The Distance Where Her Voice Stayed

The window sealed itself with a soft tone and the planet slid out of view. The shuttle engines adjusted and the sound settled into a steady pressure that filled the cabin. She did not wave or touch the glass. She watched the light thin and knew the separation had already happened somewhere inside her long before the mechanics finished their work.

She filed the departure record because routine was a scaffold. Naomi Elise Porter entered the time and location and did not pause. The receiving station logged the counterpart as Samuel Aaron Holt under mission transfer protocol. The names were correct and formal and offered a narrow bridge across what she could not say. The cabin smelled of clean plastic and ozone. The seat vibrated faintly against her back.

The station rotated slowly and taught its occupants patience. Light arrived in careful slices that crossed the corridors and moved on. Naomi learned the cadence of the place by listening to the cooling system and the distant click of instruments settling. She had come to map communication delays around a gravity well that bent more than signals. It bent waiting.

Sam arrived during a maintenance window when the lights dimmed and the station pretended to sleep. Samuel Aaron Holt carried a case with both hands and stopped at the threshold as if asking permission. He spoke his name clearly and waited. Naomi pointed him to the lab without meeting his eyes.

They worked in parallel lines. He tuned transmitters. She measured drift. The delay between send and receive lengthened and shortened with a rhythm that felt almost deliberate. Naomi noted the numbers and the feeling that followed them like a shadow. Sam asked if the echo sounded warmer today. Naomi said the data was consistent.

The science stayed modest. Signals folded and unfolded. Messages returned altered by time and mass. The complication was human. A phrase sent in the morning returned at night carrying a different weight. A question came back with a pause that felt intentional. The recurring motif announced itself as temperature. The air warmed when the delay narrowed and cooled when it stretched. Naomi began to associate warmth with hope and hated herself for it.

They ate in the galley where the food tasted of salt and starch. Sam talked about a lake that froze clean enough to see fish suspended below. Naomi talked about the first time she had noticed silence had texture. Their names loosened. The distance between their shoulders shrank. When the air warmed they looked at each other and did not comment.

The board sent notices. The anomaly would be resolved by isolation. The station would cut active listening and wait out the curve. Sam read the notice twice and folded it carefully. Naomi felt the temperature drop and understood the pattern had learned them too.

On the last cycle the delay collapsed. Naomi sent a simple greeting and received it back almost immediately with a softness that hurt. The room warmed. Sam stood very still. The echo carried breath and timing and the memory of a hand resting on a console. Naomi closed her eyes. She felt the opening wound from the shuttle window open again and deepen.

They argued in low voices. Sam said the echo was reflection not intention. Naomi said reflection could still take something with it. The station rotated. Light crossed the floor and moved on.

They chose the isolation because choice mattered even when it was small. The cut was clean. The warmth drained from the room and left a precise cold. Naomi logged the closure and used full names again because distance returned with a rush. Samuel Aaron Holt signed the final verification. He did not look up.

He left at the next window. Naomi stood alone in the lab and listened to the cooling system settle. Later she returned to the cabin and faced the glass. The planet did not come back. Naomi Elise Porter pressed her palm to the window and waited for the warmth that had learned her timing. It did not return.