Chapter 3
Sold
The bay doors opened, and the planet, although small, loomed in front of them. Their flight passed mostly in silence. She spent the time in quiet introspection, while also wiping her sweaty palms on her skirt. At one point her father noted, “You do know that if you’re sold, it will be one solar year before we return.”
“Yes, I know.”
She stared out of the porthole as the shuttle circled over the patch that gradually revealed itself to be a village consisting mostly of one-story buildings of stone or wood, and with thatched roofs. In the center of town was a cleared area, and already the circumference was being ringed with individuals. Some of those people would be bidding on her, hopefully. But most were attending to watch and stare.
Her father gradually brought the shut
