But dirt also forgot.
Kael closed the book. He looked at his wrist tattoo again.
“Up to a point,” Aris echoed. “What point is that, Kael?” etap 24
Dr. Aris nodded. “And what is the ETAP protocol?”
Kael opened his eyes. Or rather, he remembered opening them. The world swam into focus—sterile white walls, the smell of recycled air, and the distant hum of the ship’s core. He was lying on a hard pallet, a thin sheet over his jumpsuit. But dirt also forgot
Dr. Aris made a note on her clipboard. “Correct. Now, the bad news. Hydroponic Bay 7 is showing nitrogen depletion. You’ll need to rebalance the solution. The good news…” She paused, almost looking human for a moment. “This is your final stage. ETAP 24. After this, the ship enters the deceleration phase. The colonists will wake in eleven months. You won’t have to be replaced again.”
He thought about the next eleven months. The hydroponic bays. The silent corridors. The hum of the core. The weekly psych evaluations where Dr. Aris would ask him how he felt . “Up to a point,” Aris echoed
He sat up slowly. His muscles ached, not with the soreness of use, but with the hollow stiffness of deep disuse. He looked at his wrist. A small, glowing tattoo read:
There was nothing. Just static. Just the Odyssey .
He looked at his hands. They were young, strong. The hands of a man in his thirties. But inside, he felt older. Much older. He tried to remember his life—the one before the ship. A childhood. A mother’s face. A dog. Rain on a window.