"Any time you and the crowd are ready," Radford said. "As far as I'm concerned, the sooner the better."

Meredith nodded understanding; there'd been a lot of tension aboard ship the past three weeks. "They'll calm down once they've got room to move again."

"I hope so—for your sake." Keying his intercom, Radford began issuing orders.

Seen from ground level, Astra's color scheme wasn't markedly improved; but Dr.

Peter Hafner didn't especially care. He'd studied all the photos and read all the soil analyses, but there was nothing that could compare to seeing the rocks close up and personally handling them. Leaning over the hovercraft rail, he gazed at the low cliffs flanking the narrow entrance to Splayfoot Bay, eyes tracing the subtle variations in hue and wondering about their composition. For the moment, speculation was all be could do; the extreme scarcity of metallic elements in Astra's crust opened the way for compounds never before suspected, let alone seen. He could hardly wait to begin work on them.

The hovercraft cleared the bay's entrance and headed toward the easternmost of the three main arms. Hafner caught a glimpse of a settlement up in the northern branch, but it was too far away for him to pick out any details. A few minutes later the craft entered the eastern arm, and Hafner saw that there was another collection of buildings at its far end. The majority seemed to be built along the lines of rowhouses, though there were a few larger ones that probably served as community or storage facilities. The construction material was obvious: some sort of adobe, probably baked in slabs for faster construction. Undoubtedly efficient, given the lack of wood, but the drab result was pretty grim.

Beside him, two Hispanic-looking men were also squinting at the town ahead.

From the tone of their muttered Spanish, Hafner decided they were similarly unimpressed by its appearance. He wondered if anyone had thought to bring along any house paint, decided regretfully that such a consideration would rank low on military priority lists.