Three units were in stock. None could be used today.
Darae studied three rows on the warehouse display: Raon’s emergency reserve, an inspection hold and a maintenance-test unit. Sharing a product name did not make them interchangeable stock available for issue.
Ten days after the first rescue, Seo brought the supply-suspension reply to Raon’s parts receiving bench. The existing transport service had been canceled; compatibility certification awaited updating. Clicking AVAILABLE TO ORDER guaranteed no actual arrival.
“When would a new purchase get here?” the warehouse attendant asked.
“There’s no confirmed date. We won’t start by opening a purchase. First, permitted stock and possible repair.”
Darae opened the location record attached to each of the three stock rows, checking them one after another. The sound main cartridge and two temporary canisters delivered to S-6 were absent from this list. They remained in designated positions under unoccupied preservation. The object they were seeking here was a second sound replacement cartridge: something to use in future verification and in planning later exchanges, rather than an item already delivered during the rescue.
All twenty-three residents now breathed through Raon’s approved living-support facilities. Their air did not depend on this one object. A supply interruption could not resurrect S-6’s old sorbent-capacity countdown.
They put that distinction at the beginning of the information for residents, before explaining the interrupted supply. COMPATIBLE SUPPLY SUSPENDED must not make somebody think today’s bed was unsafe.
The first unit’s seals and management records were sound. It also formed part of Raon’s required emergency reserve. Seo closed the removal request.
“We can’t erase our own margin and call it another plan’s reserve.”
Darae checked the reason for refusal. A bare REJECTED might send the next shift back to ask for it again. Improving restoration prospects by stripping current residents’ emergency protection stopped here.
The second unit occupied an isolation shelf at the corridor’s end. After checking access procedures, the attendant brought it along the receiving rail. In microgravity the box gave the impression of weighing almost nothing. Still, until the rail’s braking indicator lit, nobody tried to stop its movement by putting a body in its path.
A label end had folded over. Darae nearly oriented the package by handle color, then read the physical management number. Its ending differed from Seo’s specification sheet: a revised model of the same unit.
“They look alike.”
“The instrument connection differs. We need a separate check against the current configuration.”
Seo marked the model difference. Inspection hold reflected a damaged outer transport case and missing condition records. Changing packaging would not make the unit sound. The attendant checked whether it could move for an approved maintenance inspection.
Darae remembered faulty 7-B. The cylinder in her office had recent-use records and the original manual card. Taking it apart might reveal more.
She opened its preservation record, then closed it.
“7-B won’t enter this parts-candidate list. It’s sealed as hearing evidence.”
Seo nodded. Needing a test article did not turn evidence into repair material. The card and packaging stayed in Lost-and-Found Office 4. Finding a second item did not release the first.
Maintenance allocated a limited inspection period. Seo began only the exterior and records comparison authorized by the warehouse’s responsible officer. No opening the reactive layer or connecting to working life support. Darae handled incoming and outgoing tags.
As the box met the bench support, one protective panel lifted slightly. Darae reached to press it down. Seo stopped her. The support’s retaining lip did not fit this case. Forcing it down might push the person away instead of securing the cylinder.
They first reduced its movement and fetched another approved support. The attendant maintained transport restraints while Seo compared specifications. Preparation consumed part of their inspection time. Darae left those minutes on the inspection sheet.
“The support’s our leading character again.”
“If the lead stays quiet, the work goes faster.”
Only after securing the new support could they illuminate the cover.
The held unit lacked adequate connection information for the current specification. Missing history also prevented a guarantee of the reactive layer’s remaining performance. Seo marked it ineligible for issue as a sound replacement. Darae told the receiving desk that AWAITING REPAIR did not promise repair was possible.
Further specialist review and testing were needed even to assess that possibility. One new outer seal could not replace absent evidence. The box returned to its hold location. Only the inspection record and next questions had changed.
The final test cartridge looked older: no fresh packaging, some coating worn from its handle. Darae checked her impulse to reject an untidy exterior. Its tag and actual verification needed to determine whether it could do the work.
It was a spare reserved for an existing workshop’s separate test system, with recent condition checks and history retained. But its assigned purpose meant a lost-property clerk could not simply issue it.
Seo asked the workshop about its plans. Were essential tests imminent? Would release delay another safety check? The responsible staff could consider adjusting the existing plan at that afternoon’s meeting. Darae did not mark an unapproved reservation as completed resident support.
They ate beside the warehouse in the rotating ring. Seo stopped before opening packaged soup. Weak weight had returned, but he fastened the container to its support and opened slowly.
“I keep thinking we’re still in the axial section,” Darae said.
“Soup complains wherever you open it in a hurry.”
They shared leftover bread brought by the warehouse attendant without adding it to the support-item register. Not every part of today’s tiredness needed a number and product name.
Conditional reassignment of the test spare was allowed that afternoon. One unit could become a verification candidate without compromising the workshop’s essential reserves. Seo received its physical number, compatibility material and history before writing an individual functional-check plan. Approval did not load it onto a spacecraft.
Specialists ran the test in the workshop’s approved independent facility. Darae waited outside by the indicators. Seeing STABLE on the instrument display, she opened the report entry, then closed it. First she needed to hear under which conditions it was stable.
Seo explained that sorption function and connection condition fell within permitted limits under this test. It did not mean Sai’s heat source, power and heat rejection for continuous regeneration had been restored. Application to the real facility required separate current-configuration and operating-condition verification.
“We’ve secured one sound candidate. Not a solution to long-term supply.”
Darae recorded exactly that. Permitted existing stock had been reassigned for the next verification without buying an item. She announced no reopened supply chain. Replacement arrangements after this single unit still needed checking.
Haeseong asked whether they could retrieve S-6’s unused temporary canister instead. Seo explained the difference between a temporary sorbent canister and a replacement cartridge for a regenerative system. Actual retrieval would also require flight, docking and work approvals. Darae corrected her notice’s single column of cylinder-shaped objects.
Haeseong understood, then asked where the new candidate actually was. She read out its post-test storage location and current custodian. S-6’s three support items remained aboard S-6; the unused pump stayed separately in Raon’s maintenance-inspection storage. No box had crossed unseen space.
The reassignment reply also specified return conditions. If the plan stopped, unused condition and inspection history must be checked before returning it to the workshop. Darae abandoned the idea of keeping it in an empty office space without a return date. It could not wait just anywhere.
Seo checked the time for further verification. Today’s inspectors would not simply stay through the night. Some work fitted the allocated window; other tests needed their own. Finding one spare did not promise every inspection finished today.
Meanwhile the warehouse attendant wanted to change the reservation table. Which plan should be deleted? Darae linked the original test plan to the amendment history and new storage location instead. Anybody later finding one unit missing must not mistake today’s support for a loss.
“Three forms to borrow one.”
“So three places don’t promise to use the same one at once.”
She checked again that the emergency-stock request was closed. They had never taken the first rejected unit. One useful thing could proceed without borrowing somebody else’s emergency margin.
The candidate received an AWAITING NEXT VERIFICATION label. Darae aligned the handle and obtained receipt confirmation. Worn or not, this object had a history. Today it was more concrete than an order screen pretending to offer something new.
“I thought buying ahead was enough,” the attendant said.
“We need to record where it will be used, and for what.”
Darae returned without a new box in her hands. A qualified maintenance custodian held the object; she carried only its handover sheet. Coming back empty-handed did not mean doing nothing.
At the rotating ring’s entrance, Maru and a guardian moved slowly along the wall. Asked what was wrong, the guardian said living-support staff had advised this gradual adaptation. They were not asking Darae for an emergency medical judgment.
Maru pointed at a calf.
“My legs do the work here. At Sai my hands were busier.”
They laughed, and Darae matched their pace. The day she found another component for the home they might return to, she saw that a body used to that home also needed time in a different environment.
Behind her, Seo opened new material. Medical and living-environment staff needed to join the next discussion. Repairing the main habitat would not give it a rotating ring’s weight.
Darae pictured the home still awaiting decisions. She could see a place for the cartridge. The space for conditions that would let a person live there over the long term needed to be much larger.