"The Salt and the Cure" by Rukman Ragas + "Sensor Ghosts" by Deborah L. Davitt

Summary

LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE Podcast Summary

Episode Date: February 19, 2026
Stories Featured:

• “The Salt and the Cure” by Rukman Ragas
• “Sensor Ghosts” by Deborah L. Davitt
  Host/Narrator: Stefan Rudnicki

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Overview

In this episode of the LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE podcast, award-winning narrator Stefan Rudnicki presents two evocative short stories: “The Salt and the Cure” by Rukman Ragas, a meditation on faith, loss, and the material legacy of gods; and “Sensor Ghosts” by Deborah L. Davitt, a haunting and atmospheric sci-fi mystery set on Saturn’s moon Titan. Together, these stories explore profoundly human themes—how we process catastrophe, face the unknown, and seek meaning or connection—in speculative worlds both fantastical and rigorously scientific.

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Story 1: “The Salt and the Cure” by Rukman Ragas

Beginning: [01:16]

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Aftermath of the Divine:
  The story opens in the wake of the prophesied God Killing. The community is lost, their god—a massive, once-living barrier now lying motionless—no longer provides either spiritual guidance or supernatural protection.

• Faith as Fabrication:
  The narrator, the aging Pope, grapples with guilt over nurturing a manufactured mythology; the supposed divinity was always a contrivance fueled by salt spells and dire magic, not a true celestial being.

• The Burden on the Young:
  The God Killer, characterized as little more than a frightened boy, is cast as a scapegoat caught in the machinery of faith and politics:

  “There was a smidge of fear creeping up his voice, like he’d finally realized what he’d done, but wouldn’t lay claim to the understanding.” (03:20)

• Pending Catastrophe:
  With the divine deterrent gone, the narrator fears the city will now be vulnerable to hostile conquerors. The shattering of faith threatens real-world destruction, not just metaphysical unease:

  “The lies that I built over the decades to keep our city safe have all fallen in a night...The salt wind will carry the news of the idol’s death far and wide, and soon our shores will flood red under their scythes.” (04:17)

• Moral Complexity & Confession:
  The Pope’s confidante, Alba, challenges him to reveal the truth to their followers, letting them “go to their deaths with truth.”

  “You could tell them the truth, Seth...Let them go to their deaths with truth.” (06:58)

• Ingenious Salvation:
  In a moment of bleak inspiration, Alba’s bitter curse—“Salt cure you for all you've wrought on us and him” (07:35)—leads the Pope to an epiphany. The immense corpse, wind-cured and salt-weathered, can become shelter: a literal eternal home.

• Transformation of Faith:
  The remains of their god will be repurposed—steps carved from ribs, the heart hollowed into a chapel. The prophecy retrofits itself.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• The Pope’s Reflection on Myths and Protection:

  “There’s no mythos of a sleeping God to keep out the conquistadors...” (04:24)

• On Responsibility:

  “But how does one chide a child that knew not its crime? The veil of faith...was not his crime to bear, but mine.” (04:50)

• Revelation of Salvation:

  “Alba, you might have saved us all. Tomorrow I would order the masons and the tanners too, call all the salters from the fields, all the butchers for the job. The skin was cured, the bones were strong. Only the flesh would soil. We would carve out the flesh, cut steps onto his ribs. He himself would be our eternal home.” (08:10)

Structure

• World-building is brisk and evocative—congregations, salt winds, cathedrals, and faith are interwoven with tangible, bodily images.
• Dialogue is both somber and occasionally darkly witty, reflecting regret, age, and fleeting hope.

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Story 2: “Sensor Ghosts” by Deborah L. Davitt

Beginning: [11:31]

Key Discussion Points & Insights

• Atmospheric Titan Setting:
  The harsh, blue methane seas and icy spires of Saturn’s moon set a vivid, isolated stage. Beatriju Cardona and Lars Carlson, long-time mission partners, are assigned to investigate the mystery of a lost survey team.

• Partnership & Isolation:
  Communication is both a shield and a comfort; their banter mixes professional tension with the intimacy of shared danger:

  “It’s kind of killing me not knowing what happened to them.” – Beatriju (12:49)
  “Leaving me to break in a new partner here on rover detail. With my luck, whoever I got would snore.” – Lars (13:12)

• Ever-Present Surveillance:
  Control—an omniscient, faceless authority—monitors every vital sign, thought, and breath, straining both autonomy and privacy:

  “She had no privacy from Control, that faceless panel of experts in their fields sitting around banks of computer screens. Sometimes she resented the omnipresence of Control in her life. The rest of the time it was a comfort.” (14:45)

• Paranormal Overtones:
  As Beatriju explores the deserted vessel Phantom, she is assailed by both rational danger (gas mix off, possible hypoxia) and irrational dread—fleeting shapes and glimpses, noises, and the sense of being haunted.

• Compounding Technical Failures:
  The mystery deepens: oxygen sensors have failed, alarms short-circuited. Crew escape pods are all missing and aim towards the vast sea, not the nearby shore.

• Recorded Clues from the Lost Crew:
  Cracked captain’s logs detail ongoing encounters with a mysterious sonar signature—a “sensor ghost”—deep below the ship:

  “Something large and moving...it looks like a sensor ghost, but it varies in position and it’s following us.” (28:47)
  “The more often we encounter the sensor ghost, the more doubt I hear in his voice.” (29:50)

• Reality or Madness:
  Both Beatriju and Lars sense presences, voices, and visions; are they hallucinations, or is something out there? This uncertainty intertwines the rational (scientific analysis of sensors/data) with the archetypal ghost story.

• Personal Bonds in Crisis:
  The harrowing experience draws Beatriju and Lars closer:

  “Because if you aren’t, then I say we tell Control to go fuck themselves...and I’ll keep you company. All the way back to base.” – Lars (38:36)
  “Maybe I do [care]...Does it matter?” – Lars (39:17) “It matters to me.” – Beatriju (39:20)

• Resolution:
  The technical verdict blames hypoxia and cascading equipment failures for the crew’s deaths. The truth of the sensor ghost—possibly an undiscovered lifeform—remains unproven. Beatriju and Lars choose not to report their ghostly experiences, valuing solidarity and humanity over strictly rational explanations. Lars is assigned as Beatriju’s second-in-command, reinforcing the theme of finding connection amid cosmic indifference.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Surveillance vs. Humanity:

  “Control did indeed have a fit with the medical staff, complaining mightily about spikes in both of their heart rates and blood pressure before all their sensors went dead. Then the main voice of Control came back on, sounding amused and altogether more human than they normally did, and said, ‘We sometimes forget that we’re not running robots here. We can give you an hour or two to get cleaned up and feeling more human.’” (40:12)

• On Being Haunted:

  “Ghosts weren’t real, though the sensor ghost might turn out to be something. What she’d just seen was apophenia...Humans were good at filling in patterns, which might explain the crew of the Phantom filling in details to find life where there was none, or finding it in truth. But maybe people could still be haunted nevertheless.” (35:23)

• Discovery in the Escape Pod:

  “Captain Marcel had scratched into the wall the words ‘it’s here and it’s alive.’” (38:23)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:16] — Start of “The Salt and the Cure”
• [08:10] — Pope’s revelation to repurpose the god’s body
• [11:31] — Start of “Sensor Ghosts”
• [14:45] — Commentary on Control’s omnipresence
• [28:47] — Captain's log reveals details of the sensor ghost
• [35:23] — Beatriju confronts “ghosts” — rational and irrational
• [38:23] — Discovery in escape pod (“it’s here and it’s alive”)
• [40:12] — Human connection and leniency from Control
• [41:02+] — Episode transitions to outro and non-story segments

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Tone, Language, and Structure

• Narration oscillates between lyrical, somber, and suspenseful, staying true to the reflective, philosophical weight of both stories.
• Dialogue in both stories captures vulnerability, wit, and emotional complexity; moments of tension are balanced with warmth and flashes of dark humor.

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Conclusion

This episode of the LIGHTSPEED MAGAZINE podcast offers two intricately crafted stories: one reimagining the aftershocks of theology and community, and the other entwining science fiction with the chills of a ghost tale on an alien frontier. Through both, listeners are invited to consider what haunts us—lost faiths, failed systems, the gap between myth and reality, and our relentless search for meaning and companionship as we face the unknown.

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For More Information

• Rukman Ragas: Writes speculative fiction exploring contradictions and transient obsessions; past work includes stories in Apex and Baltimore Review.
• Deborah L. Davitt: Widely published in SFF and poetry journals; author of several poetry collections, more at debraldavitt.com.
• Narrator Stefan Rudnicki: Double Grammy winner, acclaimed audiobook producer since 2010.
• Podcast Produced by Skyboat Media, Edited by John Joseph Adams

Transcript

[Stefan Rudnicki]

Light speed. Greetings and welcome to the Lightspeed Magazine podcast. Stefan Rodnicki here today for your listening pleasure we have two exemplary stories. First up is the short shot the Salt and the Cure by Rukman Ragas. Narrated by me, Stefan Rudnicki, right after this message.

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[Stefan Rudnicki]

and now the Salt and the Cure by Rukman Ragas. The days that followed the God Killing were rife with confusion. The congregation couldn't come to an agreement. The greatest prophecy of our religion, where our God's eternal death gives us an eternal home, had come to pass. Yet there were no heavenly steps toward a warm hollow or a place to rest our souls. Only the body. The sacred flesh, given time immemorial, blown up a hundred, no, a thousand times the size of a normal human, rested in front of their city, forming a makeshift barricade between the walls and the ocean's waves. The hand, blue veined and so inhumanely human, had come hurtling down from the sky, though now it cradled the cathedral from the salt wind, I noted distantly through the redundant arguments and the whistling sea breeze that even divine flesh was prone to stink. The stories are clear, your Holiness. We must prepare to depart for our final rest and cleanse the city of its worldly belongings with flame. You are our pope. You must give the order, said the God Killer with a fervent glint in his eyes, his willow frame wreathed in priestly black, as if to further fit into the image his newly found followers had drawn around him. But as I watched him make his preposterous case, there was no denying that the God Killer was just a boy. Just a boy whose dusting fleece of manhood had barely made it onto his face, who had snuck into our cathedrals, climbed up my deity's ear, and poured in the poison with vapid conviction and fevered faith There was a smidge of fear creeping up his voice, like he'd finally realized what he'd done, but wouldn't lay claim to the understanding. You have, not the idea of what you've done, I wanted to tell him. You've killed our faith, and with it our city. The lies that I built over the decades to keep our city safe have all fallen in a night. There's no mythos of a sleeping God to keep out the conquistadors. The salt wind will carry the news of the idol's death far and wide, and soon our shores will flood red under their scythes. But how does one chide a child that knew not its crime? The veil of faith we had woven for decades with myth and misunderstanding was not his crime to bear, but mine. Even if I were to sacrifice another to the engorgement. The faith had already frayed, the people shaken and waiting for their salvation, one that would not come. I didn't blame the God killer for the death of my God, but blame him I did for killing my friend. Your suggestions will be taken into consideration. His Holiness must now enter vigil, alba replied in a disturbingly calm tone that brook no argument. That's how I knew the first flame was properly pissed. She gestured with her staff, and the young man looked like he had more to say. I lifted my head, not an easy feat with the weight of the papal crown, and looked at him, the everflame burning in the sockets of my eyes. He faltered before turning away, padding down the crumbled walkway. Thank you, Alba, I said, shuffling back into a raised seat, now repositioned to look over the hand. The years had not worn away the sharp edges of the enchanted stone like they had my bones. I tried to find the shape of the boy. My false God had been one I had known with careless familiarity, and the enormous hand in front of me. But the engorgement stretched, bones first with skin playing catch up, and by the time the body reached the required size to be great, to be God, there was little remaining resemblance, and whatever remained had weathered the salt wind. The papal boys were raised in pairs, they said, in the city, though no one questioned what happened to the other one when the new pope was crowned. Only my job, your Holiness, she said. There was the resigned resentment I knew. Well, I hope that the job survives me, I said wryly. Alba pursed her lips. The jibe was in poor taste, especially as the city tired of waiting for the prophecy's fulfillment when the people realized there was no eternal home to leave, for they would tear the God killer. Limb from limb, every piece and hair. And they would come for us. What will you do now? She said. This was Alba, my friend now. Not the first flame. My right hand. I don't know. I couldn't say it. You could tell them the truth, Seth, she said almost tenderly. Let them go to their deaths with truth. I tried imagining it of telling the people below their religion was manufactured with dire magic and salt spells, the that their God was not a being descending to watch over them, but a boy who didn't know what he was agreeing to when I spelled his body upwards, expanding each bone until the skin was prison, until they cut into their own flesh inside. My heart quailed at the thought of confession. I closed my eyes, turning away from her. Salt cure you, old man, alba said with a resigned defeat. Salt cure you for all you've wrought on us and him. My eyes snapped wide open at her curse. I stood up, stumbling toward the outstretched finger. Your Holiness. I waved her off, clutching at the weathered skin that had withstood the sun and the salt. Wind cured skin. Alaba, I said, giddy and tearful. Alba, you might have saved us all. Tomorrow I would order the masons and the tanners too, call all the salters from the fields, all the butchers for the job. The skin was cured, the bones were strong. Only the flesh would soil. We would carve out the flesh cut steps onto his ribs, excavate his revenant heart into prayer halls, and hearken for a God all too silent. The prophecy would ring true, for we would build a place for our people inside his bruised flesh and engorged bones. He himself would be our eternal home. You have just heard the Salt and the Cure by Rukman Ragas. Narrated by me, Stefan Rodnicki and directed by Alison Belle Buse Rukman Ragas writes about earnest contradictions and temporary obsessions. A Tamil writer of speculative fiction from Sri Lanka, Rukman's work has previously appeared in Apex, Choreo, the Baltimore Review, and others. When not wrangling his novel into shape, Rukman can be found consuming an unhealthy amount of historical media or playing D and D. Up next, we have Censor Ghosts by Deborah L. Davitt, also narrated by Stefan Rodnicki. Right after this message.

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[Stefan Rudnicki]

Buckle up, we're going to light Speed Sensor Ghosts By Deborah L. Davitt Today the hydrocarbon clouds of Titan had rolled back over Kraken Mare, rendering the waves of the methane sea impossibly blue as they lapped at the shore, gradually eroding sharp spires of ice into rounded pebbles. Beatriju Cardona shivered despite the warmth of the rover's interior as the vehicle plowed along the frigid shore, tank like treads crushing the ice sand into chevron shaped tracks. Above them, distant and beautiful Saturn and its rings and the other moons of the gas giant hung in the sky, a rare and beautiful sight on Titan. Usually the smoggy clouds obscured the view. That beauty hung counterpoised with the sober nature of their mission. Lars Carlson looked back at her from the driving compartment. You ready to fly? They'd been partners for most of the last mission cycle, so for 90 out of the last 120 Earth days, they'd both lived in this rover, one of them driving while the other navigated around steep, jagged cliffs of ice and plotted courses through electrostatically active dunes of black hydrocarbons. Sometimes they didn't need words to communicate. The rest of the time it felt like words were some sort of shield or screen. This was one of those moments. Just need to attach the helmet and I'll be out of the airlock. His eyes caught hers and they both grimaced. They were here to check the status of a team that had gone off the grid four days ago. Chances were this wasn't a rescue mission but a recovery, and as such, they needed to be doubly cautious themselves. Only one of them would be permitted to enter the living quarters of the Phantom at a time unless something went catastrophically wrong and the first investigator needed to be pulled out by the partner who'd been left back at the rover. It's kind of killing me not knowing what happened to them, beatriyu muttered. I was slated to join them next time we rotated assignments. She'd already studied the controls of the Phantom and was qualified to pilot the seagoing vessel. There was only a month to go before assignment rotations, but now disaster had struck. Yeah, I know. Lars sounded not angry but sad, but when she looked up, he grinned at her. Leaving me to break in a new partner here on rover detail. With my luck, whoever I got would snore. He reached back and gripped her gloved hand. We'll figure out what happened to them. The words and tone were meant to be bracing. Beatriyu accepted them for what they were, attached her helmet, and slipped out the rover's airlock. Outside, the thick pressure of Titan's atmosphere caught the wing panels of her suit, conspiring with the light gravity to lift her off her feet. Tiny drone like rotors on her shoulder and legs lifted her body into flight position, and she controlled the whole apparatus through a heads up display in the helmet of her suit. As such, Beatriyu dove into the clear sky, lifted by chill thermals heading out over the waves of Kraken Mare. Her Catalan ancestors on Earth would have been amazed to see a human flying through the air without a jetpack or visible signs of engines. Here on Titan, in the right weather conditions, flying came almost as naturally as swimming did on Earth, though the sun was only a chip in the sky. Here in Saturn's orbit, the light reflecting off the sea was nearly blinding Lars voice in her ear and the suit's connection to the satellite positioning system guided her, however, and soon she saw her target, a carbon fiber and titanium ship drifting in an aimless circle through the cold blue methane waves. Sighted the Phantom, beatri reported over the radio, knowing that Control would hear her just as Lars did, though they were hundreds of kilometers away near the equator. The signal was being bounced off a satellite in orbit, making for negligible delays in communication. Acknowledged. Control's voice crackled back in her ear. Any signs of damage? None. Looks like the escape pods have been used, though. Control monitored her breathing while she slept, monitored how many times a day she urinated, monitored every spike of her heart rate. They saw what she saw through the camera mounted in her helmet. She had no privacy from Control, that faceless panel of experts in their fields sitting around banks of computer screens. Sometimes she resented the omnipresence of control in her life. The rest of the time it was a comfort. Beatril landed on a flight deck intended for helicopter drones. It was small and slick with exotic ices. It hadn't been cleared in days. Her feet slid uncertainly under her and she came to a crashing halt against a carbon fiber railing. Also rhymed with ice. Cardona, status. Your heart rate just spiked. Control snapped in her ear while on her private channel Lars voice sounded far more concerned. You all right? Lars asked. That landing looked like Bambi on ice. Knock the wind out of me. She made the reply over the common band. Lars would hear her. So would Control. She uncurled from the railing, gingerly checking for suit tears even as liquid methane ethane mix sprayed over her from a wave that slapped the port side of the Phantom. The Mare was choppy today and the Phantom rolled in the play of 10 meter waves. Beatrio ignored the spray and focused on scanning for tears. Even a tiny rip in the outer fabric could lead to a suit breach later. Everything checks out on my suit, though. Heading inside now. We also serve who only stand and wait, lars replied dryly on the common band. Don't make me come in there after you. Neither of them spoke English natively. She spoke Catalan as her first language, Spanish as her second. He spoke Norwegian and Swedish, but he was a fond of odd quotes and quips in their mutually adopted third language. This sounded like a quote, and she debated asking him for the source. But it could wait. She laughed under her breath, a short bark of sound, and headed to the airlock, which cycled easily under her fingertips and from there into the living quarters of the Phantom. Inside, Beatriju sampled the air briefly before confirming over the radio. The gas mix is off. They may have been suffering from hypoxia before Whatever happened, happened. Understood. Control crackled in her ear. Continue investigating. Keep your helmet on, for God's sake, lars opined from the Rover. He sounded restless. Don't worry. I'm not going to make you suit up for flight today. Well, thank heavens I fly about as well as a hippo. Cut the chatter. Control's voice came through, bristling with irritation. Keep the channel clear. She moved from the airlock area into the galley. No sign of the three person crew, but they'd clearly been disturbed at their meal. Food lay out on the small tables that folded down from the walls, spoiling the warmth of the chamber. A quick check of the cramped bedding area. No bodies. Up a deck to the closed off bridge, where alarms flashed unhappy amber at her. Control, I'm seeing two alarms on the bridge panels. One indicates low oxygen levels, the other indicates a fire in the engine compartment. For a moment she thought she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Beatriva spun to face whatever had just crept up beside her and saw nothing. Her heart thudded in her chest as adrenaline and stress cortisol spread through her system. She tried to master it with slow, deep breaths. It's nothing, she thought. There's no one here. Cardona. Control, the Met staff just monitored a spike in your heart rate and blood pressure. Please be advised that if there were a fire, the ship would already have combusted, control replied, steadying her. There would have been enough oxygen even at low levels, to create a rather spectacular fireball when combined with the methane ethane of the lake below. You've got nothing to worry about. Beatriju scanned her surroundings, still unnerved by the sense that something had moved nearby. Still, I should check it out, she finally answered. Is the engine currently running? Control asked. No, she replied. Phantom is drifting on the current. All right, check out the engine compartment. As she turned to clamber down the narrow steel gantries to the lower decks, she again caught some shadow, some sense of movement behind and beside her. Once again Beatrix spun, steadying herself against the rails with her gloved hands. And once again, nothing was there. Lars? She asked over their private channel, so Control couldn't complain about them cluttering the radio. Did you fly over when I wasn't looking? The radio crackled in her ear. Ah, that's a negative, lars responded slowly. What's the deal? Not sure, she replied just as slowly. She'd visited the ghost village of Musaro once in her youth. Abandoned in the 1960s, the ancient stones of the village and its church had been a fine outing during daylight hours. Camping there after nightfall, however, she'd sworn she'd heard horses neighing in the distance and the rattle of wagon wheels and harnesses. All the fruits of a vivid imagination, she reminded herself now. In the engine compartment, all white and silver and modern, she found no evidence of flames, but did find two expended fire extinguishers. Hypoxia can lead to hallucinations, beatriju said over the radio, her voice dubious. So maybe they heard a faulty alarm go off for Fire Control and they were already hypoxic, and when the flames wouldn't go out, they got into the escape pods. The oxygen alarms should have gone off long before they started suffering symptoms. Control responded after a moment, but the voice on the other end of the conversation sounded equally dubious. That's a lot of things to go wrong at once. A pause. Do you have pings on the escape pods? That's the next thing I was going to check. She didn't know if the escape pods had radios. Control had steadfastly refused to answer that question. She didn't know if the people in the pods had been alive, breathing, and in communication with Control the whole time. They slowly suffocated. She couldn't imagine what that would do to the people at Control, having had to talk to the terrified people in the pods, reassuring them, keeping them calm, all the while knowing that the closest rescue equipment would be a day too late. Would they have lied to the survivors? Would they have told them the truth and have walked them through the stages of rage and grief into acceptance of their own imminent deaths? She'd never know. Control would never tell her. Beatriyu headed back to the bridge now, checking her own oxygen levels in her suit. It wouldn't do to start hallucinating herself. Her own controls showed soothing green lights across the board, however. Nothing to worry about. As she established the last known coordinates of the escape pods, her heart sank. All three had jettisoned towards the center of Kraken Mare rather than towards the shore of More Sinus, the large northern bay that they were closest to. Go ahead and check the logs Control requested next. Nothing should be encrypted except several logs by the captain, Aime Marcel were password protected. That took intervention by Control to break through while Beatriju worked on regaining control of the Phantom. Another set of hands would be helpful here. Can Lars come over now, or is this situation still considered too dangerous for both of us to be in the same place? I can work on the oxygen situation, lars volunteered in the next breath before Control could respond. He was clearly champing at the bit to be of use. Control took a moment to confer amongst themselves before the primary voice took the microphone once more. We'll give that okay for now. Cardona, be on the flight deck with a line in case Carlson misses his landing. Their faith in my flight skills is overwhelming, lars muttered on the private channel. Beatriyu snorted in response. You said you fly like a hippo. Yeah, but they didn't have to confirm it. The deck remained rhymed with ice, methane, ethane spray breaking over the carbon fiber prow periodically as they headed into a patch of heavier waves. Beatriyu waited up on the flight deck, a heavy cable with a hook attached to it in hand, ready to wave off Lars landing, her stomach aflutter with the danger to him now more than it had been for her own landing. She couldn't control how he flew, couldn't feather the controls for him as he hovered above the heaving deck. Little lower. Can't make positive contact with you yet. I'm trying. The phantom's wallowing in the waves like a sow in a mud pit. Inch by inch, Lars's lanky frame and its bulky, heated flight suit edged in for a landing. His boots hit the icy deck and she managed to snap the hook into his belt just as a particularly large swell hit from the port side, knocking them both flying for the railing once more. This time they both were hurled over the rail in the strange slow motion of Titan's low gravity. She had just enough time to grab the rail with her left hand while clinging to the cable with her right. Lars, attached to the cable, was secured to the flight deck, but now dangled a meter or so above the heaving methane ethane C. Up close, the liquid was gray and gelid, promising certain death if their flight suits sank into its depths. For Banner hest cook, whatever that meant, the tone was a curse. Cardona Carlson, please respond. Control sounded frantic. Working the problem right now, vietru rapped out tersely. Sometimes Control could be a real pain in her ass. Couldn't they see through the helmet cameras that no one had time right now for a fucking report? Have you got rotor control? She asked Lars on their private band. Yeah, I do. He sounded relieved. But I'm tangled in the cable. Will it get in the way of the rotors at my current angle? She checked. Damn, yes. I'm going to climb down and untangle you. Negative. You climb up, get yourself on the deck, and then you can pull me the rest of the way. She had to admit he had a point. Shortly thereafter, through a combination of rotor work on her part and some climbing on his, they were both back on the deck. That was more exciting than I like, lars said, sounding as out of breath as she felt. Let's get below where it's relatively safer. Control back in their ears now, seconding Lars request that they get indoors, back through the airlock. Two sets of hands, a comforting real presence with her as they set about recovering the vehicle and solving the mystery of what had happened here. Control broke through the password locks on the captain's entries, and they both heard Aimee Marcel's voice in their helmets as they worked. I'm putting this in my private files for the moment. Dwayne Henderson is too. We don't want to go on record with our findings yet people will laugh and say we're seeing things. Things we want to see in the data. Beatriz started a little, her gloved hands lifting above a console as she listened to the dead woman's words. Seeing things? We've been taking sonar soundings of the Mare for weeks now. And the Duane, well, he's ex Navy submariner sonar specialist. He doesn't imagine things. Frustration in the captain's voice, but he's periodically turned up something large in the readings. Something large and moving. It keeps to the edge of sonar range so it looks like a sensor ghost, but it varies in position and it's following us. Beatriyu licked lips gone dry behind the visor of her helmet and continued listening. Control had gone completely silent, evaluating the message. At the same time, Captain Marcel's voice went on. I've turned and headed for the so called sensor ghost several times. That's given us a better sense of its size. It's big, whatever it is. 30, 40 meters. Easily larger than the Phantom. It stays submerged most of the time, but the depth of the sonar contact varies from 10 meters below the surface to nearly 50. And when we head towards Retreats, Henderson tells me he thinks it's a biologic. Kovalenko keeps trying to talk us out of it. No signs of life on this moon, he keeps repeating, but the more often we encounter the sensor ghost, the more doubt I hear in his voice. Listening to the dead woman's voice sent chills creeping down the back of Beatriju's neck as she continued to work in the bridge while Lars was below trying to repair the carbon scrubbers and the oxygen tanks and everything else that life aboard the Phantom relied on. All the lights down here are green now, he reported after an hour's work. Still showing amber on the alarms up here. Might be a faulty circuit somewhere in between, control suggested. Wait 15 minutes for a full cycle of the system, and then you can remove your helmets, they added. In the meantime, try to pull the sensor logs. Let's see what they were seeing. Are we going to try to retrieve the bodies? Lars asked, clumping up the gantry ladder onto the bridge to stand beside Vitriu. Yes, if possible, control replied, but they're literally not going anywhere for the moment. Let's see if they died for something first. And then, for the third time, movement in the corner of her eye. Beatrijo spun, catching a glimpse of something, a human form just behind the captain's chair. There, then gone again. Lars head didn't lift from the controls as he prodded at a keyboard with thick, gloved fingers, trying to bring up the sensor logs. Beatriju stared for a moment, shuddering inwardly. Ghosts didn't exist. Ghosts weren't real, though the sensor ghost might turn out to be something. What she'd just seen was apophenia, part of her brain recognizing part of a pattern and filling in the rest. Humans were good at filling in patterns, which might explain the crew of the Phantom filling in details to find life where there was none, or finding it in truth. But maybe people could still be haunted nevertheless. Which was all humans were, after all, haunted atoms moving unquietly through a careless universe. Beatriju took one last uncomfortable glance in the direction she'd just seen, the shape, the movement, and then put her head back down and went back to work. Fifteen minutes later, however, as they pulled off their helmets to breathe freshly recycled air on the bridge and with their radios turned down, Lars asked quietly, did you call me a couple of minutes ago when I was down in the gas reclamation center? Beatriju glanced up, met his eyes. No, she answered. The radio log would show if I had. I thought I heard a voice, he continued, looking down at the control panels once more. A woman's voice calling my name. The pause. She sounded like she was a long way away. Beatriju swallowed her throat to dry. I keep thinking I'm seeing things, she admitted. It's probably just our minds playing tricks on us. Probably. He looked up. Glad it's not just me, though. Me too. They recovered the escape pods, opening them just long enough to confirm that there were in fact no living occupants, then closed them again. Beatriyu thought that the frozen bodies would stay livid in her mind forever. In one, Captain Marcel had scratched into the wall the words it's here and it's alive. What the hell did she see out the window of the escape pod? Lars asked softly over the radio as they closed the hatch respectfully once more. I don't know, beatrio replied, shuddering a little. I'm not sure I want to know. You're going to be okay piloting this big sow of a ship alone. Lars paused, then added, his voice oddly fierce, because if you aren't, then I say we tell Control to go fuck themselves. Leave the rover where it is, and I'll keep you company. All the way back to base. She thumped a hand against his shoulder so he could feel it through the thick layers of their suits as they headed back inside. The Phantom didn't know you cared. Maybe I do, lars said, lowering his helmet to touch hers so that she could hear him without using the radio. Does it matter? She stopped in her tracks once again. She felt that flicker on the edge of her awareness, but pushed it aside instead. She slid an arm around his waist carefully. It matters to me, she answered, and squeezed him tightly enough that he should be able to feel. Matters to me. A pause, and she said, almost diffidently, you do need to pick up the rover. But how about before you leave, we get a shower in at the facilities on board? Both of us out of our suits at the same time? Lars's voice, muffled though it was through the helmets, sounded teasing. Control will have a fit. Let them, she said, leaning into him, feeling oddly content in spite of everything. Control did indeed have a fit with the medical staff, complaining mightily about spikes in both of their heart rates and blood pressure before all their sensors went dead. Then the main voice of Control came back on, sounding amused and altogether more human than they normally did, and said, we sometimes forget that we're not running robots here. We can give you an hour or two to get cleaned up and feeling more human. The next day, both vehicles headed south for the throat of Kraken, where the currents rolled through thick and fast. Usually the Phantom wasn't much faster than a buoy tender on earth, strictly about 12 knots an hour. With the current pushing the ship, Beatrio briefly outpaced Lars, who was forced to navigate around patches of ice, boulders, and other debris on the ground, so she arrived at the southern port before he did and chafed, waiting for him in the small habitat dome where all of two other people lived and worked. The official findings were bleak. The oxygen sensor had shorted out, a flaw in the system practically predestined to fail. A faulty circuit installed on Earth had led to hypoxia in the crew. The problem with the fire alarm was trickier to ascertain, but it looked like one of the crew had somehow tripped the alarm themselves. Control thought it was Kovalenko, but they'd never know for sure. The hows and whys of it all. The sensor ghost pursued them all the way to the main port at the southern edge of Kraken Mare. The last time via Trio recorded it was just before docking. Several times as they sailed south, Control asked her to change course. Every time she did so the Ghost changed course with her. As Captain Marcel had reported in her log, it varied in depth but stayed a constant distance off the bow. Control had no answers for what it was, but promised to pull up a flotilla of radar equipped drones from the southern hemisphere to try to chase it down. The next time the Phantom put out to sea, Lars and Beatrio decided not to disclose what they had seen or heard aboard the Phantom. Lars asked for and received, to his surprise, permission to follow Beatrio in her new posting as captain of the vessel. All he needed to do was qualify as a watchstander and get up to speed on the engine of the vehicle. Sometimes even haunted atoms were lucky enough to find something that resonated on the same frequency that they did, and therefore didn't have to face a careless universe on their own. Welcome back. You have just heard Sensor Ghosts By Deborah L. Davitt Narrated by me, Stefan Rudnicki and directed by Alison Belle Buse Deborah L. Davitt was raised in Nevada but currently lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and son. Her award winning poetry and prose have appeared in over 70 journals including Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov's, Analog, and Lightspeed. For more about her work, including her poetry collections the Gates of Bounded by Eternity from Voyages, Unreturning, Zenoforming, and To Love unquietly, please see debaraldavitt.com Stefan Rodnicki is a double Grammy winning audiobook producer and an award winning narrator who has won 17 Audie Awards and as well as more than 35 Earphones Awards and been named one of Audiophile's Golden Voices. Stefan has been producing Lightspeed magazine podcasts since 2010, eventually adding nightmare and Fantasy Magazine and sharing the Hugo Awards for best semiprozine in 2014 and 2015.

[Glass Cannon Podcast Host]

The war is over and both sides lost. Kingdoms were reduced to six cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust. Now the survivors claw to what's left of a broken world, praying the Darkness chooses someone else tonight. But in the Shadowdark, the Darkness always wins. This is old school adventuring at its most cruel. Your torch ticks down in real time and when that flame dies, something else rises to finish the job. This is brutal rules, light, nightmare with a story that emerges organically based on the decisions that the characters make. This is what it felt like to play RPGs in the 80s. And man, it is so good to be back. Join the Glass Cannon podcast as we plunge into the Shadowdark every Thursday night at 8pm Eastern on YouTube.com theglasscannon with the podcast version dropping the next day. See what everybody's talking about and join us in the dark.

[Meg Bashwiner and Joseph Fink]

Hi, we're Meg Bashwiner and Joseph Fink of welcome to Night Vale and on our new show the Best Worst, we explore the golden age of television.

[Stefan Rudnicki]

To do that, we're watching the IMDb viewer rated best and worst episodes of classic TV shows.

[Meg Bashwiner and Joseph Fink]

The episode of Star Trek where Beverly Crusher has sex with a ghost. The episode of the X Files where Scully gets attacked by a vicious house cat.

[Stefan Rudnicki]

And also the really good episodes too,

[Meg Bashwiner and Joseph Fink]

where what can we learn from the best and worst of great television? Like for example, is it really a bad episode or do people just hate women?

[Stefan Rudnicki]

The Best Worst available Wherever you get

[Something You Should Know Podcast Host]

your podcasts ever, open up your podcast app scroll forever and still not know what to listen to. And there are millions of podcasts and most of them they just don't grab you. That's why I created Something you should Know. Every episode is built around surprising, useful and fascinating ideas. We're consistently ranked in Apple's top 200 with thousands of five star reviews. But more importantly, people come back because they learn something interesting every time. If you're tired of searching and you just want something good to listen to, try one episode of Something you should Know right here on the platform you're listening on right now.

[Stefan Rudnicki]

These stories were taken from the pages of Lightspeed Magazine, which is edited by John Joseph Adams. The podcast is co produced by Stefan Rodnicki and Allison Belle Buse at Skyboat Media and the stories and podcast are copyright 2026. Post production was by Alex Barton at Phase Shift and our music was composed and performed by Jack Kincaid. I am Stefan Rudnicki. Thank you for listening.