“Believe me,” she snapped back, “there’s nothing I’d like better. But I can’t just walk away.”

“Why not?”

“Because we have things to talk about.”

“Geena, my lunar probes just got canned. My career is stiffed. What things?”

“Our assets, Henry. Our property.”

“All there is, is stuff. Burn it. I don’t care. Sell the apartment. It was no use anyhow, since we both spent the last two years working out of Houston.”

She said heavily, “We’re taking apart our home.”

He closed his eyes. “I know.”

“Then you can’t just walk away. You have to go through the pain, Henry…”

There was a light in the window.

Maybe it was the torch beam of some security guy, Geena thought, distracted. Rocky whined a little, and padded over to the window. Whatever the light was, it was high up; it cast Rocky’s shadow on the floor behind him.

Not a torch beam, then.

Even as she tried to deal with this situation with Henry, her damn problem-solving brain kept working. Something in the sky. A chopper beam, maybe a police patrol? But the beam would shift. And there’d be noise. The Moon, then? But the light was the wrong quality, vaguely yellow-white. And besides, the Moon was near new tonight.

The dog was staring up at the light as if he’d seen a ghost.

She said, “What about the dog?”

“He comes with me. He’s my dog. He predates you.”

“I suppose he does. But he’s used to staying with my mother—”

Henry unfolded off the floor and stretched, tall and wiry, strong hands flexing. His face was dark in the uncertain light from the window, weather-beaten by all those days in the field. He looked towards the yellow glow at the window. “What the hell’s that?”

“I thought it was a chopper. But it isn’t.”