“Not all cropsare the same,” Kawle explained. “I would have been astonished tosee any one area amenable to all of our plants.” He looked atFrank. “Mrs. McCadam’scoffee, for example, would prefer the highland regions.
“The templatewas programmed to draw these red circles...” He indicated severalof the regions on the holograph. “… Whereverthere isa good region for the majority of our crops as well as secondarylocations nearby for the more specialized plants.”
“If a combat operatormight venture an opinion?” Mal said, cocking an eyebrow at Sushil,who nodded his assent. “That red circle,” he continued, pointing,“where a valley spreads out between two mountain ranges would makemy job easier regarding the larger predators.
“We may not beshooting them on sight but we willend up displacing some of them from their natural habitat. A townnestled up at the back of this valley wouldbe bordering between highlands and lowlands. Whichever environmentthese creatures prefer, they at least won’t be encroachingon us from allsides.”
“That would give usconvenient access to higher altitude plateaus,” Frank added,turning to his right. “Rohan?”
The councilor, who hadapples as a primary crop, nodded. “Given the latitude of thisregion, the heat in the valley might be an issue. If we can put ourgroves up in the hills, we’ll get a better yield. I like thissite.”
“If we’re farmingthat valley,” another councilor said, “what are the sunlighthours like?”
Sushil changed thesettings and a gradient appeared on the valley floor, ranging fromdark gray at the foothills to near white in the center. “More thanenough sunlight for twice our number to get two growing seasons, ifwe manage it right,” he confirmed.
“Unless there’s avolcano hiding in the area, I’d say we have a pretty goodcandidate,” Frank said, though he had an absolute certainty theywere looking at the right spot.
He couldn’t explainwhy, but he just knew this was where they should be building theirnew town. Just excited to get on with it, he thought.
“I’d stronglysuggest the hills at the head of the valley for the town,” Malsaid. He pulled a section from the planet and enlarged it as athree-dimensional map of the valley.
“Where the riversplits, up here at the head of the valley,” he said, enlarging themap so that it extended past all of the councilors, “we can use thewater as an added deterrent for animals, as well as slowing down aground attack. This hill at the split is perfect. The river flowsaround more than two thirds of its base and the added height doesn’thurt.”
“Especially if theriver floods its banks at all,” Frank said.
“That could bedisastrous for our crops.” Sushil stepped closer to look down onthe valley. “How could we…” he shuddered along with most of theother colonists.
“That’s sure gonnatake some getting used to,” Frank said. The knowledge of how toprotect the crops was already in their brains.
“We can apply yourtemplates to the standard imperial flood-wall design, yes?” Sushilasked Gabriella.
“Yes, it should bethe same mechanism. I’ll find that crewman who helped me before andsee to it.”
“You mean Hack?”Luna asked. “Any reason you’re suddenly pretending he’s somerandom guy?”
“Let’s not get thismeeting off-track, shall we?” Gabriella said with a sweet smile.“Setting up our planet’s first extra-solar colony is kind of abig deal.”
Frank was on theverge of laughing. Pretty sure her mother is alsotrying to keep a straight face. Helooked at Sushil who seemed to be in the same predicament, but thechairman, at least, had a good distraction handy.
“Let’s see if wecan fit our town on this hill.” He cocked his head for a second,then nodded to himself and selected Gabriella’s town. He inserted aconversion window and then ran a line through it from the town modelto the three-dimensional map of the valley.
The town shrank to thesize of a fingernail. Sushil frowned at it, then his eyes relaxed andhe changed a setting in the conversion window. The town reverted toits original size and the valley expanded well past the edges oftheir meeting platform.
“We have more thanenough room,” he said.
“So let’s expandthe perimeter,” Mal suggested. “No sense having walls at the topof a hill if you give your opponents a nice flat spot to sit down andhave a light lunch before carrying on with the assault.”
“We could probablyput some parks inside,” Gabriella said. “Some of those trees onthe hilltop look amazing. It would have been a shame to cut them alldown.”
“Assuming they’resafe.” Mal dropped a hand to his sidearm. “I think we need tohave a close look at this site before we start construction, Mr.Chairman.”
Boots on the Ground
Ragnarok, Town Site
The shuttle banked,turning to approach the site from down-valley. Frank only noticedbecause he was leaning forward to look out the cockpit windows.
On Earth, he’d havedone that in a helicopter or small airplane in order to keep hisinner ear from confusing his brain. This technology was different. Hewas getting no sense of motion but that was at odds with what he sawout the front window.
He leaned back in hisspot on the side bench and took a few deep breaths. John grinned athim from the far side.
“Takes a lot ofgetting used to, doesn’t it?” the younger brother asked. “Ifind it helps to pretend the front windows are just showing a video.It lets my brain ignore what I’m seeing.”
The hum of the enginesdeepened and then died out amidst several deep whuppingsounds. The walls behind the passengers on each side of the craftflowed out of the way, showing them they were on the ground.
They all stood and thebenches dissolved as well. Frank stepped to the edge, looking down atthe ground. A planet, he reminded himself. A new world.
The air had a sweet,fragrant scent to it.
He hopped down, alongwith the other councilors. It was slightly less momentous as agesture, seeing as Mal had already been down for an hour conducting asweep with his team.
What seemed topass for grass here looked like a duster. A slender stalk supportedhundredsof wispyfilaments. They were mostly green but the bottom strands had abrowner tint.
The… trees, for lackof a better name, were mostly the same
