077: NOTES

The next morning, Renn announces that his translation of Keiko Kinoshita’s notes is ‘about as reliable as it’s probably going to get’ and gives us access to his files.

“It is far from finished,” he says, “but I believe that I’ve gotten all of the immediately relevant parts. I’ll continue working on it in case something else of relevance pops up.” He’s thoughtfully marked the pages in the file that he believes are ‘relevant’, so I grab a terminal in Network and Engineering Ring 1 and start reading.

JOURNAL 1

Day 7301 – Joshua Reimann

Preliminary assessment – Joshuaseems in good spirits and ready for the task at hand. Some upset after learning that our duty will last twenty years instead of ten, but adapted quickly – by the time I was ready to assess him, he was focused and optimistic about the task.

Seems appreciative of the fact that the whole crew survived chronostasis. Expresses concern over colonists in stasis for 40 years instead of 20. Science & logistics officers assure him that there is no reason to expect trouble. Joshua remains concerned.

Performed full preliminary sweep and assessment of ship with focus and punctuality. No cause for concern.

Day 7301 – Claire Rynn-Hatson [Renn’s note – this is the secondary assistant science officer]

Preliminary assessment – Claire is despondent to hear of her brother’s death. Performs her duties adequately, does not request time off to grieve, resists when I suggest it. Says she must succeed for the both of them. Grief appears normal and handled constructively, no cause for concern.

I suggested weekly counselling to assist in this issue; she accepted.

Day 7324 – Joshua Reimann

Joshua shows a continuing concern for the wellbeing of the colonists. When I discussed the issue with him, he pointed out that assuring their safety is his primary duty. I asked him how he expects to help them by checking their viability stats multiple times per day and he had no answer.

Uncertain if this is healthy concern or a potentially unhealthy obsession. Possibly a compulsive coping mechanism from the stresses of his job? Haven’t suggested a full psych assessment as of yet – don’t want to stress him out over something so minor. But I did suggest that he leave the chronostasis monitoring to the medical team and stop looking himself, lest this become unhealthy.

Day 7394 – Joshua Reimann

Joshua still regularly checking on the colonists. Remains unconvinced that this might be a developing compulsive behaviour, or at least unconvinced that that’s a bad thing. “If I’m going to develop a coping mechanism for the stress of the job,” he said to me, “then surely something so harmless and easy to fulfil is better than most?”

I advised that he seek to address the cause of his stress in the first place, but was brushed off. “All the psychotherapy in the world can’t save me from having to bethe captain.”

I tasked Krysin [Renn’s note – assistant psychologist] with tracking his monitoring behaviour and deflecting where possible. Perhaps we can convince him to obsessively track the heat systems or the ship’s oxygenation instead?

Day 7408 – Krysin Lemaine

Krysin is having increasing difficulty coping with the circumstances of our trip. While accepting at first, kes resentment over the doubled length of our journey has grown over time. I am monitoring.

Noted in our last session that while most of the crew is also struggling with the extended timeline, the science team seem content and well adapted. To avoid the possibility of resentment I have unassigned Krysin from all psych eval of the science team, they’ll be my sole responsibility.

Krysin is frustrated at kesinability to reduce Joshua’s obsession with monitoring the colonists.

Day 7583 – Joshua Reimann

Joshua is refusing to talk about his monitoring of the colonists, but I know he’s still doing it. I didn’t push the issue as I don’t want to compromise our foundation of trust. Krysin has reported that he checks when he thinks that no one is looking, and he always checks Chronostasis Ring 1. Possibly because it’s simply the first chronostasis ring.

As Joshua is otherwise emotionally stable and performing his duties admirably, I can’t consider this behaviour high concern. Krysin insists that it’s harmless, and that the captain caring about the colonists is a good thing. I’m forced to agree with this assessment.

Day 8569 – Krysin Lemaine

Krysin is showing signs of distrust in my methods and conclusions. I’m letting kem take the reins on more of the psychologist work. Disagreement at this point is unproductive. From the time being I’ll be handling the science team and letting Krysin take the lead on everyone else.

Day 9696 – Claire Rynn-Hatson

Predictably, Claire is not responding well to the captain’s report this morning. A viability drop in all colonists, most to below the ninety five per cent viability threshhold, is terrible news. Claire is afraid that the captain might make good on his threat to start reviving colonists before the science and medical teams have had a chance to figure this out, but Krysin would’ve warned me if he were that unstable.

Day 9696 – Sandra of Signus [Renn’s note – Science Officer]

Sandra is holding up well in the face of the viability announcement. If anything, she’s simply annoyed at Joshua’s distress. She’s solution-oriented and spending her time researching the colonists in the lab with few interruptions.

She does seem more knowledgeable than one would expect for such a situation, but then, she is the Science officer.

Day 9696 – Mohammed Aziz [Renn’s note – Primary Assistant Science Officer]

Mohammed has been arguing with the captain. He says that Joshua’s becoming aggressive but I find this hard to believe. I put Mohammed on restricted duty for a week and told him to calm down. He’s obeying but not happy about it.

This aggression is probably just stress-related, but it worries me nonetheless. There’s too much going on right now for infighting.

Day 9804 – Joshua Reimann

I moved Joshua and most of the crew back under my purview as a result of increased infighting among the crew. Krysin is angry about it and came very close to outright calling me incompetent. I pulled rank; I’ll deal with kem later.

More important is Joshua’s mental state. The primary cause for conflict in the crew is Joshua continually bringing up the possibility of reviving some of the colonists to protect them from the still-dropping viability loss. There simply is not room on the ship, so everyone else agrees that this would be a terrible idea. Additionally, the dropping viability is having an effect on everyone’s mood – science team holding up well, but most of the crew have suggested to me the possibility that we will reach Hylara with a shipful of dead colonists. View of future is bleak, crew despondent.

Joshua in particular is angry and antsy. Twice during our session he excused himself to go to the nearest terminal and check the viability of colonists in Chronostasis Ring 1. I put him on a one-week leave of absence; I think having Lien [Renn’s note: Logistics Officer] at the helm for a little while will give everyone a chance to calm down.

Day 9811 – Joshua Reimann

Joshua’s week of imposed mental health leave is up. I insisted on an assessment before he returns to work and he seems much calmer.

Day 9812 – Joshua Reimann

Joshua is not calmer.

Day 9813 – Joshua Reimann

A colonist’s viability dropped below seventy five per cent today. I found Joshua crying in the bathroom.

Day 9815 – Joshua Reimann

Joshua has once again started floating the idea of attempting to wake the lowest viability colonists. I have to nip this in the bud. There’s simply no point to the action unless it happens on a level that the ship simply cannot support, so starting such a process can only go badly.

Day 9821 – Krysin Lemaine

Krysin is still distrustful of my methods and expertise, but in agreement that something must be done about Joshua. Ke came to me with vital information today – apparently, Joshua is particularly focused on monitoring the viability of a specific colonist in Chronostasis Ring 1.

Day 9821 – Joshua Reimann

After a long, intense psychological assessment, Joshua finally admitted the truth. The colonist in Chronostasis Ring 1 is [untranslated name], his [untranslated shorthand]! This is a blatant violation of the Non-Attachment Rule. Even Claire and Richard had to jump through dozens of approval hoops to both serve aboard the same javelin, even on different crews, and here our very own captain is smuggling his [untranslated shorthand] aboard!

If we were still on Earth, he’d be court-martialled for this. But we’re beyond the reach of law and our concern now is the safety of the ship and its colonists. I report the discovery to Lien, and as second and third in command we’re able to enforce an unfit-for-duty override and prevent Joshua from being able to revive any colonists or check on their status. The rest of the crew are furious at Joshua, but they should forgive him with time. It remains to be seen whether he’ll forgive me.

Day 10289 – Joshua Reimann

I moved Joshua back to Krysin’s roster. He doesn’t trust me any more so I can’t do my job for him.

Day 10553 – Holf Oglo [Renn’s note – Senior Medical Officer]

Holf is expressing concern over the colonist viability once more. He says that the dropping viability has tapered off, that the colonists now appear to be stable, and wants to know if he should inform Joshua what the stable viability is. I told him to continue to tell Joshua nothing, but I don’t think it’s possible to keep quiet; the medical team is as fascinated by the two viability tiers as by the apparent random dropping of the occasional colonist to near-nonviability status, no matter how stable Holf says they are. The rate at which colonists are dropping to around ten per cent is not high enough to endanger the colony, and the otherwise stable viability is great news; I can see why Holf thinks that telling the captain might help. But given that the captain is emotionally attached to one of the colonists, I think he’d find the information alarming. We should at least try to avoid distressing him.

Krysin disagrees with me on keeping the captain in the dark, but fortunately the medical team is currently listening to me.

Day 11796 – Joshua Reimann

I tried to transfer Joshua back onto my roster, but both Joshua and Krysin resisted. I relented; there’s no point in forcing my attention on a patient that doesn’t trust me. Still, I was able to get some somewhat fruitful answers from Joshua about his behaviour this morning.

He said that he locked out the AI’s speaking and voice recognition capabilities because “it’s always listening” and “I’m sick of it”. I pointed out that the AI needs to hear and speak with us to adequately do its job, which had no effect. He had similar justifications for limiting the AI’s video interpretation capabilities and various other senses.

He confessed to me that he doesn’t trust the AI, blaming it for the low colonist viability. This kind of paranoia could be very dangerous, especially since he’s already making decisions like sabotaging our computer systems without consulting anyone. I need to confer with Krysin on this. Perhaps Joshua should be removed from duty entirely.

Day 11787 – Krysin Lemaine

Krysin is refusing to share any information with me. Something’s going on, and they’ve locked me out of it.

And that’s journal 1, or at least, the parts that Renn flagged as relevant. Interesting, but nothing particularly surprising, although Richard Rynn-Hatson having a scientist sister on the second crew is certainly deeply, deeply suspicious. Maybe journal 2 will be more exciting.

First, though: coffee. Or at least the 35-year-old dehydrated mess that passes for coffee on this ship. I make a mental note to check how long coffee plants take to grow so I’ll know how long after reaching Hylara we’ll need to wait for fresh coffee. Or maybe I should get some coffee plants started in one of the greenhouse rings, get a head start on things. If they reach maturity before we get there, we won’t have to share with thousands of colonists.

Hot cup of what passes for coffee in hand, I settle down to continue reading.