Chapter 40

My major task is to assess the rock throughout the line of the tunnel, so that we can know the strength of the rock at every stage, how shattered or otherwise is the material, and whether there are fissures through it. This determines how we excavate the tunnel. Some sections will be soft rock like chalk, or might be shattered rock, a soft breccia, and may require reinforcement of the tunnel wall, while other areas may be hard granite and be a real bore trying to get through it. I will have a geologist to help me. He will identify the rock, and I shall test it to judge how we tunnel through it.

It is quite a technical challenge, too. We are going to make our borehole straight through. It is like drilling for oil, only our drill hole is horizontal instead of vertical."

"Gosh! Does this mean blasting, Herbert?"

"No, darling. Our drilling does not need blasting, for our exploratory drill hole will be a metre outside the projected tunnel's line, should any blasting be required. I suspect not, as we are hoping to use new technology pioneered on New Eden." New Eden was the second human colony. It was on another world, where the colony was sited inside an ancient crater. To expand, the colony needed to get beyond the crater walls, and a tunnel was commenced to provide a rail line through to the outer continent.

The tunnel construction had several technical challenges, as well as other dangers. Ground level inside the crater was a great deal higher than the exterior ground level, so the tunnel could not exit in a straight line. It would have to curve as it went, arriving at the exterior cliff face at almost the same line as the cliff edge. The tunnel had to change from a true tunnel to an incised ledge, cutting into the cliff, with the outer edge open to the air. From that point, the ledge tunnel would descend slowly to the outer ground level over several kilometres. The other danger was the megabeasts that roamed the plains outside the crater, but The Personalia had devised a plan to build a tall fence using rail track length dropped from space at regular intervals, then once any beasts within that perimeter were chased out, the electrified wire fence could be installed.

"The tunnel building will take a considerable time to complete, but the borehole should be much quicker to get done. I don't know if I might be involved with the tunnel, later: there are technical issues in dealing with spoil from the tunnel workings.

Seeing how Sylvia's face was: she looked devastated; he tried to make amends.

"Sylvia, if you will wait for me, I want to ask you to marry me when I get back. I don't want to lose your love, but if you will consent to be my wife, we can get engaged now, and you can have fun making all the arrangements for our wedding in six months."

Sylvia burst into tears. "Herbert, you have made me a happy woman! Of course I will marry you. I will be counting the days until you get back. Can you not get weekends off, to come back and see me?"

"I wish that it could be so, my love, but the drilling is continuous, day and night, except to change bits, and I have to test every sample almost as it arrives, to fully document the tunnel's path. We daren't get behind on that task. The most I can be away is the hours for sleeping. If you feel you want to be near me at times, you could take a train and visit me at the site. That would be a great treat for me!"

Sylvia had her own ideas about this situation.

"Herbert, my darling man, what if we got married before you left? If there is sufficient time, we could have a brief ceremony with just the two of us and the pastor: that would be most romantic!"

He had clearly not thought of this. All he had considered were the demands of his job. It was a typical male reaction. Now he had to look at them as a pair, as a potential single unit in future. He liked the idea. As his wife, she would be a the more keen to come visit him for their conjugal relations – a task that he now looked forward to with eagerness, every time. He made up his mind.

"Sylvie, you are the organiser in our family. "Our family" – I like that term! Please go ahead and try. I shall ask my boss, George Prentice, for permission to have time off for our wedding before I leave for the drill site. He is a very cooperative boss. He has two wives in top positions: one is the Director of Education and the other is Director of Metropolis Hospital, so he has to work round their schedules. They have a live-in nanny for their children, as all three parents are busy. See if you can fix it during the next couple of days: I don't have much time."

He sneaked a cheeky look at Sylvia. "Darling, if we are going to get married, we had better get some practice in at loving each other, don't you agree?"

She agreed.

Her investigation with the church pastor next morning revealed that the church was fully booked for the next few days; but he told her, "If there is a rush, you can still try the local registrar, to conduct a civil ceremony. It will mean a legal marriage; and you can add the religious ceremony later if you wish, my dear. The number you want is:" and he sent her the contact details.

She immediately made that call, and found a vacant slot next day in the late afternoon. She booked it, and reported it to Herbert. In turn, he confirmed that the date was okay with his boss, and they made their final preparations. Sylvia's first call was to her boss, who was delighted for Sylvia, and asked to attend the civil wedding with her own husband. Herbert was delighted that Sylvia's boss and her husband wanted to be there, and made them welcome. When Sylvia introduced Herbert, he expressed his delight. "Thank you for coming along and giving us your support. We expected it to be just the two of us, due to the rush, so your presence is welcome. Sylvie is lucky, knowing kind people like you."

After they had exchanged vows, and been declared married, they said farewell to Angelina and John, and went back to Sylvia's flat. She would remain resident here while her husband was away, and on his return they would go house-hunting. Sylvia finished the day by notifying her husband of another decision. "Herbert, as of our marriage, I shall stop using contraceptives. Tonight is too early to conceive; it takes time for the chemicals to be washed out of your body, but my first visit to your work site will give us a chance to start our family. Happy about that, Herbert my husband?"

"Wonderful! I am already looking eagerly to your coming visit, and hopefully a start to our family. In the meantime, Sylvie, as you are now my wife, shall we make love on the couch; then in the shower; and then in your bed?" he suggested. She did not refuse him, for by now his lovemaking expertise had expanded massively, thanks to Sylvia teaching him what she had learned some months ago from John. When Herbert had asked about her expertise, she gaily replied, "Herbert, a girl never tells where and how she learned, but I am glad I learned, so that you could become a good lover for me; And you ARE a good lover, my husband."

Their wedding event may not have been a riot of fun and frippery, but it made them a married couple, which was all that mattered to them, and Herbert soon went off on his tunnel project as a happily married man.

When Angelina and John got home after the wedding, Annetta was already starting the evening meal, as she finished earlier from her teaching job at school. They seldom went to events as a triple, to avoid questions. She avidly listened to Sylvia's evident love for her new husband. "Well, I never thought I would say this, but you were right, the two of you. You told Sylvia that she would eventually find a man to love, and to love her, and it has come true. She was SO jealous of me becoming John's second wife. She wanted to be the third, and might have been, eventually, but fate came along and she found Herbert. Even better, it was BECAUSE we forced her to jog to lose weight that she met Herbert, on the same kick. All that effort we put into her wearing the right clothes, and doing so effectively; and when she meets the man, she is wearing a jogging tracksuit!

At least we can all be happy for her. She has found love, just as she always wanted, and before long she will be starting a family, just like us – she patted her bulging tummy. At least I am getting some practice, helping to look after your child, Angelina. You have a such a beautiful baby, sis. Have you told John when you are having your next one?"

Angelina looked at her little sister. "Now you are just guessing, Annetta. Stop teasing John, and concentrate on your own child. John and I will make our own decision on that matter, won't we, darling?"

John grinned, and said nothing, leaving his two wives to argue it out. The two sisters liked to tease each other like this, and he elected to stay clear of controversy. As long as they didn't both give birth at the same time, he was happy, as that meant he was never without a sexual partner in bed.

He thought back to the girl's parents. These devout Catholics had faced up to Annetta's pregnancy, apparently father unknown, with horror, and were happy to have their son-in-law John take her on as a second wife, as that was legal on Rehome. Both sisters married to the one man was less of a scandal to them than an illegitimate birth. They had accepted Angelina's suggestion of getting her husband to marry Annetta "to make her baby legitimate, born in a marriage relationship," as she put it to them. They had never been told it was John's baby, of course. That was unnecessary information, Angelina felt, and everyone was happy as a result.

Sylvia, as Angelina's secretary, accidentally overheard a conversation about Annetta having sex with John, and tried to blackmail them. This did not work well, for she was in inept blackmailer, and ended up her begging Angelina to let her have sex with John, as Sylvia was still a virgin. This in turn allowed them to force her to face up to her poor standard of dressing and her overweight body. They got her to start running every day, and Annetta coached her on what clothes top wear, and how to wear them. The target was to wean her off her dependence on them, and divert her from angling for a position as third wife to John.

Herbert's appearance on the scene solved that problem, to their great relief.

Simisola, the sixteen-year old daughter of widowed Tokunbo Okoya, was the female part of an arranged marriage with 20-year-old Winston Oluwosu, which his father back on Earth had procured without Winston's knowledge. In the meantime, on Rehome, he had just married the seventeen-year-old twin sisters of his old friend Olu Odumosu; not informing his father, as that family had been poor estate workers on his father's farm. The Personalia had secretly spirited the family off to Rehome.