THE WRONG DISTANCE

Tomas Rill has run the Cinderline four hundred and six times.

On the four-hundred-and-seventh, the star Nacre appears eleven seconds early.

The clocks are right. His ship is sound. The distance itself has changed.

Most of Tomass cargo is ordinary freight. One sealed salvage assembly in Bay Six is not. When it begins pulling Common Measure away from every mapped route, the safest way through leads beyond every chart.

There, light takes more than one path and lost human ships have made a life beyond the reach of settled worlds. Somewhere inside waits Mile Zero, a working harbor whose failing road may depend on the cargo Tomas was hired to deliver.

Tomas has no military training, secret inheritance, or appetite for heroics. What he has is fourteen years of run books, a freight pilots patience, and an exact knowledge of the Cinderline no machine can replace.

To bring Common Measure home, he must learn what happens when distance stops obeying the map—and ordinary work becomes the only way through.