The third and smallest group—all eight of Mar Dook’s agronomists, plus a dozen able-bodieds, Pol Nietro from zoology, Phas Radamanth and A. C. Sopers of xenobiology and Ted Tubberman and his crew—had the task of choosing the site for the experimental farm. Others were detailed to scout for varieties of vegetation that might be efficiently converted into various plastics which the colony would need for building. On the one minisled brought along, Emily Boll flew between the agronomy survey and the control tower, correlating data. Once the emergency infirmary was set up, medics were kept busy patching bruises and scrapes, and peremptorily ordering rest periods for the older workers who were overextending themselves in enthusiasm.
By midday, those in orbit had a nonstop show of the disciplined but constant activities on the surface.
“It keeps people home,” Sallah remarked to Barr Hamil, her copilot, as they traversed nearly empty corridors on their way back from the main hangar where they had been checking cargo manifests for their first trip down.
“It’s fascinating, Sal. And we’ll be there tomorrow!” Barr’s eyes were shining, and she wore a silly grin. “I really can’t believe we’re here, and will be there!” She pointed downward. “It’s like a dream. I keep being afraid I’ll wake up suddenly.”
They had reached their own quarters and both had eyes only for the vid screen in the corner.
“Good,” Barr said with a relieved sigh. “They’ve got the donks assembled.”
Sallah chuckled. “Our job is to get the shuttle down in one piece, Barr. Unloading is someone else’s problem.” But she, too, was relieved to see the sturdy load handlers lined up at the end of the almost completed landing strip. The donks would greatly facilitate unloading, and speed up the shuttles’ return to their mother ships for the next run. Already there were informal competitions between the various units to bring their projects in faster and more efficiently than programmed time allowed.
Sallah and Barr watched, as everyone did, until the dark tropical moonless night rendered the broadcasts impossible to interpret. Broadcasts from the surface would be primitive until Drake Bonneau and Xi Chi Yuen, in the admiral’s gig, had a chance to install the commsats on the two moons. Nonetheless, the last scene raised a nostalgic lump in Sallah’s throat, reminding her of the hunting trips that she and her parents had enjoyed in the hills around First Centauri.
The screen showed tired men and women seated around an immense campfire, eating an evening meal that had been prepared in a huge kettle from freeze-dried Terran vegetables and meats. In the failing light, the white strips of the runway grids and the wind sock having convulsions in the brisk breeze, were just barely visible. The planetary flag, so proudly displayed that morning, had wrapped itself around the pole above the control tower. Someone began to play softly on a harmonica, an old, old tune so familiar that Sallah couldn’t name it. Someone else joined in with a recorder. Softly and hesitantly at first, then with more confidence, the tired colonists began to sing or hum along. Other voices added harmony, and Sallah remembered that the song was called “Home on the Range.” There certainly had been no “discouraging words” that day. And the evening serenade did make the landing site seem a bit more like a home.
The next morning Sallah and Barr had been up long before the klaxon sounded, assembling their passengers and making last-minute weight calculations. The pilots had been given a very serious briefing from Lieutenant Commander Ongola on the necessity of conserving fuel.
“We have just enough liquid fuel to get every man, woman, and child, beast, parcel, package, and reusable section of the ships down to the surface. Waste not, want not. Fools waste fuel! We have none to waste. Nor,” he added, with his sad wistful smile, “fools among us.”
Watching on the loading-bay screens, Sallah and Barr could follow the six shuttles lifting from the planet’s surface. Then the scene shifted to a panoramic view of the main landing site.
“It’s breathtaking, Sal, breathtaking,” Barr said. “I’ve never seen so much unoccupied, unused land at one time in my life.”
“Get used to it,” Sallah replied with a grin.
With the activities of the landing party to watch, it seemed like no time at all before the shuttles were locking on. The loading detail were trundling the first crates into the hold before Kenjo and Jiro could exit. Sallah was a little annoyed with Kenjo for his brusque dismissal of Barr’s excited questions. Even Jiro looked abashed by his senior’s truculence as Kenjo succinctly briefed Sallah on landing procedures, advice on handling the shuttle’s idiosyncrasies, and the frequency for the tower meteorological control. He wished her a safe drop, saluted, and, turning on his heel, left the bay.
“Well, hail and farewell,” Barr said, recovering from the snub.
“Let’s do the preflight even if Fussy Fusi has made such a big deal of turnover,” Sallah said, sliding into the lock of the Eujisan an inch ahead of the next big crate being loaded. They had finished their check by the time loading was complete. Barr did passenger inspection, making very certain that General Cherry Duff, the oldest charterer and the pro tem colony magistrate, was comfortable, and then they were cleared for the drop.
“We were barely there,” Barr complained as Sallah taxied the Eujisan into takeoff position at the end of the runway eight hours later. “And now we’re away again.”
“Efficiency is our guide. Waste not, want not,” Sallah told her, eyes on the instrumentation as she opened the throttle on the Eujisan for lift-off thrust. She grimaced, eyes flicking between fuel gauge and rev counter, not wanting to use a cc more of fuel than necessary. “Kenjo and the next eager set of colonists will be chewing hunks out of the cargo hatch. We must up, up, and away!”
“Kenjo never made an error in his life?” Barr asked of Sallah sometime later after the famous pilot had made a disparaging remark about the shuttle’s consumption of fuel during the trips made by the two women.
“That’s why he’s alive today,” Sallah replied. But his comment rankled. Though she knew that she had expended no more fuel than was absolutely necessary, she began keeping a private record of consumption on each of her trips. She noticed that Kenjo generally oversaw the Eujisan’s refueling and supervised its fifty-hour checks. She knew that she was a better than average pilot, in space or atmospheric craft, but she did not want to make waves with a hero pilot who had far more experience than she did—not unless she absolutely had to, and not without the ammunition of accurate records.
Patterns were quickly established. Those on the ground began each morning by erecting the housing and work areas for those due to arrive during the day. The agronomy teams handily cleared the designated fields. The infirmary had already dealt with its first clients; fortunately, all the accidents so far had been minor. And despite all the hard work, senses of humor prevailed. Some wit had put up street signs with estimated distances in light-years for Earth, First Centauri, and the homeworlds of the other members of the Federated Sentient Planets.
Like everyone else waiting to drop, Sorka Hanrahan spent a lot of time watching the progress of the settlement, which had been informally dubbed “Landing.” To Sorka, watching was only a way to pass the time. She was not really interested, especially after her mother kept remarking that they were seeing history made. History was something one read about in books. Sorka had always been an active child, so the enforced idleness and the constriction of shipboard life quickly became frustrating. It was small comfort to know how important her father’s profession of veterinary surgeon was going to be on Pern when all the kids she had met in the mess halls and corridors were getting down to Pern faster than she and her brother were.