Fort David Township
The small settlement of Fort David was a bustling hive of activity. Settlers from many of Her Majesty’s colonies on Earth had taken the Queen’s offer of transportation and land; in exchange, they provided the Commonwealth with an ever-burgeoning supply of goods. The kalsa-wood indigenous to Venus was light and flexible, yet stronger than oak; great plantations of the kalsa trees were a main resource. Fruit and vegetable seeds brought from home grew huge and quickly in the hot and moist environment, and many of the local lizard species provided either meat or muscle for ploughs. The rich, deep soil of Venus produced exuberantly and there was a thriving market on Earth and Mars for the dried produce of the Venus colonies. It was hardly economical to transport these products in their natural state across the vast reaches of the aether to other planets, but the clever colonists had solved even this seemingly insurmountable problem. Whole crops were transported into the upper aether where the direct sunlight and the thin air dried them to the consistency of leather within a few days.
As Annabelle and Nathanial moved through Fort David’s marketplace, they heard a variety of languages, from Gujarat to Gaelic. Most people they saw wore clothing of the hotter regions of Earth, loose flowing robes and full breeches, with high leather boots to protect them from the smaller poisonous lizards, which had not been eradicated, though their numbers were far fewer than in the early years, during the first colonisation of the planet. In those long past days, very nearly half of all the settlers did not live out their first year.
Annabelle took a deep breath of the scented air. “Smell the fruits, Nathanial! Better than all the perfumes of Araby. Is not this a delightful planet? So very, very different from Luna.”
Nathanial raised his boot. He had had the misfortune to step in a large and steaming pile of varaneto dung; the sluggish herbivores, the size of water buffalo, were used as pack animals.
“Perfume indeed,” he said as he tried to clean his boot by wiping it on a convenient log, with little success. “Really, Annabelle, have we not looked enough? These folk are simple farmers; they have neither the time nor intention of travelling into the jungles.”
“Now, Nathanial.” Annabelle patted him on the arm. “You know Captain Perkins said there was an agency near here which handles trips into the bush for visiting gentlemen on their grand tour, and for scientists from Earth who come across the aether to study Venus.” She pulled a bit of paper from her leather gauntlet and checked its contents. “We take a left at the end of the market. We’re looking for Thorne’s Emporium. Come along. Don’t dawdle so.” Annabelle dashed forward, just missing a pair of varaneto bulls hooked to a wide low wagon heaped with pumpkins the size of boulders. The driver of the team saluted her with a wide grin and a flourish of his whip.
Nathanial gave up on his soiled boot and followed her. Perhaps the dust of the road—he looked down and grimaced—the mud of the road would clean off the dung by the time they arrived.