Pavel Andreievich Chekov

I would like to ask a question, if I may. Is there anyone who knows if the group opposing the deities can do as it says? I doubt the wisdom of openly going against the deities, but, if they have found a way to control whatever powers the deities possess, I think they would be worth talking with.

More importantly, where are the meteors coming from? [Because falling rocks are infinitely more important than the growing threat of a rebellion!] If the City is enveloped by a force field, there shouldn't be a way for extraterrestrial debris to reach us. I can only imagine that either there is no such force field, the field allows objects to get in but not out, or there is a reason why our roofs are being compromised by meteorites. The first seems unlikely.

Whatever the truth is, it's not a bad curse. A meteorite is the closest I have been to space in over fifteen months.


[COMMENTS]

[Chekov was conscious well before evening, but he can't for the life of him remember anything. Why is he in a hospital bed? What happened to his hand? Why does everything hurt? More importantly, perhaps, who typed the last entry on his network device and who replied to Lucy and Delacroix this morning?

It was him, of course, but scopolamine has a way of messing with memories. Pavel remembers a random jumble of things: fighting someone in a mask, Korra, watching trees breathe in the park...

In the hope that someone can fill him in, he grabs his network device and starts an audio recording.]

If there is anyone-- [He pauses to clear his throat. He sounds like he hasn't tried talking for days, even to his own ear.] If anyone can tell me what happened this weekend... I would be most appreciative.

[Well, would you look at the time. Just a few hours until midnight.]

Поздравляю с Новым годом. I had no plans for celebrating the new year, but I doubt this would have been included in them.


[COMMENTS]

[There is a rather impressive—and impressively accurate—cross-section of the U.S.S. Enterprise, made wholly of Lego, directly in front of the device’s camera lens. This charming view is quickly replaced by Chekov as he picks the device up and sets it on a (remarkably tidy, for those few who have had the misfortune of experiencing Pavel in his natural habitat) desk, adjusting it for a moment before addressing the network.

He looks quite grim.]

One thing I will miss about that curse, I think, will be the horses.

The dirt, the guns and bullets—I am happy without those. Projectile weapons are clumsy and messy and not so kind as a simple phaser blast. But the horses! I was on a horse, once, in the City, and I did little more than fall off of it. Riding one without falling off was good. Better, maybe, than piloting a personal shuttlecraft, although I would not tell Sulu so.

I like machines, but I like animals better. Yes, ships have their personalities and attitudes and you need to learn what your ship is like before you can be very good at knowing what she needs, but they are not so affectionate as animals. I would be happy if I had a good horse—just like the one that I had when the curse was here—instead of a good ship. [After saying this out loud, he amends:] Only, of course, if I could take that horse to space in a ship. I miss space already and I have been gone from it for only 115 days. Being a cowboy—as much as I would like the horse, I would miss space too much.

[He’s not addressing the network anymore. If fact, he’s not addressing anyone. This doesn’t seem to bother him.] Maybe if I were to find a captain who would let me have a horse onboard… I think that that would be ideal, although there are rules regarding nonhuman lifeforms that would be hard to get around…

[And back to the network on a wholly different subject.]

I was thinking of things that science typically takes for granted today and wondering if they apply in the City. The law of conservation of mass… how would that work, here, in a place where new settings can appear overnight and new animals can show for a day and then be gone again? Settings, I understand; maybe the deities can alter what is already present to make their curse landscapes. Animals, though, cannot appear in a dimension and then—

[He pauses, train of thought apparently switching directions.]

There is the uncertainty principle. I usually think of it only as it relates to quantum physics… very small things. Not an entire horse, or entire people. Perhaps the City is a large experiment—Schrodinger’s paradox, that is what Mr. Laszlow mentioned not so long ago. It is not the same, of course, because all of this—all of what we are perceiving—is macroscopic, and it is very difficult to bring quantum theory to bear on such a scale.

Anyway, I do not feel like a collapsed wave function. That surely counts for something.

Also, I would like to have the horse that I had during the curse. I liked her, and I think that she liked me.


[COMMENTS]