Most of the people had now been organized by Parker. They gathered in the main conference room and several small preparation rooms connected to it, rather than being scattered across isolated offices as before.
This had one obvious advantage: wherever people looked, they could see plenty of others, and most of them were not that nervous. For everyone, that was the best reassurance.
Parker also suggested that since rescue was certain to come, they would have some time off afterward, but the work still needed to be completed. If they still had the energy, they could use this time to prepare the handover documents for before their vacation, making it easier for whoever replaced them to take over their work.
At the mention of vacation, the mood inevitably brightened. Work on the space station was fairly demanding, and a long paid holiday would be a chance for everyone to relax. Some people had already begun imagining where they would go.
Of course, they also had to consider practical matters, such as the handover documents. If they were taking time off, they could not afford to mess those up. Otherwise, if everything they had accomplished was handed over to some greenhorn, would the sky not come crashing down by the time they returned?
Many scholars qualified to work aboard the space station possessed an extraordinary level of stubbornness in this regard. Even if Mount Tai collapsed before them, their expressions would not change. Soon, the conference room once again filled with the clatter of keyboards, and many people immersed themselves in work.
So when Baker burst in, he saw a scene he could never have imagined.
It did not look like the final hour before the space station fell. It looked more like the independent research preparation phase of a global