The Meridian Drift had been silent for forty-one days
when Dr. Anika Rahman noticed the crew was humming the same tune.
She was the ship’s physician, and on a vessel of seven
people, that meant she was also its confessor, its counselor, and its quiet
keeper of secrets. The Meridian Drift was a long, slow needle threaded
through the dark between Kepler-442 and home. Eleven months out, nine months to
go. The crew ran in rotation, two on watch while the rest slept in cryo-lite,
the shallow s...