"But do you think we should go so soon, Virgil? And do we have to go to Earth?"
Virgil turned on his distressed sister impatiently. "Look, Lanya. We agreed to run away from home, didn't we? You haven't forgotten why?"
"Because father neglects us!" Lanya piped emphatically, as though she had been practicing that statement for a long time—which she had.
"Right! And we've never been to Earth, have we? Even though father promises every year to take us."
"No. We haven't."
Virgil's inoffensive domination of his sister was too deeply ingrained for her to shake off now. She usually enjoyed complying with his suggestions because his ideas were always much more imaginative and much more fun than her own.
"All right. But I don't know ..." she sighed, trying to agree and yet not commit herself too completely.
"Well, what's going on in here!" It was Jonathan Greggor, wheeling his speedy copter into the shop. "Give me a hand, will you?"
Lanya rushed to help push the copter beneath the overhead crane.
"Going to try out that new rotor I bought last week," her father explained. "Virgil, send the magnet down, will you, and we'll take this one off."