Hrad returns with his bag and hands it to me.
I’ll see you at dinner.I say silently.
He nods.
And I follow Harper.
The laundry isn’t too far from the dining room. I guess it makes it easy for people to drop off their dirty laundry on the way to breakfast. I’m aware of people staring at me as I walk around. Of the whispers.
Some are curious. Others seem to already bear a grudge.
I hope that this isn’t a mistake. I would much rather be living in our own little village than in this massive colony. Though my answer may be different in a few years.
While leaving to be on my own is a fast way to die…living here may be the slow way. Sometimes a warrior needs to choose the manner of his death. I accepted mine would not be a peaceful one from old age, with a mate at my side. I expected us to die on the voyage to this continent. And yet here we are.
What would my mother, and my tribe, make of the humans?
I believe she would be intrigued by their technology, as am I. But having sat in the place they call a hospital, it was easy for me to tell that their technology all came from Earth, none of it has been created here, by the people who live here. Can it be recreated?
If they cannot grow food, they will not be creating anything.
“What is the stuff that was served for breakfast?”
Harper snorts. “That was fifty percent of your nutritional requirements. We call it sludge.”
“I call it inedible.”
She glances at me, teeth showing in a savage grin. “So do we, but at the moment, we don’t have an alternative.”
“It came from Earth? What happens when it runs out?”
“It is produced in several vats. And is now self-sustaining.”
“It is brewed?” Our liquor is brewed in vats.
“It’s algae. Very easy to grow. Your friends should be able to help us get the farm running…why are you not helping with the farming?”
“That is not a skill I have. My mother is the chief of my tribe. I was raised to be a warrior and a hunter, so I could survive being banished.”
“You say that as if it doesn’t bother you.”
It doesn’t, and even if it did, what am I going to do? Fight my own tribe? “I understood from the time I was old enough to speak that was my fate. There is no shame in being banished.”
She pushes open the door to the large building, which I assume is the laundry. “I’m sure you’d rather be hunting than doing laundry.”
“Both are necessary. Your people do not trust me, or my brothers, with a weapon.” I offer a more tactful excuse to hide my frustration. “Or perhaps they are worried that whatever we hunt will not be enough to feed everyone, so then there will be tensions.” If the people of my tribe were fed that sludge for breakfast every day for an entire moon, there would be fights and demands for a hunt.
“True…though most of us have never eaten meat.”
I stare at her. “You have never enjoyed a roast cooked over the flames? Stew that has simmered all day and is rich with flavor?”
Harper shakes her head. “No, I’ve only eaten what has been provided.”
We are standing in the doorway, but she doesn’t seem bothered.
I lower my voice. “I have a little leftover jerky.”
Which is not the same as fresh meat, but better than nothing.
