An excerpt from the letter a scientist at the Royal Energy Commission of Snezhnaya wrote to his dead father
There's a lot I want to say to you. You're a good man, or you were, I know it. That's what Bàba told me; he said you had a good heart despite your cruelties.
Is that true? Did you love me?
You loved Bàba, I'm sure of that. I remember your voice from when I was very young, I remember it whispering Feofan, Fanya, Feofanushka. Azizam, joonam, nafasam. How could I forget? I remember it all - just very little of how much you loved me. Please don't fault me for it. I was very young when everything fell into disarray. Things like that tend to happen when you grow your child in a tube instead of inside a woman's stomach.
Bàba is worried about me, and my research. I don't think he believes I'll be even half as good as you - he threatens to take it all away, but I know you chased knowledge and faced death just the same, so what is he scared of?
I know he doesn't want to lose me. But was it so hard to lose you?
Alyosha would say I'm being stubborn, or insensitive. Bàba's words have been weighing on me a great deal, but neither he nor Alyosha nor anyone on the continent could stop me from getting what I want, and that's what you'd want too, isn't it?
I don't remember you like I remember the others, waiting for me back at the Palace, but I know every inch of you through them. I know the man I will someday greet in hell as 'Father'. When I arrive there and run into your arms, you will know I have lost. When Baba follows, it won't matter. I know how much you love him.
I have full faith you are still here on this earth. Maybe you're the chill from the window, or the gathering of dust on my desk, or the breeze rustling my papers. Whatever it is, I'm glad you're reading this. I won't write to you again. This is a hello and a goodbye of sorts - like you, I plan to wholly devote myself to my research from this day onward. I won't allow for any distractions. I won't make the same mistakes you did. I won't fall in love.
Goodbye, father.
This time, that's what it truly is.