Chapter 7: New Residences

~~ August - Week 31 ~~

At the beginning of the week, they got their next influx of new residents.

Two families of Pixs and a clan of Prols, all sixteen of them, turned up from the entrance to the plains. Ten of Iain’s cousin’s kids, some by marriage and some by blood all of working age also arrived with Iain on his sailing boat.

It wasn’t long before the new residents were all gainfully employed. Aegeus, the leader of the Prol clan and his four oldest sons and his brother Alum and his two sons, were all soon working for Gavin in the various mines. Aegeus’ wife, Taavi and two of the oldest daughters ended up in the kitchens to Andre and Larry’s delight. Their kitchen hands had a tendency to be made-off with for other jobs.

Aegeus and his family of nine were put into the four-bedroom unit. Alum and his Family of five were happy with a two-bedroom unit as there four boys would all fit happily in one big room and Alum and his wife in the other room. Both families loved all the amenities the humans took for granted, especially the cheap rent and free food.

Alum’s wife Brine looked after the younger children. It soon became apparent to many that teachers and schools were soon going to be an issue. They had a lot more kids running around and new ones on the way. Schools suddenly became an important consideration.

Bentley Voltinay (Historian) and Andy Mc Ray (Linguist) were soon roped into teaching duties for a couple of hours each day in the rec-room. The guys had a ball and said they probably learnt as much from their students as they actually taught them. They also ran adult classes to teach the visitors how to read and speak English, so they could better utilise the services available to them.

As the locals, were naturally bi-lingual the teachers soon found they picked up the new lingo fast. Bentley had even shown them teaching sites they had for other Earth languages. He was amused one evening to find Mik the Russian happily teaching one of Ivan’s female cousins. Going by the interactions, he suspected that wasn’t all he wanted to teach her.

Because of the need for a school, Biscuit and Jim changed the design of the second unit building to include a school on the ground floor. It would have a teacher’s office area, a Day-care centre, a Kindergarten and six classrooms that could comfortably seat twenty kids and room to move.

The top floor would remain four-bedroom, but the second and third floors would all be three-bedroom family units. Everyone endorsed this decision.

Biscuit even designed an auditorium for indoor sports with basketball courts and a pool and several playgrounds suitable for different ages. They would put it in the square they had reserved for the third block of units.

Behind the first two apartment buildings, they would build the same two buildings. The second one would have the High School on the ground floor. A wide nature strip would separate the two sets of units.

Across from those units, Biscuit planed a double sports oval. One side for football and the other with a cricket pitch, both of which got a workout on Sundays once completed. The boys were currently using the middle of the square as their football oval.

Biscuit was amused by how fast the area designated for the ovals were levelled and grassed. The men had even made sure the locker rooms, a kiosk and stands were put in place. She often saw Ben out there happily mowing and tending the fields.

The men now had a three-team competition running for their rugby Leagues games. Tony’s team, The Gladiators, was still top of the ladder. The games were great to watch, and many of the residences made a day of it.

Their new residences were intrigued by the strange games the humans played. Iran and Ivan ended up on Tony’s team. They were bloody good wingers, Tony told Lee one day. Several other cousins also found themselves on the other teams.

Iain’s cousins were a mixed bag. Three of the boys went to construction. One of the boys and two of the girls went to horticulture. One of the boys went to animal husbandry. The other three girls somehow ended up employed by Juanita, Irene and Mik in their stores. Those stores now stayed open for longer hours to everyone’s delight.

Initially, the cousins moved into three of the two-room units. Two units had a couple in one room and one of the boys in the second and the four single girls moved into the third unit.

No one was surprised to find in the weeks to follow that two of the girls moved in with the single guys and Iain’s boys moved in with the now two single girls. Captain Clark was kept busy with his other duties as celebrant.

A few people were curious, however, when one of the couples Heidi and Bray split up. Heidi moved out. She promptly moved in with Mik. Most people knew that they had become close with Mik teaching her Russian and now that she worked for him. They thought that was the reason.

Ivan and Iran found Bray wasn’t particularly upset by the split and had wished Heidi well. They shrugged it off as Bray had a reputation back home of going through the girls.

The Burgis and Pix families seemed to fit in seamlessly in with the humans.

Hue was now spending half his week on the ship and half on the surface.

He had teamed up with Ria to investigate which set of conditions made the best crystals. He had explained to her that Sean didn’t want everyone to know about the crystals. Ria had no problems with this as she was as fascinated by the crystals and the microbes as Hue was.

They needed help with building some Oznglass chambers to grow the crystals in. Ria brought Ed Smiths one of the mechanics of the ship, in to help on the project. The three of them soon worked out a design for the chambers and connection of the cylinders of gas and set of parameters for the experiments.

They needed to work out how to pump the different gas and mineral mixtures into the chambers in the correct doses. They found they had a lot of fun together and would even dine together when on the ship. Hue found his attraction for Ria had grown and he was happiest when with her.

Ria didn’t seem to mind the occasion brush, and he was sure she had deliberately rubbed herself against him on several occasions. Ed was the youngest of the three and a charming wag, as far as Hue was concerned. The guy didn’t have issues with personal space either. On several occasions, Hue was sure he too had deliberately touched him in a very friendly manner.

Ed had no qualms about patting his arse to move him out of his way. He’d even lean on the bench beside Hue so that he touched him and was never first to move away. At first, Hue thought, he was just trying to wind the grumpy old man up.

The time he had leaned over Hue to adjust a valve and rubbed against his backside with his groin had been very deliberate. It wasn’t a quick brush. Ed had pushed his groin into him and moved it up and down as he twisted the valve.

He could have easily asked Hue to move, but he hadn’t. The cheeky grin he gave Hue afterwards told Hue he knew exactly what he was doing. Hue hadn’t been able to move for a while as he had to will his cock back down first.

Hue finally got up the courage to ask Ria if she would like to spend time with him, on a more personal level. As much as he found, that Ed turned him on, he felt it was safer to pursue Ria. She explained to Hue that she liked him, but she was sort of with someone else and told him who.