Chapter 22

"Now, the mothers:" said Bob Kempe. "The first one was formerly in the RAF, and is now a resident here, preparing to go into business with a partner. The second one is a woman with two human children, and is here without her husband, deliberately so. The third lady we found running a moneylending business in an ethical manner, and she has turned her business over to an ex-army woman like herself, so she has relocated to Metropolis.

The fourth lady is in limbo at present. She is here to find her child, but is also on protective leave from her job as an undercover agent of the US army's criminal investigation unit. She has been given two months leave while her last job is finalised and the criminals caught.

Lastly, the most recent arrival is a serving officer in a USAF Intelligence Squadron. She, her Malan daughter, and her female partner were extracted by The Personalia and brought here. Their status is equivocal, as officially Esther is on duty, and might be seen as kidnapped, or as AWOL, depending on whether she is viewed as having gone deliberately or not. You might be in a position to have her declared as resigned from the USAF, or given an honourable discharge. All the other women had been given a sum of a million dollars in recompense for their surrogacy, but I have yet to establish whether she also received such compensation. Her serving status may have prevented such a payment at the time. The discussion she had with my wife about a possible inheritance suggested that money was a problem for her. Perhaps the US authorities can arrange for her to receive an "inheritance of a million dollars plus five years' interest."

Bernhard was feeling bushwhacked with all this information.

"I am once again impressed, this time with how you as a colony have dealt with the alien children and their mothers. You have been exceedingly kind in so many ways. One of your wives – I forget which one – said you were all learning the Malan language, so that you could talk to the Malan children in their mother tongue, but mainly so that the language is not lost to history. That is an altruistic viewpoint, extremely uncommon in most societies."

Bob was slightly offended. "Bernhard, we do not see our society as altruistic at all. We merely try to avoid many of the pitfalls noticed on Earth, that have derived from a long history. We started from scratch, with a clean slate, so we made no assumptions from the past, except to try to keep our society as open as possible. Our laws are simple and minimal, and thereby flows a lot of what you see. We have few criminals, and what crime appears is dealt with in the most efficient manner; local justice with the lawyers only being there to guide the local jury on evidence and sentencing. Our religious observances are simple: one composite church with one over-riding principle: love for your fellow beings. We have no standing army, for there is no external threat. Our economy is based on local ownership: no venture capital except from residents of the colony: The Personalia count as residents for this purpose. One bank, owned by the Colony, which is not allowed to speculate with depositors' funds. We make a lot of money from Earth couples wishing to marry on an other planet. The fees for such weddings are still considerable, but a lot less than we charged at the beginning when it was a social status symbol to have this almost unique start to a marriage.

Because we have land to spare, every new permanent settler is given a grant of land and help with building a home. We have no income tax, as much of our income as a colony comes from exporting to Earth, and we have no military budget to weigh us down. Education is free to every family, though we encourage parental involvement. Many parents contribute to a bonus fund for teachers whose pupils perform well, to recognise good teaching, and so on.

"That is the kind of society we are building, Bernhard. We give help where help is needed; our citizens participate in many ways, and those who fail to fit in are given new opportunities, such as banishment to an untouched part of the planet. Minor offences result in banishment to Earth, as a rule. Those who remain here do so because they are willing to fit in with our welcoming ethos."

"Okay – I can go along with that concept. I still need to meet the ladies, and the children, Bob."

Bob was ready to inform him. "I have asked the ladies to come to the Mansion tomorrow to meet you, then we will take them to the house of the Malans, where we can formally tell each mother which Malan is her child, and see how the children react. It should be interes..."

Bernhard's phone interrupted Bob. Bernhard looked embarrassed, but Bob waved him to answer it. "Hello?"

"Secretary-General? This is General Mackenzie. We have a had a breakthrough! Two of the air bases in England had their radars working the night of the raid, and they were not affected by whatever technical chicanery was used at RAF Feltwell. It took a long time to get around to checking radar records for the time of the raid, but two separate radars have these bastards dead to rights.

"The records show five of the so-called Landerships coming down from orbit and landing at RAF Feltwell. Four of them seem to have landed at four equidistant points round the base, and the fifth landed on the main runway. We have strong suspicions that the four were emitting some king of high-frequency audio signal, which caused all of us to feel disorientated and nauseous during the extraction of Lieutenant Price and the alien child.

"We still don't know if they walked out or were carried, but the elapsed time was pretty short, so we are assuming they were carried out, probably affected the same as the rest of the personnel. This suggests kidnapping rather than the lieutenant going voluntarily, though there is another factor. Price's girlfriend left her flat in Mildenhall village and took a bus to King's Lynn. The radar returns also show a Landership landing in the North Sea not far from King's Lynn. We have no data for its movements at sea level, but fairly soon thereafter, consistent with collecting a passenger from the shore, it reappeared, taking off from the sea surface and going back up to orbital height.

"That, we presume, was The Personalia collecting this woman, Charlotte Brown, for she is the only person noted by the police as going missing that night.

"Sir, we have prima facie evidence for kidnapping a member of the US armed forces and removing her from Earth."

Bernhard tut-tutted. "General, I see only a set of facts for spaceship movements. All else is supposition. You need to collect factual evidence for everything that happened on that base, and show a relationship to these ship movements. Then, and only then, can we make the kind of presumptions that you are suggesting.

"Now, I may have an opportunity to interview the lady herself, tomorrow. Once I have done so, I will be in a better position to comment further. Thank you for your call, General."

Tom Pfeiffer came gradually awake, his bladder telling him it was time he got up and relieved it. He was lying comfortably between two female bodies, his arm over the one; the other cuddled up to his back.

Recognising the familiarity of the female form in front of him, he said aloud, "I love you, Enid." He got a shock when her voice replied, "I love you too, Tom," when the voice came from behind him!

It sparked his realisation that Jeannette was now a familiar form to his every sense. She was truly a part of him and his life, just like Enid. He whispered, "I love you too, Jeannette", and got a satisfied mumble in return. This comforting situation was spoiled by his pressing need, so he murmured, "Excuse me, ladies. I've got to pee," and climbed over Jeannette to get out of bed.

The disturbance fully woke the other two, setting off a chain of visitors to the toilet. As he was up anyway, Tom found the battery clock and click on its light, to see the time. Damn. It was close to time for getting up, so he didn't have enough time for lovemaking this morning.

He let the two women settle back to sleep, and he went for his shower, got dressed, and started preparing breakfast.

Bernhard was tickled pink to meet the Earth women who had borne Malan children. They were all interesting people in their own right, and he had fun asking them to tell their stories. Esther was the oddity. She had arrived with her Malan daughter, Jenny, and the little girl had excitedly gone off to play with the Governor's children. Esther seemed lost without her daughter, and Bernhard asked her about her life as the mother of an alien. She seemed surprised at the question.

"Sir, as far as her being an alien, I never saw her as that. She was my daughter, the fruit of my loins, the baby that I carried for nine months. That counts for a lot, you know. No matter what she looked like, she was my child, and I cared for her. You have to be a mother to understand that, sir."

"Thank you, my dear. This does help me. There is a suggestion from the US military that you were kidnapped. Would you care to comment?"

"I would, sir. I was invited to go to Rehome colony to met the other Malan children, and to consider what was best for my own child. I will be doing that today, but from speaking to the other mothers of Malan children, I am already trending towards remaining here, for the benefit of my daughter. She needs to learn a great deal about her Malan heritage. Back on Earth, the focus was always on what benefit the military and the politicians would gain from studying her. I went along with that, on the surface, as I was a serving soldier obeying orders.

I now see these orders as being unconstitutional, as they harmed the development of my daughter, and harmed our mother-daughter relationship. Jenny was at times unsure whether I was on her side or not. I worked hard to support her and tell her that I loved her and would do everything I could for her, and I believe she accepts that. However, remaining on Earth was not to her ultimate benefit. She had to experience meeting and reacting with other Malan children, to help her to grow.

So far, they have gone out of their way to accept her. They were present to welcome her to Rehome when we landed, and that had an impact on me as well as on her. They are still strangers to her, but she recognised that they looked the same as her. For the first time in her life, she has met other children who were just like her. She was no longer the oddity among her friends; she was no longer the outsider. She belonged, at last!"

Bernhard wanted a positive reply, not a generalisation. "Are you saying you were not kidnapped, but came here voluntarily?"

Esther snapped at him, "Weren't you listening? Jenny was being held and experimented on, and I did not stop it happening! I had to get her away, but this was the first chance I had, at least the first with some degree of confidence that it would work.

"Of course I came voluntarily, Mr Secretary-General. My girlfriend came too, so there is no logical reason for me ever to go back."

Ruth leaned in to the debate. She had been listening to the raised voices. "Esther, you may not be aware of it, but the law of marriage on Rehome says that you and Charlie can get married here. Just a fact that may be of assistance."