I smiled. “I’m from here, Sylvie.”

“Oh, yeah. Newpest. You said. So don’t tell me New Hok’s a small continent. Outside of Kossuth, it’s the biggest we’ve got.”

In actual fact, there was more landmass contained in the Millsport Archipelago than either Kossuth or New Hokkaido, but as with most of the island groups that made up the bulk of Harlan’s World’s available real estate, a lot of it was hard-to-use, mountainous terrain.

You’d think, given a planet nine-tenths covered in water and a solar System with no other habitable biospheres, that people would be careful with that real estate. You’d think they’d develop an intelligent approach to land allocation and use. You’d think they wouldn’t fight stupid little wars over large areas of useful terrain, wouldn’t deploy weaponry that would render the theatre of operations useless to human habitation for centuries to come.

Well, wouldn’t you?

“I’m going to bed,” slurred Sylvie. “Busy day tomorrow.”

I glanced across at the windows. Outside, dawn was creeping up over the

Angier lamp glow, soaking it out on a blotter of pale grey.

“Sylvie, it is tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” She got up and stretched until something cracked. On the lounger, Jadwiga mumbled something and unkinked her limbs into the space Sylvie had vacated.

“ ‘loader doesn’t lift ‘til lunchtime, and we’re pretty much stowed with the heavy stuff. Look, you want to crash, use Las’s room. Doesn’t look like he’s coming back. Left of the bathroom.”

“Thanks.”

She gave me a faded smile. “Hey, Micky. Least I can do. G’night.”

“ ‘night.”

I watched her wander to her room, checked my time chip and decided against sleep. Another hour, and I could go back to Plex’s place without disturbing whatever Noh dance his yakuza pals were wound up in. I looked speculatively at the kitchen space and wondered about coffee.