Sol weighed the food twice and removed the onions.
“That’s a poor beginning,” Jem said.
“They’re heavy.” Sol held up the bag. “We can buy onions at the third transfer point if the station has them. We can’t buy a lighter road.”
Neri took one onion from the bag and put it back into the food crate. “For the first evening.”
Sol considered the addition, then adjusted a packet of dried beans to make room. She was a compact woman with a weathered face and a habit of speaking to equipment as though it had opinions. The pack frames had spent the morning receiving instructions to behave.
Iven checked his tools at the neighboring bench: spanner, hammer, folding gauge, awl, wire, rope and the ordinary brass hook inside his right cuff. He added a small sharpening stone and took out a second length of wire after Sol demonstrated that the first was sufficient for the expected repairs. He had plate brace, spring step and piston strike seated. Before departure he would choose a loadout suited to the road, but he did not expect the same three patterns to answer every problem.
Ruka arrived with a weather report and a length of red cord. “The cord marks the approved route through the grazing ground. Mira’s people use red on the western side and white on the eastern. Don’t assume a white marker belongs to our route.”
