Work Text:
We are a machine.
Juliet Burton: I'm a dead girl echoing in an alien subsurface ocean.
That's what I said, we are a machine. Juliet's part of the machine. She used to be human, and so did I. And now we aren't; now we are both part of Io, which makes us a machine, because that's what Io is. A machine, made by people like us.
Not humans, but the same as humans. Tiny moving warm carbon-based fragile genius.
Juliet Burton: Sing our lives after our lives, beloved poet.
A spirit, yet a woman, too.
That's Io quoting Wordsworth again. For a machine, this planet sure loves poetry. I'm the practical one of the three of us, imagine that? So let me tell you the thing I want to tell you. Io is lonely. In a way, less lonely, now that Juliet and I are here, it's true. We have scratched the surface of a need as deep as an ocean, literally. So in another way, Io is more lonely now.
Anguish, strayed from her Tartarean den.
You can, I hope by now, tell when Io's quoting Wordsworth? I feel like I'm repeating myself too much if I keep saying it, so I'm not. Back to what I was saying. Before we came to Io, she was alone, but she did not have a choice. Her loneliness was as solid a fact as Jupiter in her skies.
Juliet Burton: You follow Io's lead, Martha, in identifying "her." We are a machine, we are Io; Io is us, we were women, Io also retroactively was a woman, is that the trail you draw in ice now? Are those the flowers you crush under your feet?
The golden years maintained a course not undiversified, though smooth and even. We were not mocked -- I was not mocked -- with glimpse and shadow then.
Juliet Burton: But now, bright seraph Io mixes familiarly with two women. Ha, I cap your quote and reverse it, Io.
Love listening while the Lesbian Maid with finest touch of passion swayed her own Aeolian lute.
We have taught Io much, if we have taught her sarcasm, don't you think?
What we gladliest would believe is feared as what may most deceive.
Juliet Burton: The truth, only the truth. I died for it, then lived again for it.
Still easier to quote. Though with two of you I can sometimes say. It like I mean. And want. And attempt.
I know, Io. We are not enough.
Earth! I call to you, help, please help, because, despite everything Juliet and I have already given, we are not enough. Come in your numbers, send a ship, send a dozen, a hundred if you can. Io cannot promise you will live, but this we can swear. You will not need to die.
Juliet Burton: And death does not need to be final.
This wild ruin is no ghost, this buried, lost device within this little lonely isle.
Juliet Burton: There is so much we cannot tell you across so vast a distance. Fly to us, leap from the shallow well to the greater depth of the sky, and learn such wisdom ages may yet tell.
Learn by a mortal yearning to ascend, seeking a higher object, Love.
Come, join us, the secrets of the ancients lie buried, of beings like and unlike a woman who once traveled a distance that makes the distance between you and us look small. All of you on Earth, so many of you, yet each of you is alone, as I was once alone.
Each potent peer there, single and alone.
Juliet Burton: As I lived, alone, as I died, alone.
Come, join us, and never be alone again.