The first week after my awakening really hammered in just how much of a fifth wheel I was, as far as the crew was concerned.

It would have been weird if that wasn't the case. These four had managed just fine running the ship for half a century- considering that only two of them had been awake at any given time before the final approach to the system, they already had more than enough hands on deck. Between them and the computers that served as the ship's cerebellum, I was wholly unnecessary.

There was also the fact that I was not just unnecessary, but new. Even considering that each one had only been awake for about a decade or so, ten years was a long time to develop a particular way of running the ship and delegating tasks. And, as the sounds I heard every 'day' indicated, to develop new relationships with each other.

Put bluntly, I threw off the groove.

Overall, my daily schedule was a simple one. Wake up, do some light exercises, take a furious one-minute shower, then attend a briefing. Shadow one of the crew for two hours like a trainee at a new job so I could figure out what tasks I'd need to do if one of them was incapacitated. Eat in the dining area, which felt far too much like an old canteen, then do my own work.

Astonishing that I could travel more than a hundred trillion kilometers from Earth, and still feel like I never left school.

The crew did their part to make me feel welcome, I'll concede. They insisted on having me join the four of them for at least one meal a day, and I was constantly forwarded invitations to watch some old film in the rec room. Suprapto managed to get me to play a few games of backgammon with him, and Bisi encouraged me to make use of my allotted gardening space.

Still, more often than not, I went my own way, stating that I still had a lot of work to do to prepare for whatever manner of contact we'd have. It's not that I didn't want to associate with them, but I certainly didn't want to have to deal with the creeping tension I'd get from the very act of associating. Even for the smallest of activities with them, I couldn't help but feel the need to tread carefully, to not offend.

Also -and I don't mean this in a disdainful way- years spent inside a hi-tech tin can with nothing for trillions of kilometers around had all driven them a little nuts.

I had initially just assumed it stopped at the polyamorous pirate thing they had going on, but as time passed and we got closer to Kapteyn's Star, I started to see more and more odd behaviors.

One 'day', while I was climbing up the ladder to the zero-g access tube, I suddenly saw a very damp -and very naked- Suprapto zoom past. I used my wristcom to alert Nguyen, under the impression that there was a medical emergency, only to be informed that flying from one end of the ship to the other was just the man's preferred method of drying himself off after a shower.

When I asked her if that was really appropriate, her response was just that everyone else did it on occasion as well, and that seeing each other naked had stopped being a problem a long time ago. She even suggested that I give it a try.

"Nothing like feeling the breeze between our knees as we fly like bees," she had said.

At the very least, a clothed Suprapto later apologized for the surprise, and offered to stick to more conventional drying methods for my time on the ship. I accepted that offer, and the conciliatory soda gembira he'd made.

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The other odd behaviors were less overt, but perhaps more telling of the effect the long years in space had produced on the mind. They'd come up in conversation, such as Amavasya's million-word story that would've been considered a 'fanfiction' in the days before the great copyright abolishment; or they would be noticed in quick glimpses, like the to-scale map of Old Hanoi that Nguyen had meticulously etched into the interior of her cabin.

I asked Bisi about the matter about ten days after I woke up from hibernation. After all, one of her functions aboard the ship was psychologist, and she -so far- come off as the one with the least eccentricities.

"I'd argue that these behaviors aren't the sign of a deranged crew," she said, glancing away from the tomatoes she was tending to. "Quite the opposite."

"I didn't say deranged," I protested. "I was just worried that it could impact shipboard operations."

"The Parasol's network would send a whole slew of alerts out if crew efficiency deviated from the norm. I do discuss these things with them, you know. Make sure these behaviors don't deteriorate into something else. In all due honesty, they're doing the opposite of impacting shipboard operations."

"You're saying they're healthy outlets."

"Absolutely. You and I both know that we can only focus on work so much before it negatively impacts our mental health. We need to focus on something else, even if that focus is on, well, not focusing. But here? We're the only people we can talk to. Our 'world' is smaller than even the smallest islands inhabited by people, and we don't even have a horizon to look longingly at."

"When you put it like that, it makes sense," I told her. "Thank you for putting that worry to rest."

"No problem." She snipped off a tomato and held it up. "If you really want to worry, you should see the reenactments of old musicals that Suprapto and I did. That man cannot sing."

-o-

About two weeks in, we passed the orbit of the outermost planet in the system, a gas giant around the size of Saturn. Kapteyn's Star had grown from nothing but a point of red light, to a true sun, the first sun beyond our own to be seen by human eyes. Considering my lack of work on the ship, I found myself spending a lot of time in the observation blister, watching the red sun grow in size.

It was during one of those quiet moments that Nguyen quietly drifted over to the blister as well. I tensed a little, eyes darting to glance her way, but she didn't seem to register. She just stared at the small disc of Kapteyn's, quiet for a few moments.

"I've been mulling it over," she finally said. "What you said about the first planet orbiting the star, I mean. Humor me for a bit, will you? Let's suppose that there is a civilization there. What would they be like?"

I blinked, then leaned against the cool wall of the access tube. "Well, we first need to acknowledge our incredibly small pool of references for what's possible with life."

"You mean reference, singular," she said wryly.

"Yes. Life by our standards would find that planet inhospitable, but that's our standards. Life on that planet would have billions of years to evolve, just like ours. As we've been shown time and time again, the blind hand of evolution can create results that leave even engineers baffled. The very chemical composition of their cells could lean towards producing tissue with far greater strength, or lower density, than just about anything on Earth."

"Speaking of engineering, what about their ability to leave the planet? I know we have designs that could take off from such a planet, but just about all of them were developed after we already engaged in spaceflight."

"Just like their evolution, we have no way of telling how the completely different context would affect their technology. It's not a linear path, after all, not even on Earth."

"So you still think that's it's possible that the beacon came from that planet?"

I paused, then glanced up at Kapteyn's Star, eyes narrowed.

"It's... possible. But there's so many questions that would raise. Not only about a lack of space infrastructure, but also a lack of reaction. The laser pushing us is measured in petawatts, isn't it? That would be rather noticeable on the space dust here, meaning they would have known we were coming for years. Why not do something to get our attention, or even launch a ship?"

"That would have rather worrisome implications." Nguyen paused. "Maybe it'd be for the best that the beacon isn't from that planet. It'd be a shame if they were too much like us."

We both knew what was meant by that.

"I agree," I said, quietly.

Nguyen nodded, then drifted back down the access tube. I looked back to the dim red disc of Kapteyn's Star, thinking.