Prologue: Andre

  The somewhat sweet smell drifting up from the jungle always caught Andre by surprise when he approached the cliff. Today, it led him to take a moment to look out over the vista before doing his chore. He thought of the aroma as odd, but it was the norm for Dorado. Even though they’d been here more than three Terran years, it still seemed unnatural. And, after all this time, the sight of the mottled red and green canopy of leaves still mesmerized him. Their farm was the eastern most point of the plateau, where it extended into the seemingly endless rainforest that filled the lowlands nearly a kilometer below. Even at the edge of the cliff, it was some 300 meters down to the tops of the trees, themselves much higher than any he’d seen on Earth.

  He turned away from the edge of the cliff and glanced back towards his house and barn, just visible most of a kilometer away. His pregnant wife was doing chores there, while tending to their two year old son. As soon as he fixed this fence, he would join them again.

  He looked again at the broken fence rail. The wood they used for them was stronger than wood back home. It’s what let the trees here grow to most of a hundred meters. He had no explanation how it could be broken, but it was.

  He sighed, pulled out the broken halves, and started sliding in the new rail. Something brushed against his leg. Looking down, he saw a thick blue tentacle wrapped around his shin. He froze momentarily in terror, until his instincts overcame his fear. He grabbed a broken rail and stabbed at the tentacle. Again and again, he drove the makeshift spear into the alien limb, attacking his assailant as viciously as he could with each thrust. A gray liquid oozed out of the holes he had made. The tentacle relaxed its grip and retreated.

  For a split second, he felt relief, letting his bated breath escape. Before he could run away, a thicker tentacle was around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. He tried to scream, but nothing came out. The tentacle was now crushing his chest, not allowing him enough air to breathe, let alone make any noise. In horror, he realized he was helpless against this second attack.

  A moment later, he silently disappeared over the edge of the cliff, never to be seen again.

  New Arrivals

  “Pierre! Stay away from the fence!” Marianne snapped sharply. She realized that the three year old didn’t understand the danger, but she needed him to respect the rule. She'd already lost her husband to the cliff; she couldn’t risk her son as well.

  She shook her head as she thought about it. More than just three year olds didn’t understand the danger. The Nouveau Gaul Plateau Council had their heads up their asses about it. The official report stated that Andre fell off the cliff, his body unrecoverable in the dense jungle at the bottom.

  There is no way he fell down the cliff on his own. He’d been out fixing the fence. A fence that mysteriously had been broken, its six inch rails snapped like twigs. There were strange markings on the edge of the cliff where he “fell”, some of which looked suspiciously like drag marks. And some other very odd squiggly marks that were all half a meter across or more. And there was gray ooze near the fence. The investigator took samples, but nothing about it was said in the report, no results of any analysis were ever given to her.

  To a limited extent, she’s pretty sure what happened. Something came up the cliff and took him. He did some damage to it, drew blood, or what passed for blood in this alien world, but eventually it dragged him down.

  She’d told Eleanor her theory, but Eleanor had told her to keep quiet; the council couldn’t risk news of this getting to the foundation, back on Earth. If they thought there was a dangerous predator hunting settlers on the plateau, they might stop sending new colonists. And new supplies that come with a new ship. The colony was close to being self-sufficient, but it wasn’t there quite yet. If the company abandoned them now, it would effectively be a death penalty for the colony and the colonists.

  It was clear the council knew the truth; they’d issued her a plasma rifle. She was the only settler to be allowed one. If they only knew how often she visualized vaporizing the entire council, she wouldn’t still have it. But she never went near the fence without it slung over her shoulder.

  Pierre back at her side, she walked back to their cabin, Genevieve on her hip. Genevieve was getting antsy, probably hungry. Marianne wanted to sit down in her chair and nurse the year old girl. Raising two young children and maintaining a farm was exhausting as a single mother. Nursing Genevieve was the only time she didn’t feel guilty sitting down, catching her breath. Well, she didn’t feel guilty lying in bed at night, she just felt lonely. She missed Andre. If the exhaustion didn’t take her quickly, she cried herself to sleep.

  ++++++

  That night, she woke up in a cold sweat. She was breathing heavily, the nightmare fresh in her mind. Giant tentacles reached across the fence and grabbed Pierre. She tried to fire her rifle, but it never worked in these dreams. Pierre always got pulled down the cliff, screaming for Momma.

  Why did she and Andre come here? The question haunted her many nights. She lost Andre and now she lived in terror of losing more. Her life had become constant drudgery, spiced with an unhealthy dose of terror.

  In her heart, she knew why they’d come. She regularly had to remind herself it’d been a good decision. They’d been so excited when they were selected as colonists. Life on Earth was hard now, unless you were rich. Ever since most of North Africa became uninhabitable much of the year and the massive migrations started. One by one, the European governments collapsed. Her childhood was dominated by the massive wars that followed. She could still remember seeing the explosions over the horizon from Paris, fifty kilometers to the west. They’d had every reason to expect that Nouveau Gaul would be better than that. And for everyone else, it was.

  ++++++

  By the time of the major sunrise, she’d finished milking the goats and made breakfast for the three of them. She was getting used to the 26 hour days on Dorado, but having a major and minor rise from the two stars still felt wrong. This time of the year, they rose at opposite times, with the minor star rising just after the major one set. At least the second star wasn’t that much brighter than the Terran moon, so it didn’t keep her up. It just felt weird. It must all seem normal to Pierre. It was the only way a world had ever worked in his experience.

  Still strapped in her chair, Genevieve played with a spoon, while Pierre fed the goats a little hay. This was giving Marianne a chance to clean up from breakfast, at least until hoof steps approached the house.

  “Morning, Mar,” Eleanor said as she walked in the door, unannounced.

  “Morning, El. What brings you here?”

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  “I figured you hadn’t checked your messages. Every household is required to send a member to the public meeting in three hours.”

  “Damn it! I have work to do. Can’t they just send us a summary of what they want?”

  “This time they want us all there. Henri’s home, caring for Jean-Luc and Bertrand and getting a few chores done. I’ll take Pierre with me and you can take Genevieve. You don’t have much choice but to bring them and they know that. I can help you with your morning chores before then.”

  “Once again, you’re my life saver.”

  “I think we literally saved each other’s lives more than a few times back on Earth. These are easy-peasy compared to that.”

  Eleanor and Marianne had served their two years together in a peace brigade, mandatory para-military service designed to stamp out the last of the fighting lingering from the war. They’d run into more than their share of hairy situations.

  “Pierre is out feeding the goats right now, although it more keeps him occupied with the chore than accomplishes much for the goats. Can you go check on him while I finish cleaning up in here. And then entertain the two of them while I get some work done on the farm. It's so much more efficient when I don’t have to watch after them. And I caught Pierre climbing on the fence yesterday again.”

  “I’ll see if he’ll listen to Aunt Eleanor about that rule. He’s growing a streak of not listening to his mother.”

  Marianne frowned but had to chuckle at the obvious truth.

  Between the two women, they kept the children in line and got the day’s chores done. When it came time to go to the meeting, they mounted their council assigned horses, Pierre riding with his Aunt Eleanor, Genevieve riding in a backpack on Marianne.

  ++++++

  The meeting house was full. The fullest she’d seen it since it was built. Too many people she’d not seen since Andre’s death, most of whom came to offer condolences or ask how she was doing. If they’d forgotten, seeing her there with two young children reminded them. She didn’t see anyone else there with children. Several people had been seriously injured, some permanently disabled, but no other adult had died since the first month or so of the settlement. The thought made her a little bitter.

  Bang. The gavel sounded the start of the meeting and everyone turned to see Renee Desjardins, the president of the council.

  She spoke to the crowd. “Thank you everyone for coming out today. I have some important announcements that I need everyone to hear. As we’ve been expecting, L’Alouette came out of hyperdrive and made contact with us eight hours ago. They expect to start unloading the 1384 passengers in a few days.”

  The crowd murmured.

  “I know that is slightly fewer passengers than we were expecting, but they elected to put additional machinery on instead.”

  “What machines?” a voice called out from the crowd.

  “I’m not ready to announce exactly what’s on board, but it should make life easier for all of us. And move the colony more towards self-reliance. I will be sending sub-lists of relevant machinery to each department head to determine exactly how they should be used and by whom. I expect many of you will be brought into discussions on how machinery relevant to your everyday life should be used.”

  “We’ll be told what scraps we get to use, you mean.”

  Renee snapped her head around to try to see who said that, but no one seems eager to invite her wrath.

  “We're all in this together. One for all and all for one, right?”

  “All for you, you mean!”

  Her head snapped back the other way. There’s a general grumbling in the audience. Marianne laughed to herself. She hadn’t realized she wasn’t the only one unhappy with the council and Renee. Maybe this is why they stopped having full colony meetings.

  Bang, bang, bang. The gavel expressed Renee’s rising ire. “We have more to talk about, please stay focused on that,” she shouted angrily.

  Returning to a friendlier tone, she said, “The council has made some decisions to make the new members of our community feel more welcome. if you remember, we stayed in tents the first month or so we were here, until the houses were assembled.”

  “Except your house went up the first day!”

  Renee raised her hand to calm the audience. Once the murmuring and grumbling had somewhat subsided, she continued, “We’ll welcome the new settlers by hosting them in our homes. These will be our new neighbors and our new co-workers, so it’ll be an opportunity to meet them and bond with them.”

  “I bet I know who doesn’t have to host anyone!”

  She just ignored this heckling. “Each pair of settlers will be hosted by a neighbor and someone who already works in a similar role here.”

  “Yep, no more council presidents, no hosting.”

  She was becoming a little rattled by the unrest in the crowd. She tried to push forward, ignoring it, hoping that it would disappear on its own.

  “Each host family will receive the settlers share of rations and be expected to feed them. Each of you will receive a message from the council listing your new neighbor and some of their background and what you will receive in extra rations to help feed them. To make this colony grow and thrive, we need each of you to introduce our new fellow citizens to their new community.”

  The grumbling is loud, but no new heckling. Everyone is now talking amongst themselves about this surprising turn of events.

  Bang, bang. “There is more news that I need to tell you about. When L’Alouette left earth 1749 days ago, there was another ship being prepared to come to Dorado.”

  This news changed the tenor of the murmuring. This may actually be good news.

  “This ship is not from the foundation, but from Die Firma. The German colonists will settle in a valley about 400 kilometers west of here. This is with the full cooperation of the foundation. They should be able to produce different things than we can, meaning we may see better diversity in the goods we have access to. I hope to have a profitable and steady trading relationship with our new brethren.”

  The crowd was back to being uneasy. Everyone was thinking the same thing. Everyone here remembered the war.

  “I hope you now appreciate why I wanted everyone to hear what we know right now. The upcoming months will be important for the colony. Thank you for coming and I know I can count on every one of you doing everything you can to make this next stretch successful.”

  The crowd realized they’d been dismissed. Marianne and Eleanor waited for the crowd to thin before heading for the door. No point in trying to fight through the throng with two small children.

  “I assume I’ll get the couple that will have the land to the south of me. I’ll need to warn them about the cliff.”

  “Be careful what you say Mar. Don’t go against the council.”

  “Did you hear how many people in there were upset at the council?”

  “I know. She heard that, too. They’re going to be looking for someone to make an example of, to scare the rest into line. L'état, c’est Renee.”

  Hrmph. Her friend’s admonitions always annoyed Marianne. She bristled at any such limitations on her.

  “You struggled with following orders in the brigade, too,” Eleanor pointed out.

  “They were stupid orders. They almost got us killed.”

  “But we lived, didn’t we.”

  “No thanks to Major DuMont.”

  Eleanor laughed. “He really was an idiot. It’s a wonder none of us shot him.”

  “I only didn’t because you wouldn’t let me.”

  “Be careful. Little ones have big ears sometimes.”

  Marianne laughed this time. She looked at Pierre and said, “You know your momma wouldn’t really shoot anyone, right?”

  “Then why do you carry that rifle all the time, Momma?”

  Eleanor looked at Marianne, a bemused smile on her face, waiting to hear what her answer would be.

  “We don’t know everything that is on Dorado yet. I carry it to make sure you and your little sister will always be safe.” Marianne reached down and gave Pierre a hug, which he gladly accepted.

  “Now you ride with Aunt Eleanor back to our house again. Genevieve and I will be riding right beside you.”

  “It’s okay, Momma. Aunt Eleanor will keep me safe. She is stronger than you and can beat you up.”

  “What makes you think that, Pierre?” Marianne asked.

  “Because Aunt Eleanor told me.”

  Marianne looked at Eleanor, who tried not to laugh as she set Pierre up on the horse and then climbed on behind him. As the two rode off, her laughter no longer under control, she said, “Besides, you know it’s true, too.”

  ++++++

  Two days later, Eleanor stopped by again. “Did you get your assignment yet?”

  “I haven’t looked, El.”

  “Look now! We got a couple of farmers from north of Paris.”

  “I’m looking now.” As she read the screen, Marianne’s face went pale and then scarlet. “They give me a pair of damned ratons!”

  “Hush, Mar. You can’t say that here. They’ll punish you for racist comments. Are you sure? The foundation was supposed to only send people from France.”

  “Does Aziz and Rania Gharbi sound French to you?”

  “Where does it say they're from?”

  “Outside Lyon,” Marianne grumbled. “Their parents probably came over in the invasion.”

  “Their families could have been living in France for over a century. What else does it say?”

  “They maintain a halal diet. Why did they do this to me?”

  “Do you want a cynical answer? Because the council knows the cliff is dangerous and so your new neighbors are being offered as a sacrifice to discover the danger. I bet they don’t get a plasma rifle.”

  “Interesting idea,” Marianne said, looking a little more cheerful.

  “But they also may be setting you up. They don’t need much of an excuse to take away Pierre and Genevieve. When your new friends get eaten, they may close down both these farms. I don’t want to think about what they would try to find for you to do then. So keep your nose clean and don’t do anything they can hold against you.”

  Marianne frowned.

  “Promise, Mar.”

  “I promise,” Marianne said reluctantly.