The Long Drift

The tally board freezes: Stay wins by forty-three votes. A hush swallows the assembly, then a slow, uncertain exhale. Through the viewport, Earth shrinks—blue, green, unreachable—as the Perennial pivots toward a star no one in this room will live to see.

Idris finds you in the corridor afterward. 'We bought them honesty,' he says quietly. 'Not a home.' You nod, watching the stars wheel past. The lies are gone. The drift remains. Someone else's grandchildren will finish what you started.