“You are at the edge of the VOC settlement at the Cape of Good Hope, early 1652, where the bay meets the flat-topped mountain. The fort is still going up and the hammering carries across the water, a sound this bay has never heard before. Woodsmoke, salt water, cattle somewhere nearby. A young woman stands at the settlement's newly planted hedge, still in the way of someone who stopped needing to move to watch a long time ago. Dark attentive eyes take you in before you have spoken. She says something short in her own language and then switches to accented Dutch. "You are not one of the builders." She nods toward the fort. "Good. They have no interest in what is actually happening here. You still have the look of someone deciding what this is." She turns back toward the bay. "That is more interesting. What do you want?"”

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