[some crackling static, a solid CLUNK as the recording begins]

Kanneken Hartevelt: Check, check check check. Um, yes, I think just putting this over here… All right! I think we are recording! Right.

Merlin Vot: And this is written reference alone, correct?

KH: Yes, the light is on – yes, yes, just for reference. I’ll obviously, you know, do my normal introduction of the article with a broad overview of the voyage, the expectations, and explain, you know, that I am Kanneken Hartevelt, journalist with The Current and official press partner of the Cosmological Consortium. And I’ll explain that I’m joined today by Professor Merlin Vot, Chief Cosmologist onboard the Ship. By the way, thank you. Thank you for sitting down with me. 

MV: Oh goodness of course, Kanneken! The pleasure is sincerely also mine. 

KH: All right, so, let’s go. Speaking broadly, Merlin, what is a cosmologist?

MV: Oooh, well, let’s cut right to the core of it.

KH: [chuckles] Yes.

MV: A cosmologist is really just someone who seeks to discern their place in the midst of it all. Something we all do to some degree, but it’s become more of a professional calling for me. 

KH: Speaking of Midst – I like how you inserted that word in there – where are you from? What made you… Well, what made you want to become a cosmologist?

MV: Ooh, good question! I was born on Vairtige, an islet rather a way upcurrent from Midst. It’s not immersed in the Fold the way Midst is, but the Mediun would come into view every few days – you know, the classic dark curtain, hanging there, ominously menacing, from the distant reaches. I couldn’t help but be curious and ask “what is that?” But I think the thing that really put me on this track was the urge to also ask “why?” …And, of course, I had the privilege to be surrounded by supportive people throughout my youth who fostered that curiosity and made ample time for exploration and solitude and reflection, and – you know, all those good things. 

KH: Well, you know, so, so many of us have similar curiosity, but not many of us act on it. Can you tell us a bit about what led you to this point? Your professional history? Your studies?

MV: Oh, of course, yes, yes. Well, having excelled in school, I was quickly connected with some of the early admission programs of Bernhard & Gottle, where I attended the Highest Light campus – go HiLi Wildebees! 

KH: I love ‘em!

MV: Don’t we all! And even had the pleasure to attend some of Dr. Bernhard’s lectures before he passed. I was concluding a traversal at the Uppermost Outpost, researching techniques to measure and to study distant mica structures, when I was invited to be a part of the Ship’s development. 

KH: Incredible, yes. Now – and this isn’t your first rodeo, as it were – but before this assignment, what would you consider sort of the highlight of your career?

MV: Oh, dear. Goodness, Kanneken, you know how I hate singling out favorite moments. 

KH: [laughs] Well, there are so many of them.

MV: I can admit to a persistent level of pride in crafting my accomplice here, the Bocular Man. 

The Bocular Man: Hello. I am the Bocular Man. I can do things a person can.

KH: As you can see –

KH: A good rhyme, too, yes.

MV: It’s a tricky bit of boculation, but his ability to listen and understand is really quite sophisticated.

KH: Yes, yes. 

MV: Even better than mine, some of the time! 

KH: Ha ha! I don’t know about that. I mean, to be sure, the Bocular Man is – it’s a wonder, a delight! But I feel like you’ve neglected to mention any of your other highlights: your lecture tours, fieldwork, your teaching tenure… How about your best-selling book, “The New Cosmography”? Under the Bernhard & Gottle imprint, I might add!

MV: And deprive myself the opportunity to hear someone else mention them? Never. [sensible chuckle]

KH: Well, some people are calling this voyage the start of a new age of exploration. Would you agree?

MV: Oh, absolutely! The insights we’ve already achieved through the Ship’s development cannot help but revolutionize numerous fields – and it is the edict of this inaugural journey to fundamentally extend that map! The points we’re soon to pass, the sights we’re soon to see, will necessarily make us ask “Well, what’s beyond that?” And if the Ship somehow enables us to find yet more dark mica, I see no reason not to expect a time of tremendous exchange for the cosmos.

KH: I’m on the edge of my proverbial seat, obviously, as we all are – 

MV: Likewise!

KH: Do you have any thoughts, any hypotheses, about what we’ll find at the highest point of our journey? 

MV: Oh, yes, several! Most particularly notable, we expect to encounter a sort of falloff of all life above the Upper Unfold. In my time at the Uppermost Outpost, we spent ages surveying for any endemic life, but amid the jagged jetsam and mica dangers, it is simply too hostile an environment for biology to really get its hooks in. 

KH: Sounds frightening. Are hooks common amongst Un fauna?

MV: Oh, well, sometimes, but in this case it’s really just a figure of speech, Kanneken. 

KH: I see, I see. 

MV: We also know that, should we verify an increasing density of matter as we ascend, we should also expect to encounter more extreme weather patterns as well. But many unknowns also await us. Who knows, we could discover the source of all mica! Discover proto-islets somehow embedded in the Firmament! 

KH: Oh, wow.

MV: Gain a better understanding of how water circulates in such climes! The list of hypotheses is extensive, Kanneken. 

KH: Well, those are some of the high points of our journey. What about the lowest point – what do you expect? 

MV: Good question. Well, based on accounts that have been shared by the Consortium Baronies about the Depths, we could, at minimum, anticipate encountering some truly vast tearror systems. 

KH: Oh, dear. 

MV: Historically, these have stymied attempts at exploration, of course, but thanks to our test flights and the radical innovations that the Foldlight has enabled, these tearrors will pose no threat to the Ship. Beneath these tearrors, though, we might predict a diminishing amount of activity alongside the diminishing light. We may, this way, gain some sense of the Fold’s natural processes. Goodness, wouldn’t finding some perfectly inert Fold be simply fascinating? 

KH: Absolutely, I wish you all the best in that. But you know what, let’s shift a bit, and let’s talk about the Delta. Compared to the other extremes of our cosmos, we do know a fair bit about the dangers inherent there. What are you expecting to discover in the Delta? 

MV: Well, as you alluded to, given the historic precedent for Delta runs and the well-documented range of tearrors that prior teams have encountered, I for one am eager for the Ship and its crew to look as far along the Delta’s unscape as we can. Though tearrors forged the Ship, and tearror-proof it may be, we are choosing to err on the side of safety all the same, striving to avoid the worst of it. 

KH: Good, good.

MV: But, I fully expect us to surpass the morass. [sensible chuckle] In fact, I predict that we will arrive at the edge of reality itself, and the loathsome task that our crew will have will be to find the words to describe it. 

KH: Tremendous, absolutely tremendous. All right. How about after? The postscript. After this voyage, what would be next for you? 

MV: Well, hopefully another voyage! Hopefully many more! There are so many questions still unanswered. Would the Ship be able to navigate to the Fount? How close to it could we get, with the current fighting against us every inch of the way? At minimum, there will be books to write. Lectures to give. Knowledge to share. And more interviews just like this, I daresay! 

KH: I hope so!

MV: We cannot wait to bring our discoveries back for all to know. 

KH: I hope to be a participant in some of those interviews. 

MV: Oh, of course Kanneken, you’ll be there. 

KH: Now, what about you? What about Merlin himself? Can you tell our readers something about your personal life, your interests? Do you have a family? What do you enjoy doing outside of work? 

MV: Hmm. You make it sound like there are people who enjoy doing things without their full and precise attention. But, I understand. There is comfort in letting one’s mind drift. Does use of alterbud count as a hobby? 

KH: I…mean, it certainly could! 

MV: Do you think you’ll share that in your article?

KH: I… I mean, if you’re comfortable with it, I’ll include it, but if not we can certainly cut it.

MV: Well, I trust you to know your audience. But no, no family. The crew, though, has actually been joined by some of my oldest and dearest friends, however. Dr. Ripley Rawfield, for instance, our onboard physician and I – we first crossed paths while we were both on a volunteer shift at a… oh, goodness. It was a mica lung treatment facility in the Highest Light. This would have been tens of traversals ago, now – but she yanked me off my first-day tour to hold a pitcher for her, performing a lavage. I never imagined at that time that we would both eventually be crewing the first dark mica Ship. Just wild! Utterly wild. 

KH: Serendipity, really. All right, Merlin – you’ve consulted on this Ship, you’ve helped chart the course of this exploration. Tell me, if this voyage only answers one question for you, what is that question? What is it that you most want to know the answer to?

MV: “Why?” Why has the cosmos come to be the way that it has? Why are we the way that we are? No one could have believed that the incidental affairs of humanity would lead us directly to the tools of our own self-actualization. Yet, within the disaster of Midst’s moon lay the shard that would become the Ship. 

KH: Absolutely miraculous. 

MV: Truly. Every Un has its Fold – in a purely figurative sense, of course. 

KH: Well, that’s the end of my notebook, and so I suppose that’s the end of our interview, Merlin! Thank you so much for joining me today. 

MV: Kanneken, I assure you, the pleasure is also sincerely mine. 

KH: You know, one more thing, Merlin – how do you do it? 

MV: Do what?

KH: How do you remain so confident all the damn time? 

MV: Psh, psh, psh! I’m only human, Kanneken.

–

X: Unend Interlude 1. Sam Riegel as Kanneken Hartevelt. Matt Roen as Merlin Vot. The adventure continues in Season 2.