Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [106]
She had thought about it herself, but decided against the pointless exercise. “I’ll wait till we get to our colony, Dad. Then I can establish a long-term friendship.”
“Friends are friends, girl. One for a day is better than no friend at all.”
Orli had never had many playmates, since she needed to spend so much time just keeping her father from doing too many ill-advised things. She liked telling stories and imagining games, but work in the mushroom fields had taken up her time on Dremen. Maybe on the new colony she would find someone who shared her interest in music. “I’ll try when we get where we’re going, Dad. I promise.”
For the next few days Jan volunteered his services at the supply-distribution center. Most evenings he wandered among the tents and struck up conversations, describing Dremen and asking other people about the planets they were leaving, while Orli practiced on her synthesizer strips.
On the fifth evening, another loud Attention tone rang through the camp, as it did several times a day. Hopeful and eager people popped their heads out of tents and stopped cooking and conversations to listen. “This one’ll be us, Orli,” Jan said. “I’m sure of it.” He’d said the same thing at every announcement for the past three days.
“Colonists from Group B, please report to the gathering ramp. Prepare for disembarkation through the transportal within two hours.”
The announcement repeated several times, though the colonists had hung on every word the first time. Her father slapped Orli playfully on the shoulder. “See, I told you, girl. If you guess enough times, you’re sure to be right eventually.”
The nearby colonists began moving about frantically, as if they’d been called to an emergency evacuation. Two hours was plenty of time to gather the few belongings she and Jan had carried from Dremen. Orli wrapped her synthesizer strips carefully in her clothes and put them in her pack, and her father scrounged together his clothes, files, sketchpads with ideas for fruitless inventions, and a few tools he’d brought.
They would all leave the temporary tents behind for the next wave of travelers. After their group departed, compies would clean and refurbish the standard living quarters; within a day, more people would arrive to fill them. Prefab buildings had already been shipped to each destination point.
Orli and her father hurried with the moving current of people toward the ramps up into the cliff city. There was no particular reason to hurry. They still had an hour and a half, but her father wanted to be among the first to go through the transportal, as if a few minutes would make a difference in staking the best claim for a homestead. Maybe he was right.
A few other pale-skinned hopefuls from Dremen joined those from various struggling Hansa colonies. They all stood around talking until finally the settlers were allowed forward into the labyrinth of Klikiss structures. The stone halls were worn and scuffed. Many of the alien hieroglyphics and artifacts had been damaged or rubbed away by the sheer volume of people passing through.
Orli paused to look at the letters written by a clawed Klikiss hand in an incomprehensible language, but her father nudged her forward. “We’ll have plenty of time to study old ruins when we get to our new colony, girl. Every place has them, otherwise we wouldn’t have a transportal on the other end.”
A grizzled man with shaggy hair and several days’ stubble turned to them. “Oh, the place we’re going has ruins, all right. And a big valley, tall granite walls, running water. We’ll be able to settle there nicely.”
“How do you know?” Orli asked.
“Because I’ve been there.” The old man stuck out his hand to the girl first, then to her father. “I’m Hud Steinman, one of the transportal explorers. I found Corribus only a month or so ago, and right away I decided I wanted to retire there.