Measure for a Loner

A government program commissions a specialist in historical psychology to locate a person unusually suited to prolonged, absolute solitude so that the individual can pilot an interstellar voyage. The narrative follows the investigator as he confronts a society that has suppressed visible loneliness through conditioning, develops methods to recognize and measure profound isolation, and examines candidates whose inner lives resist ordinary social metrics. Along the way the story probes how institutions quantify private states, the ethical tensions of recruiting human vulnerability for technological ends, and the disquieting idea that loneliness might be selected as a qualification.