![]() It’s not a big victory, but it’s something. They spread a little every time I’m gone. Some of the organisms we brought have managed to survive: insects, weeds, lichen. I knew I was coming home when a black fly bit me. But the plants were putting on their party best before Umbernight: big, white blooms on the bad-dog bushes and patches of bitterberries painting the arroyos orange. ![]() In our region of Dust, most of the land vegetation is of the dry, bristly sort, with the largest trees barely taller than I am, huddling in the shade of cliffs. All of life was seeding, and the air was scented with lost chances and never agains. It is my soul’s home.Īs I said, it was autumn. ![]() I was coming back from a long ramble to the north, with the Make Do Mountains on my right and the great horizon of the Endless Plain to my left. It wasn’t my first autumn, but I’d been too young to appreciate it the first time. It was autumn-a long, slow season on Dust. What, exactly, am I rejecting here-the past or the future? But lately, I have begun to feel a little disloyal-not to her, but to my companions on the journey that brought me the book, and gave me the choice whether to read it or not. Up to now I have been too angry at her whole generation, those brave colonists who settled on Dust and left us here to pay the price. ![]() There is a note from my great-grandmother in the book on my worktable, they tell me. ![]()
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