Darae left the box’s label in place and attached a blank sheet below it.
SOUND REPLACEMENT CARTRIDGE.
Underneath, she added:
CONDITIONS FOR CONTINUOUS OPERATION REQUIRE SEPARATE VERIFICATION.
Seo nodded. Make THE RIGHT PART the largest words, and the recipient might believe it ended every problem.
“Can’t they use it as soon as it’s fitted?”
“It can adsorb carbon dioxide initially. To keep regenerating it, they need heat, power, and somewhere to reject the waste heat. S-6 is short of those.”
“What if they use it like a disposable one?”
“It buys time. It doesn’t restore the original capacity.”
He moved two temporary sorbent canisters to the next rail. Instead of simply adding new objects to the load, he was choosing functions they could use now. Darae looked again at OXYGEN SUPPLY NORMAL on the equipment sheet.
Having oxygen and having breathable air were different things.
A port storekeeper brought another carrier. Beneath a gray cover marked EMERGENCY ASSISTANCE were several kinds of container. Their shapes were so similar that handle colors told her very little.
“All of these aboard?” the storekeeper asked.
Mujin shook his head from the doorway.
“‘All of them’ isn’t a mass. Give me a list.”
Darae laughed and opened the manifest. A vessel had to accommodate mass, space, and order of use, rather than merely a number of boxes. An empty package and a dense pump of the same size behaved differently when moved.
Seo identified the containers one at a time.
Oxygen supply. Carbon-dioxide removal. Coolant circulation.
Darae read each inventory number as carefully as if being introduced to people. At the office, two similar parasols could be returned to the wrong owners and brought back. They could not count on having time for these objects to come back because someone had made a mistake.
“Shouldn’t we take plenty of spare oxygen cylinders?” the storekeeper asked.
Seo first confirmed that Narae’s own emergency stocks would remain intact. They were not replacing the rescue vessel’s emergency equipment with someone else’s cargo.
“Extra cargo for S-6 needs to match the present failure. Its oxygen supply is working. More oxygen won’t remove carbon dioxide.”
Within the cargo limit, he moved some additional oxygen cylinders to standby. He did not rule out needing them later. He recorded their locations and inventory numbers for a further delivery if conditions changed.
Darae had never expected to like the word standby. Today, a place between discard and load mattered.
The expiry label on the second temporary canister was worn. Instead of rubbing it with his hand, Seo compared the physical number with the stores record. The date was valid. The seal still needed inspection.
Darae shone a light along it. One strip reflected evenly.
“Good. This one is usable.”
Only then did she confirm it as assistance cargo. A ledger saying an object was usable and the object actually being usable belonged on the same line only after checking.
The coolant circulation pump was a little larger than two palms. She felt as though that small object might settle the heat problem too.
“Will replacing this make it cooler?”
“It moves the coolant. If the radiator can’t reject the heat that comes back, a new pump won’t solve it.”
“Nothing in this load works on its own.”
“People are similar.”
She looked at Mujin. He pointed to the vessel’s mass sheet. The observation about people did not enlarge the payload allowance.
The load was within the mass limit, but volume was a problem. The long cartridge box blocked part of the passage. Darae did not immediately suggest stripping off the packaging. She asked Seo to distinguish necessary protection from the outer transport frame.
They left only the reusable outer frame at the port. The inner seal and fitting protection stayed intact. She checked the reduced mass on the weighing rail and revised the manifest.
She did not overwrite the old figure on the box. The revision recorded which packaging they had removed. The recipient should not mistake a lighter package for a missing part.
The storekeeper took the frame.
“You’re good at returning empty boxes.”
“It’s my job.”
She secured the cartridge. For the first time today, her actual job did not sound small.
A new contact window opened. An adult operated the transmitter in Maru’s place; the apprentice passed over information beside them. Haeseong read the current conditions. Pressure holding. Oxygen supply normal. Sorbent capacity down a little. Seo considered both the previous reading and the elapsed time.
The change lay within the initial estimate. He did not finish by saying everything was fine. The estimate depended on present conditions continuing.
“Can you confirm the regeneration heat source is disconnected?”
Haeseong pointed to the connection diagram.
“We lost both heat and power from the main habitat. S-6 was meant as a temporary refuge. It doesn’t have equipment for long-term regeneration.”
Darae added another line to the sheet.
ASSISTANCE BUYS TIME. RETURN TO MAIN HABITAT OR TRANSFER STILL REQUIRED.
Haeseong explained that to the people inside. Someone asked whether the filter’s arrival meant they could go back to their rooms. He said not yet. The picture was too small to read faces, but Darae could hear the pace of the exchange.
Resisting the urge to give a happy answer too soon was their work as well.
Seo checked the connections for the replacement and temporary canisters. They had parts suitable for the internal system. The interface between spacecraft and module was a separate matter. The photograph of the external cover they had yet to inspect up close appeared again.
Mujin saved it to his display.
“We make no promise of docking before close observation.”
Haeseong understood.
Darae described how a gloved recipient would release the packaging. Haeseong said their workbench was narrow. She changed the packing order so they could hand over only the equipment needed, rather than open three boxes at once.
A tidy bundle on Raon was not necessarily a usable bundle in S-6.
She labeled the cartridge and temporary canisters separately and put the pump pouch behind them. Equipment to be opened after a maintenance assessment must not block the items needed first. In large letters, the outside labels gave only number and function.
Faulty 7-B remained at the office. The duty clerk reported its seal and preservation status unchanged. Darae reminded herself that this was not preparation for returning that object.
She read Haeseong the purpose of receipt.
“Emergency assistance supplies. Separate from any later ownership decision. Recovery after use will be considered once the rescue is stable.”
Jingyeong attached the authorization number. The conditions came at the beginning of the paperwork.
Giwan confirmed the revised port schedule. Waiting cargo would move elsewhere; Narae’s return berth would remain open. Darae saved the reply beside the handover record. Keeping a place vacant was part of the rescue too.
She was given a small compartment for personal belongings. Opening her pouch, she reached for the office key and found the empty neck cord. She had already given the key to the duty clerk. The working day remembered by her hands ended a step behind her body.
Into the compartment went barley tea, a spare power supply for the terminal, and blank name labels. The thick pen went back on her wrist tether. She remembered the worn corner of a label in one of Maru’s photographs. Before adding another spare, she reported the change in her personal load.
Mujin accepted the revision without laughing. Recording something so small seemed excessive, but if everyone decided which little things to omit, no one would know the total.
“The labels will be useful.”
“We don’t have all the names yet.”
“That’s why you take blank ones.”
She turned a label over. Her fingers marked the backing paper. Some objects were better for having an empty space.
Seo handed her an instruction card for the cabin. Its writing was too small to take in at a glance. Thinking of a person receiving equipment in gloves, she suggested enlarging the heading and first sentence. The detailed maintenance information could stay on the back.
Reducing his explanation took him longer than anything else.
“I’m worried they’ll misunderstand if I leave something out.”
“If they can’t read it, you’ve practically left all of it out.”
He looked at her, then took a fresh sheet. The front would give purpose and limitations; the back, the checks. Someone without technical training should at least understand what they must not do yet. Darae remembered receiving much the same kind of explanation in the cockpit.
The remaining scraps of packaging went into a collection pouch beside the bench. Their rubbish must not depart through a ventilation grille before they did. When she closed the pouch, the storekeeper drew a check mark in the air. At last the space before the rail was clear.
Final weighing finished.
Darae moved her foot restraint and turned. Halfway around, the pump pouch seemed suddenly heavier. Its mass had not changed. It resisted the change of direction she was trying to give it.
Seo caught the opposite handle and reduced the movement.
“It looks so innocent while it fights back,” she said.
“Mass never takes a day off.”
She attached the pouch to the rail and let go. The memory of an object turning her body, after moving at a fingertip’s push, stayed longer than the explanation.
Mujin began the passenger safety briefing. Darae and Seo checked seats, emergency restraints, permission to move, and how to report feeling unwell. This did not qualify her for extra duties. It prepared her to keep her hands to herself when she did not understand a situation.
The final observation update arrived. S-6’s relative motion remained within the plan. The rotation estimate had not changed substantially. The Safety Office cleared departure, and Mujin read the abort conditions and return reserve again.
Darae fixed her name label beside her assigned position behind the cockpit.
DESTINATION: S-6. DUTY: CARGO HANDOVER.
She pulled the cartridge restraint one last time. A green check marker showed. Seo checked the other side. The pump had its own support and restraint, and small tools were inside closed pouches.
She counted everything once more and entered the cabin.
The port access door closed, cutting off the familiar sounds of the communications room. Narae’s ventilation hummed in their place. Darae pulled her own body restraint tight.
Mujin read the departure procedure.
Outside, Raon’s structure began to slide very slowly sideways. As they left the station, the surface Darae had thought of as the floor began, for the first time, to press against her body.