The proposal’s total sat at the bottom of the page.
Darae looked first at the empty lines above it. Space and transport time had allocations. Maintenance inspections, document preparation and relief communications each said RESIDENT VOLUNTEERS. Repeating it three times made the cost appear nonexistent.
One week after the first rescue, they met with Raon’s operating cooperative. All twenty-three residents still received temporary support; reoccupation of the main habitat and S-6 remained unapproved. Choosing a proposal today did not mean a flight tomorrow or a return home.
“We’re sharing existing space and schedules within the budget limit,” the operations representative explained. “If residents can contribute, review can progress sooner.”
Darae remembered yesterday’s patched gloves. Seo submitted the two hours actually spent and outstanding review tasks. Haeseong had separately asked what residents could do, without turning differing long-term choices into one labor roster.
“How many have volunteered?” Darae asked.
“Two adults confirmed today. Two hours each per day, for three days, limited to checking records and discussing explanations. They haven’t consented to actual facility maintenance or overnight standby.”
She put that beside the requirement: two adult technical workers, four hours each daily, for three days. Eight person-hours daily, twenty-four altogether. The residents offered four daily, twelve altogether.
Half was missing.
The representative studied the table. Darae added that arithmetic alone did not settle qualifications or simultaneous-work conditions. Twelve hours scattered in one-hour portions across different days might not replace checks requiring two people together.
“Then recruit four more hours a day?”
Seo answered.
“Different tasks require different skills and responsibility. Writing down questions and approving component condition aren’t interchangeable hours.”
He produced yesterday’s general guidance. Public material contained limited principles such as stop conditions and contact routes. The equipment-specific procedure still awaited verification. A written sheet did not qualify anybody to do maintenance.
Darae changed the proposal’s first title from IMMEDIATE RESTORATION SUPPORT to RESTORATION FEASIBILITY REVIEW. Operations said that was its original intent, but the resident-facing front sheet emphasized RESTORATION alone. The printed notice would receive the corrected title too.
Haeseong raised a hand.
“I’ll help find out whether return is possible. But people who don’t want to return mustn’t read this as work they owe for temporary support.”
Support staff confirmed that temporary accommodation and participation in investigation were separate. Darae asked for that on residents’ notices too. A distinction heard by only some people could become something else at the next meal.
The second option expanded relocation consultations within Raon and affiliated habitation rings. It had conditions for temporary space, storing personal belongings and movement guidance. It did not cost nothing either. Consultations and property handovers took staff time; available places and lengths of stay required individual review.
The woman with the leaf container underlined this option. She had still submitted only a personal-property list. Darae did not record an underline as a settled relocation choice.
“If I get a consultation, do I have to leave my current place first?”
“Consultation alone doesn’t determine departure. We check the actual offer and your decision.”
She wrote CONSULTATION beside the line. Somebody could attach a future choice to even one broad stroke. Darae asked the minute-taker to keep today’s views separate from confirmed applications.
Mujin came to explain transport time. Slots might be available for unoccupied-state observation and possible inspection voyages. They had neither departure approval nor maneuver plans. Nearby facilities did not automatically mean short, fixed journey times.
“We include the return fuel and the margin to withdraw if an attempt fails. Don’t price several approaches as if one attempt covers them.”
Operations revised wording that could turn an offered slot into a confirmed sailing. Darae left unresolved parts of the estimate visible. Add empty cost fields as zero, and any proposal could look cheap.
Bae Giwan joined remotely, describing conditions on material and ship schedules Interconnection Transport might provide. Requests for old settlement records retained their separate submission route. Today concerned new support scope, not a finding about old recovery charges.
“We must distinguish work already handled under the existing contract from new requirements.”
“That’s why we requested the complete prior settlement material,” the official answered. “Today, specify each new task’s available conditions.”
Darae did not read his words as proof that charges had already been submitted. Contractual handling and actual settlement required different evidence. Nor would the question remain hidden indefinitely behind a budget. A separate responsible official and next reply time were recorded.
During the break, the operations representative set down a cup and spoke quietly. They had brought an offer to help; they had not expected so many empty fields. Darae said that before going out there, she too had thought sending the right cartridge would finish the job.
“So many questions make it look unworkable.”
“If we can fix it now, more of it becomes usable.”
She turned the two papers side by side. The table was not meant to make one win. People investigating return and people asking about departure needed the same questions answered so each could decide.
She moved temporary support duration, the next consultation and personal-property storage into conditions common to both. Today’s bed did not belong only to people choosing restoration review. Operations separated the support currently assured from future extension review.
Seo divided the work again: residents’ optional explanations of records; professional review for Raon maintenance; actual work requiring separate approval and compensation. Observation, communications and facility upkeep beyond the three preparation days were still being estimated. Three days’ preparation could not stand in for long-term operating costs.
Darae emphasized that last line. Even a favorable repair assessment could send them back into the same danger without anybody to look after the place daily. A quick communications apprentice could not cover that omission. Maru’s name never entered the professional-duty roster.
One resident offered to transport personal belongings. Before recording free carriage, Darae asked exactly which stage he meant. He could carry his own bag inside Raon. He was not volunteering to enter the main habitat on its separate orbit and retrieve everybody else’s boxes.
“Holding luggage doesn’t let me pilot the ship.”
A brief laugh went around. Darae wrote PERSONAL MOVEMENT WITHIN RAON beside it. Voluntary help sometimes became smaller when specified. In that smaller form, it could actually be used.
Another resident could not attend consultations offered only in daytime: those hours overlapped inquiries about work permitted at Raon. Support staff checked other times. Darae corrected the first list’s NOT INTERESTED against people who could not come during the day.
A guardian could not spare even two hours explaining maintenance when childcare was needed. That circumstance did not appear beside a name on the common budget. It went to the responsible staff as a participation-support requirement. Free time required different things to be cleared out of different lives. A blank in the work table did not mean a person had been sitting idle. Job inquiries, looking after a child and waiting for advice occupied time too, even when none appeared among the technical tasks on the page. Darae asked them not to total unsecured childcare and consultation waiting time as zero.
By the end, operations would prepare a revision. They would check whether staff assignments within the existing support budget could cover the missing professional-review hours. Residents’ limited participation would enter only within their chosen scope. The meeting approved no spending beyond the support limit and no new voyages.
The second option also required more information: consultation staffing, storage capacity and unresolved long-term costs. Both paths stayed open. Further information would be requested for each, without treating one route as automatically free or the other as already promised. Today’s revision gave them questions to answer and limits to keep; it did not supply an unlimited stay, a new sailing or a final home. Any proposal depending on all twenty-three returning to the same home was removed.
Haeseong studied the table’s bottom. At first it had totaled one facility. Now it included individual inquiry channels. He worried restoration review would slow. Darae promised no greater speed.
“We’ll also check where and how people can stay while it takes longer.”
He nodded slowly. Explaining his desire to return differed from asking others to wait. She watched him collect a notice for each option.
Back at the lost-and-found office, a small box occupied the intake bench. This was no emergency life-support cargo but a repaired clock. While the office searched for its owner, the repair worker had finished inspection. Darae read the actual receipt scope and repair record before sending them to the owner’s contact desk.
Seo handed over today’s time sheet. It included revising the table and resident notices, not merely attending the meeting. She logged her own hours too. Saying they had helped diligently could not substitute for that time.
She recalled the empty RESIDENT VOLUNTEERS field. Voluntary did not mean valueless. First it meant having a choice whether to do something at all. A plan that collapsed when somebody declined could not be described as work everybody wanted.
The Safety Office’s regular reply arrived. Main habitat and S-6 remained separately tracked; resident reoccupation was unapproved. Support equipment stayed preserved in designated states. Progress with a proposal had moved no actual object to a new location.
That evening, the woman with the leaf container requested contact. She wanted another look at the second notice, through her own desk rather than a representative.
Darae prepared both options printed at the same size. The woman rested her container on her knees and looked at the empty consultation chair.
“May I ask first about going somewhere else from here?”
Darae did not fold away the restoration sheet. She laid the other notice beside it. People who had shared a rescue needed another path to ask about besides the way back.