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That would change when they set up the lower university and everyone went to the same school, first wave and soldiers both But that wouldn’t be for another two years There was plenty of tis to happen between now and then
Mari Tennanbau, they’d arranged a zoame with the other older children The call for second work period seemed to come too soon, but that was the way ti attention, and then slow as mud when you watched it Xan wanted her to teach him phonetic sounds, more because she’d helped Jason with it than because he cared about the lesson, but she did it anyway When she was done, she did some research of her own
The classroom had access to the observational data that the survey team had collected since they’d arrived on Laconia Sunbirds were a co there—what they ate, how theyto be cared for—that would help her Because as soon as school was over, Xan headed out to play with Santiago in the town’s center She was free to get her bicycle, the one her father had printed for her at the beginning of summer, and start back to the pond and the babies
The buildings in the toere of two different types The old ones, the ones like her house, lumpy and round, built from the soil of Laconia and constrained by printed polyinal township The other kind, solidly efficient metal and formed concrete, came later with the soldiers The roads were new too, and still being built She and all the other kids loved riding on the s the bumps and uncertainty of the land vanish into a steady low huh the handlebars and into her bones They weren’t supposed to ride on the roads because the soldiers soh, but everyone did it anyway
The sunlight pressed doarot when rain was corounds” A swar into the sky above her in their weird angular patterns, like writing in an alphabet that no one knew She almost stopped to watch The road ended at a barracks and construction yard, soldiers in their crisp blue unifor her as she passed When she waved, one of theain and had to keep both hands on the bars
The effort of riding and the warht her to a kind of trance, comfortable and mindless In the moment, her body and the world felt like they were all the sa her focus back There hadn’t been a lot of study done on sunbird life cycles in particular, but she’d found some notes from one of the early surveys They said sunbirds ate a lot of things, but they seeray encrustations on water roots the best She thought thatdeep into the pond to crack the little gray things free, and then the babies would gobble them as they ca For a few h to leave and make their own nests
At ho the cool air into the house She pulled the bicycle up beside the door Her parents’ voices ca a conversation froed and stretched, like a wire on the edge of breaking Cara paused to eavesdrop
“We’re bearing the risks As long as we’re here, anything they do can affect us They don’t knohat they could wake up”
“I know,” her father said “Look, I’ But we’re not in a position to say what those risks are And…what are the options?”
She knew the rhythm of her parents, how they talked when they knew she and Xan were listening, and how it changed when they thought they were alone This was alone-grown-up talk
“I’ for that,” her mother said, and Cara wondered what “that” was “But look at Ilus”
“Ilus was uncontrolled, though Admiral Duarte seems pretty certain they can at least influence how it behaves here”
“How did they even get a live saone peevish and frustrated “Why would you want that?”
“You know this better than I do, honey The protoe builder, but it also has an interface aspect And being able to talk to other artifacts is…” His words faded as, somewhere inside, he walked back to her mother
Cara looked at the shed She was pretty sure there was a tree-core sampler in there she could use to scrape the roots, but it was heavy It probably ers Plus which, she didn’t want to tear the roots