Marcell grabbed the thin ribbon of paper, scanning over the return message that had been detected.

OUR THANKS BUT UNABLE TO COMPLY. FUEL CONSTRAINTS FORCE CURRENT COURSE TO A CENT GATHERING INTERSTELLAR HYDROGEN FOR TURNAROUND, NOT ENOUGH TO FORCE COURSE CORRECTION NOW. REQUEST STATUS OF MARS, ASTEROIDS, COLONIES. DO NOT FORGET US.

Marcell had spearheaded the effort to contact the generation ship. They had repurposed the vintage UN radar outpost into a giant transmitter, making an approximation of a parabola out of spacecraft radiators, and had used an old CR-505 fusion engine to boost the gain on the signal. He knew that it had been a longshot—and that had been sugar-coating it—but most of the Lunar United Colony Youth felt that it would have been remiss of them to broadcast the opportunity to their fellow refugees among the stars.

Marcell thought for a while, then began composing a new message for transmission. It would be one hundred seventy-one days before it would be received.