Like everyone else waiting to drop, Sorka Hanrahan spent a lot of time watching the progress of the settlement, which had been informally dubbed “Landing.” To Sorka, watching was only a way to pass the time. She was not really interested, especially after her mother kept remarking that they were seeing history made. History was something one read about in books. Sorka had always been an active child, so the enforced idleness and the constriction of shipboard life quickly became frustrating. It was small comfort to know how important her father’s profession of veterinary surgeon was going to be on Pern when all the kids she had met in the mess halls and corridors were getting down to Pern faster than she and her brother were.

Brian, however, was in no hurry. He had made friends with the Jepson twins, two aisles away. They had an older brother Sorka’s age, but she did not like him. Her mother kept telling her that there would be girls her age on Pern whom she would meet once she got to school.

“I need a friend now,” Sorka murmured to herself as she wandered through the corridors of the ship. Such freedom was a rare privilege for a girl who had always had to be on guard against strangers. Even home on the farm in Clonmel, she had not been allowed out of sight of an adult, even with old Chip’s protective canine presence. On the Yokohama, not only did she not have to watch out, but the whole ship was open to her, provided she kept out of engineering or bridge territory and didn’t interfere with the crew. But at that moment she did not feel like exploring; she wanted comfort. So she headed for her favorite place, the garden.

On her first long excursion, she had discovered the section of the ship where great broad-leafed plants arched over the ceiling, their branches intertwining to make green caves below. She loved the marvelous aroma of moist earth and green things, and felt no inhibition about taking deep lungfuls of air that left a clean, fresh taste at the back of her mouth. Beneath the giant bushes were all sorts of herbs and smaller plants with tags on them, soon to be transported to the new world. She did not recognize most of the names, but she knew some of the herbs by their common names. Back at home her mother had kept an herb garden. Sorka knew which ones would leave their fragrances on her fingers and she daringly fingered the marjoram, then the tiny thyme leaves. Her eyes drank in the blues and pale yellows and pinks of the flowers that were in bloom, and she gazed curiously at the hundreds of racks of shoots in little tubes of water—nutrient fluids, her dad had told her—sprouted only a few months back, to be ready for planting once they reached Pern.