Mr. Avery continued to point out and explain landmarks as they rode through the city, past houses and businesses, parks, playgrounds, busses, taxis, bicycles, pedestrians and the occasional car.
And even more rare, what could only be a lerkkal. Sherry twisted around in her seat to watch it wheel slowly down the street, turning just like the thing she saw on the side of the road, only slower. And bigger.
"Oh, that's a lerkkal," Mr. Avery said. "You'll see them around most days. There always seem to be a couple around the city, plus the ones who've set up shop." He turned to face forward again, and continued pointing out landmarks.
Sherry watched the lerkkal until they went around a corner, then faced forward again. Just a glimpse, and she didn't think it acted like an animal in the city. She'd seen loads of dogs and cats wandering around Calgary--they skulked, they didn't walk down the sidewalk and have people nod at them.
The taxi pulled up in front of a row of small houses.
"We're here, you can get your bag out."
Sherry started pulling her bags out of the car and put them on the side of the road. Mr. Avery joined her after half a minute and picked up the big bag. "Let's go in, I'll show you to your room, then we can have a cuppa and talk a bit."
The taxi drove away as they started the short walk to the house. Mr. Avery swiped his ID card and pushed the door open and led her up the stairs.
Her new bedroom was half-empty, like somebody had moved out but left some stuff behind. A poster, some books, a trophy.
"We can put that stuff in storage, if you prefer, let you make this your own room. It's our son's room; he's gone off to university on Earth to study physics."
"No university here?"
"Well, there is one, but it's not as good. We just don't have the population to support a really good university on this planet, especially if you're interested in gravitics."
"In what?"
"Beats me, it's some advanced branch of physics. Marty always loses us after about three words. Anyhow, did you want to unpack now, or later?"
"Might as well do it now, I guess." Sherry shrugged and looked around.
"All right. I'll go put some tea on. Anything you'd like to drink? We have apple juice, kerols juice, water, black tea, mixed berry tea, or ensobba tea."
Sherry blinked. "Apple juice, please."
Mr. Avery left, and she heard him walking down the stairs. Sherry sat on the bed and looked around. Not bad; he seemed easy-going, he had a kid older than her... some of her worst families were the ones with younger kids and none near her age. She was either treated like one of the little kids, or like a free babysitter and expected to be a small adult with no rights. The room wasn't huge, but it felt big enough. The window was big, unfortunately, but she could deal with it. The blinds looked like they would block the view pretty well.
Sherry sighed and pulled her big bag toward her. Time to find a place for everything.
#
Mr. Avery sipped his tea, and watched Sherry sit down at the table. He smiled. "That was quick."
"Not a lot to unpack." Sherry shrugged and reached for her drink. "You said you run a publishing house?"
"That's right. I actually took the afternoon off to come pick you up. Susan--my wife--is holding down the fort while I'm gone. It's a good thing it's not a magazine day, or I wouldn't have been able to get away."
"You do magazines?"
"Among other things. We do the printing for a couple of magazines, three monthly and one weekly. When all four come due together it's a nightmare." He smiled. "The rest of the time we have a few books and special orders going, just enough to keep us interested."
Sherry nodded. "I worked on the newsletter on the ship. Weekly."
"What kind of stuff did you do?" Mr. Avery leaned forward.
"A bunch of different stuff. An introduction to Velfard, coverage of what different clubs were up to, a description of the lerkkal."
"Quite a variety. Are you interested in the publishing side of things, or just the writing?"
Right, the teachers wouldn't have told him she got in trouble for that last newsletter. "Well, clipping newsletters together by hand is boring, but the rest of it is ok."
Mr. Avery laughed. "I bet. Well, if you're interested in helping out after school, you're welcome to come by. We have machines to do the binding for us."
#
Sherry followed Mr. Avery back into the house.
"Hello? Sean? Do you have--oh, hello, you must be Sherry," A lady with reddish-brown hair appeared at the top of the stairs. "How was your trip?"
"It was fine, Mrs. Avery."
"Oh, call me Sue. 'Mrs. Avery' is too long, for the amount we'll see each other." She smiled. "Has Sean been giving you the grand tour?"
"I guess so, Mrs--ah, Sue. I still don't really have a good idea of where everything is though."
"It'll come, don't worry. This place is laid out in a tremendously logical way. It's deadly boring, but at least it's easy to find any address."
Sherry smiled nervously, not sure what to say.
"We also checked her in at the school, and got the bus schedule. Do you remember how to tell the door who to let in?"
Sue shook her head. "No, Marty always did that. We'll have to call a locksmith."
"I'm sure I can figure it out," Sean said.
"Just don't get us all locked out like you did last time you tried to fix the lock."
"Hey, I'm not going to be taking it apart this time."
Sue smiled, and said nothing.
"In the meantime, what's for dinner?"
"Shizu and pasta, I think. Oh, Sherry, you aren't a vegetarian are you?"
"No."
"Oh good. I'm never really sure how to cook for vegetarians." She jogged down the stairs and followed Sean and Sherry into the kitchen.
Sherry hugged her bookreader as she walked down the busy hall, trying to remember which classroom she was supposed to go to. She read the room numbers as she passed them, counting down to the one she wanted.
There were a few familiar faces in the room when she finally found it. Michi, Vic, a few others she had never asked for their names, all from the same class on the ship.
"Good morning, class," the teacher said as Sherry sat down. "As you've probably noticed, we have a few new students today. They all just moved here from Earth, so if you see them looking lost, offer to help, ok?"
Michi smiled, and looked around. Most of the students were looking at them curiously.
"To the new kids--if you have any questions, feel free to ask me after class. If you find we're ahead or behind of what you've already done so far, again please let me know. I can give you extra help if you haven't done some of the material we've already covered."
Sherry and the other kids she recognised from the transport nodded.
"Let's get started then. Everybody get out yesterday's notes, we'll discuss the reading assignment. New kids, get a copy of yesterday's notes from one of your neighbours and follow along. We're doing a unit on geology right now, both Earth and Velfard, since rocks are rocks anywhere." He smiled.
#
"Well, that was different." Shannon frowned as they walked out do class.
Michi laughed. "You believed the history teacher on the ship, didn't you?"
"I had no reason not to." She glared at Michi.
"No, they never said anything about this side of the story, did they," Michi said. "I wonder how Kara is reacting? She was really convinced, even before they started teaching us all that garbage."
"I don't know. The teacher did say that some people want to believe there one intelligent aliens out there somewhere they'll ignore everything that doesn't agree with them."
"Did you not see the pictures of their cities? They built those, you gotta be smart to build something like that."
"Yeah, filthy shelters, a lot that looked like they were about to collapse."
"Held together with twisted fiber rope, and waterproofed with boiled tree sap and fish oil. And don't you remember from medieval history, humans lived in far dirtier towns. Would you call them animals?"
"They sure weren't very smart though. They kept getting sick because they were so filthy."
Sherry interrupted. "That's because they hadn't learned about hygiene yet. That's ignorance, not stupidity."
"What Sherry said. And the lerkkal were well on their way to building their own industry when we showed up."
"Ok, now you're just repeating what the teacher said in class."
Michi shrugged, and Sherry said, "Well, there are lerkkal in the city, some run their own shops. And do quite well, the Averys told me."
"Really? I'll have to check them out." Victor looked across the group. "Did they say where they were?"
"No. I bet anybody who lives here knows, though. I mean, who's lived here longer than us."
"So do we have all our classes together or something?" Shannon said.
"Probably. It's not a very big school, and we were all in the same classes on the ship. So what are you guys doing after school?"
"Exploring. You?" Victor said.
"No idea," Shannon said at the same time.
"Going to the Avery's shop. I might work there after school," Sherry said a second later.
"Hey, we should all go explore together," Michi said. "I was going to do that too."
"Sure. Want to come, Shannon?"
#
Sherry checked the name and address on her bookreader's screen against the building in front of her before walking in. A soft beep came through the door to the back, and she heard Sean say "I'll be right there!"
"It's Sherry," she said.
The reception desk had a computer and a few pamphlets on it, and not much else. It looked like it was there for show.
"Oh, come right into the back, Sherry."
She went around the desk and pushed the door open the rest of the way.
Sean looked up from his computer, and smiled. "How was school?"
"Not bad. I'm in the same classes as a bunch of my friends from the ship."
"Great. So, do you want the grand tour? Sue! Sherry's here!"
"Hi Sherry!" Sue called down the stairs. "Come on up. Sean's busy with billing, but I'm babysitting the copier, which is slightly more interesting."
Sherry sighed and started up the stairs. She must have come on a slow day. At least they should be able to show her around. If it were a busy day they'd be, well, too busy.
"There's not much to see, really," Sue started as soon as Sherry could see what was up the stairs. "You saw the front desk when you came in, and where orders are stored before they're picked up. This is where the layout and printing is done."
Sherry looked around, her attention drawn to the machine straps in blank paper in one end and spitting out thin bound booklets on the other.
"Sure beats clipping pages together by hand," Sherry said.
Sue laughed. "Did Sean tell you the real reason he asked you to come here?"
"No, but I can guess. You want a helper?"
"Yeah. We can't afford to hire someone full time, and what we can squeeze out for a part-timer is too low to attract anybody with the skills we need." Sue sighed. "The joys of running your own business."
"What kind of stuff do you need?"
#
Sherry helped herself to some meat. "You called this ikksa?"
"Yep." Sean swallowed. "Tastes like chicken."
Sue swatted at him. "It does not."
"Yeah, but everybody likes chicken. If I say that, they're more likely to actually try it."
Sue sighed. "And you've had chicken how many times exactly?"
"Three times. Deeee-lish."
"Three?" Sherry said before she could stop herself.
"Yeah. It's pretty rare. We don't want our animals to kill theirs off like what happened in New Zealand and Zhenchou colony, so we don't bring any in without strict controls." He shrugged and took another bite of his ikksa. "So basically, the big animals that are easy to count and easy to pen up, like cows, get to come here, while the small animals that are easy to lose, like cats and dogs and chickens, don't."
Sherry tasted her ikksa. A little chewy, a little fishy, very tasty, and not at all like chicken.
"Who named the ikksa? And the... whatever we had last night."
"Shizu. The lerkkal did. Velfard officially adopted their names for things as the common names not long after we found out they were very intelligent. You'll find a lot of stuff in the grocery stores with lerkkal names. Just ask the storekeeper what they are, what they're like, if your ever go to buy yourself a snack."