counting to ten with each one. Then she was stepping toward the door and through it. She stopped for a moment and looked around. They were in a wide corridor with silver walls and bright light overhead. She hurried to catch up with Dr. Yang, who was striding purposefully away. As they came around the corner she almost skidded to a halt as a figure came into sight.
A man.
The first she had ever encountered. He was taller even than her, with short black hair and dark brown skin. He didn’t slow as he passed her, just nodded, and she followed him with her gaze until he disappeared from sight.
Dr. Yang glanced over her shoulder and frowned. “Hurry up, Destiny.”
She shook herself and hurried on.
They came to another doorway. As it slid open, a cacophony of noise hit her ears. She blinked then stepped into a huge, cavernous room filled with things and…people. Men and women. Some pale, some with dark skin, others with Asian features like Dr. Yang. More people than she had imagined could exist in one place. At first it seemed like chaos, but as she watched, she noticed they were actually well organized. They carried things out of the room, unloading the ship. Presumably, this was all the equipment and stores that had been brought with them from Earth. Everything they would need to help humanity settle into their new home.
A couple of men in dark green uniforms seemed to be in charge, directing the unloading. They nodded to Dr. Yang but looked at Destiny curiously. She was dressed differently. The workers were all in beige jumpsuits, hers was yellow—Dr. Yang had let her pick the color. Yellow was her favorite.
She paused to run her hand over a large metal object. She had no clue what it was, but the metal was cold to the touch.
“Destiny!”
She hurried after Dr. Yang. There was so much to see, but hopefully there would be at least a little time to examine all these new things.
Finally, they reached the doorway. She halted, hovering at the edge of the ramp that separated the ship from the new world. And then she was breathing in the fresh air, filling her lungs. It smelled as she had imagined sunshine would smell. As she’d imagined the color yellow would smell.
She stood and stared.
She blinked at the bright light. There was the sun. Actually, there were two suns. A large yellow—almost white—ball just peering over the horizon and a smaller orange sun higher in the sky. The air was warm, and a light breeze tickled her skin as she held her face up to the sunlight.
It was so beautiful her chest ached.
The ship had landed on a plateau, and before it lay a shimmering lake of blue water, and beyond that a forest of small, stumpy green trees. She turned her head; behind them a steep mountain loomed over the ship. High above, some sort of bird or other flying animal circled lazily in the sky. So free.
How she would love to fly.
A man came up behind her, a large square box in his arms, nearly knocking her over; she stepped to the side, then watched as he carried the box down the ramp and placed it in the back of a large vehicle.
“Come along,” Dr. Yang said.
She followed her, but as they stepped off the ramp, Destiny came to an abrupt halt. For the first time in her life she was actually touching the ground. Not a floor, but actual dirt. A tremor ran through her. Then something caught her eye off to the right. A spaceship was coming in to land, small and sleek and silver. Dr. Yang had also stopped.
“Who is that?” Destiny asked, not really expecting an answer, but to her surprise, Dr. Yang spoke.
“They’re representatives arriving from the rest of the fleet. There’s to be a meeting,” she murmured. “That shuttle is from the Trakis Two—you can tell by the number on the side.”
The shuttle touched down lightly on an area of flat land near the ship. There were already three others parked in a row.
“They all came over on the Trakis Five,” Dr. Yang continued. “But the ship is remaining in orbit and they’re using shuttles to bring them to the planet surface. Come.”
The door to the shuttle slid open and two figures emerged. Destiny hesitated.
The first man was dressed similarly to Dr. Yang, though his shirt was yellow. But it was the second man who held her attention. She