The ring, yes: she sees it now, bisecting the sky like an exaggerated, heavy-handed rendition of the Milky Way. It spangles and glimmers: countless flinty chips of rubble catching the light from the closer sun. When she arrived, the planetary authorities were still maintaining it: every few minutes or so, she would see the pink glint of a steering rocket as one of the drones boosted the orbit of a piece of debris, keeping it from grazing the planet’s atmosphere and falling into the sea. She understood that the locals made wishes on the glints. They were no more superstitious than any of the other planet dwellers she had met, but they understood the utter fragility of their world—that without the glints there was no future. It would have cost the authorities nothing to continue shepherding the ring: the self-repairing drones had been performing the same mindless task for four hundred years, ever since the resettlement. Turning them off had been a purely symbolic gesture, designed to encourage the evacuation.

Through the veil of the ring, she sees the other, more distant moon: the one that wasn’t shattered. Almost no one here had any idea what happened. She did. She had seen it with her own eyes, albeit from a distance.

“If we stay…” her protector says.

She turns back, towards the land. “I just need a little time. Then we can go.”

“I’m worried about someone stealing the ship. I’m worried about the Nestbuilders.”

She nods, understanding his fears, but still determined to do the thing that has brought her here.

“The ship will be fine. And the Nestbuilders aren’t anything to worry about.”

“They seem to be taking a particular interest in us.”

She brushes an errant mechanical butterfly from her brow. “They always have. They’re just nosy, that’s all.”

“One hour,” he says. “Then I’m leaving you here.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Only one way to find out, isn’t there?”