Ivan Tellinger
Role: Lab 9 Phi researcher aboard the hollowship Vasily. Sole survivor — in the narrowest possible sense — of the Vasily Incident. Affiliation: Unclear. A mid-deck lab researcher on a colony hollowship; no empire rank given. Era: Late empire.
Summary
A man in his forties, bifurcated at the abdomen by the TZ-exit sphere that tore through the Vasily at 70% c. The upper half of him — torso, arms, head — is what the surgeon finds floating in Lab 9 Phi. The bottom of his stomach is “sealed, cauterised perhaps, and silver remnants remained, reminiscent somewhat of liquid mercury.” Those silver remnants turn out to be holographic nanoparticles containing the three-dimensional-binary text of The Dictionary — the cauterising mechanism is also the message.
He is impossibly still alive. He does not breathe, has no chest rise, his hands are frozen, but when the surgeon re-pressurises the lab and takes his helmet off Tellinger seizes his ears, stares at him with bloodshot eyes, and scrawls answers in chalk on the lab floor: DON’T KNOW. DON’T KNOW. YES (when asked if he is in pain). He is shipped to a hospital in Shienae on Orb Ertia, worked on by surgeons, and then — per Tabitha Dimitrova — forwarded to Aerth “if he lives” or “if he doesn’t live.” His ultimate fate is not stated in the chapter.
Tellinger is the clearest in-book instance so far of a human body kept alive by an external agency we do not understand — literally a carrier, in one hand a chalk stick and in the other half of a dictionary from nowhere.
Appearances
- Ch. 05 — A Dictionary: Found in Lab 9 Phi, transported to Shienae.
Related
Open questions
- How is he alive without breathing, with half a torso? Cauterised by what, exactly?
- Is Tellinger being used by whatever sent the sphere — as a vector for the dictionary’s propagation?
- Is he on a one-way trip to an empire black lab on Aerth, or does he recover?