“Arman, Captain Crowe will be expecting you soon,” Orcher says, tapping the face of his watch. “Check in with me before you go to the Records Room.”

I gulp down the rest of my coffee and stand up. Captain Fallsten wastes no time taking my seat, and doesn’t look back at me when I leave.

Once I’m settled on Floor 7, I spend four hours recording the list of information assigned to me this morning. Captain Crowe helps me find most of the data because I don’t know what I’m looking for half the time, and I’m still trying to figure out why I have to manually record the data. When I ask Crowe, he insists that’s the way Orcher and the Chancellor want it done.

“The processors can detect outlying numbers,” Crowe tells me, “but it’s better if humans take care of the rest. Machines tend to…misinterpret some things.”

After I type up my first report, he takes me down to Floor 5 to gather readings from Life Support. A while later, Officer Remmit walks in and discusses a new idea with Crowe, something about adding a new optics array to the labs. They’re still talking when I finish, so I return to the Bridge alone. Orcher transfers the data and my reports into a module, and then sends me to Floor 11.

As I walk, I rack my mind for things to say to Captain Blitner. I’m still drawing a blank when I walk into the Records Room and find him asleep behind the desk. I breathe a silent sigh of relief. Instead of waking him up, I sit at a workstation and skim through today’s documents.

Captain Blitner wakes up a half-hour later and is pleasantly surprised that he didn’t hear me come in. After that, silence takes its place between us. We read our assignment, search through the records, and swipe and highlight, just like yesterday. He mentions something Orcher told him last night, but I’m only half-listening. My head is thick from lack of sleep, and my eyes are so heavy that they keep drooping shut.

Between endless reading and fighting off exhaustion, I miss the bits of conversation Captain Blitner tries to strike up. His words pass right around me. Then again, he could just be talking to himself. I’ve heard stories of people who would do that. You can pretend to listen and they’d keep talking without noticing.