When you're alone on the observation deck, when the others have gone to their sleeping pods and you say you'll be just a minute longer, when they're all unconscious and the station's AI is on standby - then and only then the stars sing to you.
The first time it happened you thought you'd left the radio on somewhere but it sounded like nothing you'd ever heard before mixed with everything you'd heard before. It was coming from outside... from the jet black void of space... and it said your name.
Over the course of the next few months the stars learnt more than just your name. They learnt the whole crew's names and started talking to you in that sing-songish voice that was a culmination of every voice you'd ever heard rolled into one unique voice.
It was almost a year before the stars started showing themselves. Those faint little blips of twinkling light started coming closer. They didn't show up on the radar and the rest of the crew couldn't see them but their painful light soon filled every single window.
You didn't have much of a choice really. It hurt so much to see their light everywhere you went that going blind was nothing short of ecstatic relief. Still, the stars sing to you and call you by name. Only now they aren't outside any more and the crew are getting quieter and quieter.
When was the last time you spoke to any of them?
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