“Sorry, Seppo,” said Alan, sounding amused. “I told you, we couldn’t get to you before then.”

“Bah. I had sand in my skinsuit. Do you know how uncomfortable that was? I’m rubbed raw in half a dozen places. Look!” He pulled up the fringe of his ratty shirt to show a red line of skin across his belly where the lower seam of his skinsuit had chafed.

Kira said, “Tell you what, I’ll buy you a drink on Vyyborg to make up for it. How about that?”

Seppo lifted a hand and pointed in her general direction. “That … would be acceptable compensation. But no more sand!”

“No more sand,” she agreed.

“And you,” said Seppo, swinging his finger toward Alan. “You … know.”

As the botanist tottered off, Kira looked up at Alan. “What was that about?”

Alan chuckled. “No idea. But it’s sure going to be strange not having him around.”

“Yeah.”

After a round of drinks and conversation, Kira retreated to the back of the room and leaned against a corner. As much as she didn’t want to lose Alan—again—she also didn’t want to say farewell to the rest of the team. The four months on Adra had forged them into a family. An odd, misshapen family, but one she cared for all the same. Leaving them would hurt, and the closer that moment came, the more Kira realized just how much it was going to hurt.

She took another long drink of the orange-flavored punch. She’d been through this before—Adra wasn’t the first prospective colony the company had posted her to—and after seven years spent jetting around from one blasted rock to another, Kira had begun to feel a serious need for … friends. Family. Companionship.

And now she was about to leave all that behind. Again.

Alan felt the same. She could see it in his eyes as he moved around the room, chatting with members of the team. She thought perhaps some of the others were also sad, but they papered over it with drink and dance and laughs that were too shrill to be entirely genuine.

She made a face and downed the rest of the punch. Time for a refill.

The scramrock was pounding louder than before. Something by Todash and the Boys, and their lead singer was howling, “—to fleeee. And there’s nothing at the door. Hey, there’s nothing at the door. Babe, what’s that knocking at the door?” and her voice was climbing to a wavering, saw-blade crescendo that sounded as if her vocal cords were about to snap.

Kira pushed herself away from the wall and was about to start for the punch bowl when she saw Mendoza, the expedition boss, clearing a path toward her. Easy for him; he was built like a barrel. She’d often wondered if he’d grown up on a high-g colony like Shin-Zar, but Mendoza denied it when she asked, claimed he was from a hab-ring somewhere around Alpha Centauri. She wasn’t entirely sure she believed him.