"You want him to take the Fall?" She's bitten down on her initial scoff: if that's what Pink thinks, this is serious. It's not that it's hard to get to Earth. It's that gravity is a mean, jealous bitch who hoards everything she can.

She sits back to think through how that'd work, soup forgotten and cooling in her lap. Marco would be leaving all his friends behind: anybody he reaches out to through lightlagged digital communication would be in the same danger he'd be in. He'd be leaving all the technical base of humanity behind. Depending on how far along he is, that might even stop his transition, with no retrovirals on Earth. There were various viruses that he'd be exposed to that they'd eradicated in the fumbling rush to escape that just weren't vaccinated for anymore. Hell, there were allergens.

And then there was the big reason: it was a one-way ticket out of town, no returning. Three hundred and seventeen people had Fallen. None of them had gotten back up. Not once the space elevator fell.

One of the smarter people she knows, in one of her flightier aspects, thinks that's worth considering. In spite of all that.

"Well. Shit."