Chapter 16

Later that day, when all their routine tasks were dealt with, John reminded Kathleen about her parents.

“Kathleen, my dear, it is high time you phoned your parents and got them to consider emigrating.”

“Oh, yes. Will you stay by me, John, while I make the call? I may have to get you to speak to them.”

“I can do that, sure.”

She put the call through, and her mother answered.

“Hello?”

“Momma? It’s me, Kathleen.”

“Kathleen? Where are you, girl? I thought you had emigrated. Are you back?”

“No, Momma. I am phoning you from the Colony, to ask if you want to join me here – you and Poppa.”

“Emigrate? Why should we do that, poppet?”

“For two reasons, Momma. First, Poppa can get a job here, teaching plumbing.”

“He can? What about his pension?”

“He will earn more, working, than his small pension, and he will like to get back to being useful.”

“That is true. You said two reasons, Kathleen.”

“The second is, you can be here for my wedding.”

“Wedding? You, with your injury?”

“Momma, my injury is gone. My pelvis has been repaired.”

“How can that be? Who paid for it? Are you in debt as a result?”

“Nothing to pay, Momma. It was an experimental treatment, and it worked. I can walk normally again, and I can do normal things again.”

“I am astonished, girl. Wait till your father hears about this. Who are you marrying? Anyone we know?”

“No, Momma. He is a Major in the Security Department here, and I will be his third wife.”

“Third wife? What happened to numbers one and two?”

“Nothing, Momma. I was the bridesmaid at their wedding recently, when John married Elizabeth and Catherine. He is a lovely man, and I get on very well with the girls.”

“This man is a polygamist? Are you sure about this, girl? How can it be legal?”

“ANY marriage is legal here, Momma, as long as all the participants are agreeable. You just have to be in love, and I am in love with John, just like Elizabeth and Catherine are. He is a wonderful man.”

“I shall give your father a call, Kathleen, and talk it over with him. How do you get to the Colony? Isn’t it very far away?”

“In space terms, yes, but not in time. All you have to do is take a flight to Florida, to Patrick Air Force base, and you catch the link flight to Ascension Island. The Personalia take it from there.”

“Hang on, dear. You father has just come through.” she passed the phone to her husband, saying, “It is our Kathleen. She is getting married and wants us to emigrate to the Colony. She says there is a job for you there.”

“What? Kathleen? Is that you, daughter? How are you, my sweet?”

“I am doing great, Poppa. I had a special operation that fixed my pelvis, and I am back to my old self again. It is complicated, so I’ll tell you about it later, but more important, I have been told that unless you are a criminal or similar, they want you to come here to teach other people to become plumbers. They will pay well, too, so you won’t have just subsist on a pension.”

“That’s wonderful, my pet, but who paid for the operation? I hope you didn’t go into debt for it: you’ll be paying for it all your life.”

“No, Poppa. The Personalia paid for it. It was experimental, but it worked perfectly.”

“The Personalia? Isn’t that these alien spaceships?”

“Yes, Poppa. They somehow earn money and enjoy spending it on helping people. They want to pay for your air fare – you and Momma – to Florida, where you will catch another flight to Ascension, and from there you get transported to here, the Colony.”

“And they have a job for me, The Personalia?”

“No, silly Poppa. The Colony are needing more plumbers, so they are happy to employ you to teach the subject to apprentices. You will work for the Colony, just like my fiancée and one of his wives.”

“Fiancée? You are engaged, girl? But what do you mean, ‘one of his wives’?”

“The laws on marriage are different here, Poppa. Any marriage within limits is o.k., and I fell in love with John, Elizabeth and Catherine, so I am going to marry them soon. If you emigrate here, you can come to our wedding as well.”

“My God, Kathleen, you amaze me, young lady. You haven’t done anything to shame us, I hope?”

“No, Poppa. I am still a virgin; a complete virgin, thanks to The Personalia. They repaired my torn hymen. Woops, I meant to tell Momma that, not you!”

“It is all right, daughter. We both know about hymens. You Momma told me you lost yours in the car crash, as well as your shattered pelvis. I was devastated at everything that happened to you, and ashamed that we could not pay for you to be fixed.

I am extremely pleased that you are complete again, in both ways; it brings tears to my eyes. Do you hear that, Momma? She has had her hymen restored, as part of that operation. I think we have to thank these aliens, The Personalia, when we meet them.”

“Oh, Poppa! Does that mean you will come here and work as a teacher of plumbing?”

“It sounds a worthwhile way of living my life, provided your Momma does not object to losing touch with all her friends.”

“She can still phone them, Poppa. I am phoning you from the Colony, and it is treated as a ‘local call’, believe it or not, according to my John.”

Kathleen’s mother’s voice could be heard in the background. “Poppa! Tell her we will be there for her. Our family is more important than our friends!”

Kathleen was ecstatic. “Thanks, Momma, thanks, Poppa. I will get you the number to phone for The Personalia, and they will arrange everything to suit you. Oh, John is passing me the number, here it is...”

Her father repeated the number to her mother, who wrote it down carefully. He then listened to what her mother was whispering to him, then said, “Kathleen, are you actually joining a man’s harem, as your mother seems to think?”

“No, Poppa. I’ll pass the phone to my fiancée, John, and he can explain.” She did, and John came on the line.

“Hello, Mr Malone. Your daughter has endeared herself to me, Catherine and Elizabeth, and we have invited her to join our marriage. Elizabeth was a policewoman, and is a sergeant in our Security Service, doing much the same job. Catherine is just eighteen, but is a keen amateur astronomer, so she has been tasked with mapping the skies of our planet. Both of them are kind and considerate ladies, and I had to get their approval before asking Kathleen to marry us. Note that it is not ‘marry ME’, but ‘marry US’. Marriage in this colony is a permanent thing, with no provision for divorce, so you have to love each other from the start. Kathleen let my girls know that she wanted to join us, and they did the vetting, so asking her was merely a formality as far as she was concerned.

I, no, WE, will love and cherish Kathleen all our lives; that I can assure you, sir.”

“Thank you, John. I gather you are a major in the colony security service. May I ask a little about your past?”

“Most recently, I was a butler to the rich, and prior to that I served in the British S A S regiment. You may have heard of it.”

“I have indeed. Why would you leave an elite force, unless you are older than you sound?”

“I was invalided out, having been injured in an action, sir. Specifically, I had a leg injury that prevented me from passing our SAS standards. After I healed, I received an invite to be trained as a top butler, and did so. It was an eye-opener, sir. I expanded my educational horizons, among other things.”

“I see. I can understand that there would be no openings for a butler in the Colony, so that is why you went into the security service. They seem to value your talents, making you a major.”

“Indeed so. My new boss, the head of the department, was a colonel in the US special forces, so my talent was recognised. I am paid well enough that Kathleen does not need to work, though as a corporal in our service, she may elect to continue with that career, now that she is well again.”

“You are putting my mind at rest, young man. I expect you to take very good care of my beloved daughter. Promise me that.”

“I promise, sir, but if you would care to emigrate to the colony and teach plumbing, you will be able to keep a close eye on our family. You will always be welcome to visit. We hope you will be here in time to join us for our wedding celebration. Elizabeth and Catherine will want to meet you, for they will regard you as their in-laws as well as me.”

“I don’t want to keep you, son, but do you have a home for our Kathleen; a house of your own? I am aware that the colony is still settling in.”

“Not yet, sir, but we have a farm-size land grant, and we have a house on order, to be built there. The builders are due shortly, and the parts and supplies are on their way. We expect to be able to occupy the building in another month or so.”

“Good, good. Pass me back to Kathleen, for me and Momma to say goodbye.”

Kathleen came back on the line. “Hi, Poppa. Are you happy that John is the man for me?”

“He sounds like it, Kathleen. He has a voice I trust. I suspect we are coming to join you, once we have talked to The Personalia and learned a few things, like what we can take to the Colony, such as all my plumbing tools; where we are going to stay, the terms and conditions of my proposed job, and so on. I just want to say farewell for now, Kathleen. I love you, daughter; now here is your mother.”

“Kathleen, I think we are coming to the Colony, all things considered, but please phone us from time to time until it happens, will you? We love you, Kathleen, so please be a good girl until you are a married woman. Bye for now.”

“Bye, Momma; Bye, Poppa.” She closed the phone before she started being tearful, and handed it to John.

“Hold me, John.” she said as she hugged him.

He did so, then spoke softly. “Kathleen, I think your parents want you to stay a virgin until the wedding.”

“That was what I understood, too. Are you all right with that, John?”

“I am. I want to start our marriage with your parents approving of me, instead of disapproving if we anticipate the wedding.”

“You are such a nice man, John darling. You are okay with me calling you darling now?”

“You are my fiancée, Kathleen, so it is your right.”

She gave him an enthusiastic kiss, to show her thanks.

Catherine Freeman was finding the star images fascinating, because practically all the images were of new stars, or at least stars which she did not recognise. She found that the images delivered by The Personalia were interactive. If you clicked on a star, the star’s spectrum was superimposed, allowing Catherine to scan for factors which helped identify the star, should it match one visible from Earth. They had given her a reference catalogues of stars visible from Earth, so it was a simple matter to compare a spectrum to the Earth catalogue. If she got a match, she could add an Earth catalogue identity. If there was no match, she made up her own catalogue entry, based on the star’s location in The Personalia-provided image. This gave it an identity and a location, enabling it to be spotted quickly in future.

Her plan was to work on identifying the more obvious stellar objects, and thus provide a visible framework for the rest. In the course of this exploration of the night sky, she hoped to find enough of the stars identifiable in Earth catalogues that it would be possible to work out the planet Home’s location vis-a-vis Earth. At least that is what she hoped to be able to do.

She had mentioned this to Elizabeth, but Elizabeth’s reaction was unexpected.

“Why do that? Surely The Personalia know where all the stars are?”

Catherine had to explain, “Not really, Elizabeth. The Personalia have locations for all the stars, but these locations are mathematical constructs that relate one spot in the cosmos to another spot in the cosmos. If you ask them to relate them geographically, they have trouble telling you the answer, as a mathematical position is a variable which changes continually, and as a consequence the start point and end point of every journey are moving and have to be recalculated before jumping.

Our human view of the cosmos is of stars which seem to be in fairly fixed positions during the course of our lifetimes. This is not true, but it makes it simpler for our minds to comprehend. The Personalia take the long view, of a constantly shifting universe, so their idea of location is completely at odds to ours. No doubt they COULD do this for us, but it is better to have a human, or humans, do it, for our own peace of mind; our feeling of achievement.

In fact, I suspect that they ignore all stars that are not at all close to any location where they are either coming or going. The more distant stars come into their ken merely as gravitational pulls, x-ray sources, and other radiation levels. Stars as mere points of light, which is how we see them, are of little interest to The Personalia.”

“Gosh, for an eighteen-year-old, you are quite impressive, Cathy!”

“Mostly this comes from talking with The Personalia, but having studied astronomy I was able to understand where they were coming from. Like most subjects, it is easy when you are on the same wavelength. I don’t need to have in-depth knowledge of much. Anything I want to know, I just ask The Personalia, and if it is explainable in human terms, they tell me as much as I can understand.”

“I hate to say this, Cathy, but stars and stuff just bores me. I prefer dealing with people; who are eternally different from each other, I find.”

“Oh well, ‘chacun a son gout’, as the French say. I picked that phrase up from my mother.”

“Really? I think she got it wrong, dear. The correct wording is à chacun son goût, which means ‘to each his own taste’, but I follow your meaning.”

“Oh, well. You learn something new every day.”

“As long as you are happy working on the star patterns, Catherine. It is a job for you, as well as an interest. Will you still be able to work on that when your baby arrives?”

Catherine looked startled. “We should have thought of that when we were planning the house! Can we leave one wall blank, somewhere? I mean, no windows, and painted white so a star map can be projected on it? The length will have to be enough to allow for the projection, too.”