"The engines cannae take no more, Captain," Jason muttered in an accent stranger than his usual one, then turned a grin on her. "That's another ancient joke."

She returned an exasperated look. "What's it supposed to mean?"

"I don't know. It's just something you say when you're tired."

"Is every Urth joke really strange?"

"Not all of them. There's one about a Euro, a Martian, and an Ionion who walk into a bar and—"

"I don't want to hear it." Kira breathed deeply, staring toward the lights on the water. "I can't believe we survived that."

"I can't believe how you can fight."

"I was scared to death. I hardly knew what I was doing."

Jason shook his head. "I'd hate to fight you when you did know what you were doing."

Kira grinned. "You did good, Jason. What a fighter! Where did you get the idea to use the oar that way?"

"Robin Hood. Quarterstaffs, you know."

"Quarterstaffs? Is that what you call oars on Urth?"

Jason smiled and shook his head. "No, we call them oars. Quarterstaffs are big sticks that you beat other people with. They were used as weapons a long time ago."

"Maybe you can teach me some fighting tricks." Kira grabbed his hand for a moment. "We make a good team."

"Yeah. We do, don't we?" Jason hesitated, looking at her. "Um…I guess we should row again."

Kira looked away from the city and the boats on the water behind them, spotting off to the northwest an irregular line of white that came and went but stayed in roughly the same place. "That must be waves breaking on a beach. It's way to the west of where we got attacked. Let's head there."

By the time they reached the beach, where swells from the harbor rolled onto a long patch of gravel, Kira's back and arms ached. She looked up at the stars, seeing that most of the night had gone. Some distance to the east, but still too close for comfort, they could see lights on the shore and hear occasional gunshots, probably the city militia and police investigating the site of the ambush and running down the people Kira and Jason had narrowly escaped.

They grounded the boat on the gravel, both Kira and Jason leaning on the bow as they caught their breath again. She dug out some money and tossed it into the boat, hoping it would be enough to cover the cost of the damage.

"We're still paying him?" Jason asked.

"It is his boat. But, yeah, if he hadn't tried to run his boat aground we might not have run into that ambush. Ready for a hike?"

"No."

"Neither am I," Kira said. "Let's see how far we can get before we both collapse."

"Most people sleep at night, you know," Jason grumbled as they scrambled up a line of cliffs about two lances high that fronted on the gravel.