Drawing a fifth field did not create another seat.
Darae stopped moving her pen and looked across the cabin at the three passenger places available for the return. Two children and two adults needed prompt transfer assessment. One child also needed a guardian outside that group. The need for five people to travel could not simply be folded up until it fitted into those three places.
“I shouldn't be writing who goes first.”
Mujin kept his eyes on the return plan.
“We need medical priority and the conditions for carrying them safely. And we explain them to the people concerned.”
Narae remained connected to S-6. The doors were closed according to passage procedures. Within the permitted cabin area, Darae and Seo checked the passenger seats. Haeseong's explanation of the five fields went through the medical channel. Nobody read the details of individual circumstances over the shared communications link.
Seo illuminated a folded seat's attachment points. Darae straightened its twisted restraint and read its identification number. They checked the approved child supports against Narae's emergency boarding list. Two small bodies did not count as one passenger.
“Taking my personal baggage out would reduce the mass a little.”
“Mass margin and certified seating are different requirements,” Mujin said.
She put the barley-tea packet back into its net. She wanted to give something up, however small, as though surrendering a possession might lighten those five fields. An unnecessary sacrifice could also obscure the actual conditions.
At the medical team's request, Haeseong and an adult helper reported the patients' condition again. Maru identified the communications display, then rested. An adult passed water pouches and checked supported positions. Maru did not offer to stay awake beside the sick in someone else's place.
After a short review, the team recommended one child and one adult whose transfer was harder to delay. With that child's guardian, they made three. The other adult and child could prepare for the next transfer under continued support and repeated checks, provided their condition allowed. Changing symptoms would mean reviewing the order.
Darae did not darken the outlines of the three fields as though the decision were already finished. Explanation, consent, actual boarding mass, and support arrangements remained. Assigning places had not made the others less ill.
“May I explain why the other two are next?” Haeseong asked.
“We'll arrange for the medical team to explain directly. Please coordinate contact and everyday support,” Mujin said.
Haeseong slowly agreed. He would not have to become the person choosing to leave somebody behind. Beside the representative's name on the resident sheet, Darae divided the responsible contact routes. Decisions should not all collect there simply because that was the name they had first received.
The guardian and child appeared on a brief video call. The guardian wanted to see the seats. Darae showed the positions and restraints within the permitted view. Questions followed: where belongings would go, who would help nearby, where the medical handover led.
“If we reach Raon, does that mean we can't come back?”
“Today's transfer is emergency medical support. It isn't consent to a long-term home.”
“Can I have that in writing?”
“Yes. Through your own contact route.”
She sent the explanation after speaking. Only after receipt was confirmed did the transfer consent enter the record. No signature needed to fill the shared screen.
The adult going first asked about belongings: personal photographs in a small pouch. Darae explained mass and item-safety checks without immediately promising permission. The passenger agreed to leave the sharp-edged frame and take the photographs in a protective envelope.
A neighbor accepted the empty frame and attached a custody label. Even while preparing to leave, the passenger was arranging somewhere for a possession to return.
“This doesn't mean I've thrown it away?”
“It stays recorded as entrusted property. With who holds it, and where.”
An intake number could help. It could not replace consent to move a person. Darae kept the property-custody entry and passenger confirmation on separate screens.
The explanation for the people who would stay in S-6 took longer than the explanation for those preparing to leave. Nobody blamed the first passengers, but the question returned: what if the next vessel never came?
Mujin gave no confirmed arrival time. The Safety Office was checking a candidate's orbit, departure readiness, connection equipment, and capacity.
Darae did not fill that blank with “soon.” She read the contact times, measurements, and changed-condition reporting route that would remain after Narae disconnected. She explained the sorbent support and work order separately.
Haeseong read them back slowly. Asked who would take the next call, Darae gave the Raon rescue desk and the adult shift contacts, not only Haeseong. After Narae returned to Raon, it must not become a plan where one person falling asleep brought all contact with the remaining residents to an end.
Seo received new measurements. Pressure and oxygen supply held. Temperature was 32.1 degrees. After the load reduction, the temperature was not rising faster. That one reading did not establish that the heat problem was over. Flow and remaining capacity in the existing and temporary canisters were recorded under the new conditions.
Narae's ventilation hummed. Darae felt cool air against her arm. For a moment, merely reading figures seemed unfair to those remaining in the heat. Concealing conditions to spare envy would not help. She described the support at Raon after transfer and the support remaining aboard the module in concrete terms.
A woman spoke over the shared channel.
“I said first that I didn't want to return to those rooms. Is this an order where people who want to go back wait?”
Darae recognized the voice from the head-count check. She opened the long-term relocation opinions. They were not linked to the medical recommendation. The woman's stated preference remained; today's order followed condition and transfer-support needs. At her request, Darae sent personal confirmation that it would not be treated as a changed housing preference.
“Then I'll wait for now. Contact me directly next time too.”
Haeseong noted the request. Darae recorded the present willingness to wait and the next-contact requirement, rather than marking an objection resolved. Failure to reach her would not let Haeseong consent in her place. A question from outside the three seats changed the support sheet for the remaining twenty.
Mujin received the actual boarding conditions through the approved mass sheet. Nobody announced body weights on the shared channel. Baggage, supports, and supplies needed during the return were included. Life support, seating, and mass distribution were reviewed together.
“All three can board conditionally. Final checks follow the work and handover.”
Only then did Darae prepare the empty boarding labels. She used codes the passengers could recognize, placing guardian and child alongside each other, the other adult beside them. Nobody shared a restraint.
Haeseong explained the transfer sequence. Seo checked the passage with the adult contact in S-6; Darae prepared the receiving position in Narae. Sending the main cartridge down the same route now would cross the passengers' path. Cargo and people needed different times.
The child's little container appeared on the screen, a star drawn on its lid. The guardian paused while packing it.
“We need this for meals.”
Darae requested its assessment as a personal necessity. It fell within the permitted allowance and was secured in a closed pouch. There was a usable procedure before abandoning a little container became something to cry over. Rescue did not require explaining that a person must shed every possession.
The other child had a separate guardian. While medical staff explained the condition and next check, an adult helper moved water and a communicator closer. The record described someone still needing observation and support, rather than a child rejected from priority transfer. Darae changed REMAINING to PREPARING FOR NEXT TRANSFER.
Maru sent a short voice message.
“Three leaving twenty-three means twenty stay. Should I change the wall chart?”
“Nobody's moved yet. It's still twenty-three. Change it after they cross and both sides confirm.”
Maru said the pen had stopped. Darae could imagine the hand outside the picture. On her own sheet she separated current numbers from planned numbers. The person doing the teaching had not already understood everything either. Her own form had needed the same distinction between what was planned and what was happening now.
She glanced at the empty frame. She could not know how those staying would see the places vacated by three people. Their feelings were not hers to decide. She could reread the fields for checks, contact, and the next transfer, making sure none had been left empty.
A Safety Office reply arrived. One follow-up candidate had passed flight review and entered predeparture checks. The current plan used the same S-6 connection after Narae withdrew. Its own certified matching equipment and passenger capacity were being checked. Arrival was still unconfirmed.
“The candidate is now being prepared,” Darae reported.
Haeseong repeated those words. Someone mistook them for arrival and began to rise; the adult contact immediately corrected the misunderstanding. Even good news could prompt unsafe movement when it grew in the telling.
Mujin reviewed the connection time Narae could still spare and its return margin. They could not wait here indefinitely for a late successor. Before leaving, they needed to hand over the sound cartridge for limited use and settle the remaining temporary sorbent support.
Seo shone his light on the main box's protective cover. The seal remained intact. Darae opened the next receipt and began with purpose and restrictions.
A processing alert arrived from Raon. Issue of the sound replacement had been linked to return of faulty 7-B. The system wanted receipt confirmed.
Beside three boarding labels, Darae looked at the button.
Pressing it would mean the faulty item still in her office had already reached its owner.