4-013: Aboard Snark 416 – Control Room

Alan looks grateful for Oliver’s arrival.  He says Dicard will relieve him at the end of his shift – that he’s trained him enough to spot problems that they can take a shift each now rather than split shifts between the two of them.

He says he’ll be back at BG08 for the ship’s turnover maneuver.

He staggers out looking dead on his feet. 

Oliver is tired too.  However, studying the notebook it seems to be a mix of abstract theoretical cryptographic puzzles the writer is trying to solve, plus parts of something else he is working on.  There are also the usual random inserts, memory joggers and to-do lists Oliver has come to expect, although there are not as many in this work.  One page is taken up with what looks suspiciously like a decryption key, but there are no contextual clues as to what it might apply.

At BG08 Alan returns and sounds the manoeuvring alarm, although the subsequent re-orientation of the ship so that it reduces velocity toward the jump point is carried out quite gently.  After that, Oliver has about a Job to wait until the end of his watch.

My guess is he’ll want to sleep after his watch and then continue working on the books; unless he wants to do anything specific I’ll allow some time to pass while he does that?