everything. I decided I sort of liked the food, even if it was weird. They told us we could eat as much as we wanted, so I went back for seconds and thirdsâuntil I had tasted everything. Real sausage and real jelly and real syrup on real pancakes, so that sort of made up for the lumpy beds.
After that, we were supposed to go on a walking tour of Callo City with Birdie, but everybody had to wait until Nona and I threw up. Klin started to laugh at us, but he stopped when his stomach started to hurt. That was because Big Jesâ elbow bumped into it a little.
The real Callo City on Linnea was a lot bigger than this, but there was only room in the training dome for a partial reconstruction. Most of the important places were recreated here, because we would need to be familiar with them. The Boffili Hotel was built along the northwest wall, which was called Immigrantâs Corner. Southeast of that was Merchantâs Circle. Long Avenue stretched diagonally between them, and most of the hotels and businesses along it were nearly-exact duplicates of their counterparts on Linnea. Any Linnean passing through Callo City would have traveled up âImmigration Alley.â When we crossed over, we would have the same experience as the real Linneans.
The city was up on a hill because during winter, the snow sometimes got piled as high as ten meters. And during the spring thaw, the flood waters could be as tall as a great-horse. So settlements had to be on high ground. But also, the high vantage gave the people who lived there a good lookout for range fires, boffili stampedes, kacks, bandits, tornados, hurricane storms and other dangers.
All the buildings in Callo City were built on high foundations, and they had steep roofs slanting down into deep trenches. This was so that snow couldnât pile up too deep, and when it slid down, it wouldnât block
the streets. Later, when it melted, it would fill the water tanks and canals under the buildings, or it would run off down the slope into the lake. Most of the buildings had covered arcades along their sides, again with steep slanted roofs. Lorrin explained that this was so that when the winter snows came, the people would still have clear walkways.
They hadnât simulated winter in Linnea Dome yet, because the dome was still too new, but they were talking about having one in the next year or so, certainly before we crossed over. And it wasnât just to test us. The Linnean ecology depended on regular freezing and flooding, so they had to schedule floods or the forests would suffer, and the animals that lived in them too.
There were already lots of boffili and bunny-deer and kacks living in Linnea Dome, except the kacks werenât running free yet. For now, the kacks were living in a long canyon with rocky walls too steep for them to climb. Birdie said there was a plan that someday the kacks would roam free in the northern ranges of the dome, so they could feed on the herds of bunny-deer when they started to get too big. Da asked if that might not be a problem for humans, but Birdie said that all the kacks were implanted; if they got too close to a great-horse or a human, they would be automatically stunned. The techs were sure that this would work, but nobody was in any great rush to test it yet. Linnea Dome was still too new. And the kacks were awfully big.
All of the people and all of the great-horses in Linnea Dome were also implanted, so everybodyâs health and location could be monitored constantly. Even though the dome was supposed to be a perfect duplicate of Linnea for training colonists, it was also a laboratory for studying how this part of that world worked, so they were always tinkering and measuring and monitoring.
There were spybirds overhead all the time; we couldnât see them, but weâd been told; and I was pretty sure there were wabbits in the underbrush as well, though we never really saw them either. Sometimes weâd see
After that, we were supposed to go on a walking tour of Callo City with Birdie, but everybody had to wait until Nona and I threw up. Klin started to laugh at us, but he stopped when his stomach started to hurt. That was because Big Jesâ elbow bumped into it a little.
The real Callo City on Linnea was a lot bigger than this, but there was only room in the training dome for a partial reconstruction. Most of the important places were recreated here, because we would need to be familiar with them. The Boffili Hotel was built along the northwest wall, which was called Immigrantâs Corner. Southeast of that was Merchantâs Circle. Long Avenue stretched diagonally between them, and most of the hotels and businesses along it were nearly-exact duplicates of their counterparts on Linnea. Any Linnean passing through Callo City would have traveled up âImmigration Alley.â When we crossed over, we would have the same experience as the real Linneans.
The city was up on a hill because during winter, the snow sometimes got piled as high as ten meters. And during the spring thaw, the flood waters could be as tall as a great-horse. So settlements had to be on high ground. But also, the high vantage gave the people who lived there a good lookout for range fires, boffili stampedes, kacks, bandits, tornados, hurricane storms and other dangers.
All the buildings in Callo City were built on high foundations, and they had steep roofs slanting down into deep trenches. This was so that snow couldnât pile up too deep, and when it slid down, it wouldnât block
the streets. Later, when it melted, it would fill the water tanks and canals under the buildings, or it would run off down the slope into the lake. Most of the buildings had covered arcades along their sides, again with steep slanted roofs. Lorrin explained that this was so that when the winter snows came, the people would still have clear walkways.
They hadnât simulated winter in Linnea Dome yet, because the dome was still too new, but they were talking about having one in the next year or so, certainly before we crossed over. And it wasnât just to test us. The Linnean ecology depended on regular freezing and flooding, so they had to schedule floods or the forests would suffer, and the animals that lived in them too.
There were already lots of boffili and bunny-deer and kacks living in Linnea Dome, except the kacks werenât running free yet. For now, the kacks were living in a long canyon with rocky walls too steep for them to climb. Birdie said there was a plan that someday the kacks would roam free in the northern ranges of the dome, so they could feed on the herds of bunny-deer when they started to get too big. Da asked if that might not be a problem for humans, but Birdie said that all the kacks were implanted; if they got too close to a great-horse or a human, they would be automatically stunned. The techs were sure that this would work, but nobody was in any great rush to test it yet. Linnea Dome was still too new. And the kacks were awfully big.
All of the people and all of the great-horses in Linnea Dome were also implanted, so everybodyâs health and location could be monitored constantly. Even though the dome was supposed to be a perfect duplicate of Linnea for training colonists, it was also a laboratory for studying how this part of that world worked, so they were always tinkering and measuring and monitoring.
There were spybirds overhead all the time; we couldnât see them, but weâd been told; and I was pretty sure there were wabbits in the underbrush as well, though we never really saw them either. Sometimes weâd see
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