“Good. I have worksheets for everybody else. The backup AI is kind of malfunctioning too, and we can’t trust the robots. Maintenance is more important than ever.”

“What are you going to do?” asks Fin.

“I’m going to sleep for four hours, then I’m going to fix the reactor leak. Right now it’s plugged, so it won’t get worse. You’ll find sleep schedules on your sheets as well.”

“Umm, I don’t rest like you do,” says Joké.

“Joké, if you can survive outside a spaceship is there a chance you can… I mean, can your kind… we need someone on Bloodroot,” says Shell.

“I’m exploring options, Captain. I have to figure it out,” says Joké. “I’ve never been to Bloodroot. I have no mental anchor there.”

“Whatever that means. Do whatever you can,” says Shell. “I’ll see you all in four hours.”

Shell meditates.

The distractions come, but she is expecting them. She hangs in her sleeping bag, right hand flipping phantom beads one after the other. She has an EVA suit in her quarters with her, prepped, just in case something happens while she sleeps, and she ordered the same for the rest of the crew. Crew. That’s amusing. A found crew, like a found family.

She thinks of her father all the time now, what he would think if he knew she had fucked up her first commission. She would say it wasn’t her fault, but words like that just bounced off Haldene Campion. There is no fault; there is only duty, sacred or near enough. There is only crushing responsibility.

Maybe it is true that she is too young, too inexperienced for this – whatever “this” is. Uncle Larry didn’t seem to have any problems obeying her commands, though. Didn’t call her aside to chide her or question her choices, isn’t giving her shit. If he’s calm about it, surely that’s some kind of endorsement? Or perhaps he’s too old to know better.

She yawns. She is tired, but none of her tricks is helping her sleep. She briefly contemplates drugging herself but discards the idea. Sedatives can affect cognition for days, even after a single dose, and she needs clear thought. That’s the whole point of sleeping in the first place.

She is so glad that her brothers will not hear of this until it is too late. She’ll either be dead or the crisis will be over and she’ll have a tale to tell.

A year before take-off from Florida, Shell was at the end of a relationship. It is not dead, but dying, just as doomed as the Ragtime, winding down. Fred Singer-Ward. They had been together for three years, and Shell loved him. Maybe he loved her. He certainly said he did.