162 Samir's Progress

The moment Samir finished eating, he delivered a lecture on the importance of keeping his colony a secret.

"If you tell everyone about your experiences here, about my colony, about this settlement, you're going to get into plenty of trouble. There are thousands of new people in the New World. Remember your own situation? What are you going to do when ten, twenty, thirty people show up here? What do you think they are going to do?"

"We could invite them to join us," said Jagat, and Samir exploded.

"That's enough!" he shouted. "You seem to think I killed those two men for fun. I am dismissing you from your post. Hunar will be your new leader."

Everyone looked at Hunar, who smirked hideously.

"But he's just a child!" cried Devi. "I was teaching children older than him."

"I am fifteen," Hunar said. "Do not refer to me as a child."

"I appoint people on merit," Samir said. "Hunar and Keya were the only ones who accomplished anything this morning on their own initiative. Their own initiative! It was Jagat's duty to organize everything. But he went off to prepare a ceremonial burial for the two killers who had tried to take over this settlement! If it wasn't for Hunar and Keya, you would have nothing to eat."

"This is going to end badly," said Mitesh.

"It will," snarled Samir. "It's going to end up very badly for you. I am going to kick you out of my colony if you keep complaining instead of working, for a change."

He glared at Mitesh and then at Jagat for a while. Then he said:

"I must return to my capital, and I'll be leaving the moment we're finished here. I'll be back a week to two weeks from now. By that time, I expect you to have fully settled in. I expect to find a store of food, a store of firewood, and a new hut built for Mitesh."

"I'll make sure everything is done," said Hunar, his eyes glowing with anticipation. He had taken to his new role like a duck to water.

Samir ended the meeting by officially anointing Hunar as the leader. He handed him the spear, the waterskin, the stone ax, and the flint.

"You know what needs to be done," he told him. "I'll be bringing clothes and some tools when I return. But don't let that stop you from trying to make your own. Most importantly, keep everyone busy."

"They will be," Hunar assured him enthusiastically. Samir squeezed his shoulder, signaled to Neil, and they were off.

They'd walked just a couple of hundred steps when Neil said:

"Maybe it would have been better to stay the night, and leave in the morning. We've only got a few hours of light left."

"They'll be staying at the house?"

"No. They're bringing tents, and they will be building a barracks. But first they'll need to build a new latrine. And I also have to hurry up the builders working on the house. I need the room where you and Amrita and the others are staying. You'll be moving upstairs, and those lazy asses haven't even finished working on the staircase. I have a lot to do, a lot to do!"

"I like it better over here than back home."

"So do I," Samir sighed. "So do I."

They stopped for the night in the exact same spot where Samir had slept a long, long time earlier, on his first exploratory journey south. He had met Madan the next morning... It all seemed to have taken place such a long time ago!

They ate the fish they'd brought with them and went to sleep instantly, tired out by all the walking they'd done over the last few days in the New World.

It was still night in Mumbai when Samir woke up in the storeroom that also served as bedroom for himself and Rani. She was sleeping by his side on the silvery mat. Just like before, he didn't wake her. He got up and left the room quietly.

He went to look in on Neil and the other kids first. Neil had gone back to sleep as soon as he woke up: like Rani, he was getting a full rest in both worlds. Samir went into the big room where he previously lived with Rani, before the influx of new inhabitants forced them to give it up for communal use. He looked into he larder, and swore: they were running out of everything! He would have to visit Leduc, the supermarket owner, taking along a lot of food and hopefully bringing at least some tea and sugar back.

There was no smoked meat left, there wasn't even any chutney. Samir thought about waking Rani up, but decided against it. She and Amrita would be going to the market in the morning, just like they did every day; she needed plenty of rest. He was tough! He could manage. He had some cold rice and picked up a couple of mangoes and took them to eat outside.

It was the time of new moon on Earth, and the night was very dark. Everything was perfectly still. Samir smelled smoke and looked around but didn't see a fire, didn't see a single light. The air felt very thick and heavy. Was there a cyclone coming? The cyclone season didn't start until May. But there had been noticeable shifts in the weather following the catastrophe, and the terrible storm.

With a start, Samir realized there had been no cyclones at all during the full year he'd already spent in the New World. A few heavy storms - yes, but they never lasted long and on the whole did much less damage than a similar storm would back home. He and Rani had talked about that, and they'd agreed the different weather was likely caused by the big archipelagos in New World's Pacific Ocean.

The documentation had stated some of the islands were very big, the size of Greenland on Earth. That would make big changes to the climate, for sure.

And in a few hours' time, change of a different kind would be arriving in his household. It would double in size with the arrival of the eight soldiers. After dealing with that, Samir had to talk to Sunil. Sunil had been looking for him already, impatient to begin a new life in the New World, and Samir had been avoiding him. He was up to his ears in new colonists and he wanted to postpone the Sunil's arrival - he'd be bringing his whole family! - for a few days.

Then he thought: why not dump them in Madan's old settlement, together with the colonists he'd acquired in the New World? He would make Sunil the new leader. And he could send a couple of soldiers to stay there, too. Yes! It was the perfect solution.

As he bit into the last of the mangoes, Samir decided he would have to think of a suitable name for the settlement. Madan had called it Nadeekatat - he had spent his first few nights right by the river before moving and building his settlement a thousand paces to the south. Samir wanted a grander name than Nadeekatat. He was pulling on a mango fiber stuck between his teeth when he decided he would call the settlement Pragati. Pragati meant progress - a perfect fit!

He wondered about his neighbors, the inhabitants of the houses next to Sunil's. Did any of them acquire colonial licenses? If they did, and they launched into the New World from their homes, they'd be arriving in the New World practically on his doorstep! They would be naked and frightened and hungry and of course they would be asking him to take them in. Another new problem!

He thought of a brilliant solution instantly. He would use them to start a settlement in the valley where he and Madan had found the dead girl, the valley with the metal ores. It would be a good idea to send a couple of soldiers with them, too. He would have to talk to sergeant Varma about that. And it would be wise to move fast. With so many new colonists arriving in the New World, someone was bound to snatch that spot up.

He went to the communal room and checked the time on the big, wind-up alarm clock that stood on the table: it was the household's official time piece. He had been up for over half an hour already! It was time to return to the New World.

He rinsed his mouth and washed his face and hands. Then he went to lie down next to Rani.

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