In space there was one rule.
If you notice a deviation, you log it.
No matter how small.
A jammed door.
A burnt-out bulb.
A delayed signal.
A sensor working incorrectly.
The system didn’t like things going unmentioned.
Tomas knew that.
That morning he was the first to arrive at the medical bay.
The coffee machine was running louder than usual.
He set down his cup.
Waited.
Nothing.
The machine briefly went quiet.
A few seconds later it started working again as if nothing had happened.
Tomas stood there for a while.
Then sat down.
The log lay beside him.
He needed to write one line.
“07:14. Brief malfunction of the coffee machine.”
He didn’t write it.
What for?
After all, the machine was working.
After lunch the captain asked:
“Did anyone hear the coffee machine stop this morning?”
No one answered.
“Must have imagined it.”
Tomas said nothing.
It felt strange to him that he hadn’t said anything.
He wasn’t afraid.
He just… didn’t say it.
That evening the engineer closed the technical bay door.
A minute later it opened on its own.
Only a few centimeters.
He closed it again.
This time it stayed locked.
The engineer looked at the indicators for a few seconds.
Then walked away.
He didn’t log the malfunction.
A week later Tomas was reviewing the system records.
He noticed something strange.
Over the last forty days, technical reports had dropped by almost half.
That seemed like good news.
But the ship hadn’t changed.
It was still the same ship.
People had simply stopped reporting.
That evening Tomas opened the old expedition archives.
He was looking for something else entirely.
But his eyes caught on one number.
The reports from the first months had dozens of small deviations.
Later there were fewer and fewer.
In the final months, almost none remained.
As if ships became perfect with age.
That was impossible.
At dinner, no one talked about it.
The mechanic ate in silence.
The captain read route corrections.
Rojus slowly peeled an orange.
He arranged the peel into a perfectly regular spiral.
Tomas suddenly understood what was bothering him.
The malfunctions weren’t decreasing.
What was decreasing was people’s willingness to acknowledge them.
That evening, he opened the log after all.
He stared at the empty line for a long time.
Then he wrote:
Lately the ship seems more trustworthy than the people.
He read it.
Crossed it out.
Closed the log.
For the first time, deliberately leaving a gap in it.