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What Any Dead Thing Wants

38:24 recording · EN · 2 speakers

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Brief overview

Escape Pod 1026 opens Amy Ogden's tale: an exorcist crew clearing alien ghosts meets a dead human.

  1. Exorcism here is a scheduled contract jobHobb's crew works meridian sectors to a deadline, with process handbooks, duty rosters and colour-coded metrics Jaara tracks on a tablet.
  2. A human ghost breaks the company's process entirelyHQ has no procedure for a dead human on an exorcism site and answers only "Continue with exorcism as planned."
  3. Haunts clear only through acceptance, driven by emotionGhosts turn corporeal under anger, fear or confusion, and Hobb decides that emotional activation is what finally lets a haunt accept its death.
Executive Summary AI
  • Host Tina Connolly introduces Escape Pod episode 1026, "What Any Dead Thing Wants" by Amy Ogden, part 1 of 3, read by narrator Isaac Harwood with audio producer Summer Brooks, and flags content notes for swearing and destroyed galactic ecosystems.0:53
  • The story opens three weeks into a planetary exorcism, where team captain Hobb and his crew walk meridian lines banishing the lingering haunts of exomegafauna they nickname cabbage-faced motherfuckers, or CFMs.3:19
  • Back at the modular habitat, Jaara shows Hobb a spreadsheet of yellow, orange and pink metrics and explains the stakes: the planet Zatharan, knocked off its orbit by a formaturgical experiment, is dying of falling temperatures and failing crops, so Zatharan Two must be cleared for human habitation in time.12:34
  • At dinner a stranger in a nondescript jumpsuit is found in Rathorna's seat; his hand passes through a spoon and he says he thinks he is dead, later naming himself Ozzy and claiming he crashed rather than being one of the terraformers, while HQ replies only that unauthorised entry forfeits legal standing and the exorcism should continue as planned.15:38
  • Hobb's first attempt on the CFM — an illusioned battle slug carcass — fails when Ozzy startles him out of a chestnut tree, the enraged haunt throws him across the grove, and Hobb concludes that strong emotional activation is the key to pushing any haunt toward acceptance.28:45
Key Quote
“The third week of a planetary exorcism is the hardest, at least if the planet in question has megafauna to deal with.”
— Isaac Harwood3:19
Key Quote
“It's another one of these cabbage-faced motherfuckers!”
— Isaac Harwood4:33
Key Quote
“Zatharan is a dead planet spinning.”
— Isaac Harwood13:22