There was no floor at the lowest point of their home.
Darae studied the place nearest Earth in Safety's diagram. The main habitat and S-6 had separate lines. Both objects that looked like homes were empty; all twenty-three people were at Raon. Still, those descending lines had something to do with the choices waiting for them.
It was the morning seventeen days after the last temporary handover at Raon. Following yesterday evening's observation notice, Darae had come to the north port briefing. The observation officer displayed previously accepted data and new data with different symbols. Smooth curves were predictions. Only the marked points were actual observations.
“Is the end of that line the day it falls?” she asked.
“No. That's the interval covered by the current data. It doesn't mean it falls at the end.”
The officer explained the end marker first. In low orbit, even thin atmospheric drag changed motion over time. Attitude, exposed area and tracking errors meant future changes could not be promised as one exact number.
Darae realized she had imagined an object sitting at a shelf's edge, waiting to drop. An orbit was no shelf. The officer overlaid earlier predictions and new observations instead of giving a long lecture. In some stretches, the new points lay lower than the earlier prediction.
With uncertainty ranges displayed, some lines separated completely; others still overlapped. Not every difference represented a measured loss of height. Nevertheless, the trend with the additional data meant preparations could no longer be postponed on the assumption that the old margin remained.
Mujin opened his flight preparation sheet.
“Does that change conditions for the site-inspection voyage?”
“We need more tracking updates before approach. There's less room to leave the later preparations as far down the list. That isn't permission to depart today.”
Safety kept the main habitat and S-6 on separate rows. Their masses, shapes and attitudes differed. One object's trend could not simply be copied onto the other. Even treating the five main modules as one body depended on structural verification.
Darae found the earlier wording: margin available. That had been a conditional description for collision review and obtaining further data, not a promise that possessions could be retrieved whenever people wished. She marked today's changed conditions on the resident-inquiry sheet.
Haeseong came for the permitted summary. Sitting opposite Darae rather than standing at the window, he pressed a fingertip onto the words lowest point.
“Are we losing our home now?”
She passed the question directly to the officer. This was no confirmation that the object had vanished or was falling immediately. But decreasing preparation margin without orbital-maintenance measures had to enter the review. Nor did today's answer finally settle whether reuse was possible.
Haeseong nodded, his hand still on the page. Wanting more time to examine a return met a physical condition that could limit that time. Darae wanted to give him an easy answer in days. Instead, she read the actual schedule for the next observation and assessment update.
Another file arrived during the briefing, and the predicted line changed. Darae asked whether another observation had come. It was a calculation using different model conditions with the same accepted data. Receiving a new file did not always mean somebody had looked at space again.
The officer included the difference between calculations in the safety review. Residents were not asked to choose whichever offered more time. Neither was the greater uncertainty erased. Darae received a summary with its legend intact.
Mujin drew no line showing Narae alone pulling the whole habitat higher. Approach, relative-motion control, connection loads, towing, withdrawal and return margins each needed review. A ship that had rescued people was not automatically a ship that could move their home.
“Couldn't going faster get us there before it drops as far?” Darae asked.
“If you arrive without enough margin to stop, that isn't an approach.”
He left the return column open. Fuel could not cover a delayed review. Haeseong finally lifted his hand from the paper. He had not meant to demand a plan that kept somebody else from returning because of his home.
By the briefing's end, today's actions were clear. Safety would handle further tracking and possible close-passage review. Flight staff would first examine whether several vessels could divide the roles. Resident support and property preservation would continue. Darae could record a changed preparation order without marking an unfinished voyage complete.
In the axial corridor, Haeseong's document board drifted from his hand. He had set it down with a hand accustomed to weight in the rotating ring. Darae secured herself to a handhold rather than chasing it. Haeseong caught a restraint and pulled the board's tether.
The page turned slowly back between them. Under its transparent cover, the orbital lines rolled upside down. Before thinking that an inverted picture showed the same orbit, Darae felt how nearly she had let go of herself to save it.
“I moved before the house did,” Haeseong said.
“Luckily, this one's somewhere we can catch it.”
They secured the board and headed for the dining area. The home outside could not be pulled higher on a paper's string.
After lunch, the resident notice went out. The two adults who had applied for relocation received the same summary. Leaving did not mean they needed no information. Their possessions remained, and property shares and preservation conditions still needed decisions.
The woman with the leaf container wanted a safe plan checked before retrieval of her cooking support. She also asked who could dispose of things if recovery became harder. Darae explained that an orbital briefing was not consent to abandon property. Changes required notice to the proper rights holders and replies through a separate procedure.
The woman supported a leaf with her fingertip. New growth leaned toward the window. She thought she would look for a window elsewhere too. Darae did not record that as a final housing decision. The relocation route remained open, awaiting actual offer conditions.
A guardian asked how to explain the lowering orbit to a child. Support staff suggested beginning with what the notice did not say: today's Raon accommodation was not in danger. A child need not monitor professional assessments all night. The existing adult support-duty receiving route remained.
Maru listened briefly at the time agreed with the guardian, distinguishing the observation timestamps beside the dots from the moving line. Quick reading did not bring a summons back to the roster. Perigee went into the notebook's learning section; its night section stayed closed.
“The line goes ahead even when the dots come late.”
“Other people are responsible for checking how far we can trust it,” Darae said.
Maru accepted the answer. The guardian gathered the notice, and they left at the agreed time.
One adult, reading the notice for the first time, overlaid its pictures and asked whether possessions on the lower line should be abandoned first. Darae reopened the specialists' separate table. Height alone could not decide retrieval priority or abandonment. Access, condition and work risks belonged in that judgment too.
Then why tell them now? Darae paused. A notice could merely transfer fear to somebody unable to act. With the support officer, she read what had changed for residents: they could receive relocation offers while awaiting reuse review; preservation requests continued; updated assessments would arrive through the same route.
The resident chose neither option immediately. Instead, they explained that work prevented answering calls at the listed time. Staff sent a test notice through the requested text route and confirmed receipt. The orbital line had not changed, but one risk of the next answer failing to arrive had diminished. Darae remembered that notices needed something people could actually change today.
Routine returns had accumulated at the office. After the briefing, she took over three small return slips from the duty clerk. Hands returning other people's things must not neglect what lay in front of them. One item was the strap of a bag originally reported missing whole. The owner had found the bag; its strap had reached another intake route.
Darae did not register the bag as lost again. She linked the remaining item to the original intake and confirmed its recipient. Even if the intake count stayed unchanged, the resolved portion could be recorded accurately. Today's briefing had not saved a home, but it had corrected the assumption that preparations could continue unchanged.
Before leaving, she checked the timestamp on Safety's summary. Old sorbent readings must not drift into a notice about the present orbital trend. S-6 was unoccupied. Its sound main cartridge and two temporary canisters remained in designated positions. Neither the candidate cartridge nor the coolant pump in Raon's workshop had moved.
Faulty 7-B's preservation seal remained intact. Its first thirty-six hours had already elapsed: a cargo-decision deadline, not a clock restarted by a lowering perigee. Darae checked the box still here and closed the intake desk.
Mujin sent a reply. Two tugs in the existing transport network could join a joint review within their availability. With Narae, that made three vessels. It was no approval to withdraw ships from service or buy fuel. Tomorrow, each would bring actual constraint sheets.
Darae formally handed her first morning return appointment to a colleague. Someone had to cover that time if she was to reach the review. After receipt was confirmed, the customer was told of the change. Bringing space preparations forward could not leave Raon's morning unattended.
Beside three vessels, she nearly wrote plenty. More ships might divide mass, but communications, approach routes and room to withdraw could grow more complicated.
The last reply listed three ports' use times. The tugs' possible windows overlapped; Narae's return-port reservation lay between them. Three hands might now lift the home. They still had to calculate whether those hands could stop without losing one another.