by Candy Rae
The weeks passed. The Lind continued to watch.
The main settlement was, by now, built although it was still rough and ready. A narrow river ran through the centre and provided the settlers with fresh water. There were plans to build water and sewerage pipes. Both outer palisade and buildings were built of the hardwood trees found in the nearby forest. The trees on this planet were of two types: hard and soft. The latter was dry and fibrous and was primarily used for burning, although experiments were exploring its use as matting for roofing and floor coverings.
The hardwood was used for projects that needed strength. One type proved to have much the same attributes as steel and was being used as such. The single metal-smith amongst the colonists was on a rapid learning curve in this area, making ploughs, shovels and knives out of this strange new substance.
Dogs and cats from the ship roamed the settlement, providing both an early warning system for any predators, although none so far had shown themselves, and as a means of keeping down the small native pests. A particularly annoying creature was a small burrowing animal that resembled the Earth rat but without a tail. It could eat its way into any storeroom and devour twice its own weight in food within a few hours. Unfortunately, there were a lot of them about.
More farms, villages and hamlets sprang up in the fertile plains to the north of the landing site and west of the marshlands. To the west, a few miles from the main settlement, was a long forested hill. This forest was very extensive and only the fringes had been explored. A few outlying farms were being built at the edges.
Small groups of intrepid settlers built their cabins on the shoreline, both east and south of the settlement, intending to satisfy the colony’s need for protein by farming the seas.
A number of rabbits had managed to escape from their pens during the early weeks and were thriving in the wild. Although the biologists were worried about the impact this would have on native species, the majority of colonists were far too busy to worry about it. The remaining rabbits were being bred as a means of providing extra protein. Children were encouraged to think of them as a resource to be eaten and not as pets. Guinea pigs were acceptable as pets; there was not enough meat on their bones to make resource breeding a viable option. The children were more than delighted with this decision and the animal lovers amongst the adults felt much the same way.
They had been lucky, arriving at the beginning of the summer season when game, fruit and vegetables were plentiful. There was time to prepare for winter. A start was made to replace the larger livestock lost in space with native species.
The ruminant herds which had been recorded by the probe were numerous, and more importantly, edible, although the meat tasted oily. The livestock breeders were working on the problem but without much success. The seaweed the animals preferred was on the oily side and proved, when attempts were made to cook it, to be inedible by humans.
Three types of native animals inhabited the paddocks. One herd consisted of some eighty beasts that resembled the mountain goats of Earth, but with much shorter legs. They had woolly coats of a dull brown and as well as being edible, provided wool for clothing and milk that could be made into a crumbly cheese with a tangy taste. Gentle in temperament, they were easy to catch and had adapted to captivity well.
The animals that inhabited the second paddock were not so gentle. Milling about restlessly was a small herd of long necked creatures that were being bred to satisfy the colony’s need for meat.
Eighteen creatures that resembled Earth’s New Forest ponies inhabited the third. They were proving even more difficult to tame but there were high hopes that eventually these eighteen might become the nucleus of the colony’s transport system. There was no other way to get around except on foot with the consequence that exploration of all but the nearby area was patchy at best.
The planet had a ten-month yearly cycle and just two seasons. The colonists were working every daylight hour to reap and store enough edibles to see them through the first all-important winter. Thankfully, there were plenty of wild nutritious edibles that could be gathered and before long storerooms were piled high with the drying fruit and roots that had been gathered in from the plains and edges of the wooded areas.
It was beginning to feel like home for many but for twelve youngsters, it was an unsettling time.
The dreams had begun not long after landing. The twelve felt compelled, in a way they did not understand, to keep silent about these dreams but some adults, especially the mothers, were beginning to suspect that something was seriously wrong. As it was a tenuous suspicion, they did not report it.
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