Your search for the perfect Thanksgiving entree ends with ButcherBox.
Take the stress out of holiday meal prep with your choice of humanely raised whole turkey, turkey breast, or ham, free in your first order.Plus, get $20 off when you go to butcherbox.com slash midst and enter the code midst at checkout.
Sign up today and get ready for your easiest Thanksgiving yet, delivered right to your door. Order by November 19th to guarantee delivery by Thanksgiving.
Butcher Box offers everything from organic chicken and pork raised crate-free to grass-fed and finished beef and wild-caught seafood.
Shipping is always free and you can select your favorite proteins in your box every month so you can always have your freezer conveniently stocked without having to make a trip to the butcher or the grocery store.
Go to butcherbox.com and enter the code MITZD at checkout to get this offer plus $20 off your first box today.
An impossible, supernatural, crystal ship gleams darkly in the unlight above Stationary Hill, hovering motionlessly under the power of literally, basically, actual fucking magic.
There are cheers and gasps and whistles and screams.People waving their chevron banners and hoisting up their children on their shoulders.
This is a day that will go down in history.
The tall tower at the city's peak is rigged with multiple freight elevators.
They chug up and down the tower's slanted sides on angular tracks, on their way to or from the prow of the ship suspended above.
On one of the lifts descending now, two women stand together leaning casually on the rail as the platform clanks down to ground level.
Recognizing Merlin and Mother Artifice, they saunter on over to join their fellow crewmates, waiting.
Here goes nothing, y'all.Into space and time, here we come.Everett shoulders her backpack in stride with Mickey beside her.How you doing?Feeling good?Ready to go?She bams Merlin on the shoulder, chummily.Cosmos isn't gonna explore itself.
Or maybe it will, I don't really understand how these things work.What's happening, Artifice?Hi.She nods to Cleo.You must be Cleophy.Everett Shearwater, how you doing?
Hi, I'm great.You're great.Everybody on this crew is so cool.
Oh, thank you.I agree with that.Not too shabby.It's a good group.
Everett and Mickey make a striking pair.Everett here, windblown and freckled, a tousled, bleach-blonde braid with dark roots tossed over one shoulder, wearing a battered, oversized red bomber jacket originally owned by her uncle.
Her wife, Mickey, is tall, strapping, and brawny.
She radiates a calm groundedness that puts everyone around her at ease.Hey, good to meet you, says Mickey.
Ship's ready to go.Everett and I were just heading down the hill to grab the stagecoach.
Just between you and us, Everett's attention has landed on the granddaughter and her jaunty smile fades for just a moment.Her brow furrows, her eyes narrow.
Especially not the granddaughter.
And in that instant, Everett shakes herself back.
Yep, yessiree.Oh, but we gotta go.They sent us down here to find the group and get this crew photo first.She squints up at another descending elevator coming down the tower from the ship, laden with more crew.Let's get a jump.
We got places to be, ships to fly.
More and more crew are arriving at ground level, disembarking from the ship by tower elevator, all looking around as well for something.
Where the heck is Kanican with that camera?Everett yells over to some of the descending crew.Has anybody seen them?
Shonamari and the bosun, two of her four hands in a thumbs up gesture.
Yeah, they're coming now.Everybody start gathering.
Cleo has just about reached the limit of her endurance for the blinding light of the un, to which she is completely unaccustomed, and she takes out some pink heart-shaped unglasses. She hesitates, holding them out towards the granddaughter.
Isn't this amazing?Are you doing okay with this light?Sorry, what was your name?I was talking so much before I didn't even give you a chance to answer.I can be a real chatterbox sometimes.
The granddaughter looks pretty well shaded under the brim of their new hat.
I don't... I'm just the granddaughter.
Oh, do you not?Sorry, I guess I always thought you kept your names right up until you became mothers.No glasses, then?
Everybody, make room, please!Are all of the crew members present?
There's a booming, megaphone-amplified voice cutting through the noise of the crowd.
Okay, please line up by the tower.We are taking a photo for the newspaper.We are taking a photo for the newspaper.
Kanek and Hartevelt, field journalists with The Current, the median's premier newspaper, is attempting to corral everyone into an aesthetically pleasing arrangement, with at least a portion of the immense ship visible there in the backdrop behind them.
Altogether, the ship's crew numbers just over 30, though they won't be picking up the last few until their voyage is underway.
They all stand together here at the top of Stationery Hill, scientists and engineers and technicians, naturalists and chemists, pilots and witches, and bocular men and fairy tale princesses, experts of the omn and experts of the fold, the best of the best, all selected and trained and prepared for this singular cooperative endeavor.
Clio has been handing out cute little floral corsages for everyone to wear, so we match for the picture.
Ah, yes, the picture.Incendiary imaging technology has come a long way in the last 30 years.The camera that Canican is setting up now is amazingly compact.It's super light, lightning fast, nothing like the cumbersome lunkers that cameras used to be.
They hoist the 60-pound bazooka-like cylinder onto its tripod, their arms trembling with the effort.
And then they trot back over to join the rest of the group, the shutter switch in their hand trailing a long cable back down the hill towards the camera.
Please everybody, look directly at the device.Okay, ready? Set, smile!
Yet another cheer goes up from the assembled crowd as the camera emits its blinding flash.
A faint haze of acrid vapor rising from its exhaust vents.
And there you go, photo op complete.
With that, nothing remains but to, you know...
Could it be time to go?The marching band over here seems to think it is.It's approachingly that time.Crew members are saying goodbye to friends and family here in Stationery Hill.
The last of Cleophy's luggage is getting hauled out of the fantasy sea slug carriage and loaded onto a gantry elevator.
One of Cleo's items is a large wicker pet carrier of some kind, from which a skittish cooing emanates.
The naturalist is hugging her dad down the street.Everett is saying goodbyes and slinging high fives.
She seems really popular here.
Hugging her mom, and Everett's mom also ropes Mickey into a double embrace.Can't miss that.Anyway, it's time to rumble.
Everett and Mickey swing astride that trusty ol' Bocular Haas.Ol' Smoker, was it?
All right, we're gonna get the stagecoach and then we're gonna link up with all you once you're out over the desert.So, y'all get aboard and we'll see you in a bit.
And with a wave from the two of them and a wheeze of well-worn Haas nomadics, they canter off down the hill through the crowd.
Merlin, the Bocular Man, Cleo, Mother Artifice, and the granddaughter all pile onto the elevator with a half-dozen other crew and begin their ascent.
The towering, darkly iridescent arrowhead of the ship slides past them as they ride the elevator.
Unlight glints off of the fold-saturated crystal lattice of the ship.Dark mica, a miraculous merger of the un and the fold.Up close, they can see that its inky, crystalline planes and angles are not actually completely geometrically perfect.
There's a natural geologic quality to the material, a scalloped, ripply, flint-knapped texture.
An organic, almost volcanic flow, lightly whorled and gracefully uneven, like obsidian.
Hundreds of feet above the city, towards the top of the tower, the lift chugs to a stop, coming level with the ship's narrow prow.
The foremost tip of the giant arrowhead.A warm desert breeze swirls around our champions as they step forth onto an angular foredeck thrusting forth from the spear point of the ship's prow.
A titan vista encircles them.
A vertiginous desert panorama of the islet of midst.
The curvature of its spherical, planetoid horizon becoming apparent from this altitude.
The vertical black curtain of the sea of fold, distantly retreating over the landscape as the islet rolls in the cosmic sea.
Remember that pumpkin in the ocean?Keep that in mind.
Exercise caution with every step.If you were to fall from this height, you would be killed, Mother Artifice says helpfully and informatively.
Cleo grips the railing next to her, a little nervous, though that excited smile never once leaves her face.
The granddaughter takes it all in, tranquilly, calmly.They appear to have no fear of heights whatsoever as they peer down. Down, down at the little city below.Perhaps they're looking for something.Realization, is it down there?Who can say?
Take a look, Merlin says.Soak it in.We won't be here for long.
And it is possible that we will never return, being destroyed on the journey, says Mother Artifice again, speaking facts.
Of course it is possible that they will all die, going to the limits of the cosmos as they are. Hopefully not.Hopefully everything will be fine.It's probably going to be fine.
But this is something the crew have all deeply prepared for and considered, steeled themselves for.No reward without risk.And the ship's fucking magic, as we said.
So if ever there was an expedition that was bound to be successful, it would be this one.
Don't say that about voyages.This one will be fine, though.
The Bocular Man continues to stand just to the side of Merlin.He holds the box of bread from Patricia's Bread and Breakfast, and Merlin's coat, and a stack of clipboards, and looks out, placidly, over the view.
Perhaps memorizing the scene in his own way.Perhaps preparing to meet his own demise.Probably not, but maybe.We don't really know exactly how Bocular Men work.
It's fun to anthropomorphize robots.
What do you think, Bocular Man?Merlin asks.I don't have a response for that inquiry.He replies, why not?The granddaughter asks.The Bocular Man does not respond.But Merlin answers for him.
All of the Bocular Man's phrases come from a library that I build and assemble for him.I have to record all of these messages for him myself.He's a work in progress.
as are we all, remarks Mother Artifice.
And our greatest work must begin its progress now.Let us step within and get underway.We are holding up the expedition by lingering here on this bow deck.
Our pals here crowd the foredeck with those other half-dozen crew we mentioned, everyone loitering to take in the view one last time, when to Artifice's point, another elevator full of scientists and engineers arrives, and they all realize they'd better clear out, make some room.
Cleo eyes the seamless unbroken glass of the ship's outer wall and wrinkles her brow.Where's the, um, uh, door?
Why, wherever you want it to be, Merlin answers with a twinkle in his eye and strolls directly at the crystalline hull, which parts neatly before him.
A rectangular aperture simply sliding open, dooring into existence, where previously was glassy, unbroken iridescence.
Get used to door as a verb, by the way.We're going to be doing it a lot.
And they step within.Into the ship's main atrium.
an airy, high-ceilinged chamber on level with the vessel's prow.
A tall, narrow, geometric space hollowed out neatly from within the ship's crystalline mass.
As they stand taking it all in, the other members of the crew stream through the door behind them, beginning to go about their business, loading in final elements of cargo, preparing for launch, as yet another lift full of crew arrives as well.
More crew streaming aboard.It's almost time to go.
It's a little bit narrow, a little bit crowded right here in the entranceway, but it gets roomier as they walk forward into the ship's diamond-shaped floor.
The atrium's canted walls, opaquely iridescent from outside, are clear windows from within, like one-way mirrors almost.
affording that vast, glassy panoramic view of stationary hill and the surrounding red desert territory of midst in every direction, even from here.Unlight streams in bright and clear from the harshly luminous sky above.
Oh, it's so beautiful.Oh my gosh.
I would heartily agree.Agrees Mother Artifice heartily.We spared no expense.The ship was incredibly expensive.It was.
Tasteful, expensive-looking lounge decor populates the long, knife-like floor plan of the atrium.
Little arrangements of chairs around small tables, a few collections of benches and sofas facing out towards the panoramic walls, offering spots for observation and conversation.
Down the centerline of the atrium lies a handsome woven rug. A mixed original, by the way.Handcrafted by Stationery Hill's best.Decorating the flat black crystal of the floor.
Flanked by parallel planters from which swoop a few local cacti, some tall arcing succulents, a couple of fronded palms drinking in the light from the giant windows.
A little greenery for the journey, artifice in tones with subtle soft-spoken nuance. for those among the crew who may take pleasure or comfort in it when inevitably we find ourselves amongst locales both strange and unfamiliar.
And if cacti don't console you, we've got the kitchen and lounge up there as an alternative, Merlin says, indicating stairs sweeping up to two half-deck balconies suspended above, both open to the atrium.
This is all very exciting, very mesmerizing, but the granddaughter. sees and hears almost none of it, blind to all the activity, the hustle and bustle of crew loading aboard around them.They have eyes only for what lies further within.
Wow.What do you think of all this, Grit? Oh.There, suspended in the center of the atrium, below the half-deck balconies above, is a, well, a light bulb.
A big one.About eight feet tall and four feet in diameter.If you could fit a person inside it, and believe us, you could, but you should not, they would have room to spare.
But they would be very comfortable except for being trapped inside of a lightbulb.
This lightbulb sparkles in the middle of a conversation pit recessed down into the atrium floor, encircled in upholstered seating kind of like a campfire inside a ring of benches.
A soft, pulsing, inviting warmth radiates from it.The granddaughter's skin prickles.Twisting and winding within the polished cylindrical glass of the bulb, a dizzying labyrinth of absurdly intricate filaments.
Thousands of fine carbon wires and contacts pulsing and shimmering with flickering multicolored light, like the most mesmerizing Christmas tree you've ever seen.
this light bulb it isn't like the other girls just like the bacular man isn't like the other boys because this light bulb doesn't just contain and emit light oh no i've never seen anything like it the granddaughter says their eyes glowing like a cat's in the beam of a flashlight
A weightless black fluid swirls and flows languidly within the glass of the bulb, twisting and rippling among the numberless shimmering filaments.
It eddies and undulates like the hypnotic liquid in a lava lamp, like ferrofluid in zero gravity.It coils and sluices, frictionlessly exploring the bulb's labyrinth of light, investigating, examining each and every luminous contact.
A living plasma of pure, concentrated fold, eddying in tranquil electric symbiosis within the bulb.
Light and Fold, Merlin says, two elements traditionally thought to be at odds with one another, at least highly unpredictable in combination, now harnessed into a miraculous union, capable of hitherto impossible things.
Looking at the lightbulb is mesmeric. As here the granddaughter proves, it's like gazing into a flickering campfire, and a beautiful aquarium, and a crazy bananas fucking off-the-wall pinball machine all in one.Miss Gilmoth, says Marlin.
Granddaughter, I'm thrilled to present to you the Foldlight.
For a second, his eyes shimmer, almost teary with emotion.
With science passion, there are many marvels of engineering and science and mysticism within this ship.
But this light, this fold light, might be the greatest of them all.Mother Artifice and Mr. Amos, who you'll meet shortly, I'm sure, have together created something extraordinary, beyond description.
Actually, it is quite easy to describe.I would be happy to enumerate for you the functions of its creation.Well, not now.We have things to do.Indeed, perhaps some other time.
Cleophy circles around the fold light in awe, its luminance reflecting in her wide eyes.
Reflecting still, too, in the granddaughters, who stand stock still, gazing into the light, hypnotized, a moth to a flame.
This is so amazing.The fold light, the ship, mist, everything.Oh, I can't wait to get going.I can't wait to see even more of the un.
From across the conversation pit, Merlin raises his hands in excitement.Yes, good.Nurture that enthusiasm.Final preparations are nearly complete.And in just a few more minutes, we shall depart.
Merlin's image is distorted through the curved glass of the fold light, kind of like a funhouse mirror.
A journey to the limits of the cosmos is made up of smaller steps, and our first port of call is the highest light.There, we're to pick up our medical team, and the award-winning chef, Kino del Belsaban, and his retinue.
He's quite good.You are going to enjoy the mixed drinks which he concocts.
Oh, that's right, the chef!Oh, I'm so excited!
I had the opportunity to meet him during a test flight, and I look forward to seeing him again, primarily for the effect that he has on the rest of the crew, though I myself do not partake of his drinks.Yes.
Then we will make for the distant reaches of the Upper Unfold.Then to the deepest depths we go, by way of Akuta, into the abyssal trenches of the Fold.
Merlin is in full professorial lecturing mode now.
And at last to Brocheroog and the unknown end beyond the delta.Merlin clasps his hands in exquisite delight.Science passion.But to do that, we have to launch.
So please take your seats.Get ready.
We just go sit down?We can watch it from the observation deck, the atrium?
Yes, here, outside, whichever you prefer.Yes, the two of you, as our special attaches, mother artifice indicating Cleophyte and the granddaughter, have no particular special duties other than to observe and enjoy during the launch.
Technically, I'm not really an attache to anyone, but yes, my duty here is definitely to observe.
Spectacular.Then observe you shall.Enjoy the show.Mr. Vought and I have a number of duties to which we must attend in order to ensure the success of the launch.So away we go.
The activity on the ship has taken on a more directed, intentional type of buzz as Merlin and Artifice head to the back of the atrium, dooring into an elevator at the back of the room, on their way to the helm on the flight deck below.
For just a moment through a circular aperture in the middle of the conversation pit floor, Cleo and the granddaughter see the bulb descend into the flight control deck below.
Into a room full of whirring brassy machines, whizzing ticker tapes and spinning metallic discs covered in notches.
Control crew hustle and bustle amongst the banks of devices as the fold light descends into a mechanical cradle at the core of the room, Merlin and Artifice stepping forth to attend it.
And then a mechanical iris cinches shut, sealing the atrium floor, and Cleo and the granddaughter see no more below.But thankfully, there's still plenty to see outside.
Cleo pulls the granddaughter back towards the open-air foredeck, dooring through the front wall of the atrium.Let's go on the deck!It is so nice to have someone else here who doesn't have a specific job to do.
I wasn't even sure if there would be anyone remotely close to my own age, but we're about the same, aren't we?I bet we end up spending a lot of time together.
The granddaughter doesn't respond to that. In the light of the un, Cleophae's bioluminescence is either gone or very difficult to see.
But she still looks like something out of a storybook.
Not that the granddaughter knows what a storybook looks like.Quite literally.They know what storybooks sound and feel like.But when you live in the deep synobium, you can't exactly look at the pictures.More on that later.
The foredeck is a popular place, as it turns out.
As many people as will fit are crammed out here, most of them crew without immediate launch duties.Scientists, academics like the naturalist, the botanist, the chemist, the geologist, etc.
Felix Hussleworth, the representative from the Timekeepers Guild, is sourly looking at a ponderous-looking pocket watch and holding an angular speaking tube connected to the body of the ship by a strange, shimmering umbilical of liquid crystal.
Mother Artifice comes blaring over the teletheric, also audible through the speaking tube.
Felicitations from the ship.We are fully operational, ready to fly.
The ground crew reply in kind.
You're cleared for launch.
Journey's mercy.Merlin pipes in.
Let's proceed with the launch countdown.
Stationary Hill, Felix Chronologistics here.Let's please wait for the optimum time on my signal, if you please.
The crew of the ship, the crowd on the ground below, await the optimum time.It could be here at any moment.Only the timekeeper knows.Is it time now?How about now? 10.Now, it's time.The tower's gantries retract from the deck.
Watering hoses detach and withdraw from lower decks of the ship, crystal apertures smoothly sealing in their wake. 8.
The darkly reflective surface of the ship warbles, deeply, like the twanging sound of an icy lake readjusting as the fathomless opacity skews clear, faceted depths realigning.
Uh, still eight.Hang on. Seven and a half.
The crowd on the hill below is roaring in anticipation.
From the deck, numerous crew members wave and shout.Kanekin Hartveld lines up and snaps a photograph, looking down from the prow.Another explosion of toxic fumes, a flash of light.
Six?Cleophy leans over the side, waving a handkerchief and blowing kisses.She doesn't really know anyone down there, but it makes her feel happy to do that.
Five.The granddaughter's eyes can't help but widen, their hands tight on the foredeck's banister.
On the flight deck below, Merlin tugs his sleeves up.
The entire exterior of the ship turns clear. Each and every crew person, each and every deck, every piece of furniture, every element of the ship's interior skeleton now standing clearly visible in silhouette within the chevron-shaped shard.
There rises a crystalline ringing.
Like the breath before the beginning of a song.
A singing in the air, also felt within the glassy superstructure of the ship.
The shard-like ship hangs, breathtakingly silent and still, inexplicably suspended above the city.
glimmering like a prism of rainbow glass.
Someone in the crowd screams below, and the cheer is picked up by the rest of Stationery Hill, until, with a slow, frictionless grace, the ship begins to move, issuing through the air like a knife, the unearthliness of its passage jarring to perceive.
as the assembled crowds in stationary hill pause, then cheer one last momentous time as the ship supernaturally passes by overhead.
And with that, the expedition has begun.
From the deck, the city quickly, startlingly quickly, falls away behind them.The tree, the trams, the tower, the teeming masses.One cannot help but gasp in the gentle midst-born breeze.The landscape of the islet of midst. rushes by.
A squad of mirror hawks dips and darts spiraling ahead of the ship, zooming along like dolphins in front of the prow of a boat at sea.The incredible colors and plant life of Vermilion County zipping by underneath
For all its speed, the ship's passage is incredibly smooth, almost unnoticeable.
The crew standing at the prow on the foredeck, whooping, astonished, aghast.Or, uh, never mind, not aghast, that's bad, forget we said that one.
Cleophyte laughs in pure, unadulterated delight, the wind whipping her hair into a cotton candy froth.
The granddaughter removes their hat. or the wind would remove it for them.Still clinging tightly to the balustrade, trying to keep their wits about them.This is unlike anything they have ever seen or ever done ever before.This is crazy.
What are they doing?This, this is, this is bonkers.Wee! There below, arcing out from around stationary hill now, a dart-like vessel is climbing out of the shipyard to meet them, flying fast.
It's weathered and well-traveled.Kind of a katydid-shaped vessel.
Airplane, submarine, helicopter-looking thing. Beat up in old-fashioned, perhaps 15 years out of current style, crimson paint flecked and peeling on its aerodynamic, swallow-tailed metal hull.
Neither unship nor fold-mersible, but uniquely kind of both at once.One of a kind.
Stage coach coming in.Sean and Maureen calls into the speaking tube on the foredeck.Let's even out down below, please, and door the hangar deck.The hangar deck doors. The entire starboard side, several decks below the foredeck, opens wide.
A hangar waiting for its vessel.Two ships soar over Vermilion County.One colossal, black, dark, crystalline, iridescent.The other, small, beat-up, old-fashioned.A joining of past and future alike.
Like two dragonflies fucking in midair.
A powerful image.Stunning, to say the least.One that is not easily removed from the mind's eye.You're welcome.The stagecoach and ship match speed, flying side by side over the deserts of Vermilion County.
And the stagecoach, maneuvering deftly, sets down in the ship's open hangar. The hangar door doors shut.The stagecoach is aboard.Everett's voice comes in over the teletheric, over the speaking tubes.Hey everybody, stagecoach is now locked in.
Let's fucking go. And the ship, well, it goes.Blasting off, tilting back, heading skyward with such gusto that a few pieces of furniture fall over in the atrium.Growing pains.Back on the teletheric, everyone comes in.Okay, cosmos, here we come.
Thanks for listening to UnEnd.If you're enjoying the story, please rate and review to help someone new discover the cosmos.
You can catch UnEnd every Wednesday anywhere you stream podcasts or through the Midst Podcast YouTube channel.
If you're looking to dive deeper into the story, become a Beacon member at beacon.tv or join the fold on midst.co to receive early ad-free access to episodes, behind-the-scenes exclusives, and lore-expanding bonus content.
Or, if you just want to hear this podcast two weeks early and without ads, subscribe on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
To stay up to date on what's next in the cosmos, sign up for our newsletter on midzd.co or find us on social media at midzdpodcast.
Sign in
