Shuttles were landing roughly every hour, with occasional times without traffic. Despite all the technological advances humanity made since the early days of the space age back on Earth, orbital mechanics were still a challenge. Launching straight up is fine if all you want to do is leave the planet. But to dock with a space station, a spaceship needs to match its orbit and velocity.

Binary Bloom was at an orbit somewhat beyond geo-stationary. The planet Aethel rotated slowly underneath it, moving slightly faster than the space station. Going to the surface took several hours, going up about an hour longer.

On the surface, an improvised space port started to appear. What was just a few markers around a place of mostly flat ground now had a nearby warehouse and a fuel tank.

Beyond it, a small town emerged from the plains. The location had been chosen for its proximity to all important natural resources. Both a river and a lake were nearby, plains with arable land around, a dense forest a little way off, and a mountain range at the horizon, just a few hours even by ground vehicles away.

The town had only two types of improvised buildings so far. They were made from parts and pieces brought down from Binary Bloom.

Housing was the most important. The newly constructed homes were primitive and cramped, barely enough space for everyone to sleep, and as many people in each home as could fit. Judged by first impressions, it looked like a slum. To its inhabitants, it symbolized hope, a new beginning, and its current state was temporary.

The second type of building was somewhat larger. The most important infrastructure. Places to cook and eat, power generators, water purification, workshops. Most of them were primitive, with scavenged small machinery from the station. The larger systems were still needed on Binary Bloom, and most would take days, if not weeks, to disassemble, bring down and rebuild.

The biggest of the cantinas doubled as a meeting hall, and there was a colony meeting going on. In fact, there had been meetings every few hours for the past day, ever since the place had opened. There was an overwhelming amount of issues to discuss and decisions to make. Whiteboards now pushed to the side still contained notes on food supply for the next week, town layout options and questions of land ownership. All of them showed the clear remains of text being removed and rewritten many times. Yes, the colonists had decided, as item six on the first meeting agenda, to use old-fashioned analog whiteboards instead of digital ones. The power supply of the colony was still unreliable, with so many new generators and energy consumers brought online constantly. The engineers had already demanded, item two of the third meeting, a request and scheduling system because balancing the power grid had become a very demand task. The occasional blackouts were a clear sign just how demanding, and if they kept going any longer, would sway the opinion of the colonists, who had in that meeting rejected the proposal.

At the moment, the colony was run as a direct democracy. With more colonists arriving every hour or so, it was becoming more and more difficult to do so. The cantina was already overflowing, and that despite most of the colonists being busy setting up their new home. But still, a good fifty of them had taken the time to attend the meeting. There were some who were keen to have an influence in the decisions and attended as many meetings as they could manage, some who came for specific items on the agenda, and some who simply wanted to see how the colony was being run.

The colony also did not have a name. The item on the agenda about that had just been voted to be moved to the next day, because more people should offer their ideas and the majority were still up on Binary Bloom, packing or waiting for their shuttle. It would be two days, at least, until most of the colonists were on the planet.

There was a bit of a turmoil right now. It had been caused by the answer of someone called Markhus, who had been an administrative staff member on Bloom. The question had been: „When is Nico coming to continue as governor?“. The first part of the turmoil began with people shouting over each other either that they were wondering the same, or that they disagree with the matter of course attitude that Nico would be governor of the colony as well. The second part of the turmoil added to the first when the answer that Markhus had given was „Nico won’t be coming down. He will stay on Binary Bloom.“

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Even those of the „maybe we should vote for governor“ camp were surprised. And many disappointed. As it turned out, only a few were against Nico, most simply thought there should be a vote.

Markhus continued, though few heard him over the commotion: „until the evacuation is over. And then, I don’t know. He just said he’d not join us here.“

It took quite a while for things to calm down again. Markhus tried several times, unsuccessfully, to quiet the crowd. He was an administrator, not a speaker or leader. In fact, his previous job as being responsible for logistics and supply was what had qualified him to organize the meetings, and other details. He knew how to estimate demand and get in the right amount of the right things at the right time. When he was not at the meetings, he was talking to the docking crew on Binary Bloom to arrange the supplies, parts and machines to be loaded on the next available transport.

Not everyone enjoyed the tumultuous nature of the meeting. Among those was Seraphina Augsta. As a short, young woman she was easily spoken over by the more assertive men and women. She was also somewhat shy and barely ever raised her voice.

She walked away from the cantina, towards the nearby lake, lost in thoughts. It was close to an hour’s walk to the lake shore. She knew, because she had already made the trip twice, in one day. The first time to take in the sights, the second time to bring her easel, brushes and paint.

Her life on Binary Bloom had been simple. There had not been much demand for paintings, and she supplanted her income with the occasional odd job. She had learnt to get by, and it was visible in her simple and practical clothes. The were both worn often and well cared for, both of which was easily visible. She twisted the ends of her curly red hair with her fingers while walking. The planet was beautiful to her, a wide open space in such stark contrast to the interior of the space station.

She had taken almost a hundred photographs of Binary Bloom before she departed. She was sure some colonists would want a painting to remember their old home, and having a photograph for reference made the job so much easier.

After a while, she reached the tree grove where she had set up her things, in the shade and a bit protected from the warm but constant wind.

She stopped in her tracks. There was someone standing there, in the grove. Next to her easel which she had left as it was, to not lose the right view. She carefully moved closer. A young man, apparently. Slender and tall. Maybe from a low-gravity planet like Dephyr. 80% standard gravity if she remembered correctly. She approached. He seemed to be, no he was definitely, studying her half-finished painting of the lake and the mountain range beyond.

„Ahem“, she said.

He spun around, somewhat gracefully. She suppressed a laugh. He was actually quite handsome, she noticed now that she could see his face. He seemed to be about her age. Late twenties. Maybe a year or two younger than she was.

„Oh, hi“, he said.

They stood there for a second, then he gestured towards the painting: „Is this yours? It’s quite good.“

„Thanks“, she said, blushing a tiny bit. People had told her before that her paintings were good, but this one wasn’t even finished yet.“

„My manners“, the young man said, „My name is“ and then he coughed. Seraphina waited for him to continue, but he did not. She looked at him and tilted her head slightly to the side. „No, really“, he said, „that’s my name. I know, most people have names that barely changed for a thousand years. But I’m from“, and then he made a sound like a snap of the fingers, just with his tongue, followed by what sounded like a rolling „r“ sound.

She understood. „Sorry“, she said, „I didn’t get it the first time. What was your name?“

He coughed again and she tried to make out sounds familiar to her. A hard start and a softer end. He smiled and told her: „You can call me Kane. I think that is a somewhat close approximation in more common sounds. My people insist on what they call traditional names, but I’ve never heard them anywhere else and only the old people share the stories of old with each other.“

„Hello Kane“, she said, „I’m Seraphina. I just liked the view of the lake so much that I wanted to get it on canvas, you know, before they start building a port and factories or whatever.“

„Luxury beachside properties, probably“, Kane answered, and they shared a laugh.