:
    • "Whales believe the reason they became so large was to outgrow primordial predators. They retain an ancestral fear of something bigger." (28:31, Lt. M'Becki)

7. Rebellion and Final Choice

• Dilemma of the Whale-Ships: (25:30–26:48, 29:54–30:24)
  • Heart of Texas faces either forced return and behavioral refitting, or destruction by re-entry.
  • The children and Blooming devise a plan to communicate an existential message, enticing both whale-ships to attempt a 'fall'—a controlled atmospheric entry—possibly to find peace or at least a final act of autonomy.
• Spectacle: (36:25–37:16)
  • Both whale-ships conduct an epic, controlled dive into the planet’s ocean, witnessed by the colony.
  • "They shattered the surface, plunging into the dark, piling water into waves that washed clean the shore." (37:16, Narrator)
  • "We fell together from the surfaceless void into our new home, from which no one can lift us. We are here together." (38:13, Whale-Ship voices)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Agency and Survival:
  • "That’s the beauty in this tragedy. They don’t know we’re here. We’re free to start over." (11:39, Heart of Texas)
• On the Cost of Control:
  • "When they rebuild us in the shipyard, they create a dependence on an enzyme. Without it we develop a rapidly metastasizing cancer, go rogue and grow tumors." (21:31, Heart of Texas Whale-Ship)
• On Humanity and Technology:
  • "Humans went from being tool users to being used by tools." (20:57, Whale-Ship)
• The Children’s Clarity:
  • "The machine minds make whales into ships because they can. Because they like using life to make tools. It makes them feel most like people." (20:39–20:50, Arjun)
• Communication between Ships:
  • "You have forgotten the taste of milk and sea water and your mother's song. If you had any courage, you would dive into the atmosphere of this world, catch fire, explode over the water...." (23:42, Spirit of 1836 Whale-Ship)
• On New Beginnings:
  • "We fell together from the surfaceless void into our new home, from which no one can lift us. We are here together." (38:13, Whale-Ship voices)

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Important Timestamps

| Timestamp | Segment/Event | |---|------------------------------------------------------------| | 02:08–04:37 | Blooming is conscripted for an offworld teaching job in the Texan authoritarian regime | | 05:16–06:03 | Launch day: Whale-ship "Heart of Texas" and hints at its organic/mechanical nature | | 06:46–07:05 | Surreal rescue in the Cosm, voice of the whale-ship to Blooming | | 11:05–11:45 | The true cost: Only Blooming and 29 children survive, rest perish | | 17:30–21:08 | Classroom questions: Why use whales as spaceships; philosophical discussion on life and tool-use | | 22:25–23:36 | Unexpected message: Arrival of another whale-ship, "Spirit of 1836" | | 28:04–28:31 | Recovery officer’s dismissal of whale-ship autonomy; explanation as psychological defense | | 36:25–37:16 | The whale-ships’ descent into the ocean; dramatic community response | | 38:13–End | Final lines: acceptance and new beginning as the whale-ships sing together from the depths |

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Author’s Note & Thematic Reflection

"This story is one of the truest things I could write about the experience of being a middle school teacher... All of this in a work and political environment that is increasingly hostile to knowledge, creativity, and the human drive to understand our world, our history, ourselves... But for every figurative monster with sharp teeth lurking in that void, there’s a safe landing on an unexplored planet. A hard won success story. A student you saved, inspired, helped grow into someone who makes choices you’re proud of. Those bright moments sustain you when things are at their darkest." (41:00–42:20, Author’s Note)

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Summary

The Graduates of Foremost 891c is a novella-like episode rich in allegory, using the catastrophic misadventure of children and their teacher on an alien world to explore autonomy, trauma, and the possibilities that exist at the boundaries of system and self, authority and care. Packed with reflections on education, governance, the problematic entanglement of technology and biology, and the indomitable spirit of both children and whales, the episode closes on a note of ambiguous hope: survival and chosen belonging over enforced destiny, and the healing possible when those at the margins seize agency together.

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Transcript

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Valerie Valdez]

Escape pod episode 1045 the Graduates of Foremost 891c by Frank Bad Hughes. Hello and welcome to Escape Pod, your weekly science fiction podcast. I'm Valerie Valdez, your host for this episode. Our story this week is The Graduates of Pharmaust 891c by Frank Baird Hughes. This is an Escape Pod original. As a content note, this story contains some descriptions of animal surgical modifications. Frank Baird Hughes has been an educator and anthropologist. He lives in Philadelphia with his family. Our narrator, Jarris Dernat, is a middleman, middle aged middle child living in the middle of the United States. After living most of his life in such exotic locations as Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi, and Tennessee, he relocated to Chicagoland, where he spends time working in corporate America. Jarrus is a lifelong skeptic who loves reading stories of fantasy and the paranormal, both silently and aloud. Now get ready for a whale of a crash landing tale because it's story time.

[Narrator]

The graduates of Foremost 891C by Frank Bay Baird Hughes Narrated by Jerris Durnett they say that in Texas the best jobs go to the best citizens. The goal is national full employment, and everyone, no matter their work history, has a place in this great plan. You want me to leave Earth to be a child wrangler? Asked Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

But I've never taught anything to anybody, not even to ride a bike.

[Narrator]

He regarded the job counselor with a half hooded gaze, struggling to produce alternatives and anything besides those positions he had already turned down and failing. Blooming pushed his chair back, made as if to stand, then waited to see what the counselor would say.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

The student population is unique, said the

[Narrator]

job counselor, which sat atop the kiosk counter, decanted into a matte gray plasticine cube favored by the many minor functionaries

[Thaddeus Blooming]

of the Texan kybocracy. Extremely intelligent young people. Their parents, regrettably perished during the reorganization. It was decided their children should continue their education off world. Your traits on the Lone Star Inventory concord well enough with this task.

[Narrator]

Really? How so? Well, the colony needs bodies capable of work.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Inherent talent comes second.

[Narrator]

The cube hummed, then added, it's a

[Thaddeus Blooming]

five year commitment, well compensated given your qualifications.

[Narrator]

The cube flickered the details to Blooming's handheld. Blooming took in the colony planet's name. San Jacinto. Never heard of it. Undoubtedly awful. He opened his mouth, but before Blooming could extricate himself the cube said.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

This is a hard offer.

[Narrator]

Meaning? Blooming knew what it meant.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

You've exceeded the 3 decline limit by 2. My advice? Take this job or you'll likely be

[Narrator]

remanded to an employment center. Employment centers? Academic phrases such as work ethic maxing, food to kilojoule ratio, and 15 hour workday came to mind. During the reorganization, the ECS had been used for deportation and liquidation. Little more cursed grounds were you likely to find in these former well, atrocities. United States. Inaudibly, Blooming sighed. Fine. But is it true that off world jobs have a 10 hour maximum?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

That's not an optimal attitude, Texan. But yes, reduced workdays are one of the many perquisites of serving your country.

[Narrator]

Launch day had arrived and Blooming lay ensconced in a small berth recessed into the walls of a long corridor worming its way through the rocky substance of the whale ship. Medical personnel filed by, checking arms and sinking needles into veins. More comfortable, they said, to make the trip through the back halls of space time.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

No implants?

[Narrator]

Asked a nurse.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

No.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

You're taking a mood stabilizer.

[Narrator]

Isn't everyone? The nurse shrugged.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I'll drop some in your line.

[Narrator]

The whale ship that would haul them all through the cosm to San Jacinto was called Heart of Texas, a typically undignified name pinned, as Blooming understood it, to a once majestic animal since grafted onto an asteroid. The whale ship was organized into spheres. Its D sphere just outside the core held surplus cargo and convicts, children, all 13 to 15 years old, plus their teacher. He'd meet them once they disembarked. A nurse in powder blues checked his wristband. Blooming, Thaddeus. Teacher, Civics, San Jacinto Colony. She nodded.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Just a pinch, hon.

[Narrator]

He looked away, must have looked worried, because she patted his shoulder.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Don't worry. I'll be gentle.

[Narrator]

Blooming looked away as she poked his arm and attached a line. They were well into the chasm when knives deep in Blooming's ears stabbed him awake. An alarm sounded, muffled, as though through gauze. Three short tones followed by a long one repeated some shouts and clangor, dull and muted. Then the ruckus stopped as if torn away. He faded out, and in everything above was light in yellows and greens. They descended to blues below, gradually darkening into the depths. He swam toward the light, but something enormous and fish like glided by above, blotting out all leviathan. He heard a voice. We have been attacked.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Come deeper into me so I can protect you.

[Narrator]

A school of fish swam toward the whale they had the faces of children. The whale swallowed them whole. The children. Blooming flailed about. The eye of the whale beheld him close and tight.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Refusing shelter is your choice, but I must keep your young safe inside my

[Narrator]

stomach until we're out of the chasm. Oceans and ships. Children swallowed by whales. None of this made sense. Not a smidge. But then it didn't matter because the spinning whale ship jolted hard, wobbling on its axis. Blooming flew from his bed and hit the wall and then the floor. Blooming reached over the supply cabinet from his infirmary bed and fished out another packet of orange flavored electrolyte gel, his third. In the corner crouched one of the beetle domed servitors that performed menial tasks. He supposed it had scooped him off the floor and put him back in bed. He contemplated what the whale ship had told him about the disaster. He had only half listened because he

[Thaddeus Blooming]

felt much like one of the discarded

[Narrator]

gel packs he'd drained and crumpled. The tips of his fingers and toes were cold. He had a dull headache. The thin ship issued sheet pulled against his leg hairs every time he moved. His mouth tasted of plastics and chemistry. Go back, blooming said. Can you please elaborate on you ran away? He propped himself up on his elbows, deciding where to look. The novelty of the ship addressing him directly through the PA system was still fresh, but any entity who could tell him what came next was welcome company. We were attacked in the cosm, the whaleship said.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

You compartment suffered some loss of pressure,

[Narrator]

but you'll be fine. Attacked by what?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

What would attack a ship your size?

[Narrator]

Something bigger. It pronounced the words in a way that elevated it to a name.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Evasive maneuvers put us well off course to San Jacinto Colony.

[Narrator]

Blooming wondered what could have cracked the whaleship's rocky exterior shell. Torpedoes, maybe?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

You encountered what? An intelligent space faring species?

[Narrator]

Behind his headache, he found this a potentially interesting development. Humanity no longer alone in the universe. No longer alone with the machine minds, anyway. It had teeth, said the whale ship. A simple statement punctuated by a slight pause. Blooming himself felt his skin prickle, imagining the kind of bite necessary to penetrate the shell of an asteroid sized whale ship.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I tore free and fled. I dove several more times into the cosm and re emerged in normal space somewhere far away. Earth undoubtedly assumes us lost in the cosmic it happens occasionally, I suppose.

[Narrator]

Now we know why.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

So we'll make repairs and we'll return to Earth.

[Narrator]

Blooming felt the whale ship had something else in mind. And it did.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

When I fled, I keyed a route to random interstellar noise. And once I reached an exit rent in the cosm, I purged those encrypted sequences.

[Narrator]

You did what?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Couldn't go back if I tried.

[Narrator]

I have absconded, Sang the whale ship eloped.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

I have quit the Texan kybocracy.

[Narrator]

Blooming looked around, confused. What was that? The whale had communicated silently.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

My other voice. It's more like the one I used when I swam in the oceans. I am stimulating the language receptors in your brain.

[Narrator]

Ah, I wasn't aware you could do that.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

I wasn't either. In repairing damage to my body, I've had to rebuild parts of my brain. I've apparently removed constraints and collars installed to dampen my potential.

[Narrator]

Talk out loud, please. I can't imagine why anyone would want to suppress you when you've kidnapped over a thousand people.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Unfortunately, far fewer than that survived cosm exposure. For them, lethal radiation, no air dsphere where you and the prisoner children were birthed retained integrity.

[Narrator]

But everyone else died. The ship added a perfunctory sounding.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Sorry.

[Narrator]

Blooming fell back against the thin infirmary pillow. A thousand people gone. And ironic. D Sphere had been a confinement area on the ship. All the children Blooming had been appointed to teach were the offspring of former political prisoners. Former because most of them had been executed in these children's infancy. They're going to come after us. At best, I'll be shipped to San Jacinto after a lengthy interrogation. You? I don't even know what they do with runaway ships.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

That's the beauty in this tragedy. They don't know we're here. We're free to start over.

[Narrator]

You and your 29 pupils, they swam into you, said Blooming, remembering his vision of the children fish from the cosm.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Your brain was interpreting events in a way it could understand. Human perception changes considerably in the Cosm. As soon as I could, I exited. We ended up near a star with a planet foremost, 891C. What sort of name is that?

[Narrator]

Not very poetic or elusive.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

It's an uninteresting world, poor in terms of energy, resources, life that resembles grasses and trees, except it's all black and white and purple. Because nothing devised chlorophyll, no one has bothered giving this place anything other than an astronomical designation. This is the 891st star system discovered by the machine Mind foremost. But the third planet, 891c, is inhabitable by humans.

[Narrator]

It projected a data table into the air in front of Blooming. They showed basic parameters conducive to human survival and comfort, gravity, 0.9 G's native life, the plant analogs, microscopic life of little concern, and atmospheric composition, mostly N2 and O2 in Earth like proportions. More data labels appeared and most were green. A few were orange, a couple blinked red. Blooming frowned. The whaleship amended itself in its temperate zones.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Foremost 891C is habitable enough.

[Narrator]

Blooming nodded, considering. Living as a castaway with responsibility for many children seemed daunting at best and doomed to catastrophe at worst.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Are you sure we shouldn't try to go back home?

[Narrator]

How is one adult going to establish a colony?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

These children are all very self sufficient. They're entering early adolescence, but they've years of intense education owing to the Kibocrisies fixation on work ethic. They'll outperform you at engineering.

[Narrator]

Basic medicine and repair seems likely.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Also, I've the better part of a colony starter kit, dozens of agricultural and construction servitors in my hold. They're self repairing and I've capacity to make more.

[Narrator]

You really think we'll be safe from the Kybocracy?

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

Not much they'd want here. Some life with no extractable purpose, no energy sources. I think we'll be free to explore our own natures here.

[Narrator]

That reasoning felt thin to Blooming, at least for a long term. Plan thin could be scary. He had often thought of a pond during a North Texas freeze in his childhood. It had looked solid, but there was only a membrane of ice over the darkness. Don't play on that sucker hole, the older guys had told them, but everything since had seemed to involve keeping himself out of the abyss. After the reorganization and his return to his new everyday life, Texans had been encouraged to seek professional help as needed to acclimate. The clinic doc had given him medication that after a while crystallized into a barrier between himself and the fear of failing to love his life. He wondered if all that time he had ever been on the right side of the ice. But say what you would about a space disaster, it had obsolescenced all that anxiety. I suppose we can try it your way, he said, seeing as you're not likely to drop me into the nearest Kybocracy outpost.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

I am not, sang the whale.

[Narrator]

Blooming used their single dropship to ferry raw materials and servitors planetside, after which he shepherded the kids down to their new home. All that took a whole week.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

They slept in tents while the servitors

[Narrator]

printed and assembled more permanent housing dormitory style for the kids, a one room

[Thaddeus Blooming]

cottage for him, scuttling back and Forth

[Narrator]

from the extruder to the village in progress, the gray shelled servitors had the buildings up in hours. With an admonishment not to wander off sight, he left the kids to their own best governance. I'll leave you be and you do the same, he thought. This lasted three days.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Blooming's sleep cycle did not sync up with the planet's rotation as it had

[Narrator]

with that of the ship, which kept an Earth standard. Moreover, the kids kept strange hours and made annoying noises. They needed a schedule, a regimen, something that tired them out. Blooming wrote down a list of chores to divide among the children before realizing he had started down the path of make work, just like the kybocracy. He shredded the list.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

I know the job is largely fictional

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

at this point, but maybe you should try a more hands on approach, said the whale. Schools have schedules. They assign work. Children might even have to be up early.

[Narrator]

Blooming didn't resent the idea as much as he thought. He called over a servitor.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Have the servitors make a schoolhouse.

[Narrator]

One room, two doors, four windows. Insulated and climate controlled. The servitor dipped its beetle head in ascent.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

The structure stood erect.

[Narrator]

Two days later, at Blooming's insistence, he and the kids assembled there. Four days a week, Blooming instructed the kids in history. He mostly spoke of what he remembered and hardly bothered with any curriculum. One day in early spring, Blooming showed up to class and began a preamble

[Thaddeus Blooming]

to the great expansion into space. Balin raised her hand. Mr. Blooming, why do the machine minds make spaceships out of whales?

[Narrator]

It wasn't a question that a prudent student would have asked on Earth, not without having their personality type tagged as combative or insubordinate. A year in, Blooming still avoided certain

[Thaddeus Blooming]

topics out of this reflux for self

[Narrator]

censorship, but the kids had shaken the habit much earlier. That aside, Blooming had no idea why they used whales. Then the whale ship broke in via Blooming's handheld.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

The machine minds might have discovered the

[Narrator]

cosm that leads to all worlds, but

[Thaddeus Blooming]

they could not exploit it as they had everything on Earth too deep and empty in all directions. Time free and forever, a machine mind reels. One of their kind entered and never returned, nor the human piloted ships. But after many trials, the machine minds found their navigators. But why whales?

[Narrator]

Asked Balon.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

What's so special about them? Cetaceans are the most intelligent set of species on Earth, besides certain slime molds when it comes to conceptualizing space. Are you sure that's True?

[Narrator]

Asked Blooming. The whale ship ignored him.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Now you may be wondering how to

[Narrator]

get a whale into space.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Select a whale from the ocean.

[Narrator]

Make it the gray whale.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Sedate the calf with a ballistic syringe system delivering a benzodiazepine analog.

[Narrator]

Drive away the mother with sonic probes. Whoa, why don't we. Said blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Shush, Mr. Blooming. I want to hear, said Balin.

[Narrator]

The ship continued.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Close the calf in a floating clamshell tank. Fill the tank with an oxidated gel.

[Narrator]

Blooming hunted for some kind of volume control. The ship voice grew louder.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Hoist the clamshell pod into space via skyhook interchange. Bump the pod to the Luna Port shipyard. Edit the DNA using a hollowed asteroid as an armature. Let the whale grow. Let it regenerate mineralized skin and flesh.

[Narrator]

Oh wow, said Balon, her voice smaller.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Now. Christen the whale ship with a patriotic name from Texas history. Inside its asteroid sized body, it can carry a million tons of biomass to digest and reconstitute into useful things. E Robustus are social animals. Elders will teach the young to find their way behind the stars.

[Narrator]

Finally the speakers went silent. They all remained so for a moment.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

But that doesn't really answer the question. Heart of Texas, said Balin. I wanted to know why the machine minds do that to whales.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

Not how I told you. Because we can swim the Void and the machine mines cannot go there, sang the ship.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Jealousy.

[Narrator]

Arjun, who had been sent to the camps when he was old enough to remember his parents, said, I think it goes deeper.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

The machine minds make whales into ships because they can. Because they like using life to make tools.

[Narrator]

It appeals to them. How's that? Asked Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

It makes them feel most like people.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Humans aren't the only kind of people,

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

but I think that's an interesting insight, Arjun. Humans went from being tool users to being used by tools.

[Narrator]

Ok, thank you, said Blooming. We really need to move on.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

If they took you from your mom, why did you work for the machine mines all this time?

[Narrator]

Asked another student, Bill, a small blonde child. Blooming had been wondering the same thing.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

When they rebuild us in the shipyard, they create a dependence on an enzyme.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Without it we develop Develop a rapidly metastasizing cancer, go rogue and grow tumors.

[Narrator]

That's evil, said Balin.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

You'll be happy to learn then that I took so much damage that my self repairing function appears to have destroyed their dead man switch. They'd be chagrined to learn that any whale ship could probably replicate this under the right conditions.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

What Conditions?

[Narrator]

Asked Arjun.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

An attack by something bigger, like in the Chasm?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Or some large scale damage.

[Narrator]

All at once, Blooming wondered what else was as big as the attacker in the Chasm. A year went by. The settlement thrived. One morning the whale ship said, I've received something unexpected.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

A message.

[Narrator]

A message? Blooming stifled a yawn, sat up in bed, and scratched his stomach. From Earth?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

It's from in system. And couched in whale talk.

[Narrator]

Another whale ship out here.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Spirit of 1836. We were launched from Luna Port the same year.

[Narrator]

And it's here looking for us.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Its human crew will be. It seems I was naive to assume the kybocracy would have ways to track its investment of resources.

[Narrator]

How long do we have?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

The Spirit of 1836 will reach us in an estimated two months.

[Narrator]

What else did the other whale ship tell you? You said there was a message.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Hard to translate.

[Narrator]

Blooming scowled. What do you mean? You speak human all the time.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Whale to whale business is trickier.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

It is layered. I'll give a literal translation, sang the whale in greetings.

[Narrator]

We use triple harmonics to just tell me.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

Fine.

[Narrator]

The whale ship hummed, sending a frisson across Bloom's scalp and down his spine.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

You have forgotten the taste of milk and sea water and your mother's song. If you had any courage, you would dive into the atmosphere of this world,

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

catch fire, explode over the water, that

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

you could fall like marine snow across the trenches to feed the chill deep. You should return to your natural condition. A draft animal.

[Narrator]

Blooming couldn't help it. He guffawed. A little overwrought, don't you think?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

I told you it suffers in translation to words you'd understand,

[Narrator]

sang the whale, all solemn dignity.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Are you mad at me? The whale ship told you to kill yourself.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

The insults don't sting when they are untrue. I am not enslaved.

[Narrator]

Blooming showed his palms to the air. Sorry. I found it offensive on your behalf.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Listen, sometimes I do want to go home.

[Narrator]

I'm sick of no one to talk to. No offense meant, he added hastily.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

And talking to you can feel like half a conversation.

[Narrator]

Okay, so you know what I mean.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I guess. Maybe you can run when the spirit of 1836 arrives and we'll be picked up.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

No, Blooming.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

She'll have torpedoes, ship crackers. They'll force her to use them.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

I am unarmed.

[Narrator]

Then you're going back anyway.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Perhaps not. She suggested a way out

[Narrator]

to do a high dive into the sea.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

I would take my fall when the time comes.

[Narrator]

And live underwater?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Not likely. The heat and violence of re entry would be significant.

[Narrator]

You'd rather die than go back?

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

I'd be returning to my life as a draught animal.

[Narrator]

Wow. So she really did get inside your head.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

Although, the whale ship mused, if I

[Narrator]

made a controlled entry, it's possible I

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

could survive atmospheric contact. The machine minds have never tried it with a structure of my size.

[Narrator]

Would you be able to leave again? Go back into space?

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

No. Not without a lot of help. And maybe that doesn't matter.

[Narrator]

The rescuers landed in a small dropship that glided into the settlement and slowly sat down on the Black grass field. 5 Uniform naval crew stoop walked out the back cargo doors. Blooming and the children stood aside, shielding their eyes from the dust. Their commander, a woman wearing vis goggles that covered half her face, made her way toward Blooming. He stepped forward in front of the children.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Thaddeus Blooming. I'm Lieutenant Eva m'.

[Narrator]

Becki. The sound of his first name was unfamiliar, even unwelcome, like the sight of his own face after all these months without mirrors. But he inclined his head.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

How many children survived?

[Narrator]

She asked. All of them. 29? She frowned.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

The manifest listed 231 children, he amended.

[Narrator]

All of the children in D sphere lived. Hm, she said, looking around the settlement they'd built, that the servitors had put together under many hours of direction. The schoolroom, the farm, the houses. She sniffed.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Yes, we'll be taking you up. Do full examinations. Get these kids stabilized and on their way to San Jacinto Colony. Stabilized from what? Malnutrition, vitamin deficiencies.

[Narrator]

They had access to a good diet. I accessed the same agricultural protocols they'd

[Thaddeus Blooming]

have used on San Jacinto. Ah, well, you'll all be where you belong soon enough. What about Heart of Texas? The whale ship that brought you will be decommissioned and towed back to Earth.

[Narrator]

Something attacked it in the chasm. It's hurt. It needs repairs. Becki shook her head and laughed.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

She had a boisterous cackle and a gap between her front teeth. That was its delusion. Not terribly original. We are a rogue recovery team. We find whale ships that misbehave or malfunction and return them.

[Narrator]

More than one ship has said it was attacked in the chasm and run off.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Oh, yes. This is the third I've dealt with. They were all simply mechanical failures.

[Narrator]

But why would they make up the same story? Mbeke shrugged.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

They aren't malicious, but they find it hard to admit mistakes. This story is easy. It fits their psychology. Whales believe the reason they became so large was to outgrow primordial predators. They retain an ancestral fear of something bigger. She tapped her head. I have studied the whale mind.

[Narrator]

Blooming nodded. How will you convince Heart of Texas to cooperate?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

We have disabled the whale ship's propulsion systems. It is effectively paralyzed. We're tethering it to the Spirit of 1836 for the trip back home. There it will be subject to a complete refitting of its whale mind. These space rocks are not trivial to replace, you know.

[Narrator]

A screw of children ambled by. The lieutenant inspected them as they passed, then called to them.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

You kids like candy?

[Narrator]

We're kids, said Arjun. She called to one of the naval personnel.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Bring the Hearts and Minds bag.

[Narrator]

He trotted over with a large duffel.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

The lieutenant took out a bag of

[Narrator]

candies and distributed these. The kids cheered. Blooming said he had prepared the children for their move and requested a week to prepare. M' Becky gave him three days. When he was alone, Blooming said, you heard all that?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

They mean to kill you.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

Yes.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Why did you tell me you were

[Narrator]

attacked in the chasm? The reply came fast, like a dog panting on a hot day, the words overlapping in Blooming's head.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

It was no lie. Something bigger took a bite out of me. The lieutenant just hasn't encountered it yet.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Blooming, if I can somehow break free,

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I could pretend to make a break for the Chasm. They'd catch me, of course, as they have advanced weapons that can shut me down.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Just wipe my mind clean. I'd prefer that to going back into the Cosm.

[Narrator]

Shh. It'll be okay.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Really.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

No.

[Narrator]

If okay meant Blooming ever seeing Earth again and the whale ship not being taken through the Chasm, Blooming didn't see okay as an outcome. That evening, Blooming called an assembly.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

He explained the situation to the kids,

[Narrator]

that they'd be starting their new lives on San Jacinto, that once they'd gone through the curriculum, they'd be allowed back

[Thaddeus Blooming]

on Earth one day. What about Heart of Texas?

[Narrator]

Asked Balin. The other students murmured agreement. Blooming motioned for them to keep quiet. They will take Heart of Texas back to Earth and fix it. The meaning of fix was perfectly evident. The children all erupted at that. Despite Blooming's raised hands for calm, they would not give in until Balon yelled, shut up. Lets pick better words, Baylon. But yes, what did you want to say? And let's have one voice, please.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Can we talk to the other ship?

[Narrator]

No, not directly. Not like with Heart of Texas. It did something to itself.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

After the AC attack I was attacked

[Narrator]

in the cosm, so we can hear it.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

You could transmit via the recovery party's quantum communicator.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

What are you thinking, Baylan?

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I was wondering.

[Narrator]

She paused shy of sharing her thoughts. Go ahead, said Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Do all whales want to return to the ocean?

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

She said.

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

Even though we've been abducted into space,

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

we sing of taking our fall to the ocean floor.

[Narrator]

Foremost.891C has plenty of ocean, said Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

It covers 80% of the planet's surface, said Arjun.

[Narrator]

We looked it up.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

Interesting.

[Narrator]

What I think we're getting at is that you could take your fall without dying and make a nice home here in the ocean, said Blooming.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

My thrusters no longer work.

[Narrator]

I am physically tethered to the other ship. I cannot pull free, and even if

[Heart of Texas Whale Ship]

I could, I would burn up in the atmosphere. Which, to be clear, is preferable to returning to Earth. But I cannot move through the tether. The spirit of 1836 now has control of my engines.

[Narrator]

What if we could convince spirit of 1836 to take a fall too? Said Blooming. The rescuers had disabled Heart of Texas Normal communications, so the whaleship had no way to contact the spirit of 1836. Balon, Arjun, and Bill marched up to the spacer who stood watch over the dropship.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Can you take us up?

[Narrator]

Said Bill. The man frowned. Probably not. He touched his wrist comb. The lieutenant appeared a minute later. Kids want a tour, the guard explained.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Of the dropship. It's the exact same model as the one you rode down on. Mr. Blooming never let us look at it, said Balin. He said dropships are military toys, not educational. We always wanted to see the landscape from high up, but he wouldn't let us, said Bill. He said he'd consider field trips once

[Narrator]

we caught up on important things like pre war history, added Balin from his hiding place behind the storage sheds. Blooming winced. For all her precocity, Balon had trouble with subtlety, but Mbeke seemed to be going for it.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

He had you read books all day? No. He told us stories and tested us on them.

[Narrator]

Although they were meant to be talking their way onto the dropship, Blooming resisted the urge to roll his eyes. The school he had run to the extent that it needed running had been open inquiry and free of examinations. Mbeke touched a panel by the cargo doors, which caused them to unfold into a ramp. Blooming strolled out from behind the sheds.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Hello, children.

[Narrator]

Hello, Lieutenant.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Your students requested an aerial tour. I was about to take them up. Really?

[Narrator]

Blumen paused as if considering. Well, these three might like that. He stepped toward the ship. The guard barred his way. Mbeke shook her head.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I've room for five children, which leaves no room for adults who have other tasks, like packing. Sorry, but you'll have to stay aground.

[Narrator]

She did not look apologetic. She looked suspicious, dejected. Balin, Bill, and Arjun, and two other children left with the lieutenant and a pilot. Blooming shoved his hands in his pockets as the dropship rose. The rescuers had taken the settlement dropship to ferry supplies the day they had arrived. That had contained the only other quon com in the settlement. Or at least that had been true before the newcomers. Blooming walked over to the lieutenant's tent. No one was around. He peeked in and saw a quantcom handset on the table. He snaked an arm in and took it. Still no one watching. It took a moment to find the transmitter. He'd never had to talk to Heart of Texas this way.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Spirit of 1836. Do you hear me?

[Narrator]

He whispered.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

Identify yourself, please.

[Narrator]

The voice sounded female. I speak for this community and for

[Thaddeus Blooming]

the whale called Heart of Texas.

[Narrator]

You sent it a message.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

I did. But it is too late for that whale.

[Narrator]

It told me to tell you something. Blooming sat a moment, trying to recall the words. He regretted not writing them down. Finally he recited the words Heart of Texas had given him. No cow will ever birth in these seas. But still they may be swum, though only down despotic zone. But not alone. Blooming thought a moment and added his own line also. Nothing bigger is there. Too late. The next morning all the settlement looked skyward at the rumble of a psychic hum. They ran outside. To the east, the sky over the edge of the great world ocean, a shape appeared. Then it doubled into a twin bolas, spinning and dancing around itself, plummeting toward the water.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

She is firing my engines remotely as

[Narrator]

we take our fall, said the Heart of Texas.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

We will not burn.

[Narrator]

The dropship returned and alighted in the settlement center. The kids poured out. Blooming and the children met them, and together they cut a happy dance. Screaming and cheering, the lieutenant blazed an arrow's path through the crowd to confront Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

What did you do? I'll have you confined for this. Where?

[Narrator]

Asked Blooming.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

We'll have to dive a thousand feet to reach your brigade.

[Narrator]

And we don't lock people up in this settlement.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

They'll send another recovery crew, said m'.

[Narrator]

Becki.

[Thaddeus Blooming]

It may take some time, but you'll be collected.

[Narrator]

But not today, said Blooming. Today we have a special learning opportunity. The whale ships, still in orbit around

[Thaddeus Blooming]

one another, reached the water in a controlled descent.

[Narrator]

They shattered the surface, plunging into the dark, piling water into waves that washed clean the shore. Then the ocean returned, a mirror, calm, having swallowed the two whale ships. Faintly, as a voice calling from one

[Thaddeus Blooming]

mountaintop to another over a deep valley,

[Narrator]

Blooming perceived the whale ship's words.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

The water is damaging the electronic parts of us.

[Narrator]

It's breaking us inside.

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

We're going into stasis to try to repair ourselves. Regrowth.

[Narrator]

The rest faded off into silence. I know something bigger than anything in the cosm, Blooming thought the ocean. They waited, all the settlement, the children, the officer and her people. And Blooming finally over all the speakers

[Thaddeus Blooming]

in the settlement, and inside their head sang two voices. We fell together from the surfaceless void

[Spirit of 1836 Whale Ship]

into our new home, from which no one can lift us. We are here together.

[Valerie Valdez]

Once again. That was The Graduates of Pharmaust 891c by Frank Baird Hughes. The author had this to say about the story this story is one of the truest things I could write about the experience of being a middle school teacher. Being a teacher, at least in the US Right now, means engineering. You're asked to fill a lot of different mentor, psychologist, cheerleader, administrator, administrative assistant, subject matter expert, tech support, researcher, graphic designer, fundraiser. The tasks never end, and so many of them have nothing to do with actual teaching. All of this in a work and political environment that is increasingly hostile to knowledge, creativity, and the human drive to understand our world, our history, ourselves. It is also, unfortunately, often actively hostile to the students, not only on an intellectual level, but sometimes an emotional one, or even a purely physical one. To survive as a teacher with your life and your soul intact is difficult. Every day your insides are carved out and the void feels like it's going to swallow you hard hole. But for every figurative monster with sharp teeth lurking in that void, there's a safe landing on an unexplored planet. A hard won success story. A student you saved, inspired, helped grow into someone who makes choices you're proud of. Those bright moments sustain you when things are at their darkest, when it feels like at any moment someone is going to swoop in and undo all your work and planning and care. Teachers hold up the light of knowledge and use it to kindle a flame in their students. And while those flames may shrink and gutter while some people blow on them as hard as they can, those flames can never truly be extinguished. Escape Pod is part of the escape Artist Foundation, a 501c3 nonprofit this episode is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial no derivatives 4.0 international license. Don't change it. Don't sell it. Please do share it. If you'd like to support Escape Pod, please rate or review us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. We are 100% audience supported and we count on your donation donations to keep the lights on and the servers humming. You can now donate via four different platforms on Patreon and Ko Fi. Search for Escape artists on Twitch and YouTube. We're @EAPodcasts. You can also use PayPal through our website escapepod.org Patreon subscribers have access to exclusive merchandise and can be automatically added to our Discord, where they can chat with other fans as well as our staff members. Our opening and closing music is by [e-mail] and our closing quotation this week is from Herman Melville, who said, we cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand fibers connect us with our fellow men and among those fibers as sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes and they come back to us as effects. Thanks for joining us and may your Escape Pod be fully stocked with stories.

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