Chapter 56

Dusty’s crew had a lot of fun while she was indisposed.

On the Endeavour, they had stripped out half of a deck of cabins on deck three to fit the extra hardware and stores in. They were leaving half the farming machines and stores for this planet.

The ship was one of the smaller settlement ships and had been designed to sleep four hundred. In fact, all of the ships on the planet were old and of simple design.

The ship had forty cabins in four rows of ten on the three passenger levels. The cabins on the two lower levels had been pokey. Each row had an ablutions block that included laundry faculties between the middle cabins in each row.

The cheap cabins reminded you of simple sleeper or bedette cabins on a train. They had two double-decker bunks in them. The top bed could be folded down to form a couch with the lower bed. The ladder for access to the top beds was on the wall between the bunks. A row of slim shelves was mounted behind the ladder for knick-knacks.

1.5m long storage cupboards were at the door end of the bunks, and there were two deep draws under each bottom bunk. A metre-wide walkway separated the bunks, and they had no other creature comforts other than a small flexible, reading lamp for each bed mounted on the wall behind the ladder.

They could squeeze one hundred and sixty people on each of these levels. The second deck from the top had the same number of cabins, but they had double beds. They were also tight but seemed roomier since they were missing the top bunks.

These rooms had full-height cupboards on each side of the bed and smaller ones that formed an arch over it. These cabins even had a small fold-down table and two fold-up chairs that could be set up beside the doorway.

The better-paying customers were customarily offered the top deck. The sponsored workers got the lower decks. Even the Captains on these tubs got a standard double room.

The crew were always assigned to the ends of the middle deck. Two lounges, a kitchen and a dining room were on the top deck, as was the bridge. The rest of the vessel was taken up with storage, engineering and operation rooms for the ships.

Dusty’s crew had altered the lower two rows of cabins. They stripped out the second set of bunks in the cabins they kept and installed small fold-down tables and chairs instead and added extra cupboard space over them. They now seemed a lot bigger.

They reclaimed one of the lounges since they would have half the passengers and turned it into five staterooms. They were a bit wider than the lower rooms and a lot nicer.

It meant they could only sleep about two hundred and twenty people, but they weren’t planning on it being purely a passage liner. They reclaimed half of one of the dining rooms and put in a stage and a small dance floor, making it a multi-functional space.

They fiddled with the plumbing, the electrics, and you name it, they played with it. The girls even did a bit of decorating to brighten up the plain white walls that were everywhere. They even colour-coded the decks.

The kitchen’s storerooms were renovated and were like the insides of the cubes and could store all the foodstuffs for the passengers. Working together, they even altered the new storerooms on the half of the deck they had reclaimed so they were dimensional spaces.

The ship was ready to go.

Dusty and James blinked to the office in the old ship to find Josh.

He was finishing off compiling the lists of goods he had decided could go onto the settlement ship they were going to use as a freighter. They already had the ship packed, and the other MPs had kept themselves amused fixing it.

“Josh, I’m sorry for what happened with you and Demetri,” Dusty said to him.

Josh grinned at her, “Why?”

“Well, what I did, trying to force you to do something you were uncomfortable with.”

“Did you enjoy the last two days as much as we did?” he asked.

At her frown, he added, “That Pyah is something else. Yesterday, she came to tell Demetri she had dissolved her marriage. We had a lot of fun celebrating her newfound freedom. Thank you for recommending we join up with her.”

“So, you’re not mad at me?” Dusty asked.

Josh shook his head, “No, we did spend a lot of time in bed, but we also had some excellent talks about what we wanted to happen here. Very productive.”

“We have also agreed to open the planet to limited immigration from any of the known planets. For now, we were thinking of only settling the northern continent. What do you think?”

“That sounds reasonable. Your population will grow soon enough. Limited immigration gives you good control of who comes and also helps ensure you don’t overpopulate in the short term and have issues with supply and demand,” Dusty said.

He nodded. “I also gave them Lee’s Charter, and we have agreed that since the people on Sheldon plan to adopt it and the other magical worlds have, we will also abide by it.”

“It will make commerce simpler and less of a burden. It is also very close to what people do here. Pyah and Demetri believe that the other mages will support it, and so far, we have an agreement with most of them.”

“Seems like you have everything under control,” Dusty said and grinned at Josh.

“Well, you did put me in charge. I’ve also sent messages to Major Carmichael and told him we would welcome three more gunships and the associated crews, plus a spare crew. I mentioned that their families are also welcome. That should fill out our little town a bit,” Josh told them.