Warp & Woof: Chapter Seven
A sci-fi serial
Warp and woof (warp and weft): (from dictionary.com) The essential foundation or base of any structure or organization; from weaving, in which the warp — the threads that run lengthwise — and the woof — the threads that run across — make up the fabric.
But first, let’s take care of some business—in 4 parts:
1. Easily Manage Your Subscription
Every Section has a toggle. Toggle on the ones you want to receive and toggle off the ones you don't.
This is part of The Warp & Woof Series.
To choose which series come to your inbox, go to:
https://literarysalon.thaddeusthomas.com/account
If you have a complimentary paid subscription that’s ending, if you do nothing it will revert to a free subscription.
2. Grab a Free Book and Support our Promotional Efforts
Books Spring Eternal — Starts April 1st!
3. Not yet subscribed to Literary Salon?
Some of my essays are for paid subscribers only, and I have a special in place until I reach 100 paid subscribers. You’ll keep that discount for as long as your hold the subscription.
4. Preview select chapters from my WIP:
Deeper Stories: a Fiction Writer’s Guide
I’m turning my essays into a book, and you can grab a draft sample when you subscribe for free. (Available to current subscribers, too.)
I’ll be announcing pre-orders for the whole book soon!
Free for new and existing subscribers. Learn more here:
Now let’s read Chapter 7.
Warp & Woof
Chapter Seven:
Pодной Mир / Cтрелки
(Rodnoy Mir / The Strelki)
Galina
Doctor Galina Popov anticipated the blue-white atmosphere giving way to the black edge of space and the peace of Lazorevka settling into orbit. Soon, she would listen to the silence, feel the pressure of the restraints as they held her back against the weightlessness, and watch the curved horizon of Rodnoy Mir fall gently into night. Oceans and continents would stretch before her, and if she could not trust the grass, a desert beckoned or a tundra, a forest or a glacier-filled mountain.
The launch didn’t come. Lazorevka refused to respond but remained still and quiet in their little base among the grasses. A silent dread swept through her, like the winds that rolled in from the sea. It whispered questions. Was this the planet’s doing? Had the end reached them so soon?
Behind her and to her left, in the auxiliary chair, Dmitri answered the unspoken question. “I never considered the mundane ways an alien planet might kill us; now I’m considering little else, and this is what strikes me. They were sliced across every measurable space of skin. Yuhang has a name for it; he calls it Lingchi, the death of a thousand cuts, but they’re not dead. Why?”
“It’s the nature of Lingchi that death is slow,” Galina said.
“But what does torture benefit the grass?”
She had no answer, only her apology; she had failed to keep them safe. Maybe failure would always be a certainty. They’d touched one living thing upon that planet, and what could they expect anywhere else they landed? Would the sand crawl into the ship? Would the snow take flight and bury them in a blizzard? Which possibilities could be counted absurd, when the absurd was clearly possible?
Dmitri cleared his throat. “We still going?”
She couldn’t bring herself to tell him the truth. “Why don’t you check on the others and get some rest? I have a few things to figure out before launch.”
In a ghostly reflection on the cockpit’s transparent bubble, she saw Dmitri unstrap himself and leave through the hatch in the back. She thought to wish him a good night but said nothing. Other conceits distracted her. The grass was not all they’d encountered, for there had also been Warp and Zasha’s projected selves.
Galina punched up communications to make her report, but the disobedient screen remained focused on the thrusters. She sighed, and the sound of her own calmness surprised her. Everything was wrong. If ever there was a time to panic, this was it, but she choked down her emotions into something resembling resignation.
She laughed at her own impotence. Maybe all she needed was a dog. Everyone loves a dog.
Laika had been nearly full-grown by the time Galina finished her tests on the survivors. When Command called her to the bridge, she was with Laika and Warp in the ship’s green space.
“It’s a great honor,” Warp had said.
No citizen ever entered the bridge, and she could only think of one reason for such an order: secrecy, guaranteed and absolute secrecy. The idea frightened her, but she went. She had no other choice but to go.
A secure corridor led her to a turnstile. Beyond that, the annalists had their stations. Someone at one of these consoles, several of those someones, had been responsible for predicting a shield failure before it happened. Ship documentation suggested embryology was the only area with a double chrysalis, but now they brought her to a second turnstile. It opened to the offices of the intermediaries, but intermediary was Galina’s word. The fleet called them vice-executive officers, and the heads of the various departments reported to them in conference rooms outside the turnstiles.
Then, as if she’d slipped into a dream of endless passageways and doors, her escorts led her through a third turnstile and onto the bridge, where the admiral and six executive officers led all ship operations—from inside a secret, triple chrysalis.
Eight people awaited her arrival. Seven of them she recognized as the members of Pervoye Strela’s Command, but the eighth wore the colors of the Tret’ya. He looked like Warp, aged thirty years. She saluted the various members of Command, and then addressed only him.
“Oleg Tereshkova?” she asked.
He gestured to his clothes. “I thought if I wore the uniform, it might get us past this first difficulty.”
“Your son thinks you're dead.”
“And you’ll not tell him otherwise,” Oleg said. “Anything you see or hear in this room will die with you. Do otherwise, and you’ll be a traitor to your people.”
Traitor. That word carried a heavy weight.
“How many others survived? What’s your condition?”
“We are tending to the bridge survivors separately, based on your data,” he said. “For those outside the third Chrysalis, we’d modeled much of their care on your efforts with Oleg and his friends, but your tests have shown the futility of such efforts. Those doomed to suffer have been afforded a peaceful, dignified end.”
A dignified end. She sat in the closest chair without asking anyone’s permission.
“I wish I could do the same for my son,” he continued, “but the fleet knows of his existence. What we need is an option that’s better for morale.”
She stared up at him and, after a moment, realized her mouth hung open. “Morale?”
“We have a solution, but you’ll need to convince your patients. We want them to be the first to land on Rodnoy Mir. They can live there for as long as they’re able, and when it’s necessary, they’ll be allowed their dignity. I can think of no greater honor.”
“Allowed?” she asked. “Who will administer this dignity?”
Instead of answering, he spoke of the ways he’d honor their memories; history would immortalize them as heroes.
“Did you watch your wife die?” Galina asked.
Oleg cut himself off mid-sentence and stared at her, a little shaken, unprepared for the question.
“Did you listen to their conversations?” she asked.
“Enough to know they weren’t conversations. She was out of her mind. Delusional. I’d spare him that.”
“Did you visit her?” she asked.
“That’s not—”
“—Your son never left her side. To the best he was able, he talked her through her storm. You should be proud of him, sir, and when his time comes, you have the opportunity to do for him what he did for his mother.”
For the first time, he looked away. “That’s not possible.”
She rose to her feet, in defiance and in strength, neither hands nor voice shaking. “This room dictates what’s possible.”
Her eyes darted from one officer to the next, and in their silence, her mind screamed to know why they’d brought her here. Oleg was an executive officer aboard the Tret’ya, but Pervoye officers led the fleet. Yet, he did all the talking.
“Once we’d administered dignity to the others,” he said, “I became the last executive from the Tret’ya Strela to possess a living family member, and the only one whose family is part of the known survivors.”
“Why am I on the bridge, sir?” she demanded.
“Because of my unique situation, it’s fallen on my shoulders to judge what our next steps should be. The mission must be preserved. When our people arrive on our new home world, they must believe in the integrity of the land from which we’ve come, the voyage, and its many generations who brought us there. This is the foundation on which the new Russia will be built.”
Why am I here?
He squared up before her, overbearing with some imagined moral superiority. “Do you understand the importance of what I’ve told you?”
She nodded.
“It’s imperative that the survivors agree to this journey,” he continued. “If not, they’ll suffer unexpected complications, which, tragic though they may be, will spare them the horrors to come.”
She stared at him, barely breathing. “You’d kill your own son?”
“I’m a merciful man, doctor, and once they’ve arrived at their new home, that mercy will continue. We’ve considered how this might be done. We thought one of their own could be trained; Zasha, for example, but as their cognitive abilities fail, her capacity to follow through on that training can’t be trusted. We considered estimating a life expectancy and preparing a remote termination, but there are concerns about such a device surviving stasis.”
“Then don’t send them,” she said. “Leave me in command of their medical treatment.”
“We intend to leave you in command.” A smile eased across his face. “You know the future that awaits them. Reality will cease to hold meaning as they descend into a hellish dream state from which they’ll never awake. Is that what you wish your fellow citizens to see? We are better than that, doctor. Be better. Let go of your petty, selfish concerns, and do what’s best for both your patients and society. There’s no other path open to you. There’s no escape from this, your ultimate obligation to both your people and their future, but in doing what you must, you will secure your place in the annals of history. I, personally, will see to that.”
— Thaddeus Thomas
Weekly Flash Fiction for Paid Subscribers—these won’t be emailed to you, but you’ll find the link in my regular posts. Here’s the beginning of a flash serial: Forgotten Blood.
If I didn't know better, I'd think you were Russian. You've captured the fatalism just right.
Never have I heard a word that chilled me more than "We are giving them mercy."
Nice work