"It's really nice!"

When they land, Sasha will be directed to talk to Lev.

He goes where he's directed and doesn't stop himself from looking around. 

All the area around the camp is farmland, with various people intent on agriculture. A variety of children aged between three and maybe ten are playing; a woman is helping one of the older children identify a bug with a book. On the way to Lev's office, he sees a dad comforting a crying baby, some people hauling water to a machine while someone reads to them from Lord of the Rings, and a bunch of people churning butter and making cheese and drying meat while gossiping. 

He really, really hopes they let him stay. He's been hoping they let him stay this entire time but he really, really hopes they let him stay. 

He's left waiting outside Lev's office for a pretty long time. 

He is not going to be anxious about that he is not he is not. Loki was patient and he got batteries out of the toy store and he got them more to read than they'd asked for without increasing their carrying load and he pulled his own weight and he is not going to be anxious about that. 

Eventually the door opens. Lev has a very stressed aura. 

"Hi, I'm Lev. I assume you're Sasha? Sorry for keeping you waiting, I'm really busy."

"Hello. I'm Sasha, yes. Thank you for meeting me at all." 

"Well, we've got to get you a work assignment." Lev's office is full of bookshelves-- mostly economics and survival books, but there's a science fiction and fantasy shelf with a surprisingly complete Orson Scott Card collection. "The way it usually goes is that you work here for a week and if no one has any complaints-- and if you like it here, of course-- then you can stay, and if not you at least got some food and some parasite treatments."

He nods and leans forward. "I don't know how much Loki told you — I can sew, I can read, I was a scout for my old crew —" 

"Loki's very enthusiastic about you, she wants you on her scavenger team. We don't have much need for sewing, there's plenty of clothes in the stores, but reading is always useful."

"Scavenging sounds good, and I don't know what things I can do with reading but I expect I would like most of them." 

"Probably you'd get a turn as a bookreader on one of the teams that has one, but if you're smart enough you might end up switching into medical training later. Right now we need people on"-- he looks at a piece of paper-- "water purification, cooking, goat husbandry--"

"I can cook and I can learn how you do water purification here. Or be on Loki's scavenger team, or some combination of those things. — if I'm on the scavenger team I can copy things from books into the margins of other books and get more information per weight, I was doing that this time —" 

"That's a really good idea." 

"Thank you." 

He's still smiling. 

"If you're a scavenger you're gone one week a month and only have to work thirty hour weeks the rest of the time. I'll put you on cooking for now-- water purification is incredibly boring, and cooking's more flexible-- and as you talk to people and get more of a sense of things you can figure out if there's some other job you want to work and I'll reassign you."

"That sounds great." 

They're keeping him. — he hasn't gone the full week yet, they might still not keep him, but probably they're going to keep him. He can feel his shoulders relaxing. 

"If you need something, you want to write it on the whiteboard outside my office, or put it on a sheet of paper if it's private. Loki grabbed stuff for you, so you can get replacements if any of it is broken, and you can also make requests for things you want, although that's going to depend on how much space we have in the canoes. At some point in the next week you'll want to make an appointment with Rebecca, she's the pharmacist. Your room will be"-- he rustles a paper-- "221, in F block-- I'd let you pick but they're all identical. You can get Loki to show you where things are."

"Thank you." 

His voice is extremely sincere. 

"You might want to check out the library."

"I'll do that. — and copy what I have into the margins of your books, if that's okay?" 

"What you have?"

"...I have a paperback book, I've copied things into the margins to the point where it's getting hard to read, I can copy all of that out?" 

"I can get you paper for that, talk to the librarian. I'll wait to get you assigned to cooking until you're finished with that job?"