"Sooner than you think," Max told her. "We've discovered a castaway colony on the planet. They've done our tests for us by just living here. If there's anything here to catch, they've caught it."
"People on Minos?" Bess's handsome ruddy face grew alive with excitement.
"One of them is down in the medical department," June said. "He'll be out in twenty minutes."
"May I go see him?"
"Sure," said Max. "Show him the way to the dining hall when he gets out. Tell him we sent you."
"Right!" She turned and ran down the ramp like a small girl going to a fire. Max grinned at June and she grinned back. After a year and a half of isolation in space, everyone was hungry for the sight of new faces, the sound of unfamiliar voices.
They climbed the last two turns to the cafeteria, and entered to a rich subdued blend of soft music and quiet conversations. The cafeteria was a section of the old dining room, left when the rest of the ship had been converted to living and working quarters, and it still had the original finely grained wood of the ceiling and walls, the sound absorbency, the soft music spools and the intimate small light at each table where people leisurely ate and talked.
They stood in line at the hot foods counter, and behind her June could hear a girl's voice talking excitedly through the murmur of conversation.
"—new man, honest! I saw him through the viewplate when they came in. He's down in the medical department. A real frontiersman."