ENGINEERING LOG — COMPRESSION SPIRE — L. CARDENAS
entry dated day 11, winter 2189, 03:12 stationtime; logged to local-only ring buffer, not relayed to Earth.
Outbound buffer integrity at 0.9972 (nominal ≥ 0.9999). Tracing the bleed.
The lost decimal places are not noise. They are not radiation. They are not the lasers drifting. They are voice content — twelve to forty cycles per packet — folded into the lowest-priority compression layer and riding out with every outbound burst since day 9.
The voice is not on the crew roster. It is a woman, calm, partway through a sentence each time the packet samples her. I have isolated four phonemes that recur. They are consistent with the name 'Ana.'
I cannot stop the bleed without taking the spire down. Taking the spire down is the Director's call. I am going to make it her call tonight.
— L.C.
pencil note below, undated, same hand:
she said no. she said no and locked the door from the outside.