Some defences (against a certain, possibly irate, reader in the reviews section, and perhaps many more):
- Russian, as you might have gathered from my main writing language, is not a familiar language to me. In the previous chapter's case, Google Translate was my friend, and that (still high useful) service is the best I can really do.
- Yes, there was a separate Ministry of the Navy in the 50s, but I am surprised you overlooked the fact that I knew about it at all. And yes, this is an alternate universe – how else could this story have been written against the grain of known history? The Ministry still exists in this universe because of a recognition by the upper echelons of the changed situation. Otherwise the project might never have been needed, and this story might never have been written.
- It is difficult to have brave old Admirals when the record of the Soviet Navy during WW2 was hardly spectacular, having been relegated to the bottom of the priority list. And when you think about the remoteness and secrecy of the project, it is better not to have any prominent officials involved with it.
- One does not think logically when someone you loved and believed was dead appears to have returned to life. Even when hit indirectly by a shell.
- While the spontaneous massacre was admittedly a difficult part to wedge in the chapter, one has to think first about the nature of the prototype itself. Prototypes are the first of anything, and there is always some flaw, or some initial defect. And when the prototype is partly biological, primal instincts also come into play. When one considers the line of guards with rifles that the prototype must have seen first, and the chaotic noise all around it, what would it do with the power it knows it has?
I would have thought that this entry into my series might shed a bit more light (and love) on the neglected Soviet Navy/Red Fleet, as my intention was to involve all major powers including the Soviets, but it appears that some have more regard for correctness than recognition. But that is enough in the defence of my work – here is the second chapter, monstrously delayed, but still, here at last.
Winter passed. As the snows melted into the frozen grass beneath and the temperature eased to more manageable levels the little cottages and houses that lined the swept coast shed their burdens of snow and their inhabitants, relieved by the thaw, resumed their walks to work.
Only one man did not follow the little bands of gruff old men that walked up the beaten road to the industrial complex. He was a gruff and grizzled man himself, the survivor of two great wars, like many who walked now. He stood in the tiny tiled room he called a kitchen and stoked the logs burning in the range, humming merrily to himself.
A pot of bubbling cabbage sat atop the stove. The old man stirred the pot and the lumps of vegetable slid greasily around. He dipped a grubby spoon in and tasted – bitter, but recognizable. It would have to do.
"Arisha! Breakfast!" he called.
Slow, muffled feet walked into the little front room the old man called his dining room. He turned, and saw his daughter, dressed in a grey wool jumper and knee-length skirt of the same colour. Every part of her seemed to declare her an emissary of grey, from her silky hair to her sombre, dark eyes.
Her name was not Arisha. Arisha is a token name for 'peace', and her origins did not entertain such notions.
But the old man didn't care. With a cheerful smile he greeted her, and ladled some of the cabbage broth into her bowl. Arisha took up her spoon and ate, no muscle on her face betraying any thought of enjoyment, disgust or others. She ate steadily, and even before the old man had finished she laid down her licked spoon, bowl empty.
"This was good. What was it?" she asked in a dull, flat, monotone voice. But to the old man it was a melodious noise, a voice he welcomed whole-heartedly in his house.
"Old family recipe," the old man replied. "Passed down by my grandfather, from his mother. Warming, isn't it?"
"Yes. Quite so."
The old man finished his soup. He stood, and she handed him her bowl. "You go and rest, Arisha," the old man said. "I'll clear this up."
Without another word Arisha turned and headed back into the other room. No matter how emotionless she seemed, the old man appreciated her presence nevertheless.
Pencil scribbled furiously on yellowing paper as the young psychologist, barely out of the Academy, took notes of the meeting before him. A typewriter would have been more appropriate, but shortages in the cities meant none could be spared for the rural areas.
He sat on a wooden chair against the wall, looking up every now and again at the three others with him inside the cell.
One was dressed in the black officer's uniform of the Red Fleet, the base deputy. He lounged against the wall, a youth barely nearing his thirties, smoking a gold-tipped cigarette from the many in his much-beaten case.
Another, a gruff, old man, sat in the other chair in the room. He wore the worn green woollen jacket and rough trousers of a labourer, but his age said otherwise. He was in fact the base factory manager.
But it was the last 'person' in the room that everyone else focused their attention onto. 'She' sat on the bed, a thin but lithe person, sporting long grey hair and fierce, dark eyes. 'She' wore a grey woollen hooded jumper and an equally grey long skirt. Her name was 'Arisha', but that was just a temporary measure. No-one knew for certain what she was called.
"Arisha," The factory manager pleaded, his eyes shining at the sight of the 'girl'. "Arisha, what are you?"
Arisha remained silent. With a desperate glance at the young naval officer, the manager moved his chair closer.
"Arisha, you know better than to not answer my questions. You are my daughter, and you-"
"I do not now." She spoke in a flat voice, devoid of any emotion. "I do not know who I am."
"Well," the young officer piped up, "in any case we know what you roughly are. From what our technicians observed yesterday, you display similarities in equipment to a Kirov-class cruiser. Is that correct?"
"I would not know," Arisha answered in that same dull tone. "I do not know what a 'Kirov-class cruiser' is. All I know is that I was built for one purpose, and that is a purpose I must be given."
"I see. And what purpose do you believe that we must give you?"
"I would not know."
"Hmmm." The young officer sank into deep thought, while the manager extended his hand to meet with Arisha's. She did not react to his callused touch.
The young officer stubbed his cigarette on his beaten case and ground it out with his foot. He pushed himself off the wall, and sat at the foot of the bed, facing away from Arisha.
"What do you know about the organization known as the Abyssals?"
Upon hearing that last word, the manager and the psychologist stared at the officer, shocked. The Abyssals were a taboo subject, never to be spoken of. If the Security Officers were to catch wind of what he had just said-
Arisha, however, showed no such reaction. She looked blankly ahead, but the old manager knew she was thinking.
"I do not know much about such an organization," she said slowly – but it was a clear break from her usual manner of speech. "Aside from the fact that they are a known enemy to me. Why do you ask?"
It was the first time she had asked a question of her own accord, and the psychologist had to bite his tongue to stop himself from bursting out with his own questions. The factory manager looked confused, wondering how such a forbidden subject could relate to Arisha.
The young officer, however, continued to speak behind her back. "So you confess to knowing about such a force in this world?"
"I know that they must be destroyed. That is all."
"I see. Does this intention have anything to do with your equipment?"
"My equipment is merely a means towards the end. Nothing more."
"Can you explain to us the workings of your equipment?"
"I cannot explain that. My will commands them, and they answer to my will."
"Do you answer to any higher order?"
"I know I must eventually."
A knock at the door. The old manager looked up from his washing-up and trudged to the front door, wiping his hands with a spotted towel.
The young naval officer was there. But this time, instead of the clean-cut black uniform that he usually wore, the officer had on the gold-braided uniform of someone much more important. The old manager blinked at this. Then he showed him in.
"I've been promoted, comrade," he explained, sitting down at the rough-hewn wooden table and placing his briefcase on the table. "I've been ordered to a naval base near here – commander, no less." His usually-placid face was grinning, like a child with a new toy.
"Good to hear." The manager looked only at the leather briefcase on his table.
"But that promotion comes with other changes too. For instance, your Arisha is to come with me to help establish the new base." The manager, upon hearing those words, rose violently, his beetle-black eyes glinting dangerously at the thought.
"What do you mean, to take her away from me?" he asked, barely suppressing his rage at this blithe young man nonchalantly taking his joy, his revived past, away.
The young officer raised a hand, in an effort to pacify the furious man before him. "Hear me out, comrade. I did not come here just to bring bad news, did I? You know how the system works, comrade? If I had just needed only Arisha, we would have taken her while you were away. You would never have known."
Rage still boiled in the old man's veins, but at those calm words he could dimly see the reasoning behind it. Yes, it was true – Arisha would disappear and he would never see her again. Slowly, painfully, he sat back down, mastering his strong emotion with some effort.
The young officer continued. "That's better, comrade, a much wiser decision. Now," he crossed his legs, suddenly becoming more businesslike. A playful twinkle danced in his eye as he leaned forward.
"How would you like to go with Arisha there?"
The old man sat back, digesting the unexpected opportunity. "How?" he asked quietly.
"We can offer you an immediate enlistment into the Guards detachment being posted there. I can probably get you a position as postmaster." The officer drew out a sheaf of papers from his briefcase, a mass of official-looking stationery all stamped with the seal of the Ministry of the Navy. "All you have to do is sign the paper and you'll be back in the forces. How about that, my kind-hearted comrade?"
The old man did not reach for the pen. "And what about my men in the factory? What becomes of them?"
"We are in the process of offering re-enlistment to them too. Who takes it up, of course, is entirely up to them. It's really the best I can do for you, comrade."
At last, the old man saw no way out of it. The offer was too good. With a steady hand he picked up the pen.
The promontory was silent that day as a lone figure walked up its slope. She carried a bundle of wildflowers that she herself had picked the previous day.
At last she stopped at a little way from the edge, before the crude markings of a grave. Some unskilled carpenter had erected a dilapidated cross there, with Andrei Chernavin – 1885- 1951 - Missed by all in Cyrillic engraved artlessly on.
But she did not care for the refinements of the grave much. Kneeling at the end of the gravesite she laid the flowers squarely in the centre.
A little movement behind her made the lone girl turn quickly around. Striding towards her, in the glamorous black and gold attire of a full Admiral, was the same young naval officer that had faced her first all those years in that terrible chamber.
"Arisha, there you are. I had a feeling you would be here."
"Sir!" Arisha came to attention, her hand swiftly shooting up in a skilful salute.
The officer, now matured and sporting the makings of a gruff beard, responded with a dismissive salute of his own. Arisha relaxed.
"Ah, your father. What do you think of him now? Do you still remember when you first met?" The Admiral asked.
"He was…" For the first time in her artificial existence, she struggled for words. Even though she had 'developed' fully now and was considered a 'normal' girl, Arisha still struggled to come to terms with all the new emotions she had learnt – fear, anger, sadness, and perhaps the most devastating of all, loss.
The Admiral placed a kind hand on her shoulder, but almost retracted it upon seeing a single, clear teardrop fall to the ground. It both fascinated and surprised him to see her so moved by the loss of a man she had hardly knew.
The two of them stood there on the windless cliff, both reflecting on the man that had effectively saved both their lives. Arisha, who had been cared for and loved by this strange old factory manager, fought to contain her tears. The Admiral thought of the first time they had met, with him being the stranger and the old man telling him of his own little sacrifices to help his men – such a pity that kindness was now passed.
"Arisha," the Admiral began. "I must ask you now, if you are ready…"
"Yes, sir?" The young woman before him rose, tears drying quickly on her face.
"I know how much this man meant to you, but now that he is gone and departed from this world, I must call you by your true name now. You may keep the name he has given you, but all I am saying is-"
"The name 'Arisha' means 'peace', sir. I am not sure if such a name fits me anymore." She looked away, down at the grave. "My origin has been anything but."
The Admiral looked at Arisha, and she stared back passively. He could see the determination set in her eyes, and he knew that no matter what he called her, she would forever retain the memory of her 'father'. He cleared his throat.
"Well then, my dear," the Admiral smiled, and touched her on the forehead with a gloved finger. "I think it is time we left this place in peace. Come along, Kalinin."
