I decide to start small. First I have to work out what this ship can do and how to control it. They put the crew in comas. They must have known it might mess with our minds. There has to be an instruction manual somewhere.

“Flight manual,” I say out loud.

“Ship information can be found in the control room,” says the NannyBot.

“Where?”

“Ship information can be found in the control room.”

“No. Where in the control room can ship information be found?”

“Ship information can be found in the control room.”

“You kind of suck,” I say.

I make my way up to the control room and take a good long look at every screen. I spend an hour in there cataloging what each area seems to say, and make guesses as to what the functions are. What I’m really looking for is something like “Information” or “Here to save humanity? Press this button to learn more!”

No such luck. After hours of poking at screens, I’ve found nothing. I guess they figured if the crew are so brain-mushy that they don’t remember how to use the ship, they’re probably not useful as scientists anyway.

I did find out that any screen can show any instrument panel. They’re pretty much interchangeable. Just tap the upper-left corner and a menu shows up. Pick whatever panel you like.

That’s nice. You can customize what you’re looking at. And the screen directly in front of the pilot’s seat is the largest.

I decide on a more tactile approach: I’m gonna start pushing buttons!

Hopefully there’s no “Blow Up the Ship” button. I think Stratt would have kept that from happening.

Stratt. I wonder what she’s doing right now. Probably in a control room somewhere with the pope making her a cup of coffee. She was (is?) a really domineering person. But gosh darn it, I’m glad she was in charge of making this ship happen. Now that I’m aboard it and all. Her attention to detail and insistence on perfection are nice to have all around me.

Anyway, I bring up the “Scientific Instrumentation” panel on the main screen. It’s the same panel I spent a lot of quality time with earlier—the one that currently shows an image of Tau Ceti. It has the word “Helioscope” in the upper-left corner. I hadn’t noticed that before. The left side of the screen has a bunch of icons. Other equipment, I assume. I press one at random.

Tau Ceti disappears. The top-left corner changes to read “External Collection Unit.” The screen shows a diagram of a featureless rectangle. There are some controls here and there to change the angle and to “open bow side” and “open stern side.” Okay. Noted. Not sure what to do with that information. I press another icon at random.