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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[Settling in to the chat with him, with a pleased sigh as his humour sobers up ever so slightly.]
What about you, then?
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Brooklyn, mostly. I live in D.C. now, though. Guess I'm just a city boy at heart.
[AND it's about now that -] I never even introduced myself, did I? Steve Rogers. [And he figures he should add,] Warden, if you need anything.
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[Unabashedly so, in fact.]
Stationed- what year, then?
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[He wouldn't have offered if he didn't mean it.]
'43 - uh, 1943. Until 1945. Although London was just home base - and I didn't necessarily see it a lot.
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[He's heard about these jobs he's supposed to be looking at, and still firmly intends not to... but if he has to make a start then this would be the place.]
That's almost exactly the years I spent in Singapore.
[Which he's sure Steve knows was no picnic, Japanese-occupied at the time.]
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[And - oh. Steve does make a face, it's somewhere between a grimace and sympathy, the kind of face you'd make when talking to another soldier in the same campaign, that conveys you know how he feels and don't need to make the "appropriate" noises that someone who doesn't know what it was like would feel obligated to make.] Ah-hah. Definitely no picnic, then, even at the best of times. Did you grow up there?
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It's quite a sophisticated system of face-making, between people involved in war, but seems to work every time.]
Nah. The Malayan Emergency was kicking up really hot, and my parents were civilians, had no idea what was about to happen on the island. They moved there to get away from the violence.
[A distinctly droll note there. Big mistake. But he waves, dismissively.]
What about you? Where was your war spent?
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Right. [Now his smile is almost sad. That's even worse, honestly, but again - nothing you can do, right?] What was it like? I mean, did you see much before everything went to hell in a handbasket? [He's still curious.]
In New York, until 1943. [Which is said with something akin to a grimace, because he wanted to be out there a lot sooner.] After that, all over Europe, mostly. Like I said, we were based out of London, but we jumped into Normandy and I've been to Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Poland, Italy, and Czechoslovakia, too. Last place I saw was the Alps. [So he has to shake his head a little.] I never made it over to Asia. There's a couple of guys here, though, who served in the Marines - uh. Still are in the Marines, actually. It's '44 for them, back home.
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[Another deprecating little smile, again, a bad story, but could have been so much worse. A small whistle for Steve's roster.]
You don't meet many men who have survived as many countries as that, you know.