She took advantage of his absence to pull off her clothes and spread them out to finish drying overnight, putting on the spare clothes from her pack. When Jason got back she sat looking away while he took what felt like forever to do the same.

By the time total darkness fell, Kira had scraped together some nests from the grass around them. They lay looking up at the stars. "Which one is Urth?"

Jason laughed. "You can't see Earth from here. Earth's sun is, uh, I think that star. It feels weird to be lying here looking at that little dot, knowing it's Sol."

"I've looked through a really big far-seer," Kira said. "One made since the war. I could see the twins chasing the moon, how they really are part of the great ship that brought people to this world."

"Yeah," Jason said. "You know, they're going to overtake your moon someday."

"How could that happen?"

"They're in a slightly closer orbit. They're traveling a little faster than your moon so they're gradually closing on it. Someday, if you guys don't go up there and do something, they'll pass your moon and it will be chasing the, uh, twins."

"Oh." Kira looked up, daunted by the immensity of the star-strewn sky. "The Mechanics Guild didn't let anyone look at the stars, so we don't have many records of things like that."

"They really messed with you guys, didn't they? Uh, Kira? Are you scared? About what we're doing?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I just wanted to be sure it wasn't only me." Almost invisible in the dark, he sighed. "Why am I doing this?"

"Because you're a better person than you think you are." Kira, uncomfortable with both the topic and the grass under her, shifted her back. "It's a good thing I'm worn out. Otherwise I'd never get to sleep. Mother never talked about this kind of thing," Kira complained. "Of course, she hardly ever talks about anything important."

Jason shook his head. "You don't know how lucky you are. My parents talk about everything in front of me."

"How can that be bad?"

"They talk about their sex lives."

Kira stared toward him, horrified. "Their sex lives?" she whispered.

"Yeah," Jason said. "My mom and dad are always going on about what they did with who and what they claim the other one is doing with other people."

"Oh, that's…disgusting."

"So are we in agreement that you're lucky?"

"Yeah. In that respect, absolutely. You won that one, Jason."

Silence fell for a moment, only the sounds of insects disturbing the night. "You know what's weird?" Jason asked.

"I can think of a lot of things," Kira replied.

"I've spent my life dreaming about being on my own, away from my parents and having adventures and everything, and here I am on my own and with a…person like you…and having an adventure on a different planet. And what were we talking about? My parents."