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?
-Oh, hold on.
I'm reading a temperature spike.
Let me check the rear sensors. Might be a sulfur eruption brewing.
Shit!
-Burton! Strap in!
Burton?
Burton, can you hear me?
Hold on.
Okay. Okay.
Okay.
Oh.
Okay.
Oh fuck.
Oh.
This is Martha Kivelson.
Io Expeditionary Mission.
Do you read, Orbital?
Come in, Orbital.
Comm sync lost. Next Orbital sync window, 12 hours.
Shit.
41 kilometers remaining.
-What? -Oxygen levels low.
-Oh shit. Fuck! Fuck, fuck! -System damage detected.
Six minutes until critical CO2 levels reached.
One minute until critical CO2 levels reached.
-Oxygen level stable.
-Sorry, Burton.
Yes, yes, yes.
Warning. Use may cause side effects,
including loss of motor function, hallucinations, euphoria…
If I don't make it, better to die high.
Hello.
Orbital?
-Come in, Orbital.
Hello…
Okay.
Oh.
Okay.
Just…
making sure.
Martha Kivelson.
You're dead, Burton. Stop it. Okay?
Not Burton.
Look, I don't have time to figure out
what unresolved psychological conflicts gave rise to whatever this shit is.
Okay?
I gotta keep it together.
Fucking hallucination.
Wake up.
-Wake up.
Fuck. Fuck!
- 33 kilometers remaining… -I'm not moving fast enough.
"Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing Beloved from pole to pole!" Coleridge.
Poetry now?
Ugh. I thought I told you to shut up.
"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?
Yes. I'm trying to communicate.
"I was the world In which I walked and what I saw
Or heard or felt came not but from myself"
Wallace Stevens.
Nice choice.
What the fuck?
Martha.
Martha!
Okay.
One more step.
One more…
step.
-14 kilometers remaining. -I'm not… Oh fuck.
I'm not gonna make it.
Fuck. Fuck, I got to do it.
Warning. Mixing this drug with current biochemistry
may result in paranoia, psychosis and hypomania.
Io has a core of iron and iron sulfide.
-What does this sound like?
A mantle of partially molten rock,
Io is a sulfur-rich moon.
-What does this sound like? -I don't have time for this.
Io's metallic core generates a magnetic field
connecting its own poles with the poles of Jupiter.
-What does this sound like?
- Volcanoes emit sulfur dioxide… -Shut the fuck up!
-…and oxygen. What does this sound like? -Goddammit! Stop!
-Rotating field, magnetosphere.
Sulfur ions, circular orbit.
What does this sound like?
It sounds…
Sounds like…
Like a machine.
Yes. Yes, machine.
Yes. Machine.
I am machine.
Look at me.
You're saying that this moon, Io, is a machine.
And that machine is you.
"And now I see with eye serene The very pulse of the machine"
Wordsworth.
Burton's brain is semi-intact.
Language is data.
Radio is medium.
Sulfur is triboelectric.
That hole…
It's like a highway
into her mind.
I just…
I can't…
Yes, yes. "The marble index of a mind forever…"
Voyaging through strange eons of thought
alone.
-Oxygen levels critical.
Oxygen levels critical.
Io.
Are you there?
Yes.
Did Burton go…
in there?
Yes.
One minute until critical CO2 levels reached.
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?
To know you.
Maybe I'm gonna live forever.
Or maybe this is just one last dream
before dying.
Earth station.
Come in.
This is Martha Kivelson.