Oakmont–Verona–Plum Development Site, Pennsylvania
May 16, 2440, 8:41 PM
The first drones were airborne before the shuttle had finished settling on its landing gear.
S’rethi K’var watched hundreds of points become thousands on the forward display. Some climbed above the remaining tree canopy. Others descended toward the freshly shattered limestone ridges.
Several hundred autonomous boats were already surveying the Allegheny River.
“Well,” D’vann said beside her, “at least nobody can accuse us of arriving unprepared.”
“Give them time.”
He laughed.
Thirty-six square kilometers of Pennsylvania countryside filled her display. Wooded ridges, ravines, abandoned settlements, and generations of mining had occupied most of her professional attention for the past four days.
The land had only officially become the High Lord’s yesterday, around midday. His interest was older. For nearly a week, his passover flights had been gathering surveys of the property he was determined to acquire.
Over unpopulated country, the shuttles could conceal themselves from every human tracking system except someone actually looking up and seeing them.
The afternoon’s bombardment had made concealment somewhat beside the point.
Ridges that had climbed above twelve hundred feet were now fractured limestone and rubble. Entire slopes had lost their vegetation. Displaced rock had partially filled some valleys.
It was ugly.
Beautiful could come later.
“Northwestern section,” she said.
D’vann enlarged it.
“Better than projected.”
“More material in the lower ground than I expected. Less exposed bedrock along the western slope.”
“Problem?”
“Possibly. We’ll know more when the rovers get through it.”
Another shuttle was descending toward its unloading position. Three more waited above it, carrying thousands of autonomous ground-penetrating-radar rovers.
Those interested her considerably more than the flying machines.
Beneath the site lay mine workings excavated over centuries. Some had records. Others had fragments. There would undoubtedly be workings nobody had recorded at all.
The impacts had deliberately collapsed portions of them. Others might have survived.
The rovers would provide the information she needed to decide where further investigation was necessary.
“Don’t look at me like that,” D’vann said.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m about to put a building over a hole.”
“Would you?”
“Not without asking.”
“Good.”
They had been married for twenty-six years. She still occasionally suspected he had become a construction engineer chiefly for the opportunity to aggravate geological engineers.
Unfortunately, he was exceptionally good at it.
Before the evacuation, the two highborn engineers had overseen major industrial and municipal projects. Now they were responsible for preparing ground for three human-designed settlements built with V’ren equipment.
Neither had seriously considered declining.
The Type 48’s cargo compartment was eighty-two meters long, with a broad oval cross section twelve meters wide and ten meters high. Temporary, removable decking divided it into two working levels.
Configured for habitation and field operations, it accommodated the project’s sixty-six personnel, their workstations, sanitary facilities, and communal spaces without crowding.
Eight working families supplied forty people. Twenty individually recruited workers filled the remaining specialties, including ten hunters. The K’vars added six.
Their berths and stations had been assigned before departure. As the deployment continued, occupied workstations began appearing on S’rethi’s display.
Their son Ralen, twenty-one, was working with D’vann’s construction planning team. S’ira, nineteen, had joined geological survey operations.
T’vessa and M’ren, seventeen and sixteen, were at adjoining drone-tending stations.
The autonomous fleets did not need someone supervising every movement. They did need people to resolve exceptions, arrange repairs, and deal with machines that encountered something their programming could not interpret.
Morning would bring the first physical labor in the field. Tonight, the tenders would have plenty to do from their stations.
Only the K’vars’ youngest daughter was absent. L’kiri was in Missouri, in the same pilot cadet class as Kevin and MJ, and judging from her messages, enjoying herself thoroughly.
S’rethi’s display announced the first rover deployment.
Machines streamed down a cargo shuttle’s ramp, crossed the unloading area, and separated toward their assigned sectors.
A second shuttle began unloading farther east.
Then a third.
D’vann watched the survey lanes fill.
“We should have enough ground information to choose our first working approaches before six.”
“Provided you don’t choose them before I’ve reviewed it.”
“I was going to offer you tea first.”
“That would improve your chances.”
9:03 PM
Joren Hale was examining the wildlife reports.
The drones could distinguish most large animals from the surrounding landscape. Identifying exactly what they were looking at sometimes required a better view.
“Bear?” the hunter beside him asked.
“Probably.”
Joren marked the contact near the remaining forest. Another report showed several large animals moving through a ravine north of the development area.
“Bison.”
“Need a better image.”
A drone adjusted its path.
“Antiquus,” Joren said when the new view arrived.
The enormous animals had ample water and grazing here, with little human interference. So did the predators sharing the wooded valleys.
The hunters had received the regional briefing before leaving Missouri. Now they were locating the animals that could affect tomorrow’s work.
Another contact appeared several kilometers from the landing area.
Joren leaned closer.
“Well, there’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Mastodon?”
“Looks like it.”
He tagged the animal’s position.
“He’s not bothering anybody.”
“Yet.”
“Let’s try not to bother him either.”
They had ten hunters to protect the people working outside. Knowing where the wildlife was would let them concentrate on the places those people actually needed to go.
9:17 PM
S’rethi’s workstation had received more information than she could personally examine in a week.
The survey systems were consolidating it according to priorities she had established before departure. She worked through the anomalies rather than the raw returns.
One section of the eastern ridge showed irregular voids beneath exposed limestone. Some resembled abandoned workings. Others might be natural caverns.
She selected the area for further investigation. Available rovers received new assignments.
D’vann leaned over her shoulder.
“Does that affect the morning approaches?”
“Not yet. Keep the heavy equipment outside this boundary until I’ve reviewed the additional returns.”
He transferred the restriction to his planning display.
“And the western grading?”
She opened the corresponding survey.
The lower ground toward Verona presented different problems. Old industrial and transportation infrastructure complicated the approach to the river, but there was less height to remove.
The Allegheny lay approximately seven hundred eighty-five feet above sea level. Much of the adjoining flatland was around eight hundred.
Matt wanted the finished settlement ground no higher than nine hundred.
He also wanted people to be able to reach the river.
S’rethi could work with that. They did not need to reduce every square meter to the same elevation. Suitable material from the high ground could fill the low ground. Reclamation equipment would process what they did not need.
The boats were examining the river corridor, locating debris and contamination and surveying the banks. Being upstream of Pittsburgh’s worst devastation made this a better starting point. It did not make the water clean.
Eventually, people were supposed to swim here.
First, she needed somewhere sound to put their houses.
The settlement framework was already fixed: three-kilometer squares, each divided into six hundred twenty-five blocks measuring one hundred twenty meters on a side.
The standard house designs and sizes would not be firm until May twentieth.
That did not prevent her from preparing the ground.
Twenty-seven square kilometers were reserved for the three sitios within the larger development area. Housing would occupy only part of them. Roads, commerce, parks, orchards, industry, and utilities all needed their place.
D’vann studied the terrain.
“Three sitios.”
“Eventually.”
“That’s a lot of houses.”
“And roads. And drainage. And power systems.”
Outside, another shuttle was unloading. The aerial survey continued above it, the ground rovers spreading through the broken hills.
D’vann looked back at the map.
“And one day people will come here and complain about their neighbors.”
S’rethi smiled.
“If we’re successful.”
