The Vault of Finished Goods

Sometimes the fate of a world is shaped not in council chambers or official offices, not by vast armies or the hush of secret laboratories. Sometimes, it rests entirely on the awkward steps of a single being.

He was no hero. He knew nothing of battle, wore no uniform, no badge of honor. He never quoted great thinkers; he had never even been to school – there was simply no school on the orbital station where he lived. His only teachers were the dust-covered archives of a long-extinct race… and an old wrench.

He found his way into the crew almost by accident. No one had been looking for him or calling for him; he simply appeared, as if drawn by some strange logic known only to himself. And he stayed. At first – unnecessary, then – useful, and with time – one of their own.

He repaired what others could not, hauled heavy crates while the rest argued, and remained close, even when the fear was almost too much to bear. He did not know how to joke, yet somehow, he made others laugh – most often unintentionally, but always sincerely.

And yes, more often than not, he was exactly where he was needed. No one could say when it happened, but without him, their small crew would no longer have been whole.

He never sought glory. He simply did what he believed had to be done – sometimes with grumbling, sometimes with unexpected courage, and sometimes with such touching honesty and warmth that even the most skeptical at first felt a sting of tears at the corners of their eyes.

Had he been human, he would probably have worn a shirt two sizes too large, just to have somewhere to hide his soul. But he was a smorg, and smorgs do not wear their hearts on their sleeves. Their souls live quietly within, like a dependable battery that silently charges everyone around it.

And then it all came to an end – the war faded, the dreadful Veliars seemed to vanish, and the world breathed freely once more.

The old, beloved crew scattered for a while, each to their own path. The ship, the very one that had saved more than a single civilization, remained in orbit. Almost empty.

Almost.

For if one lingered in the corridor just a little longer than usual, especially at night, when the whole ship drifted in a hushed half-slumber, one could hear him in the engineering bay. Tools clinking, adjusting something here, dismantling and reassembling something there, even if it had never truly been broken.

Sometimes he simply walks, unhurried, along the walls, as if strolling through familiar streets he has never seen. And sometimes he speaks, softly, as though testing whether there is someone nearby who might hear. Or perhaps just to steady himself, soothed by the sound of his own voice.

He does not try to impress, nor does he ask to be heard. He merely knows that stories, like life, are not meant to be locked away for too long. Even if you are the last, it does not mean that everything ends with you.

«It’s never too late to put your tools back on the shelf», Smorg once recalled an old friend saying. «But what if somewhere there is still a door waiting to be opened? A light that can still be fixed and lit? And perhaps, someday, someone will find what you created and preserved for them. Which means it was all worth it – a hundred times over!»