[opening theme music playing]
[electronic warbling]
[tense music playing]
[wind whooshing]
[woman] About time we head back to the lander.
Oh, come on, Burton. Just one more klick.
This is our closest pass to Daedalus Patera.
We're already past the Rover's operational limits, and you know that...
Look, we just drop a sensor package,
grab a few pics, and we're gone.
- Okay? - [computer beeping]
- Oh, hold on. - [computer beeps]
I'm reading a temperature spike.
Let me check the rear sensors. Might be a sulfur eruption brewing.
[alarm blaring]
[deep rumbling]
[suspenseful music playing]
[woman] Shit!
- Burton! Strap in! - [Burton grunts]
[grunts]
[woman grunting]
[inaudible]
[sound fades]
[crashing]
[wind whooshing]
[Rover creaking]
[winces, groans]
[electricity crackling]
[straining]
[grunts]
[groans]
[grunts, whimpers]
- [bones crack] - [yells]
- [breathing heavily] - [metallic thudding]
[woman] Burton? [panting]
[clears throat] Burton, can you hear me?
[tense music playing]
[woman] Hold on.
Hold on.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. [gasps]
[exhales sharply]
[exhales]
Oh.
Okay.
Oh fuck.
Oh.
[electronic warbling]
This is Martha Kivelson.
Io Expeditionary Mission.
Do you read, Orbital?
Come in, Orbital.
[computer] Comm sync lost. Next Orbital sync window, 12 hours.
Shit.
[beeps]
[electronic warbling]
[chimes]
[computer] 41 kilometers remaining.
- What? - [computer] Oxygen levels low.
- Oh shit. Fuck! Fuck, fuck! - [computer] System damage detected.
Six minutes until critical CO2 levels reached.
[suspenseful music swells]
[Martha straining]
[alarm blaring]
[computer] One minute until critical CO2 levels reached.
[air hissing]
- [computer] Oxygen level stable. - [breathes deeply]
- [music fades] - [Martha exhales]
- Sorry, Burton. - [dirt crunching]
[solemn music playing]
[Martha breathing heavily]
[suspenseful music playing]
[liquid gurgling]
[panting]
[yells]
- [bones crack] - [screams]
[whimpers, breathes heavily]
[Martha] Yes, yes, yes.
[computer] Warning. Use may cause side effects,
including loss of motor function, hallucinations, euphoria...
If I don't make it, better to die high.
[computer beeps]
- [whooshing] - [sighs in relief]
[footsteps approaching]
[wind whooshing]
[electronic warbling]
[Burton] Hello.
Orbital?
- Come in, Orbital. - [electronic warbling]
[Burton] Hello...
[Martha breathing heavily]
[whispers] Okay.
Oh.
Okay.
Just...
making sure.
[Martha groans]
[Burton] Martha Kivelson.
You're dead, Burton. Stop it. Okay?
[Burton] Not Burton.
Look, I don't have time to figure out
what unresolved psychological conflicts gave rise to whatever this shit is.
Okay?
[inhales] I gotta keep it together.
Fucking hallucination.
[Martha breathing heavily]
[Burton] Wake up.
- Wake up. - [tense music swelling]
[exhales]
[Martha] Fuck. Fuck!
- [computer] 33 kilometers remaining... - I'm not moving fast enough.
[Burton] "Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing Beloved from pole to pole!" Coleridge.
Poetry now?
Ugh. I thought I told you to shut up.
[Burton] "Who spilled these stars Across the sky
Like sparkling dust, like clouds of light
They pour their milky shine Into the deep black bowl"
Can't you see I'm busy not dying here?
[Burton] Yes. I'm trying to communicate.
[Martha breathing heavily]
[Burton] "I was the world In which I walked and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself"
[ethereal music playing]
[Martha] Wallace Stevens.
Nice choice.
[panting]
[ethereal vocalizing]
[Martha breathing heavily]
What the fuck?
[Martha breathing heavily]
[squelching]
[ethereal music swells]
[footsteps thumping]
[Burton] Martha.
Martha!
[grunting]
[music stops]
[Martha breathing heavily]
[wind whooshing]
[laboring] Okay.
One more step.
One more...
step.
[moans]
[chimes]
- [computer] 14 kilometers remaining. - I'm not... Oh fuck.
I'm not gonna make it.
Fuck. Fuck, I got to do it.
[computer] Warning. Mixing this drug with current biochemistry
may result in paranoia, psychosis and hypomania.
[heart beating]
[Burton] Io has a core of iron and iron sulfide.
- What does this sound like? - [electricity buzzing]
[Burton] A mantle of partially molten rock,
Io is a sulfur-rich moon.
- What does this sound like? - [Martha] I don't have time for this.
[Burton] Io's metallic core generates a magnetic field
connecting its own poles with the poles of Jupiter.
- What does this sound like? - [Martha panting]
- [Burton] Volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide... - Shut the fuck up!
- ...and oxygen. What does this sound like? - [Martha] Goddammit! Stop!
- [Burton] Rotating field, magnetosphere. - [suspenseful music swelling]
[Burton] Sulfur ions, circular orbit.
What does this sound like?
[Martha] It sounds...
Sounds like...
Like a machine.
[heart continues beating]
[intense music playing]
[Burton with distorted voice] Yes. Yes, machine.
Yes. Machine.
I am machine.
[music fades]
- [electronic warbling] - [sighs heavily]
[Burton] Look at me.
[ethereal music playing]
[whooshing]
You're saying that this moon, Io, is a machine.
And that machine is you.
[Burton] "And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine"
Wordsworth.
[Burton] Burton's brain is semi-intact.
Language is data.
Radio is medium.
Sulfur is triboelectric.
[gasps]
That hole...
[whooshing]
[Martha] It's like a highway
into her mind.
[Martha sighs]
I just...
[weakly] I can't...
[ethereal music swelling]
[inaudible]
[Burton] Yes, yes. "The marble index of a mind forever..."
Voyaging through strange eons of thought
alone.
[music fades]
- [gasps, pants heavily] - [computer] Oxygen levels critical.
- [alarm blaring] - [computer] Oxygen levels critical.
- Oxygen levels critical. - [Martha gasping]
- [computer] Oxygen levels critical. - [Martha coughing]
[computer] Oxygen levels critical.
Oxygen levels critical.
[ominous music playing]
[Martha gasps]
[sizzling]
- [electronic warbling] - [alarm blaring]
Io.
Are you there?
[Io] Yes.
Did Burton go...
in there?
[Io] Yes.
[alarm blaring]
[computer] One minute until critical CO2 levels reached.
[computer beeps]
[melancholy music playing]
[Io] Throw self in.
Physical configuration will be destroyed.
Neural configuration may be preserved.
Maybe death, maybe life.
Join with me.
Io,
if you're a machine,
what is your function?
[Io] To know you.
[sighs]
[computer beeps]
Maybe I'm gonna live forever.
Or maybe this is just one last dream
before dying.
[music swelling]
[music crescendos]
[Martha] Earth station.
Come in.
This is Martha Kivelson.
[music fades]
[electronic warbling]
[ethereal music playing]
[music fades]