Very Early Morning — Headwall Station

The sun had barely peeped above the headwall, when Charlie woke. The house was still dark and quiet, as Charlie pulled on some clothes and headed downstairs to the kitchen. The light Rebecca had left on the night before was still burning as he crept in. He took in the scrubbed wooden table in the centre, the gleaming pans hanging from hooks on the rafters and the enormous range still faintly warm from the night before. Everything ready for another day of feeding a house full of hungry mouths.

A voice came from behind him.

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Daan and Marta, the Headwall Stationhands, were waiting for the twelve boys and the Husky family at Theden Spaceport.

Nineteen people, including the drivers Daan and Marta, needed to be distributed between two vehicles. The mathematics of this had been Daan’s problem to solve and he’d solved it incorrectly twice before finally getting it right.

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