Thursday 1 January 2015

New Year, new world

Governor Linh hadn’t planned to make New Year’s a big deal. After all, the colony had only been running a hundred and twenty-two days. She was saving the last bottle of old Earth champagne for the first anniversary. But enough of the travellers wanted to celebrate it, and they were prepared to trust Murray’s still to provide something slightly alcoholic that wouldn’t strike them blind.

“Midnight” was kind of academic on a planet with two stars close enough you could read by them at any time of the twenty-seven-and-change hourly cycle, so they went with midnight at launch point.

Someone started up Auld Lang Syne, even getting the words right. Near enough, anyway.

They shared transmissions from home, sent before Christmas to make it all the way out.

The governor looked at the staging platforms. By the end of year one the first ship would be on its way to the next step. Who would still be here come another New Year?

So much could happen in a year...

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