Two girls came up to Chip. "Hey, I gotta go now, Mister," he said. "These gals got a idea I oughta take a hand in the kitchen."
"Smart girls," Retief said. He turned as Anne-Marie came up.
"Bo Bergman and Tove are not back yet," she said. "They stayed to ski after moonrise."
"That moon is something," Retief said. "Almost like day-light."
"They will come soon, now. Shall we go out to see the moonlight on the snow?"
Outside, long black shadows fell like ink on silver. The top of the cloud layer below glared white under the immense moon.
"Our sister world, Gota," Anne-Marie said. "Nearly as big as Svea. I would like to visit it someday, although they say it's all stone and ice."
"Anne-Marie," Retief said, "how many people live on Jorgensen's Worlds?"
"About fifteen million, most of us here on Svea. There are mining camps and ice-fisheries on Gota. No one lives on Vasa and Skone, but there are always a few hunters there."
"Have you ever fought a war?"