In a series of statements given to a liaison between employees doing their work as designed by a programme on the Six-Thousand Ship in space—and their employers, governed by a board of directors. The story is told via witness statements compiled into a report and reviewed and filed by a committee. Some statements appear to be missing. When the crew land on a planet and retrieve various objects, each begin to change, reacting to the changes in their environment the objects elicit.

But there’s a lot more going on than just the cause and effect the objects have on the crew. And the liaison through which we get all the information—as the reader becomes a part of the committee themselves—seems to fulfill many roles to the crew, who are human or humanoid alike, a distinction made by the crew, but each member irregardless is held ostensibly in equal esteem. Human Resources is the best definition of the liaison’s job, but it is constantly blurred. Acting as a mental health professional sometimes or a friend. Which immediately gives the entire story dark undertones because HR is never there for the crew. They always serve the mandate of the employer.

Wrapped within this well written, intimate story are really effective and scathing critiques on capitalism and corporations and the nature—as we have defined it—of work. It’s also one of the first books I’ve consumed that get close to why Star Trek simply wouldn’t work. The hubris of the idea that many species, or even just humans in general, could construct a ship, and a space within said ship, that would provide the same relationship humanity and others need to function in a healthy, organic way, is honestly astounding. And then to be also governed by an institutional hierarchy and socialized to place a programme and “work” as paramount in this space, it’s pathological.

This makes the introduction of the objects so brilliant. It’s an easy shorthand for displaying how our relationship to our surroundings are complex and unquantifiable, possibly even observable. If we accept that somehow a space where this met the needs of made people and birthed people alike, the introduction of the other will always precipitate change. In this case leading to “the incident”.

It is deft at illustrating a myriad of ways in which a company or institutional organization as we have envisioned presently would be incapable of providing nourishment to people, nor could it serve anything remotely altruistic. An inhumane construct cannot function humanely.

It also very cleverly interrogates the notion of programming. People enjoy using this term to apply to technology, as if our societal constructions and socialization is different than a set of parameters given to a computer or an android or whatever man made construct the humanoid crew members are. Arbitrary distinctions between the various groups grow to be destabilizing and catalyzing. And so we also have to confront the notion that humanity, as we have constructed ourselves, is not fit for such endeavours either.

In such a short book so much is conveyed. The craft work displayed here is excellent, in my opinion. From structure to prose to the premise, everything is the all to sought after form meeting function. It’s surprising how moving this arrangement is when really, it’s something so disaffected as a folder of transcripts existing nebulously. The sole purpose of which is to extract a different kind of meaning than the reason for which is was compiled. Utterly brilliant.