“A few ideas,” she replied. “Maybe at meal time tonight we should put Jien Garson’s departure speech on the vid screens. She can—pardon, could—motivate better than any of us, I think, and it could be passed off as a memorial. Since,” she added pointedly, “we haven’t actually stopped to mourn yet.”
“Hmm.” Tann continued tapping away at his jaw, his gaze unfocused. “That’s not bad. Perhaps it is time.”
“Yeah,” Sloane said. “Then, the instant the video is over, we tell them dinner’s off and that they should all stop gorging themselves.”
Addison shot her a glare.
Sloane couldn’t help herself. She went on. “I’ll have my security team on hand to quell the riot you’ll have started.”
“It doesn’t have to be like that,” Tann said.
“Doesn’t it?” Sloane’s mouth twisted as she sat forward, elbows on her knees. “Look, like you said, we haven’t been rationing—and yeah, that was stupid of us. But it means that when we start, people are going to be upset. Finger pointing, accusations of hoarding or unfair ratios, the full gamut. Trust me. I’ve seen it before.”
“I know you have,” Tann said.
“Really?”
“I read your dossier.”
“No shit?”
“No sh—, er, correct.” A beat. “This is a surprise? I’ve read almost everyone’s by now. Those who are awake, I mean. Especially after the Falarn incident.”
Sloane stared at him for a moment, then shook her head. “All I’m saying is, rationing is going to kill the mood around here, right as everyone’s just starting to settle from the last Scourge hit. My team is going to have to start spending all their time defending what supplies we do have before things start magically disappearing.”
“That,” Addison said, “is already happening.”
Tann and Sloane both turned to her.
“I was going to bring it up next. It’s all in Spender’s latest report. Certain items have been growing legs.”
Tann went rigid, his eyes impossibly wide. “Some kind of biological agent? An alien meta-molecule infection?”
“No, no,” Addison said hurriedly. “It’s an expression. Things have been vanishing as if they’d walked away on their own.”
“Oh,” the salarian said. “I see.” He sounded almost disappointed.
“No one thought to inform Security about this?” Sloane asked her.
“Like I said, I was going to bring it up next. Spender only mentioned it in his report this morning.”
“I’d prefer to learn about criminal activity the moment it happens, not in a fucking report.”
Addison waved off the terse rebuke. “It’s not like that. He called it a vague concern. A ‘rounding error,’ perhaps, but he suspects there may be a problem.”
Sloane forced herself to ease off. “Fair enough. I’ll talk to him, get someone to investigate.”
“Good,” Addison said.
Sloane swung her focus back to Tann. “You said there was another option, other than rationing.”
“Well, yes. I should think it’s obvious.” When neither woman took that bait, he went on. “The time has come, I believe, to have the majority of our workforce return to cryostasis.”
Addison stared at him.
Sloane spent a good ten seconds laughing.
Jarun Tann endured this like the calm professional he clearly thought he was. When Sloane’s amusement finally abated, he continued.
“They were woken to help us overcome the immediate danger, and that has been accomplished. We’re all in agreement on that. It is perfectly reasonable to return them to stasis now, until we have our first crop from Hydroponics.” He shot Sloane a look. “I fail to see what’s so amusing about the idea.”
“Last time we put people in stasis it was a punishment. For a severe crime.”
“I fail to see the relevance to this situation.”
“Tann,” she said, “despite the relative calm, we’re still in a world of shit here. Trust me, the last thing anyone’s going to want to do is be ordered back into their pod, and hope they’ll wake up again. They’re awake now. They’re going to want to stay that way. If we want to return them to stasis, it’ll have to be by force.”
“So we ask for volunteers.”
“If you get ten out of the thousand currently awake, I’d be shocked.”
This caused him to get up and pace. No easy feat in the small conference room.
“Perhaps Addison’s suggestion applies here, too. Garson’s speech may remind them of the sacrifice they made to come here. They’ve already been placed in stasis once and survived, I might add.”
“Well, sure,” Sloane said sarcastically. “A hundred percent of the survivors survived.”
“You know what I mean.”
A brief silence, broken by Addison.
“It can’t hurt to ask, can it?”
Sloane stood. “Yes. Hell yes it can hurt. Trust me, it’s not going to go well. And with the implied threat of rationing looming behind that request, the self-preservation instinct is going to kick in.”
For a time no one spoke. Tann even stopped pacing and leaned against the wall.
“I guess,” Sloane said with abundant reluctance, “the alternative is to go straight to rationing, and that’s just not going to work.” She rubbed her temple. “At least asking for volunteers eases us into it.”
Tann nodded. “Agreed. I’ve made my decision. This evening we will let Jien Garson herself remind everyone of why we’re here, and of the sacrifices we all made. Then I will put out the call for volunteers.”
“Sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself.”
Tann blinked. “Perhaps we could all do with a little reminder of why we’re here, don’t you think?”
Sloane made an appearance in one of the common areas, eating and drinking with a random group of crew, rather than her usual place with the security staff. Her dining companions were a lively bunch at first. Two members of the Nakmor work crew, a sanitation systems expert, and a soft-spoken asari who only poked at her food.
When pressed, the asari, a Dr. Aridana, admitted that she’d been trying to fix the main sensor array, and felt it wouldn’t be resolved until one of the arks arrived with spare parts. “Assuming they are not in the same, or worse, shape as us.”
Sloane finished eating and drifted toward the door, ready to leave and summon security at the first sign of trouble. As she walked, the few functional screens around the commons bloomed to life, displaying Jien Garson’s face.
A hush fell across the crowd, and in that solemn quiet their fallen leader’s words were heard by all. It was one of history’s great speeches, Sloane mused. Inspiring, thoughtful, and yet somehow “blowing happy gas up yer ass,” as her old station chief used to say. Regardless, every word in Garson’s speech rang true.
And then came Tann’s.
“Wise words from our fearless leader,” he began awkwardly. “How about a round of applause?” And then he clapped. No one else joined, but Tann had no way of knowing that. The poor bastard clapped for a full minute, then resumed. “I’d ask Jien Garson to address you all now, but alas, she is dead.”
Oh crap. An awkward silence followed.
“And if we are not careful, a lot more of us will die,” Tann went on.
“Oh, Tann, what the hell…” Sloane muttered, burying her head in her hands.
“A lot more of us will be dead if we run out of supplies.” Tann stared into the camera for a moment. “We have made some incredible progress these last few weeks, and I am happy to report the state of emergency has ended. In recognition of that, and because of our rapidly depleting reserves, your interim leadership is asking for volunteers to return to cryostasis.” He paused, then added, “You deserve a little rest, don’t you?”