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cloverweed from between rows of crops planted earlier in the summer. Coyote’s seasons were three times as long as they were on Earth—ninety-one or ninety-two days in each month, twelve months in a year by the LeMarean calendar—still, it was near the end of Hamaliel, the second month of summer; the farmers would be working hard to pull in the midseason harvest so that they could plant again before autumn. The original colonists had struggled to keep themselves fed through the first long winter they faced on Coyote, and they only had a hundred or so mouths to feed.
    The distant roar of engines drew her attention; looking up, she saw a shuttle descending to the landing pad. More passengers from the Long Journey being ferried down to Coyote; with the arrival of a new ship from Earth, the population of New Florida would increase by another thousand people. Social collectivism might have worked well in the Western Hemisphere Union, built upon the smoldering remains of the United Republic of America, but there it benefited from established cities and high-tech infrastructure. Coyote was still largely unexplored; what little technology had been brought from Earth was irreplaceable, unavailable to the average person, so the colonists had to live off the landas best they could. Judging from what she’d already seen in Shuttlefield, utopian political theory had broken down; too many people had come there too quickly, forcing the newcomers to fend for themselves in a feudal hierarchy in which the weak were at the mercy of the strong, and everyone was under the iron heel of the colonial government. Unless she wanted to become a prostitute or live out the rest of her life as a serf, she’d better find a way to survive.
    Allegra came upon a marsh where Japanese bamboo was grown. The most recent crop had already been harvested, its stumps extending for a hundred acres or so, the ground littered with broken shoots. On impulse, she left the path and waded out into the marsh, where she searched the ground until she found a foot-long stalk that was relatively undamaged. Tucking it beneath her arm, she returned to the road.
    It would do for a start. All she needed was a sharp knife.
     
    Liberty was much different than Shuttlefield. The streets were wide and clean, recently paved with gravel, lined on either side by log cabins. There were no hustlers, no kiosks; near the town center, she found small shops, their wares displayed behind glass windows. Yet everyone she passed refused to look her way, save for Proctors in blue uniforms who eyed her with suspicion. When she paused before the open half door of the glassblower’s shop to watch the men inside thrust white-hot rods into the furnace, a blueshirt walked over to tap her on the shoulder, shake his head, and point the way to the community hall. Few words were spoken, yet the message was clear; she was only allowed to pass through on her way to the community hall, and not linger where she didn’t belong.
    Breakfast was a lukewarm porridge containing potatoes and chunks of fish meat; it resembled clam chowder, but tasted like sour milk. The old man who ladled it out in the serving line told her that it was creek crab stew, and she should eat up—it was only a day old. When Allegra asked what was on the menu for dinner, he grinned as he added a slice of stale bread to her plate. More of the same . . . and by then it’d be a day and a half old.
    She found a place at one of the long wooden tables that ran down the length of the community hall and tried not to meet the gaze of any of the others seated nearby, even though she recognized several from the Long Journey . She’d made friends with no one during her passage from Earth, and wasn’t in a hurry to do so now, so she distracted herself by studying an old mural painted on the wall. Rendered in native dyes by an untrained yet talented hand, it depicted the URSS Alabama in orbit above Coyote. Apparently an artifact left behind by