Work Text:
The ship has hours upon hours of educational material. When Park finishes his daily hours of searching, fingers flying over the keys until his knuckles feel sore, and staring at the data Other Violet gave him access to — out of silent pity if Sana said something to her, or out of trust if she didn’t, Park doesn’t know which is worse. After hours of work his eyes are sore from the blue light and his stomach is upset from letting his food get cold and his lip stings from chewing at it in the frustration of hours gone by without gleaning any new knowledge about who he’s going to meet. After all of this, every day, when he can’t work any longer, he sits in front of the computer and puts on a program about the origins of the universe, or the process that turns raw ore on Necita into spaceships on Turrat 7. His favorite, though, is Space’s Biggest Natural Disasters , an IGR propaganda film.The information is skewed, the stats misleading, and wide swaths of it are entirely made up. Park knows because he knew the people who wrote it. Overheard them griping in the breakroom chatting about how they could possibly shift the blame of Waconia’s first, and far worse, famine onto some unknowable force.
It makes him feel like he knows things, resistablishes certainty. On good days he’ll discover another falsitude he hadn’t paid attention to before and just for a moment feel like less of a wraith alone on the ship. Every hour, every second, he is keenly aware of how much, and how little time he has.
There’s a file on his desktop he’s been ignoring.
He wakes up today, at a time he resolves to call morning, in front of his computer. He pushes back his chair, stretches the ache out his knees and says, gruffly, “Computer, reopen sleeping tabs.”
“Reopening.”
The screen lights up, making him squint, and several applications highlight themselves on his taskbar. None of them open.
“Computer, spreadsheets please.”
“One moment,” Says the empty voice of Emily Craddock. Park spends a lot of time not thinking about that. “One moment.”
“Disable loading progress.”
“One— Disabling,” It says, and then falls silent.
A minute passes. Two minutes. Park lays his head down on the terminal and wills himself to fall back asleep. He doesn’t. Ten minutes.
“Computer, run troubleshooting.”
“Running. Problem identified. Problem Isolated. Error: 11042573. Recommended action: restart terminal. Recommended prevention: close tabs when not in use.”
“What’s the other recommended action?”
“I’m sorry, I didn—”
“Secondary recommended action. Actions. Other actions.”
“Other actions: Restart individual applications. Wipe drive.”
“Do that second— Restart individual applications.”
“Restarting.”
“Open folder titled videos subsection of enrichment subsection of downloads.”
“I’m sorry, that folder is currently occupied.”
“Currently— Oh.” Parks says. He rolls his wrist, thinking. ”Open folder titled videos subsection of enrichment subsection of downloads as administrator.”
“I’m sorry— “
Park groans. Patel would know how to get past this. That doesn’t help.
He stands, paces, sits. Stands, paces, sits and then stands and then paces and then stops. He moves into the kitchenette for a meal he’ll call breakfast and has his cereal cold, in a cup, pacing. He sits. He stops ignoring the file.
“Computer, open inbox.”
Tripathi has been graciously silent. Not avoiding him, in those days between the Maxwell meeting and departure, but only starting light conversation, when needed. She was trying to respect him. He only felt distant. He didn’t say anything about this, of course.
Park expects the transmission he’s been avoiding to be from Sana, he even hopes . But it isn’t. The ID isn’t from the Iris, but another ship entirely. He opens it, resigned to his fate.
“Shuttle One to all crew on the Iris Two— “
Which explains why he never got a ring. It must have been forwarded to him. An afterthought.
When they start to sing his first reaction is to be annoyed. He shuts it off and gets bored in a matter of seconds, before he listens to the whole thing through. He’s heard the tune before. He doesn’t know it’s name.
The music ends. Parks says, “Computer Message to Kre— no. Message to RJ McCabe.” a light on his monitor flashes that's it’s listening. Park opens his mouth and no sound comes out. He takes a deep breath, preparing the words in his head. A normal greeting— No, an apology first. It’s been too long. I’ve been preoccupied. I should have called. Why didn’t you call? I’m sorry. You’ve been doing so well with Sana as your captain. They like you, you know. Have you considered staying like I’ve considered leaving? Don’t answer that. How was Krejjh’s song? Don’t answer that. Don’t answer. Are you unhappy or is that just— So that Sh’th hremreh episode— How is Vi—
When Park speaks, it’s only to say, “Computer, Delete message.”