Twelve Minutes Away, the Valles Colony Marks Its Ledger and Waits

The message from Valles Marineris reached Earth's relay this morning a little under twelve minutes after it left — the gulf between the planets still narrow this month, though it widens with every week they drift apart. In it, colony administrator Teodora Vasquez logged the settlement's population at roughly 50,000, a greenhouse-membrane repair completed on schedule, and a soil-yield shortfall the agronomists are watching without alarm. "We are near enough to Earth this season that a question and its answer fit inside a coffee break," Vasquez noted, "and we are aware that will not last." The colonists plan their supply requests around the widening delay the way sailors once planned around the tide. Nothing in the dispatch was dramatic; drama, at this distance, is expensive. The ledger balanced. The relay logged it. Earth read the news of another world over lunch and moved on.