Sime~Gen Roleplaying on IRC: Snake River Dam Scenario
Episode #103: Stuck (1/14/01)
Arat re-reads Sayward's accident report.
Arat frowns; there has been a marked change in her style recently. It has become much more precise and painstaking.
Arat wonders if this has anything to do with the rumors that she and Nick are seeing each other.
Arat has heard both that they are seeing each other, and that they had a tiff in front of Sayward's workers.
Nick is just glad that Sayward has gone back to using her own language for report-writing.
Nick brings Arat a cup of steaming tea.
Arat of course would never dream of asking about Nick's business unless it started to affect his work. He's seen what Nick gets like when someone asks about his business, no matter how well-intentioned.
Nick's eyes stray to the accident report, and he blushes.
Arat glances at Nick.
Nick can't help but review his mental images of the button-popping girder, or the soup kettle rape.
Nick catches the glance, and realizes that some explanation might be in order. After he gets his nager in order.
Nick: When Sayward brought that stew by, the other day, she also asked my help in proofreading some accident reports she'd tried to fill out in Simelan.
Arat looks pained. Does he really want the details?
Nick: It appears that she has been picking up some gutter language from her work crews, quite unintentionally.
Arat does not get into the wooing and courtship scene whatsoever, at least not as a spectator sport.
Arat to be perfectly honest hasn't done much of that even on his own behalf.
Nick: I'm glad that she's gone back to English, for official purposes.
Nick takes a sip of tea to compose himself.
Arat tries to decide what exactly Nick means by telling him this. Is there something between the lines, regarding Nick and Sayward and anything that may have happened after the exchange of soup kettle and tutoring?
Arat shakes his head. He really doesn't play that game, and even watching it is tedious.
Arat: So long as it does not affect your work, I will not judge what you do with your private time.
Nick nods an appropriate gratitude, although when Arat is in need, his Donor rarely has any private time at all.
Nick notes that Arat has finished reading the accident report, and that the next item in the stack appears to be an initial draft of the required monthly progress report.
Nick thinks that only Arat would be getting an early start on a report that can't be sent until the snow melts.
Nick decides it's as good a time as any to bring up something that he has been ruminating on for several days, at odd moments.
Nick: Arat, you said that you had decided not to fight for reassignment elsewhere in the spring, and that you had also decided not to press Neptude for major alterations to your work environment.
Nick: And that you'd come to some decisions on how to do this.
Arat puts down his pen and looks at Nick sharply.
Arat: I said no such thing.
Arat had suspected Nick wasn't listening to him whatsoever during that conversation, and this confirms it.
Nick: Well, resigned yourself to staying, then.
Arat: For the time being, yes. [stiffly]
Nick: Then how will you survive, long-term, in these conditions?
Nick has been very concerned that Arat has resigned himself to not surviving.
Arat: I must do so, regardless of what I wish. My decision to face that fact does not adversely affect what it will take to survive here. I hope that it will positively affect it.
Nick considers that for a moment, then nods.
Nick: It is certainly a reasonable approach.
Nick: What additional adjustments to conditions here will make it possible for you to survive and function here, long-term?
Nick hadn't thought conditions at the Dam site would be so completely Farris-incompatible.
Nick had never really drawn the connection between the scale of the Dam project and the lack of Farris-safe refuges.
Arat blinks as Nick passes quickly over the part that took Arat weeks to come to grips with. Perhaps it simply seemed obvious to Nick all along. Or perhaps Nick just doesn't think that way.
Arat: Nick, I am aware of no such adjustments we are not already attempting to make.
Arat: Any increase in sanitation, safety and supply availability will help.
Arat: We have plans in place for that. It will take time. It will not always be pleasant.
Arat: Capitol will provide what assistance it can, when it can.
Arat: And when I can be spared, I will be.
Nick's face falls as he realizes that Arat doesn't have a radically new plan of action that will change the odds in his favor.
Arat frowns at Nick's reaction.
Nick: Arat, I'm worried that you won't survive that long.
Arat: That is why it is important that I concentrate upon survival, here and now, above all else.
Arat doesn't understand why it is so difficult to explain this.
Nick rubs his chin thoughtfully.
Nick can understand the logic involved quite easily; it's the practical applications and probability of success that have him worried.
Arat zlins Nick's doubt and grows increasingly frustrated.
Nick: Survive moment by moment?
Arat: How else do you propose I do it? By always looking to the outside, and constantly asking to be rescued?
Arat: Has that done so well to date? How long do you suppose I could have gone on that way?
Nick has to admit that Arat has a point.
Arat may yet shatter into a million pieces, if Nick keeps picking at this without offering any support on it.
Nick: You're right, asking for help from Capitol seems to be a lost cause. It's just that in the past, you have preferred to plan long-term.
Nick: To take things day by day instead, is a drastic change.
Nick can only have ~~ sympathy ~~ for the magnitude of the task, having faced some drastic changes in his own life.
Arat: I did not say I was abandoning long term planning. [with some irritation]
Arat as a Controller does not have that luxury.
Arat: Simply that this is no theoretical exercise. There are real and immediate issues that must be dealt with, and not on the basis of my intention to leave here as soon as possible.
Arat is referring to things like cutting off about 3 feet of hair that he really doesn't need if he is going to be spending his time in a muddy hellhole for the unforeseeable future.
Arat is also referring to things like doing something about his appalling office and home, which were bearable on a temporary basis but certainly not a permanent basis.
Arat also must do something decisive about the Audnes supporters, and about finding his own source of certain substances.
Nick nods.
Nick: It's a delicate balance.
Arat wonders what Nick means by that.
Arat thinks there is nothing delicate about it whatsoever.
Arat finds the entire situation crude, brawling, filthy and filled with the sort of entropy not even seen in the heart of the Tecton bureaucracy.
Nick: I can only admire your fortitude in attempting it.
Nick: I have known many people who would simply have decided to give up and die.
Nick: On the grounds that the task was simply impossible.
Arat gives Nick an odd look.
Arat: If I were capable of such a thing, I would have done it in First Year.
Arat in point have fact may have been capable of such a thing in First Year, and maybe even since then, but Jeniard has always been a whip and a goad in that respect.
Nick: I've sometimes wondered what gives you the strength to keep going.
Nick understood that with Snake, it was sheer, bloody-minded self interest, but Arat is much more altruistic, in a hands-off sort of way.
Arat: Duty and self-preservation often provide means as well as ends.
Arat is not going to admit that during his lowest points, Jeniard was there flogging him mercilessly back onto track.
Arat may discuss some private things with Nick, but not that.
Nick tries to figure out what Arat means by that rather cryptic statement.
Nick: But what happens when duty and self-preservation are in conflict? Or even outright incompatible?
Arat looks at Nick deadpan.
Arat says nothing, because "what, indeed?" isn't going to satisfy Nick.
Nick: How do you choose between them?
Arat: I will choose in favor of duty, of course.
Arat has learned long ago that the Tecton offers duty with one hand, and preservation with the other. There is no preservation without duty.
Nick has much less rigid approach to life, and will bend where Arat would shatter, or he could never have adjusted to the thought of working for the Tecton, after spending so many years avoiding it on principle.
Nick: Where did you learn such self-sacrifice?
Nick: It doesn't fit in with the public perception of your parents.
Arat sighs.
Arat: There is much about my parents that does not fit in with the public perception.
Arat: Particularly after my changeover.
Arat: People tend to simplify that which they do not understand, see things black and white. It was not that simple.
Nick has long suspected something of the sort; the public perception of Arat's daughter was similarly distorted.
Arat: Discipline and sacrifice to achieve goals were extremely important.
Arat: I had learned both at an early age.
see note 1
Notes:
1) This scene is continued in Episode #105. [return]
Go on to Episode #104: Soul Food
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