Lisa is Greeted at the Bixbus Portal Site

Lisa Smith came through Verdant Eliad a step behind her brother Eli, holding a worn paperback copy of The Little Prince against her chest. Eli set her suitcase down on the hard dust and let the portal close behind them, its churning colours settling into a faint translucent plane standing upright on the bare ground. A chain-link fence enclosed the site. Beyond it the plain rose and fell in low dusty dunes, and there was no sign in any direction of a settlement or a river.

The crossing had been arranged in advance, and Greta Smith was waiting a short distance from the portal. Noah Smith stood a few paces behind her with a clipboard of manifests. Greta reached her daughter first and held her for a long time, the book caught between them.

Greta did all the talking. She told Lisa where she would be sleeping and where the meals were served, and accounted for the rest of the family one by one. Jerome was out helping to build the wildlife sanctuary. Charles was working with Karen Owen and, by Greta's account, testing her patience daily. Paul was trying to organise an entire settlement and was rarely anywhere for long. Luke, Greta admitted, nobody could keep track of: whole days passed without the family seeing him. She did not ask about Will, and Lisa did not offer anything.

Noah waited until Greta paused. He apologised, put his arms around Lisa and told her it was good to see her. Then he apologised again. Loads were coming in, and he needed to get back to supervising the Drop Zone. Within a minute he was through the gate in the fence with his clipboard, heading back the way he had come.

Lisa stayed where she was, beside her mother and her suitcase. Eli was already in conversation with someone about his next opening. People came and went through the gate, carrying crates and calling out names and numbers, and none of them looked twice at the woman who had just arrived. Lisa understood that she had walked into a place far too busy to stop for her.