A fourteen year old boy walks out of the rainforest with a bundle of firewood for tonights meal. Wearing a white shirt, light blue shorts, a cap with the Blue Sun logo on it, and bear, muddy feet, he struggles with his load to the village. Primitive looking, the village is made up of makeshift cottages and tents, with one landed trans-U spaceship, from which the settlers arrived from, serving as a townhall and a circular arranged rocks for bonfires. Within the village, people go about doing there chores and businesses. The boy stops by a water pump where his friend is pumping water.

"How's it going Minh? Working hard or hardly working?"

Chi Minh looked up. Of Vietnamese descent, he was thirteen years old, with a brown shirt, camouflage shorts, a tan cowboy hat, and a pair of brown sandals.

"Working hard until I was interupted by you Ten Bear, but now I'm hardly working."

Jonas Ten Bear, of Cherokee descent, scoffed.

"Yeah, cause staring at Maria across the field is really hard work."

Minh grinned. "No, it's just looking at something pretty while working hard." He nodded at the wood. "And hauling those must be back-breaking."

"Nope. Just feet-breaking," Ten Bear retorted while showing his left foot. A slightly swollen area with two bite marks on them were position near the toes.

Minh shuddered. "You should've worn shoes."

"I did. That snake chewed right through it."

"So now you go barefoot after that?"

Ten Bear put his foot back down. "I like the feel of the soft, wet mud on it. It helped the swelling. Especially when it is hot. I swear the farther we are from the core, the hotter it gets."

Minh nodded in agreement. "The people who engineered this planet wanted it to be hard on us. But that makes us tough." bending down and picking up the buckets he added, "Let's go before it's noon. Then it will be really hot."

The two friends walked to the villages, talking about whatever teenagers talk about in the 'verse. They were nea