eir kindness."

"I'll tell them," the Captain promised. Stoltzfoos hoisted himself to
the wagon seat and reached a hand down to boost his wife up beside him.
Martha Stoltzfoos sat, blushing a bit for having displayed an accidental
inch of black stocking before the ship's officers. She smoothed down her
black skirts and apron, patted the candle-snuffer _Kapp_ into place over
her prayer-covering, and tucked the wool cape around her arms and
shoulders. The world outside, her husband said, was a cold one.

Now in the Stoltzfoos wagon was the final lot of homestead goods with
which these two Amishers would battle the world of Murna. There was the
plow and bags of seed, two crates of nervous chickens; a huge, round
tabletop; an alcohol-burning laboratory incubator, bottles of
agar-powder, and a pressure cooker that could can vegetables as readily
as it could autoclave culture-media. There was a microscope designed to
work by lamplight, as the worldly vanity of electric light would ill
suit an Old Order bacteriologist like Martha Stoltzfoos. Walled in by
all this gear was another passenger due to debark on Murna, snuffling
and grunting with impatience. "_Sei schtill_, Wutzchen," Stoltzfoos
crooned. "You'll be in your home pen soon enough."

The Captain raised his hand. The Engineer punched a button to tongue the
landing ramp out to Murnan earth. Cold air rammed in from the outside
winter. The four horses stomped their hoofs on the floor-plates, their
breath spikes of steam. Wutzchen squealed dismay as the chill hit his
nose.

"We're _reddi far geh_, Captain," Stoltzfoos said. "My woman and I
invite you and your men to feast at our table when you're back in these
parts, five years hence. We'll stuff you fat as sausages with onion
soup and Pannhaas, Knepp and Ebbelkuche, shoo-fly pie and _scharifer_
cider, if the folk here grow apples fit for squeezing."

"You'll have to set up planks outdoors to feed the lot I'll be bringing,
Aaron," the Captain said. "Come five-years' springtime, when I bring
your Amish neighbors out, I'll not forget to have in my pockets a toot
of candy for the little Stoltzes I'll expect to see underfoot." Martha,
whose English was rusty, blushed none the less. Aaron grinned as he
slapped the reins over the rumps of his team. "Giddap!" The cart rumbled
across the deck and down the ramp, onto the soil of Murna. Yonnie, the
Ayrshire bull, tossed his head and sat as the rope tightened on his
noseband. He s