[audio]

[candothat]

[Oddly enough, there's no video accompanying this particular entry.]

I have been thinking, and it seems--at the risk of sounding Vulcan--illogical, putting effort into anything in the City. Yes, I realize that this way of thinking can be applied to life as a whole, but in the City, memory is so-- [a long pause, during which, one imagines, Chekov gestures wildly in an attempt to find the correct word] --tenuous?

What I mean is, at home, we are constantly learning, accumulating knowledge and, unless something out of the ordinary happens, what we learn never leaves us. And even when we die, there is something of our existence left... memories, a legacy--something. Memories may not last forever, and we are forgotten as those who knew us or have heard of us die also, but in the City... how long do memories of anyone last? Six years? Five?

That is not to say that I believe we should stop doing things here, in the City. As one of my professors would have said, work, activity, and social interactions are important to the well-being of humans and humanoids, even if none of the results are lasting, but it bothers me to think that there is nothing that I will retain from the time spent here. I cannot imagine that--living here and learning, only to forget once I leave. And those I have come to know, when they leave, will have no memory of what happened here. That--everyone forgetting--seems more final than death.

It bothers me more than death, I think. Maybe that is only because death is a phenomenon that I understand and have some familiarity with; maybe it is vanity speaking and I dislike the thought of being forgotten so easily.

Mostly, I am very attached to my mind. There is nothing that I value more than what I have learned and what I remember, and I do not want that taken away.

[He almost sounds... upset? But then, just as cheerfully as ever--]

Howl, Sophie--have you seen Peter recently? I am beginning to become concerned.

Comments

[candothat]

And that someone must be you, of course. [He smiles, but it's somewhat forced.] Howl is never sensible.

[mrsnose]

Pff - he wouldn't be Howl if he were sensible...

[candothat]

But you must not mind insensible people, not much.

[Apropos of nothing--]

You and Howl are not allowed to leave the City. I hope that you know that.

[mrsnose]

Oh, I mind them. This one in particular, but I know - I've seen - there's more to him than the initial impression. [And there's the whole love is blind theory.

As for what he says next, she just squeezes his arm, as if in understanding.]

[candothat]

The initial impression that Howl made, when we met, was on my floor. [Wait. That wasn't real English.] That is, he was very drunk and fell asleep on my floor.

[He will take that to mean that she'll do what she can. It's a ridiculous thing to ask, of course. No one can control when they leave the City.

But with Tessa, McCoy, and now Peter (Chekov can only fool himself for so long) gone, Howl and Sophie can't leave.]

[mrsnose]

[That makes her, believe it or not, laugh a little, and pat Chekov's arm.] Well, everyone has days where they just do not make good impressions.

The first impression he got of me was an old lady who had intruded in his castle and cleaned things.

[candothat]

[Making Sophie laugh is never a bad thing.] He made up for it by cooking.

There are worse things that an intruder might do, but that isn't the first time you have mentioned being old.

[mrsnose]

Mm, he makes a decent breakfast, that's for sure. Did it for me, too.

[She pauses at that.] Well, that's because I was. Around ninety-years-old, or at least my body was.

[candothat]

You look very good for someone who was ninety not so long ago.

[mrsnose]

Yes, well. There was a curse.

[candothat]

Your world sounds, to me, like a confusing place to live.

[mrsnose]

It isn't to me. But I'd probably say the same of your world.

[candothat]

You would do well in my world. There are more insensible people on the Enterprise than anywhere else.

[Aaand abrupt return to seriousness.]

Do you suppose that, in the City, it ever becomes easier to have people leave? Miss Lucy says no, but it must become easier or everyone would always be miserable.

[mrsnose]

[She thinks about that, watches him for a moment, before looking ahead again.]

I think people learn to pretend they're not affected easier, and think that means it's gotten easier.

[candothat]

[He just waits expectantly while she thinks.]

So they come to be as they pretend...

[mrsnose]

Who's to say right now. Let's try for a little less somberness.

[candothat]

[Chekov walks without talking for a time, trying to think about something more cheerful.]

Have I ever told you how transporters and replicators work?

[mrsnose]

Oh - no, but tell me that, and I'll tell you if they resemble the seven league boots.

[candothat]

I think that transporters are very different from your seven league boots, even if the end result is similar. Please correct me, however, if this isn't so.

[Sophie has just encouraged Pavel to explain something, which means she has brought a small lecture upon herself. Being insatiably curious himself, Chekov naturally assumes that other people want to know just as much about things as he would in their positions.

On the bright side, his mood improves gradually as he babbles.]

Transporters, I think, are very badly named, because it implies only movement and a transporter does more than move. It dissembles the subject being transported into phased matter using phase-transition coils, streams this matter into a pattern buffer and then through wave-guide conduits to a beam emitter, which is what reassembles the subject. Maybe a more accurate name would be too long, or maybe reminding subjects that they are being broken down into what is little more than high-energy matter and encoded information is discomforting.

But that is how they work, basically, although it is much more difficult to do than it sounds. The first part--locking on to the subject with an Annular Confinement Beam--is not so hard when the subject is still, but almost impossible when it is moving. [Unless you're Chekov, but he's modest enough not to say this outright.] Computers can help compensate for some movement... breathing, small things. If the subject is moving more than this--if they are in free-fall, for example--it is necessary to lock on manually. On Vulcan, I had to override the computer because it could not perform the calculations necessary to lock the beam on to the captain and Sulu when they were falling. There was also a gravitational fluctuation to consider, as the planet was being destroyed by a black hole which was increasing local gravity at an erratic rate, and so I had to determine the speed at which they were falling, compensate for the black hole's effects, and tell the Annular Confinement Beam to lock on to where they would be relative to the time when I entered my input and the dissembling process occurred.

After that, the technology does the rest, mostly. The transporter operator must focus the beam emitter in the appropriate place so that the subject does not reform inside of a wall or in space or a mile above a planet's surface, but the computer mostly takes variables such as the movement of spacecraft and planet spin into account. Mr. Scott--he is the engineer on the ship I was serving on--can theoretically beam a subject from one moving ship to another, even if those ships are going at different speeds or in warp. He has done it twice, maybe three times, but it is very risky. I was going to help him improve his calculations to make this safer, or so he said, but he is cleverer than I am about transporters and doesn't need help. Still, I will see when I go home...

[No, not home! No talking about people going home! He's quick to veer off onto a slightly different aspect of transporter technology.]

Of course, there's also the Heisenburg Principle, which states that both the momentum and position of a subatomic particle cannot be calculated to a precise degree. Before I learned how the Heisenburg compensator in a transporting system operates, I did not understand how transportation was at all possible. Even now I think it is remarkable that technology can eliminate uncertainly on a subatomic level--

[He trails off, aware--too late, as usual--that he's sharing far more information than is wanted. Sophie gets a slightly sheepish smile.]

But that isn't so important. Now, these boots...?

[mrsnose]

[That is a very long answer, you realise. But she listens!]

The boots? Well, they're magic but - I think they have something in common with your transporters. For instance, when you put them on, you must not take a single step before thinking of the destination you have in mind. Then, each step carries you seven leagues. Of course, if you take a step too many, you end up too far away, and so on. They're very tricky and very dizzying.

I ended up using them as flower pots.

[candothat]

[Sophie is a saint, and talking about something familiar is quite comforting because Chekov is a nerd.]

I would rather navigate a ship, I think, than a pair of boots like that. Did they make attractive flower pots?

[mrsnose]

[She is turning out to be an expert in distracting him from the angst. If only it worked this well on others, too.]

I thought so. Very odd pots, though.