On the seventh day, Mara went through the accessible ring zones with the sweep team and found a spoon on the commons floor.
There was nothing special about it. Someone had dropped it while packing, or decided it wasn't theirs to take. She checked the clear zone, finished the sweep, and put it into her pocket.
Outside the hub window, Kestrel held the sunlight on its old shell. The tug attachment was ready. Suri and Dev had completed the checks. Alma's belongings had become fewer and more useful. Nobody was waiting for a final improvement that would make the choice safe from grief.
Keon spoke to the four before boarding closed. If they wanted Traverse, there was still room. The first answer was Suri's; Alma and Dev followed. Ivo answered last, not because he hesitated, but because Mara was holding the other end of the rolled net and he had to look up.
“I'm staying,” he said.
Keon nodded. “Understood.”
Mara could have said something. She could have made his last clear answer carry one more trial of loving her. Instead she moved the load away from the wall.
“Ready?” she asked.
Ivo caught the forward end. “Ready.”
They carried the roll along the passage toward Kestrel. In the nonrotating hub it didn't sag between them. It tried to keep going when they stopped. She braced at one rail; he caught the next. Their bodies found the turn, the little motion of one wrist that let another person know what weight was about to do, although there was no weight now.
Alma waited inside the habitat to receive the roll. Ivo guided it through the hatch and into her hands. Mara gave the last push. He turned back, caught her fingers, and for a moment their arms made the same long hinge they had made in the commons.
“Your spoon,” she said, absurdly.
“What?”
She brought it from her pocket. “Somebody's spoon.”
He took it. The handle had a little bend, nothing worth remembering until now.
“Useful,” he said.
She closed her empty hand.
He kissed her. Not carefully, not with everything held away. She put her hand at the back of his neck and let the kiss last until the small movement of his body told her he was crying.
She was too. There was no elegant place for tears here. They held to skin and made a mess of both faces.
“I love you,” he said.
“I love you.”
She could hear voices behind her and the thud of a bag against a handrail, people going into their own futures without knowing this was the last moment in hers that had both of them in it.
He brushed her cheek. Then his hand began to move away.
She let it.
He went toward Kestrel's inner rail. She turned toward Traverse. No door had closed yet. For the first few motions, choosing the passage took every part of her attention.
Then she was aboard. Keon confirmed the final passenger return: one hundred and eighty residents from Bellwether, along with Mara and the ship's people. Four remained outside that list. She knew their names better than she knew her own empty cabin.
Boarding closed.
Mara took her station at the ship-side shutdown panel. She had done the planning, the tests, the work that made this a conclusion instead of an accident. Now the words had to mean exactly what they said.
Suri reported Kestrel's isolation complete. Ivo's voice followed hers on the local channel, confirming the habitat-side disconnections he'd practiced. Mara checked the ship end. Nothing from the retired ring would be needed to keep them alive.
The habitat released its attachment. Through the window she watched it move on the tug's small deliberate push. Not far at first; farther once the angle changed. The old survey shell became a separate object rather than part of the place she'd once called home.
Dev confirmed communications. Suri confirmed the independent systems were operating. Mara checked the separation plot against the shutdown plan: Kestrel was beyond the ring's predicted debris path with thrust in reserve; Traverse was outside the path too. Suri read back the position.
Only then did Mara authorize the ring venting.
From this distance the released air caught a little light and vanished. On the panel, the pressure readings fell. The rotating ring went on turning, empty of weather, dinner and human weight.
“Retirement complete,” she said.
Keon acknowledged and began Traverse's departure.
She watched the gap grow. Somewhere behind her, a child wanted to know whether the old station would still be there tomorrow. An adult answered yes, then seemed unsure what to add.
Kestrel remained a small bright shape. She could not see any of the people inside it. She knew Alma would already be inspecting how the rolled net was fastened. Suri would have a reading she wanted checked again. She hoped Ivo would let somebody else have the last word sometimes.
She stayed until the ring and habitat were too small to distinguish with her eyes alone.
In her cabin, later, she folded the clothes she'd worn on arrival and put them away for the journey.