Tanya pushed the food around her plate without eating, her hands trembling slightly as she held the fork. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her hair hung limp around a face that had grown gaunt from too many skipped meals. She looked like someone fighting a losing war against herself. Sage had kicked her out of the workshop and wouldn't let her back in until she sought support. She understood the Ancient AI reasoning but was still upset at being ordered around like a child.
Her parents exchanged the kind of wordless glance that came from decades of marriage and raising children through various crises.
"You've barely touched your dinner," her mother said softly.
"I'm not hungry." Tanya tried to make it sound casual, but her fork slipped from her fingers, clattering against the plate. The sharp sound felt like an alarm in the quiet kitchen.
Her father studied her for a long moment, saying nothing. Tanya stared down at her lap, shame pressing in on her. If they knew the truth… that Red's waiting for an arm I can't build, that Amara's carrying a company I can't lead, that I've promised solutions I don't have…
She set her fork down carefully, unable to meet their eyes. "Dad," she said quietly, "want to go fishing tomorrow?"
Her father's expression softened immediately, but not with surprise; instead, with the understanding that came from a ritual passed down through generations of Furrows.
"Haven't been to Mirror Lake in too long," he said simply. "I'll get the gear ready."
Her mother nodded. "That sounds like a good idea," she said, her hand reaching across the table to cover Tanya's. "You get some rest tonight. We'll handle everything here." In the Furrow family, when life became too much to carry alone, you took it to the water.
The next morning, the smell of freshly brewed coffee and her mother's cooking pulled Tanya from the deepest sleep she'd had in weeks. She found her father on the back porch, checking their fishing gear. Her mother was wrapping sandwiches and filling thermoses in the kitchen. There was a quiet efficiency to their movements, a wordless conspiracy to help their daughter. As Tanya packed her portion of the gear, she noticed her mother had also slipped in a small, handwritten note that read "You are enough." Tanya smiled at the sentiment
After her first good night's sleep in weeks, she found herself at the lake. Mirror Lake was a perfect name; its surface was so still it flawlessly reflected the sky, creating the illusion of casting a line directly into the heavens. Ancient willow trees drooped their branches toward the water's edge, and cattails rustled in the gentle morning breeze. She took a deep breath, savoring the scent of the air, it was a scent so purely natural that it was almost impossible to describe.
Tanya's great-grandfather had brought her grandfather here. Her grandfather had brought her father. And now, for the third time in her life, she found herself on the weathered dock with a fishing rod in her hands and chaos in her heart.
The first time had been after her pet rabbit died when she was seven. The second was during high school when the engineering program rejection letter arrived. Now, at twenty-four, she was back again, at the same dock, same ritual, a different kind of breaking this time around.
They cast their lines in comfortable silence. The ritual wasn't about the fishing itself; it had never been. It was about stepping away from the world's demands and letting your thoughts settle like sediment in still water.
For an hour, they sat without speaking. No bites disturbed their lines. Tanya wasn't entirely convinced there were fish in Mirror Lake, though her father insisted he'd caught a few over the years. She had yet to see the evidence herself. The silence stretched, patient and unhurried, until she was ready.
"I think I'm falling apart, Dad," she finally said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Her father continued watching his line, giving her the space to find her words.
"Everything I'm trying to build…it's all connected, and I can't solve any of it. The control systems, Red's prosthetic, and the beacon networks. Every problem I solve creates three new ones. I can't sleep, I can't eat, I keep making promises I can't keep."
She pulled her knees up to her chest, suddenly feeling much younger than her years. " I told Red that I could give him back what he lost. I committed to showing prototypes at some trade show I've never been to. I'm running a company I don't know how to run, designing technology that might be impossible. And everyone keeps looking at me like I have all the answers."
Her father reeled in his line slowly, checked the bait, and cast it out again. The simple, practiced motions were somehow soothing to watch.
"Sounds like you're trying to plant the whole farm in one season," he said finally.
"But it all needs to happen now," Tanya protested. "Red needs his arm. The company needs products. People are counting on me."
"Why now?"
The question was so simple it caught her off guard. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, why does it all have to happen right now? Why not in two years? Five years? Ten?" Her father's voice carried the patient rhythm of someone who measured time in seasons rather than deadlines. "Red isn't the first person to lose a limb in service. He's getting by with what the military gave him. Humanity has been travelling in space for decades without your beacon networks. What's the rush?"
//Observation: artificial urgency often stems from emotional rather than logical imperatives. Your father's temporal perspective aligns with sustainable development principles.//
Tanya opened her mouth to argue, then closed it. When she really thought about it, what was the rush?
"The trade show is in eight months," she said weakly.
"Says who? Did someone force you to apply?"
"No, but—"
"Did the government order you to solve everything by a certain date?"
"No."
"Is there some cosmic deadline that says Tanya Furrow must revolutionise space travel before her twenty-fifth birthday or the universe ends?"
Despite everything, she almost smiled. "When you put it like that..."
"Humanity has been around for over a hundred thousand years," her father continued, casting his line with the same unhurried precision he brought to everything. "We managed to build civilisations, explore the galaxy, and figure out most of the important stuff. I think we can manage another year or two while you learn to pace yourself."
The words stung because they were true. All her deadlines were self-imposed. All her urgency was internal pressure she'd built up until it threatened to crush her.
"I just... I want to help people now. I want to make things better now."
"And you will. But not if you burn yourself out trying to solve everything at once." Her father glanced at her with gentle understanding. "I blame myself, you know. We spoiled you kids. Told you that you could do anything, be anything. Never taught you that 'anything' doesn't mean 'everything all at once.'"
They fished in silence for a while longer. Tanya felt some of the frantic energy that had been driving her for weeks beginning to settle. The problems were still there, still complex, but they no longer felt like an avalanche about to bury her.
"What if I scaled everything back?" she said eventually. "Just focused on one project. Something small and manageable."
"What would that look like?"
Tanya thought about it, really thought instead of just panicking. "I have a prototype beacon system already. Crude, but functional. And I have the Nova Theseus. What if I just focused on getting a basic black box navigation system working? Nothing revolutionary, just something that works on a small scale."
"That sounds like planting one row at a time instead of trying to seed the whole field at once."
"It's not going to change the galaxy," she said, but there was less despair in her voice now.
"Maybe not. But it might change Eden-Three. And that's a start." Her father smiled. "Small steps are still steps, sweetheart. Sometimes they're the only kind that actually get you anywhere."
As the sun climbed higher and their lines remained stubbornly bite-free, Tanya felt something she hadn't experienced in weeks—peace. Not the absence of problems, but the presence of perspective. The world was still enormous and full of challenges, but she no longer had to carry it all on her shoulders at once.
She would focus on one project. Get the black box navigation working on the Nova Theseus with her beacon prototype. Prove the concept on a small scale before trying to revolutionise everything.
Red's prosthetic could wait. The beacon networks could wait. The hammerhead tugs and unified control systems could wait. She was twenty-four years old with alien technology and a lifetime ahead of her.
There was no rush.
Walking back to the farmhouse beside her father, their fishing gear in hand and no fish to show for their efforts, Tanya felt her feet solidly on the ground. She had a plan now, it might not be a grand vision to change the galaxy, but something achievable and real.
//Your father possesses considerable wisdom regarding sustainable progress. Perhaps human intuition about pacing development has evolutionary advantages I had not previously considered.//
Tanya smiled at Sage's assessment of her father. She hoped that one day she, too, would have considerable wisdom.