Naomi had researched the birds when she first arrived here, rolling the names along her tongue. In winter there should have been cormorants, little grebes, redshanks. Summer should have sandpipers, black-headed gulls, skylarks, and meadow pipit. There should have been birds of prey, like peregrines, merlins, and golden eagles. On weekends when she’d first arrived, she’d stomped through the squelching bogs in her best wellies, oversized binoculars around her neck, trying in vain to find them. She’d spend the whole day outside and return, cold and soaking, perhaps having spotted one or two scrawny birds all day. The occasional roar of engines couldn’t drown out the absence of the bird calls.

Naomi blinked, back in the warm interior of the pub. Valerie strode through the tables as if she didn’t have a care, their occupants’ wariness rolling off her like water off an otter’s back. She chose a table near the central hearth. All smelled of woodsmoke, stale beer, stewing meat, and the dust from past memories. Stag heads with cobwebs between their antlers lined the walls, glass eyes blank. Framed black-and-white photos hung under them, showing the village looking much the same. It was such a contrast to the sterile smoothness of the spaceport, or the employee apartments five kilometres from her work that still smelled of new paint and plasterboard.

“All right, out with it,” Naomi said after they’d settled and the bartender had brought them two glasses of whisky—top shelf, Valerie’s treat. “It’s nice to see you, but it’s not exactly round the corner. I was expecting a card in the mail.”

“Oh, yes!” Valerie plucked a white envelope from her purse and passed it over. Naomi felt the stiffness of the card inside. She didn’t open it.

Valerie took a sip from her bell-shaped glass before setting it down. She leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, spread out, taking up room.

“If you could do anything just now, anything—what would it be?” Valerie had that intensity about her that had never failed to draw Naomi in.

“You know what it’d be. Get up there.” A glance at the window. The moon, the stars.

Valerie tilted her head, lips quirking at the corners. “I have a job for you that might help with that.”

Naomi took a taste of her own whisky. She felt that flicker of excitement, deep in her chest, tingling at her fingertips.

“I already have a job.” Naomi strove for lightness. If Valerie realised someone was too keen, she couldn’t help but tease whatever it was out, dangle it like a cat toy until the other person cracked.

“Not the one you really want. Come on, open your card.”