Escape Pod 848: An Incident on Ishtar

Escape Pod

Escape Artists Foundation

Fiction, Drama, Science Fiction

4.7 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2022

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

An Incident on Ishtar By Brian Trent Her family tried very hard to never use the word “crazy” with her. So therefore, they didn’t say it was crazy that she was applying for a Venusian post as Tier 3 Balloon Specialist. She tried explaining her reasons to them: I have valuable skill-sets for the Ishtar colony. They countered: you don’t do well with people. Her response: there are only 612 people throughout Ishtar’s nine modular habitats. There are 2.1 million people here in San Antonio. Venus is hell, Mom interjected, and you’re afraid of heights, Melissa! Do you hear yourself? Venus is hell below the clouds but I’ll be living above them, sweeping along with the transterminator currents on oxygen-filled aerostat balloons that provide both breathable air and the lifting gases required. Statistically it will be safer. No chance of making another Terrible Mistake. The smiling masks of her family fell away. Older sister Diane exploded at her. Is that what this is about? Are you out of your mind? You— Melissa didn’t hear the rest. She marched out of her parent’s house and took the nearest PDT to the local office of ExtraPlanetary Colony Careers. Why do you want to go to Venus? the interviewer asked her. I have valuable skill-sets for the Ishtar colony, she replied. They were quick to agree.

Transcript

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1:26.4	Hello, and welcome to EscapePod, your weekly science fiction podcast. I'm Valerie Valdez,
1:53.8	your host for this episode. Our story this week is an incident on Ishtar by Brian Trent.
2:00.6	It was first published by analog science fiction in March 2018. Brian Trent's fiction appears
2:07.6	regularly in analog, the magazine of fantasy and science fiction, the year's best military
2:13.0	and adventure sci-fi, daily science fiction, nature, and numerous years' best anthologies.
2:19.4	His novel Red Space Rising, published in September 2022, is set in the same universe as an incident
2:25.2	on Ishtar and involves some of the same characters. Brian lives in New England. His website
2:31.0	and blog are located at BrianTrent.com. Our narrator, Kitty Sarkozy, is a speculative
2:37.3	fiction writer, actor, and robot girlfriend. Kitty is an alumnus of superstars writing seminar,
2:43.3	a member of the Apex Writers Group, and the Horror Writers Association. Several large
	...

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