Good evening, Father Polycarp. Thank you for speaking with AABC from the South Polar station.
I am speaking only because private correspondence has already been mishandled.
Then let us begin there. Why were your letters encrypted and disguised as a whisky order?
Because sensitive data should not be exposed to fools, opportunists, and enemies of order.
Yet you did not trust the Academy with it.
I trusted the Academy with conclusions. Not with premature noise.
Your own letters state that the instruments were calibrated, the procedure repeated, and the figures checked more than once.
Yes.
So not noise.
Not yet understanding.
Because the numbers contradicted Saint Isaac.
Because extraordinary results require discipline.
And if discipline confirms them?
Then they must be placed correctly.
Correctly — or safely?
Those are often the same thing.
That is a revealing answer.
It is an obvious one. Civilized knowledge does not serve panic.
It serves the Republic.
Naturally.
You believe in duty. Order. Institutions. Hierarchy.
As any serious man should.
And such things made you what you are.
They prevented me from becoming frivolous.
Did they also prevent you from following your own results?
They prevented me from worshipping anomaly.
Even when anomaly survives scrutiny?
Especially then.
Why especially then?
Because that is when unstable minds begin dreaming of collapse.
Collapse of a theory?
Collapse of order.
So order matters more than fact.
No. Order is what keeps fact from becoming poison.
That sounds less like science than devotion.
It sounds like maturity.
Or fear.
Of what?
Of discovering that the structure which gave your life meaning may rest on an error.
You reduce everything to private weakness.
No. I describe a type. A respectable type. Hardworking. Disciplined. Loyal. Grateful. The sort of man every republic praises — until he sees something he is not supposed to see.
Enough.
Is it false?
It is poisonous.
Because it is false?
Because it teaches contempt for loyalty, restraint, inheritance, reverence — the very things that separate a republic from a mob.
Or the very things that make a republic easy to serve, even when it prepares to devour its servants.
Enough.
We are told military transport has been sent to evacuate your expedition.
Yes. The Republic does not abandon those who serve it faithfully.
No. It merely asks for complete faith.
It asks what is owed.
Even now?
Especially now.
One final question, Father Polycarp. What troubles you more: that your measurements may be wrong — or that they may be right?
What troubles me is the vulgar hunger to turn uncertainty into rebellion.
I see.
Do you?
Perfectly. Thank you for your clarity.
Glory to the Republic.
Safe flight, Father.