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“Colin to Brother Anderson, do you copy?” The voice came into Brother Anderson’s awareness, even without being physically audible in the room. The signal was much clearer than the previous communications.
“Copy,” replied the robot out loud, startling Hannah out of her reverie.
“Huh?” she asked.
“Nothing. I’m talking to Colin - on the comms.”
“Oh - right.” She tried to regain her train of thought and go back to ignoring the robot, but it proved difficult. His one-sided conversation was actually more interesting than if Colin had been there. There was something intriguing and mysterious about it, like a riddle to solve. She tried to guess what Colin was saying, but it was nearly impossible to fill in the blanks, especially while listening to the next answer simultaneously.
“Not particularly encouraging, I’m afraid. But the comms signal is significantly improved.”
“And the one in sector E?”
“Alright.”
“Yes, OK.”
“I will head there now. Where exactly is the cabling?”
“And you are sure there is enough to reach that far?”
“Very well.”
“Hannah, I need to help Colin move the cabling. Would you care to accompany me to engineering deck?”
“Uh yeah sure, I guess.”
They spent the next hour fetching a huge roll of cabling, and stringing it out along the length of sectors D, C, and B. Colin pried open the paneling in the airlock and spent a fair bit of time figuring out which wires to attach to which. He had to go back to engineer deck twice to get a different tool or bit of equipment. Hannah went with him, even though it was somewhat tiring. They had to wear the pressure suits for working in sector B, and while they were somewhat clunky to navigate in zero-gravity, they proved to be even worse in the artificial gravity enabled sections on the way back to engineering. It was a long walk in that heavy suit. By the time they finished wiring up the airlock in sector B, and then tying into the main power terminus at the sector D airlock, Hannah was exhausted. They all agreed that was enough work for one day.