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Stephen had not joined the other officers in evaluating the repairs. Partly this was for the pragmatic reason that he knew nothing of spacecraft design, maintenance, or service; partly this was due to a lingering guilt over Roth’s catastrophic jump to hyperspace, which was the reason the repais had been needed; but mostly it was because he was dog tired, having spent the night lending a hand in the ER. The hospital floors were tile laid over concrete, and after eight hours of standing on them he was used up. He had boarded the Roth with the other officers and gone directly to his cabin, where he had dropped his bundle of clothes on the floor and fallen directly into his cot, still clothed.
He was therefore unavailable for Jack to make amends, and unaware of Jack’s invitation to the wardroom. When he awoke, he found the wardroom empty. In the prep room he printed off some coffee, eggs and french toast, smiling to himself at the absurd suggestion, made some years back by an idiot politician, that the dish be renamed freedom toast.
With food and coffee inside him, humanity returned, and he began to take stock of his situation. Three bells rang, but he had no idea what watch this was for, and in any case his internal clock still ran on hours and minutes, so he pulled out his watch. Half past one in the afternoon.
It was later than he had supposed. He bussed his dishes back to the prep room, where he cupped his hands under the tap for a drink of water, then he made his way down and forward to the sick berth.
There, he met a young woman in a white jumpsuit. By now he was familiar with the faces of the almost 80 officers and men of the Roth (their names he was less sure of), and he did not recognize the woman, though he had seen similar white jumpsuits among the hospital staff. He paused in the doorway, uncertain.
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