Ricki Tarr (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rickitikitarr) wrote2015-03-08 10:47 am
rickitikitarr) wrote2015-03-08 10:47 am
1. video
[Ricki Tarr, latest inmate arrival, is still getting his feet under him. He's been on board for a little while now, but let's face it, he's a field agent from the 1970s, getting used to graphical user interfaces of his messenger has put up a bit of a roadblock in terms of his making contact.
By the time he's confident enough with the flimsy, cheeping little device to make a video post, his stomach is growling, so the very first message is a simple video shot.
It's poorly framed, he has no real idea of how to centre himself in the lens, and the light in his room is dark and low and terrible for any sort of filming. But from the dark, what's visible of his half-in-the-frame expression is still and steady;]
The first living creature to orbit the earth was a little Russian mongrel named Laika. She was a pretty thing, with a clever cast to her eyes and pricked up, pointed ears. On the fourtieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution they flung the little thing into the sky.
In fact, the Russians had been launching dogs into suborbital flights for a few years before, but none attained the notoriety or captured the imaginations of the world like little Laika. I was rather young when she was sent to space, but recall thinking the entire proceedings terribly inhumane.
The Soviets say that she was euthanized before her oxygen ran out. The British and Americans question whether that is true. The Russians question whether that questioning is deliberately spread propaganda meant to make them seem monstrous. In the time since, I think both sides have lost track of the original truth of the matter. But the question of her ultimate cause of death aside, I wondered whether she might be hungry, thirsty or afraid, uncomprehending of how it was possible to see stars all around her... I actually can't recall reading whether Sputnik 2 was like this ship, with windows or not. Laika may not have seen stars spinning in the sky, but I'm sure the sounds and sudden lack of gravity must have been rather frightening for such a little dog.
[His voice is low and steady, the pictures his paints are matter-of-fact and vivid. He accent is an odd, old one, London tempered by a childhood racing through Penang streets and other colonial holds. He takes his time with the story before concluding;]
Which is all to say, given the apparent flexibility of space and time on this vessel, if we see her while we're out here, I must simply insist that we make a stop.
By the time he's confident enough with the flimsy, cheeping little device to make a video post, his stomach is growling, so the very first message is a simple video shot.
It's poorly framed, he has no real idea of how to centre himself in the lens, and the light in his room is dark and low and terrible for any sort of filming. But from the dark, what's visible of his half-in-the-frame expression is still and steady;]
The first living creature to orbit the earth was a little Russian mongrel named Laika. She was a pretty thing, with a clever cast to her eyes and pricked up, pointed ears. On the fourtieth anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution they flung the little thing into the sky.
In fact, the Russians had been launching dogs into suborbital flights for a few years before, but none attained the notoriety or captured the imaginations of the world like little Laika. I was rather young when she was sent to space, but recall thinking the entire proceedings terribly inhumane.
The Soviets say that she was euthanized before her oxygen ran out. The British and Americans question whether that is true. The Russians question whether that questioning is deliberately spread propaganda meant to make them seem monstrous. In the time since, I think both sides have lost track of the original truth of the matter. But the question of her ultimate cause of death aside, I wondered whether she might be hungry, thirsty or afraid, uncomprehending of how it was possible to see stars all around her... I actually can't recall reading whether Sputnik 2 was like this ship, with windows or not. Laika may not have seen stars spinning in the sky, but I'm sure the sounds and sudden lack of gravity must have been rather frightening for such a little dog.
[His voice is low and steady, the pictures his paints are matter-of-fact and vivid. He accent is an odd, old one, London tempered by a childhood racing through Penang streets and other colonial holds. He takes his time with the story before concluding;]
Which is all to say, given the apparent flexibility of space and time on this vessel, if we see her while we're out here, I must simply insist that we make a stop.
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[He agrees, getting the tray in one arm as he shakes the pamphlet open with the other, lifts it and starts reading. He doesn't mean to be rude, Iris, sorry, but he's so hungry for coherent information that backs up what he's heard so far, been reading on the little screen-thingy, that it's hard to resist skimming at least the first few paragraphs as he follows her into the bar.
Also if he keeps looking at her clothing he'll stare, and is smart enough to know that the cultural cues that that much skin give him are not necessarily the same in every world or time, and that he should keep those particular comments and questions all to himself until his feet are a little better under him.
He's so absorbed he nearly misses the door opening.]
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When she does speak, it's quietly (by Iris standards), as if to someone in a library.]
Let me know if you've any questions, sweetheart. Or, well, any immediate questions. You aren't going mad, though, the universe does that all by itself.
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[He eventually says, vaguely strangled, like he's trying very hard to be a good boy and not burst into laughter at the very thought.]
That's awfully-
[He has no idea what but it makes him reach for that drink now, thank you.]
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[She speaks gently now, eyes full of only slightly amused compassion.]
I find it 'elps to think of it in less absolute terms, if you see what I mean. It's a chance to examine the way your life went, to pinpoint the places you might've done it different. No one's expecting you to turn into the platonic ideal choirboy or owt. We've most of us done painful or stupid or disastrous things somewhere along the line, 'aven't we? And we generally 'ad good reasons for it at the time. Doesn't mean it couldn't've been done over ...less disastrously, though. That's sort of what we're shooting for 'ere.
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Instead it's just polite, thoughtful neutrality as he takes a few bracing sips of his drink, before setting into the food. His stomach is in knots, but he knows he needs to eat.
Four bites in and he's calm enough to ask;]
If you're a Warden, darling, I'm sure it can't be as bad as all that. Hardly whips and back breaking work lines, hm?
[And the food is sure as hell better than Changi.]
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[Iris leans back in her seat and knocks a Sobranie Black Russian out of her packet, although she remembers not to light it while Ricki's still eating.
She also leaves the pack on the table, with a nod intended to mean help yourself if you like.]
We've got a couple of wardens from the British Navy in Napoleon's time, and more'n one inmate straight from twentieth, twenty-first century prisons. A lot of people arrive wondering when we're going to break out the floggers or the mindwipes or the neural stimulators or the solitary confinement. But we're not aiming for punishment 'ere - I wouldn't've used that word at all if I'd written the leaflet. All you can teach someone with punishment's 'ow to keep their 'ead down and do as they're told - which 'as its place on a wooden ship in wartime, admittedly, but not at all 'ere.
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Yes, it's different, but not that different, he's privately sure.]
Explain it to me again. How it really works. Once I've been here a few days they send me to a Warden, someone like you-? And then?
[It's the redemption process he's a little murky about.]
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She tracks the motion of Ricki's hand when he does it, though without comment.]
It's different for everyone, lovey. Chromie 'as a way of making it sound very clear cut and black and white, but that's sort of 'ow she thinks. Chromie's a dragon - I expect you'll get to know 'er soon enough, she runs the library.
[And you are totally one of those inmates that's going to be practically living in the library at first. Iris knows and loves the type.]
Dunno if that's a dragon thing or just a Chromie thing, I 'aven't met any of the others. It's a bit more organic than that in real life - like, my last inmate was an enormous great metahuman that liked to get 'is bullying in first. 'Is idea of pushing my boundaries was to murder my girlfriend and send me 'er 'ead - don't get me wrong, I adored Victor, but I did 'ave to be very firm with 'im or I'd've got nowhere at all.
Girl I've got now, she's a Japanese goddess in another girl's body - my problem with 'er's been more along the lines of persuading 'er to step outside the boundaries of 'er own expectations. At bottom, only you know what your life's got in it that needs put right - your warden's there to 'ave your back while you put it into action.
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[He wants to be absolutely, crystal clear on this one, before he makes a total idiot of himself in one way or another.]
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She doesn't walk round the hallways dragon shaped, the corridors aren't wide enough. You see a little smiling gnome lady with earmuff buns, that's our Chromie.
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[He accuses her, almost hopefully. She must be.]
It's very unkind, you know.
[She must be.]
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[She smiles, but it's not a gotcha smile. It's the smile of someone breaking reluctant bad news.]
Some folks arrive 'ere already acquainted with multiple sentient species or interdimensional travel; I'm sorry you 'aven't, it does make the culture shock a much bigger shock to the system. Don't fret. We just come back off a dodgy port, so you'll 'ave a few weeks to wrap your 'ead around the baseline weirdness before you get walloped with any more weirdness. And I will 'elp all I can - if you believe nowt else I'm saying, sweetheart, believe that.
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[Finishing his drink, before asking his next big question.]
So how are they going to pair me up, and what kind of power is that chap going to have over me? Or lady, I suppose.
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[She means that. Answering to need is instinctive, almost a compulsion, for Iris: she'd make the effort even if she hadn't taken to Ricki so much for his own sake.]
Admiral does the choosing; 'e is pretty good at making the right matches for folk, in my experience. I've worked 'ere a bit over two years, now. Let me see - anything from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to find you a match. They get an item they can track you with - tells 'em if you die, tells 'em where you are when we're off the boat. As for power - well, they can't lock you up longer'n a week. They 'urt you for any reason but self defense they'll get the boot, unless it's a diminished responsibility deal - like, I stabbed a bloke when we 'ad that rabies epidemic, and that didn't get me the sack. That's just an occupational 'azard, if you take my meaning. Anything else, people work it out as they need it - like when I 'ad Victor, I 'ad to cook up a virus just to knock out 'is genetically engineered healing factor, one time when 'e were on a rampage.
I'd say we don't get wardens who get off on power trips, but I'd be lying. I will say we don't keep 'em for long. One absolute rule is we can't cut off your communication - so say you want a worst case scenario? You can always come to any of the rest of us.
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[He almost gestures for a second drink, then pauses, and glances at her.]
I should have- I have none of whatever the local currency may be.
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[She gets up and fetches another round of drinks.]
Whiskey all right? We 'ave a little game, my boyfriend and me - guess the drink from the way someone looks. It's a highly scientific art.
[She takes a swig of her gin; the amused look is back.]
The rabies weren't in a port, that were one of the inmates. Bit of a mad scientist. Stole some stuff from the infirmary and cooked up a brand new disease out of 'is warden's blood - 'ad 'alf the ship infected inside days. Now that were a proper old fashioned bloodbath, that were.
[There is the faintest air of they don't make inmates like that any more in her voice, telling the story.]
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[He agrees, and taking one last quick skim of the pamphlet. He thinks he's got it. But then what she's saying about the rabies clues back in.
Of course in a prison you have to mind the inmates as well as the guards. Of course.]
Is he still- around, that man?
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[And it actually sort of does. He does take a hefty swallow of the whiskey, though, and sit back in his chair. Normally he's a lot more on the ball, a lot more glib, but now he finds himself sort of staring, at a bit of a loss for words.]
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It'll be all right, sweetheart. It's an interesting, challenging place to be but it's not too bad. Culture shock's always a bit of a bugger to start with. D'you want to borrow a dog or so for the night?
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[Bending down a bit to peer at the puppy whose ear's he's petting currently. He's considering it, but;]
No, thank you, mum, I'll be fine.
[Not in the least, but he'll be closer to if he can handle it on his own.]
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Most excitement they've 'ad was one time a flood turned 'em into sabretooth tigers. That was fun.
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[Or hallucination, he adds privately. Part of him is still hoping it's a hallucination.]
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Plus, I might've been exaggerating about the universe; really it were just the one solar system. A bit of an important one, mind you, not to say familiar.
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Not earth, was it?
[That's a little alarming to think of.]
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