Later, while she was getting ready for bed, Jade contacted Maggie. She hadn’t seen much of her the past week - or Sparrow, or Rachel, for that matter. They were busy with the ruling council, studying the feasibility of setting up a permanent settlement outside the Dome once the Dimmer problem was resolved.
There was still room within the Dome for settlements to the far south, in the tropical areas but most people hadn’t been enthusiastic about going into that region to live due to the adverse conditions. There were uncharted forests and unknown numbers and types of wild animals that had accumulated there over the last two thousand years.
Someday, someone would want to develop that area but not now. Not when there may now be easier pickings right outside the Dome. And just getting out of the Dome was something a lot of people wanted to do. Just to no longer be caged was enough reason.
Some citizens were clamoring for staking out areas, and some adventuresome souls wanted to begin explorations onto the other continent of Boucher’s World. The largest obstacle of course, was the fact that there was, so far, only one way in and out of the Dome, and it was a real challenge just getting materials out to the camps. Everyone knew this was something that would be done slowly.
asked Jade. She knew Maggie had been taking some “down” time in her tent today, even having her meals brought to her.
She was annoyed. Why couldn’t people just do what they had agreed to do? It would certainly make life a lot easier.
She gave a wry chuckle. and she sent Maggie the image of the looks on the faces of the three men as she lifted off outside the mess tent.
Maggie laughed.
She had started to tell Maggie about the uneasy feeling she’d gotten about Montford, but decided against it. After all, it was just a feeling, nothing focused.
At some point, when she got the chance, she was going to ask Sparrow or Lark, about these impressions she’d been getting from people lately. They were not thoughts - it was more as if she was feeling their emotions, or in some cases, especially with Kendis, and Maggie, feeling exactly what they were feeling. She tried to recall just when that had started happening and remembered: the first day they had arrived at the ship.
She had felt her mother’s emotions about her having fallen through that bridge, and felt how terrified and sick her mother felt, how disappointed she’d felt at not being told about the accident, and how relieved she was that Jade hadn’t been seriously injured. Yes, that had been the first time.
It had given her a whole different perspective on their mother/daughter relationship. She understood why, too. When you can feel how your actions are affecting someone else, actually literally stand in their heart, feeling exactly what they are feeling, you tend to be just a little more solicitous of them.
The impressions she’d gotten from Montford though, didn’t make her want to be nice to him. She still couldn’t quite tell what it was but she knew she didn’t particularly want to be around him.
She felt Kendis coming back from his shower and everything else got shoved to the back of her mind.
He came through the tent entrance smiling, and from the look in his eyes, she knew she was going to get another lesson. She grinned.