Somewhat unpleasant ending, but then: so is this universe.
It was uncanny, being on an alien ship. Or half-alien ship. Norm had been told that the Arthur Phillip and her sisters had been designed with humanity in mind, and that it had been built before Columbus the Explorer discovered the New World. The flowing lines jarred horribly with the racks of cryopods and equipment installed to triple the ship’s human cargo capacity and keep ninety-nine percent of them alive until they reached their destination. All alientech was like that, though; beautiful, majestic, and more than a little intimidating, like you were a half-savage child wandering through an adult’s house. It helped to remind yourself that you were alive, and the aliens weren’t. That bare survival counted as success, in the face of a universe that apparently hated beauty and majesty.
Norm hated that it did, but he hated Sudden Despair Syndrome even more.
It was easy to find the right room, too. One of the uncanny things about alien ships was how impossible it was to get lost in them, as long as you knew where you wanted to go. That was a security nightmare, and officially the reason why the Old Man didn’t want just anybody from the USNA on one unless they were already frozen. Unofficially… if you looked at what the aliens thought humanity was capable of, and then you looked at humanity had done on its own, you realized pretty quickly that humanity just wasn’t living up to its potential.
We’re getting better, Norm told himself. It’ll just take time, that’s all.