More and more, the Navajos included us in. All of us were Dinneh, George said-we were all "the people."

It was the Russian language that complicated things. Like all Americans, we'd taken Russian in school, and the Russian marines and crew had all taken English, but not many on either side could understand what the other said very well. You had to talk very slowly and keep it simple. Marilyn was an exception. Her MA at the University of New Mexico had been in Native American Languages, but as an undergrad she'd had two years of Russian, on top of the three required years in grade school and a fourth year by choice in high school. So she was our spokesperson with the Russians, who liked her because she used their language so well.

Most of the Russians were all right. Whatever prejudices they had didn't include one against American Indians. But there wasn't anything they could do about too many people in too little space. It was always too hot in the hold. Water was rationed, and there weren't any showers. We could only wash once a day. After a while the holds smelled pretty bad. The food was poor and monotonous, but it nourished us all right, and on two meals a day, fat people lost weight.

To help pass the time, we'd sit in groups and tell stories. People would tell books they'd read, or movies they'd seen, or places they'd been, or they'd make up stories. At first only a few people would tell stories, but pretty soon more and more told them. Also we slept a lot. George set it up so everyone had a chance to do aerobic exercises once a day, in small groups. Most people did them-it was something to do-and it proved to be a good thing. But it did make it hotter in the holds.

Marilyn got to know the marines' liaison officer, a woman lieutenant named Toloconnicov, who gave her a little book about Haven. It frightened Marilyn to read it. It didn't sound as bad as the technical articles had, but I didn't say anything. We'd find out when we got there. It might not be as bad as I expected.

Something more surprising came from her friendship with Lieutenant Toloconnicov. One day the lieutenant gave Marilyn an envelope, and waited while she read what was inside: a formal invitation in English for both of us to have supper with the marine commander, Major Shcherbatov. Marilyn told the lieutenant that we'd like to go, but we hadn't had a shower or washed our clothes for nearly five months. The lieutenant wrote us a permission to use showers in the sickbay, and said there'd be clean clothes for us there.

It felt good to shower and put clean clothes on.

The major had been stationed in eastern Siberia for a couple of years, and gotten interested in the Chukchi people there. From that he'd gotten interested in American Indians, so he had lots of questions about the Navajo. When he learned that not all of us were Navajo, he had questions about the other Apache tribes, and the Chippewa, and Sioux. We had supper with him twice, and talked for about three hours each time.

Marilyn asked him questions about Haven, but he claimed he didn't know much about it. I didn't believe him. He picked up his wine glass when he said it, which kept him from having to look at her. It didn't make me feel any better about what we'd find there.

It took the Makarov more than thirteen months to reach Haven. In that time we received four different series of shots, broad-spectrum vaccines to keep us safe from disease on Haven, as safe as possible. Also, Marilyn gave birth to a boy. We named him Marcel, after my grandfather.

The week before we entered the Byers' System, George said he didn't feel qualified to be chief on Haven, and proposed Tom Spotted Horse, a retired marine master sergeant in his forties. The council agreed, so Tom was our chief. He organized us into squads, platoons, companies, and battalions, and made sure we all knew what we belonged to. We picked our own officers and sergeants. That was tradition, and Tom didn't know most of the people.

A few days before we landed, Lieutenant Toloconnicov gave Marilyn a military topographic map of the district where we were supposed to land. Marilyn let me look at it before she took it to Tom. The latitude was subtropical; on a planet known for its cold climate, that was hopeful. The top half of the map showed the south part of a plateau that broke away into badlands. South of the badlands was a basin with the word desert on it. There were no towns or roads, but the plateau had a few thin broken lines with the words livestock driveway, and across it in large letters, the word KAZAKHS. The Kazakhs, I knew, were a people in Asia, and I remembered reading, years before, that a tribe of Kazakh traditionalists, herdsmen, had gotten the Soviet government to sponsor a Kazakh colony on Haven. This must be where it was.

An X had been marked on the plateau with a marker pen. The only reason I could think of for that was, we were supposed to be put down there. I went with Marilyn and told Tom what I'd made of the map; he listened, and then made me his technical aide.

The next day, forming up to load into the shuttles, most of us were feeling glad to be getting there at last. Even I was. At least I'd know what we were in for. Instead of putting us down where the X was, they put us on a mesa isolated from the plateau by broken lands. Lieutenant Toloconnicov said the major was responsible for that. He believed that if he landed us at the X, the Kazakhs, who were armed, would attack us and make slaves out of the prisoners they took.

Then she marked on the map the mesa she thought we were on. I looked around. The ground cover looked a lot like bunch grass, shin high, with bearded purplish seed heads moving in a light breeze. Low shrubs were scattered around, mostly about knee high and stiff looking. It didn't look too bad.

We were told to unload some cases from the shuttles. Some were labeled rations, some blankets, and some tents. One small heavy case was unmarked. Lieutenant Toloconnicov said the ship's captain was going to keep the stuff, and not give it to us, but the major was in charge of us, and didn't let him. She told us this was all that the government had sent along for us here. She sounded apologetic when she said it.

When all the people and cases were on the ground, Toloconnicov gave Marilyn a package. She told her, "This is a personal gift to you and your husband from Major Shcherbatov. It is not to be opened till we have left." I think the lieutenant knew what it was, but we didn't ask.

On the ground, Tom assigned some people to start opening the cases and counting what was in them. The rations were marine field rations in individual packets, one meal per packet. The blankets were military, too. The tents weren't modern, individual field tents, but old, obsolete squad tents, too heavy to carry. To carry them, we'd have to cut them up, if we could find anything to cut them with.

When the shuttles lifted for the last time, we all stood and watched them get small and disappear. It felt very final. We felt abandoned, which was how we needed to feel. The CoDo Marines had given us every treatment they had to protect us from disease, but the Bureau of Relocation had left us to starve or freeze, or be enslaved.

Tom's supply crew kept opening cases. The unlabeled case solved the problem of now to cut up the tents; it held 500 trench knives in sheaths. Only 500 knives for more than 3,000 people, but we were lucky to have them. Then, privately, Marilyn opened the major's rift package. It held a big, 10 millimeter revolver in a holster, also a cleaning kit, and two boxes of ammunition, 100 rounds in all. That and a little kit for starting fire by compression. She gave the pistol to me.

There we were, 3,600 people, with blankets that still had to be counted, some old tent fabric for shelter, food for a few days, some knives, and one pistol. There was no store to go to.