Eight years in the interstellar moving business, and Kusama had never seen a request like this.

“The farther you carry it,” the old woman said, “the lighter it gets.”

The cardboard boxes stacked in her doorway looked ordinary enough — sealed with tape, labeled FRAGILE, THIS SIDE UP. Kusama picked one up. It was heavy.

“My daughter lives fifty-two light-years out. By the time it arrives, the package should weigh about a third less than when it left.”

”…It will?”

“It will. It does every time.”

Kusama studied her face for a moment. She didn’t look like she was making it up.

Then again, he’d never studied physics. He couldn’t say with any real confidence that something like this was impossible. Objects don’t get lighter in a vacuum, he was pretty sure. Pretty sure.

The real problem was the terms of service.

Hayafusa Interstellar Express, Shipping Regulations, Article 14, Section 3: Any shipment arriving at less than ninety percent of its declared departure weight must be registered as a special item and filed separately. A one-third reduction wasn’t just a special filing — it wasn’t something the regulations had ever imagined.

“What’s inside?”

“Hina dolls. Letters. Photographs. Things from when she was small.”

Kusama looked at the boxes. The old woman looked at the boxes. Neither of them said anything for a while.

“Can you take them?” she asked.

”…Our regulations require a special declaration any time a shipment loses weight.”

“I’ll declare it.”

“We need a reason on the form.”

“Write that they’re keepsakes.”

Kusama thought it over. In the end, he accepted the job.

The shipment arrived two weeks later. He pulled up the delivery record. Sure enough: seventy-one percent of the departure weight, confirmed on arrival.

That same afternoon, a message came through on his terminal. From the daughter.

“Thank you so much. It arrived. When I opened the box, it felt light — but everything was there. The dolls, the letters, the photos. Everything.”

Kusama opened the delivery filing system — the one that had been redesigned six months ago and that every person on the floor hated. There was a field that read Reason for weight change.

Everything’s there. But it got lighter.

He typed Unknown into the field and hit submit.