Chapter 1

It was to be the trip of a lifetime for the girls. The three teenaged Montford sisters had asked for a visit to the planet Rehome, where a human colony had been established for several years.

The reason for their interest in the planet lay with a former teacher at their school; a young man not long qualified as a teacher of social studies, Trevor Defreitas. He had spent less than a year at the school before telling his pupils that as his parents were dead, having died in a car crash some years back, he was restless, ambitious for change. As Mr Defreitas was an only child, he fancied moving to the first human colony on planet Rehome, where he considered that the career prospects for advancement were much better than on Earth. Annabel, the eldest Montford sister, was in his class and so knew most about him.

In the course of his Internet investigation of the colony and the planet, he had passed on a certain amount of his findings to his pupils. He showed them images of wide-open spaces, expansive forests, and even an abandoned alien city which humans were started to occupy. He had discovered that there were opportunities for teachers, but his queries about social studies revealed to him that his specialisation was non-existent there. The academic subject "Social Studies" related to human interactions on Earth, with all the connotations of religion, politics, economics, population dynamics, entertainment, and a thousand other matters that either did not exist there, or have any relevance within the brash new colony.

He told the teenagers of his disappointment. "My specialist occupation is aimed at enabling you young people to function properly in the society that we have in this and other countries of Earth. Unfortunately, the colony on Rehome is not like society on Earth. I have found that they have only one religion, which is an amalgam from many religions of all aspects of the Biblical dictum, "Love thy neighbour as thyself", also known as "The Golden Rule". If you want to look up the source of that phrase, it appears at least three times in the Bible. Find out where these are, and the context, if only for your own elucidation.

The colonists have a scattered population which is mostly agrarian – you should all know that agrarian means an agricultural economy – with the exception of the city of Metropolis. That city houses the headquarters of the Colony administration, and offers facilities such as hospital, schools, community and sports centre, swimming pool, and other supposed essentials of an urban community.

There are other aspects of this community that are truly unique. May I remind you that the word "unique" correctly means "one, and one only; it does NOT mean "rare" – a wrong connotation (a meaning associated with a word) that happens only too frequently. The Colony has very few formal laws, and what there are, mostly are concerned with people getting along together. Even criminal law is settled by local juries deciding what the evidence says, taking into consideration their local knowledge of the accused and victim. It works on establishing the facts, rather than legal niceties. Lawyers are present only to offer legal advice to the jurors. The jurors can even quiz the witnesses, in order to clarify what is being attested.

There is no financial system as such: they have a central bank that deals with accounts for all the citizens, using their own Rehome dollars that match the US dollars in exchange value. The bank offers loans to its account holders at a rate just half a percent above the interest rate it pays on bank accounts held. Apparently the bank is constituted on the basis of community help, rather than profit. It is not allowed to gamble with the client assets. It has similarities with the self-help finance idea called Credit Unions – you should look that up and learn what that concept attempts to achieve."

He went on, "It thus appears that if I emigrated, I would not be able to teach my chosen subject. I might be able to teach in a rural school as an all-subjects teacher. It seems that villages have non-specialist teachers who have to cover the whole curriculum for a wide range of pupil ages. Sounds tough! Who would want to be a teacher, I ask the world?

Anyway, if I go, I have a choice of being a generalist teacher or taking up farming. Anyone taking on a plot to farm gets a certain amount of land for free, and help in building a house. I haven't decided what I should do, but I am attracted to this colony's social concepts. Whether their ideals work in practice, I have yet to discover. Very few nations or social structures manage to adhere to their founding principles for very long, as human history shows us. That topic would make a fine project for your next teacher to work with you in investigating. You might care to mention it to him or her.

I see that I am already talking as if I am going. My subconscious obviously thinks so. However, let us return to today's topic: entertainment as a social leveller. Name me a renowned world star who started out in poverty in London."

Their restless teacher made further enquiries of the colony, and found that they were urgently looking for further teachers to serve rural schools in the expanding outlying settlements of the colony. In order to attract suitable teachers, they were currently offering a housing plot with land near the settlement, and a house built beforehand, ready to move into when the teacher brought or bought his furniture. He was amazed and gratified, he told his students, to find that his own personal furniture would be transported to the new planet for free, if he took the job.

A few months later, he was gone from the school, having accepted a teaching post on Rehome at a similar nominal remuneration to his salary on Earth. The effective value of the salary was boosted by there being no income taxes. Once settled in, he sent back a few messages to the school, encouraging them to work hard, and telling of his experiences in getting used to life in the new settlement. He made the place sound attractive.

Then the sisters heard of tourist trips to the planet Rehome being started up. This sounded great, but they assumed they could not afford to visit another planet, not all three of them, so the idea was shelved. Annabel finished her final year and left school to consider her future studies.

Then their father, George, had a windfall. He won tens of thousands of dollars in a lottery, from a single ticket purchased on a whim. Delighted with his success, he asked each of his family what they might like as a special treat. The three girls said, "A trip to Rehome! We could call in and visit Mr Defreitas, who is living and teaching there."

Their father was happy to accommodate their wishes, once he found that it was an official guided tour, organised through the colony administration. Sit was also less expensive than they had assumed. Apparently it was being subsidized to act as publicity for the Colony's attractions. So Annabel (18), Tracy(16), and Dinah(15), were granted their wish, and started planning their expedition.

Annabel, the eldest sister, a statuesque lady already, with an attractive and vivacious personality, had to fend off men much older than herself, but she was effective at deterring them politely. The younger males were too overawed to bother her. She had successfully completed her schooling with good results, but had yet to apply for a university place.

Tracy, the middle girl, had also early inherited their mother's prominent bosom, and was a combination of serious and flirty as she developed into another attractive woman. She was desperate to leave school and embark on the high life as she saw it. Seeking this perceived high life, Tracy was toying with several career possibilities. Most of these required a university degree at the start, which bugged her, but she was beginning to accept that good jobs required good education as a starting point.

The youngest, Dinah, still growing, had recently seen her bust expand in size, but was still coming to terms with an obvious future as a lovely woman. She hankered to continue the carefree lifestyle of a boisterous teenager for a little longer, while becoming aware that she had obligations, to herself and her future. She would have to be a conscientious young woman preparing for a career; and eventually marriage and motherhood. She had as yet made no decision about what career she would aim for. There was time for that momentous decision later; there were more school terms yet to endure.

In their tour application, they mentioned their former teacher and asked if his village could be included in the itinery, specially for them. The travel company passed on this query to Rehome, and eventually were told that such a diversion was indeed possible, and the travel authorities had sanctioned it. A guide would escort them there, to ensure they did not get lost. It was the perfect answer to their desires. The whole escapade was something they could talk about for years afterwards at every social occasion.

Their parents, the indulgent George and the organised Marina, almost tearfully saw them off at the airport, as their "little girls" went off to explore a new world. Their plane would land them at Montreal airport, near to their continent's Landership arrival and departure site. That location was on the St. Lawrence river where it widened out to the expansive Lake Saint-Louis. This lake provided the Landerships with adequate distance for take-offs and landings on water, and offered sufficient space to reduce security concerns. Some humans still did not accept machine intelligences, albeit as an integral part of a spaceship.

The passengers boarded the Landership, a space vehicle similar in size to a jumbo jet aircraft. It held seating for a dozen humans in this configuration. Previously, most Landerships had carried cargo – with colonists counted as cargo, and so more crammed together in the seating arrangements - rather than valued tourists with high expectations. Now, with the tourism trade supplementing colonists, more Landerships from the extensive Personalia fleet had been pressed into service as passenger transports between Earth's surface and the interstellar mother ships in orbit.

Each immense mother ship had only a tiny proportion of its structure available for passengers. Each could accommodate a hundred or so humans between Earth and Rehome. This trip was entirely a tourist journey commissioned by the travel company in association with the Colony's administrators. After arrival in orbit, and transferring to the kilometres-long mothership, this tour group joined others already aboard. When the passenger complement was full, the interstellar ship went into its prepared "passenger speech": "Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Space. The vessel you are aboard is me. I am the entire ship, just as you are not just your brain: you are your entire body.

I am transporting you to the planet Rehome: think of it as you being made comfortable in a pocket of my clothes: I have BIG pockets, but my total size is very large: several kilometres in length! I often carry cargo, usually packages stacked in my pocket, though at times I can carry bulky items strapped to the outside of my hull - my skin, you might say, like you carrying a rucksack on your back.

Your seats are magnetically fixed to the floor, and are quite secure. We incorporated seat belts for your convenience and reassurance, though it is unlikely that you will feel any unusual movement. Our trip will be a smooth acceleration out of orbit, to a position where we can enter what we call "subspace". This is an all-pervasive region of dark energy which cannot be seen in normal space. As we are not part of that subspace, it is in its nature to reject us, so what we do is give it a location where it should eject us. As soon as we enter subspace, it will throw us out again at the chosen location, which in your case is near the planet Rehome. Simple, isn't it, folks?

When we arrive in normal space again, it is simply a matter of adjusting our speed and direction, and thus go into orbit around Rehome. A Landership will deliver you to the surface, in exactly the same way as what happened from Earth, but in reverse. Your landing site is on the water by a beach next to the city of Metropolis.

For those of you who have not fully studied your briefing documents, Metropolis is a city originally built by two biological races called Braalians and Lubarians. They had started to colonise the planet, and built six standardised cities on the coast of the main continent. A few years back, there was an attempted attack on the planet by a race we call "The Invaders" – a spaceship race of machine intelligences, but one inimical to biological lifeforms. WE, on the other hand, are the friends of humanity.

That Invader attack was fought off, successfully, by their allied intelligent spaceship race that we call the Machinations (from the two words Machine and Nation), but the two biological races resident on the planet took fright at the possibility of further attacks, and decided to retreat to their home worlds. Asking to be evacuated was in line with the psychology of these races: a prey escape response; understandable, but not emulated by the more adventurous human race.

Thus it was that when the humans got here, the planet was deserted. We managed to get in touch with these races, and came to an agreement. Humanity would be permitted to set up a colony on the planet. The colonists later arranged to purchase the standing assets that had been built on the planet: basically the cities and the rail links between them. We, the Personalia, guaranteed to act as protectors in space, for humanity's benefit as their allies. Earth has provided us with missiles for that protection task

While the Machinations might in future be able to do the same thing, their present limited numbers do not offer that capability. Thus you will be safe on Rehome, courtesy of your friends, The Personalia.

Right, folks. That is the history lesson over for today. Once you land, Rehome tour guides will take you in smaller groups to visit a range of interesting sites and beautiful scenery, tailored to your preferences. You may even be allowed a brief visit to the last city in the group, where the occupants are another alien race, the remnants of an advanced planetary population.

They are the survivors from an Invader attack that wiped out their civilisation. The survivors were found in underground shelters on their devastated planet, and brought to Rehome. The humans gave them this city to help them start rebuilding their own society. It just shows that humans can sometimes be nice to other, different, people – surprising but true! These refugees, the Towatans, have presented the Governor of the Colony with a special award in recognition of the humans' altruism.

Please now settle down in your seats and enjoy your trip to Rehome. I/We hope you all have a very enjoyable vacation."

This elicited a spatter of applause from the passengers, and they strapped themselves in, automatically, despite the reassurances. They were used to doing so for aircraft journeys, and this seemed so similar. Their space trip took a lot less time than they expected. It was swifter than most aircraft travel.

A few hours later, their Landerships settled, one by one, on the shallow waters beside the beachfront of Metropolis. The Landerships switched to their antigravity power, and glided to shore like hovercraft. They each lowered themselves to the sandy shore, and opened their hatches. Local tourism representatives rushed across the beach with wheeled steps, to make the exiting of the tourist parties a dainty procedure, unlike that of arriving colonists.

Once each passenger had disembarked, he or she was escorted up the low gradient of the beach to the road surface, where a series of electric buses were parked. These had been hired by the travel agency to carry the passengers to their hotels. There were no large hotels yet on the planet, but smaller hostelries were able to accommodate the tourists. Each tourist had an embarkation number, and that number was used to allocate them to their accommodation.

The three sisters found that happily they were still together in their mini hotel. The host welcomed the tourists with considerable ceremony. This was in part through the newness of the tourist trade; the locals wanted their clients to go home praising their stay on Rehome.

The small hotel had a brochure for each client to read, explaining something of the accommodation and its offerings. The brochure explained that the meals at all the tourist residences offered the same range of menus, so that if one hotel was running short of one particular dish, it could ask other hotels, who might have a surplus, to make good the deficit. There was a cooperative approach to tourist service here. The dining rooms offered selected menus from Europe, Africa, Asia, Australasia, and North and South America, and also a Rehome menu. The Rehome choice was noted as "Devised by the Governor's personal chef, making excellent use of local produce, and prepared to standards acceptable at the Governor's table." This went over well with the tourists who were eager for a bit of local colour, and they were not disappointed. The food was great!

The tourist itinery involved bus tours around Metropolis, and visits to sites of particular interest. These included the alien-built railway station, with information on how the Rehome rail network operated; visits to unconverted alien homes where they were invited to try the weird seating and the other facilities. They were told of the absence of hot water on tap in these original homes They were reassured that all accommodation had been converted to human requirements, including piped hot water. The girls' group of a dozen or so were taken on a tour past the Governor's Mansion house, where their young guide, Amelia Cross, told them about the Governor's unusual family. "The Governor has four wives, whom he self-deprecatingly describes as having arrived almost by accident, but each wife is also an important member of the community in her own right. His first, and so senior wife, a former military officer, is Head of Security for Rehome; another is Head of Social Services; the third is the Governor's personal chef, as well as an important businesswoman in her own right; and the fourth is the Chief Meteorologist for the planet – she studies the weather, for those who don't like big words."

The guide went on, "These ladies got their jobs because of their education and talents, NOT because they married the Governor. The Head of Social Services is a black South African psychologist who trained in London, England, so you can see that our colony accepts everyone, of any colour or race or country. To emphasise that point, our next stop is outside one particular Metropolis nursery school. Why a nursery school? Well, in that specific school, all the teaching is done in the Malan language, and four of the children are Malans - members of the race that originally built the first of the Personalia. At present, these four children are the ONLY members of that race in existence.

They were cloned on Earth from the frozen remains of deceased Malans who died accidentally during space travel experiments with the Personalia. The authorities on Earth decided they no longer wanted the responsibility of bringing up these alien children, so the Personalia – as the Malans' guardians – asked this colony to take them on. We did, and are glad we did. We now have a dozen or so human children who can converse in Malan, and about another twenty adults who have learned a modicum of that language as well. The adults wanted to have some idea of what their children are saying in Malan, in case they are being rude!"

After the laughter had subsided, their guide said to them, "Several of the Governor's children attend the nursery, and the children visit each other's homes, so if you get an invite to the Governor's home, do not be surprised if you meet a Malan child there. These Malan children can speak perfectly good English, so you can chat to them if you like."

A hand went up near the back of the group, and the guide invited the question, "Yes, sir?"

The man's gruff voice rolled over to her. "Say, who is paying for these Malan children's upbringing, and all the attendant costs? Is that why Earth did not want them?"

The guide smiled, and answered, "An interesting point, sir. The Earth authorities made an assumption – always a dangerous thing to do at any time – that they were lumbered with the costs; so that may have had something to do with it. There may also have been some social pressure to get rid the of the alien presence.

As it turned out, when the Personalia invited the Colony to take them on, they volunteered to cover ALL the costs of upbringing, and associated costs such as the nursery school. Thus, our colony does not have to foot any of the bills.

You may ask why a spaceship race would have money to spend on a planet where it can never land, except with its Landerships? It is simple. The Personalia have established a company on Earth to exploit their own technology, using patents, and that makes money for them on Earth. They also offer accountancy services both on Rehome and on Earth. I understand their reputation for probity is second to none, and as a result they have cash to spare for subsidising the Malan children."

"Why accountancy?" Asked one of the ladies in the group. "That seems odd."

"Not really, madam. The Personalia began life as advanced computers, so they enjoy handling data, and especially figures. Accountancy for them is almost a pastime, they enjoy it so much; and they make a LOT of money at it. They can easily undercut any human firm in the same business, and they have a reputation for successfully uncovering financial fraud. That makes them EXTREMELY popular with large business firms, especially so with the shareholders."