For the moment, though, the clothing of the people milling about added color to the scene. A small crowd was gathered near the dock, where one of the other hovercraft was still unloading. Hafner's craft slid into position on the opposite side of the welded metal pier, and the scientist joined the rest of the colonists streaming ashore.

The crowd turned out to be the queue for a sort of open-air check-in station the military had set up. Hafner took his place at the end of one of the lines, thankful that the Army had had the sense to give the colonists some time in the open after the cramped conditions aboard ship.

The sun was directly overhead—noon of a twenty-seven-hour day—and now that the mountain foothills blocked the stiff ocean breeze, the air was beginning to warm up. Hafner slipped off his jacket, wondering idly how good the meteorologists' seasonal predictions really were. Astra's smaller axial tilt should give milder temperature swings than those of Hafner's native Pennsylvania, but with barely a year's worth of data to go on, the planet's climate was far from established. Certainly it seemed hotter now than the early spring this part of Astra was supposed to be in at the moment, and if this wasn't just a temporary heat wave even the tough hybrid crop strains they'd brought with them might be in trouble.

He hoped the experts had taken such possibilities into account.

Finally, it was his turn at the front of the line. "Name?" the sweating lieutenant asked, not bothering to look up from his portable terminal.

"Peter Hafner. I'm a geologist with Dr. Patterson's group—"

The terminal spat out a small card. "Hafner, Peter Andrew; 1897-22-6618; science/professional." The soldier handed Hafner the card. "House number 127 here in Unie; maps are posted in the courtyard over there; meal and orientation meeting times are on the bulletin board beside the maps. Questions will be answered at the meeting tonight; emergency questions can be handled at the admin complex. Next!"