Keene stood in front of one of the now-assembled prefab laboratories, watching the six-wheeled “Scout” vehicle, just back from a survey excursion. It approached him across the strip of open ground separating the base complex from the landing area, with its gaggle of supply shuttles and personnel ferries down from the orbiting Varuna and Surya. Nearby, outside the storage extension to the lab block, some young members of the mission’s Security Arm detachment were unloading a cargo container from one of the shuttles, at the same time getting some acclimatization to handling weights in Earth’s gravity. Keene was wearing a surface cover-suit, hood pulled up against the dusty wind blowing down from the mountains to the east. The sky was a patchy gray, like much of the landscape, shifting and swirling and spitting a forewarning of rain. It was not the kind of climate traditionally thought of in connection with what had been the Serengeti Plain. The shifting of Earth’s axis to bring the south pole closer had caused a migration of colder regions northward, with the result that the areas that had formerly formed South Africa were now bleak and snowy, with the ice cap extending to the new islands formed from rising ocean ridges south from the Cape. Conversely, Scandinavia and the northwest coasts of Siberia were warming and expected eventually to settle at temperatures comparable to those previously found in California and the American South.
Next to the labs were the Operations Control and Communications Dome and the workshop domes housing fabricating and machining areas. The Kronians built in the manner they were accustomed to. Beyond the domes, a radiation screening wall was being constructed around the open-frame structure of Agni, detached from Varuna and landed, with power connections coming through to distribution equipment installed in a power control house abutting the workshops. Agni could have powered a large town. It was there as a working test of the technology, and to be available to supply the needs of an emergency expansion program should a sudden migration of the Kronian population be forced. So the base was taking shape. Already, the orbiters and probes were surveying for a second site somewhere in the Americas.
Keene’s limbs still felt like lead after his time away. He dreaded to think what it was like for native-born Kronians. It was easy to pick them out among the SA recruits, regardless of their height. They were the ones staggering under the weight of cases and boxes that those raised through their formative years on Earth, even after being away for most of their lives in some cases, were able to handle easily. Keene was doubtful as to the usefulness to the mission of an SA complement. There wasn’t much in the way of Terran threats to be protected from. But there had been pressure to include them on the grounds that Saturn would be too far away to help deal with whatever unknowns might develop; and in any case, the experience would be invaluable training, and their military-style organization made them an ideal general labor resource in a situation like this. Keene turned his attention back to the Scout as it pulled in and halted in front of the lab block.
A couple of technicians that Keene didn’t know well yet since they had traveled with the Surya climbed out and went back to the open rear section to begin unloading an assortment of animal cages and containers, trays holding various plants, and boxes of jars filled with rock and soil samples. Keene sauntered over to greet the figure in a padded work vest and Cossack-style hat with the backflap down that had paused at the step below the driver’s door to secure a bundle of notebooks and folders that he was carrying against the wind. It was Pieter Naarmegen, also from the Surya. Pieter had been a biology teacher in Durban at one time and was with the mission because, in theory anyway, he had some familiarity with the region, and he’d had firsthand professional experience of Terran flora and fauna. He had a pinkish, wrinkly face that gave the impression of being weatherbeaten despite his living the past eleven years in the artificial environments of Kronia, and a short, grizzled beard that he trimmed to a point.