Chapter 4: Arriving

“All pods in the white ring prepare to disembark,” the AI instructed. “Line up in the usual order inside your pod and await further orders.”

Sonia wasn’t surprised. The AI had announced their arrival in the Wallerat system during breakfast. She would go down to the planet with her group of children that afternoon. She could join Julius and Masika later, once Hope and the others were with their new families.

Everyone had spent the morning tidying up and packing what little they had to take with them, so they were all ready to go after they had finished lunch in their pod. As before, Solomon had to leave his inactivated RLI-1 Laser Rifle behind. He knew by now that he would be able to get a new one when they arrived in their new home, but he had hung on to his current one for as long as he could. Sonia looked back to check that he was putting it into the recycler before getting back in line with the other children. They hadn’t practised this since arriving on board, but the kids all remembered quickly enough. They certainly remembered the sweets they would get on arrival – both Murua and Grace, Patience’s daughter, had already asked. Hope brought up the rear of Sonia’s charges carrying Bobo on her hip, with Patience, Celina and Kassa in order behind her, each with her own train of seven children.

The pod door opened, “White Six, exit your pod now.” Down the corridor Sonia could see the last of the people from White Five leaving their pod. She followed on behind them towards the transporter bay.

The crewman standing by the transport nexus reminded everyone, “You’ll be arriving down on the planet. Move quickly off the pad and don’t stop to look around. You need to get off the transporter so the others can come through behind you. You’ll have plenty of time for sightseeing later.”

Sonia was glad of her warning. After so long confined on board ship, it was good to be out in the open air again with blue sky and clouds above her. There was a big Marine standing by the transporter disc ready to move gawkers off it. She didn’t need him to remind her and kept walking while looking around. A very tall Indian woman, six feet or so, in a grey headscarf and salwar kameez came towards her. Sonia could see she was wearing a collar, so she was a concubine. Obviously the ugly grey shifts weren’t compulsory here. That was good.

“Pod six?” the woman asked.

“Yes, we’re White Six.”

“Good. Follow me please.”

The tall woman led Sonia to one of the pods set out near the transporter. This was the first time she’d seen one from the outside: a big metal cigar, rather like a freight container, but larger, cylindrical and with rounded ends. Looking around, she saw that there were fewer pods here than there were huts in the camps back on Earth.

At the pod entrance the woman told Sonia, “You all need to wait inside until we have finished unloading the rest of this group. Once everyone has transported down, there will be a short announcement. After that you’ll be free to wander around outside and explore.”

Sonia smiled, thanked her and entered the pod. She knew enough to realise that she had to follow orders. This Indian woman was only a concubine like herself, doing a similar job to the one she’d done back at the Collection Camp, dealing with new arrivals. That was good, it showed there would be things for her to do outside the pod once she was living with Julius and Masika. She would enjoy looking after Kwanza and Siti, but she wanted to have other things to do as well. She liked having work to do outside her home as well as inside it.

They were all used to settling into a new pod by now, so the children rushed to the kitchen replicator to get their sweets. Solomon was last to get his; he’d gone to the upper level first to get his replacement RLI-1 from the replicator there. Everyone was ready in time when the promised announcement came.

“Good afternoon all of you and welcome to the town of Cheriton in Waller colony, your new home. I am Centurion Mark Robertson, representing the Civil Service here. It is now 15:16 local time, or sixteen minutes past three in the afternoon. This is one hour later than the time on board your ship because you are in a different time zone. You are lucky that the weather is good today. We are in the rainy season at the moment, so make the most of the sunshine while you can – the nice weather won’t last.

“For this afternoon you are free to explore your temporary compound. Now that you’ve landed I imagine you would all like to get outside for some fresh air, open sky and exercise for the rest of today. Starting tomorrow morning you will move to your new homes. After you are settled with your new families you will be able to explore more widely. Once again, welcome to Waller colony.”

As soon as the Centurion finished speaking the pod door opened and the children rushed outside. Sonia and the other three women followed at a rather more sedate pace. Looking round she confirmed that this place was a lot smaller than the camps back on Earth. There were only twenty pods in the fenced compound. As the voice had said, there was a reasonable amount of blue sky, though it was a slightly darker shade than back on Earth. There were a few white clouds with some more threatening looking grey clouds in the distance which promised rain to come.

Half of the children were running around, shouting and squealing, while the rest had gone straight for a play area with a slide, swings and climbing frames. Sonia could see that a few other concubines were already beginning to take charge over there, making sure that all the kids got their turn and played nicely with each other. The rush soon died down as the children at the back of the lines got bored and wandered off to do something else.

Looking round at the other concubines, Sonia could recognise most of them from the ship. A quick question to her collar confirmed that all the people from the white ring on the ship were here. The ship had landed each ring in a different town so as not to overload any one town with too many new arrivals. That still meant sixty-four adult concubines and almost 450 children for Cheriton to absorb. The AI also confirmed that Sonia herself wouldn’t be living here, but would be with Julius. He and Masika had transported down together and now had their own accommodation in a different town, Lansdowne. That was a Marine town while Cheriton was a Navy town.

“When will we join up with Julius and Masika?” Sonia asked.

“Tomorrow midday or early afternoon,” the AI replied. “You will stay here tomorrow morning until their new families have collected the other children currently in your group. Once you are no longer needed to look after them, then you, Kwanza and Siti can join your sponsor.”

That was reasonable. If she left early then Patience, Celina or Kassa would have to look after the other five children in her group. She would be sad to see them all go after their time together. Maybe Julius would let her keep in contact with them? He was a nice boy, so she was sure he wouldn’t mind her doing that. Thinking of her children she looked round to check on them. Most of them were running around letting off steam. Khadija was walking quietly, talking to Grace and she could see Bobo in his bright yellow shirt at the slide, waiting his turn to get to the top. Hope and Solomon were near the play area, running about and playing tag with each other. Sonia was glad to see Hope laughing and playing; sometimes she worried that the thirteen-year-old was far too serious and didn’t relax enough.

Natalie put down her tablet and sighed. If only she could have found herself a handsome, romantic 200-year-old vampire. Instead she had Uri: fourteen and not romantic at all; very keen on sex, but very lacking in romance. At least she enjoyed the sex as much as he did. She’d only been fourteen for a few weeks, so it was still new for her. At least Uri was real and not a fantasy. There weren’t many 200-year-old vampire sponsors here on Waller, romantic or not.

Hayley, Uri’s other concubine, was in the sleep-learner this afternoon, while Uri was training. With nobody else to talk to she’d been reading.

“Golem, what’s the weather like today?”

“The weather is sunny this afternoon, Natalie,” the pod’s AI replied. Uri had named it ‘Golem’ – definitely not ‘Gollum’, he thought that the difference was important. Natalie didn’t see the point, but she had to go along with what Uri said.

Deciding to take advantage of the sunshine, she put on a pair of shorts, grabbed a blanket and went to read outside. As the pod door opened she got a shock, there were lots of new people in the compound! Uri’s family had been alone here for the last three days; that had obviously changed. The morning news had said something about a Kindertransport ship arriving in orbit. This must be them, some of them anyway. Lots of children and a few concubines still in their grey smocks. They were all African as well. Definitely from the Kindertransport ship.

Golem was right about the weather, so Natalie decided to stay outside. At least watching the kids play would help pass the time. She spread her blanket on the dusty ground and sat on it. She didn’t start reading immediately, but watched the children instead. They were obviously enjoying themselves outside after being cooped up on their colony ship for the voyage.

As she looked at the churning chaos of kids, Natalie noticed one of the older girls walking towards her, tall thin and with shortish hair. Not a concubine, she was wearing a white blouse and a green skirt. The Kindertransport concubines were still in grey shifts, so this girl wasn’t fourteen yet. Probably thirteen Natalie thought, she looked too old for twelve. She wore a wrist unit instead of a collar which confirmed that she hadn’t had her first CAP test yet.

“Hello,” the girl said, “do you live here?”

“For the moment,” Natalie replied, looking up at the tall, lean African teen. “We’re waiting for an apartment to come free in one of the housing blocks.” She pointed to where the row of large apartment blocks stood at the edge of town. “These pods here are temporary.”

“Don’t you have your own pod?” Hope asked. “I thought every family had their own pod.”

“The pods are for people with lots of children ‘cause they have more room than the apartments,” Natalie explained. “Pods are better for kids as they have more outside space to play. There are only three of us in our family. No children yet, so we don’t rate a pod, just an apartment. My name’s Natalie by the way. Why don’t you sit down?”

Hope sat on the blanket next to Natalie. “Hello Natalie. My name’s Hope.” She paused, “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Why aren’t you wearing a top? All the boys can see you.”

“It’s sort of a fashion,” Natalie explained. “A lot of women have young babies, so going topless makes it easier to feed them. Besides, I wanted to get a bit of a tan in the sun. We don’t get much at this time of year.”

“Oh.” Hope could see that things here were different from Africa. Pastor never allowed any women or girls to wander around topless back home.

Home. No, that was wrong. That used to be home, but it wasn’t home any more. The Sa’arm had made sure of that. Home was here now. Hope knew that she had to put Earth behind her. Not forget it – never forget it – but she couldn’t avoid the fact that she was here and had to build her new life here. She would fight the Swarm, just as Daddy had, but she would do it from here, not from Earth.

“You look sad,” Natalie interrupted Hope’s thoughts.

“I have a lot of new things to learn. I’ll have to work very hard.”

“It will be easier once you get used to it here, I’m sure,” Natalie assured her. “Most of the new arrivals settle in very quickly.”

Hope changed the subject away from herself, “How long have you been here, Natalie?”

“Eight years, since I was six. My mom took me and my brother with her when she was extracted. I don’t really remember much about Earth at all.”

How sad, Hope thought. Natalie was born on Earth, but didn’t remember it. She herself would always remember.

The kids were tired from playing outside, so most of them went to bed early after their evening meal. Sonia and Celina took the opportunity to have a walk around the compound in the growing dusk.

“They were right about this place being mostly desert,” Celina said. “Those hills look brown, like sand and rock.”

“There is some green,” Sonia pointed out.

“But only in the town,” Celina noted.

“True, but from the look of things we’ll be spending most of our time in the town where we live.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Celina said. “You’ll be in a different town, with Julius.”

“I’m sure it will be much the same as this one, Celina.”

Celina didn’t reply, but hugged Sonia. It wasn’t only the children who had come to rely on her.

When they got back to the pod, Sonia had to send Hope to bed. She was still up studying!

The next day was overcast with the sun behind clouds. There had been some drizzle in the early morning, but not enough to stop the children playing once they’d finished breakfast. The tall Indian woman, Shahana, was back organising things. Someone would arrive to pick up the children allocated to their family and take them off to their new home. Usually it was a concubine though occasionally a sponsor turned up. As the AI had explained, Sonia, Kwanza and Siti would leave after her other five children had gone to their new families.

Hope was nervous, waiting to see what her new family would be like. Solomon was nervous as well, but he was going to be a Marine so he was trying hard not to show it. Bobo was playing in the sandpit, completely oblivious to the impending change. He was happy that as the other children left he had more of the sand to himself. Hope was so nervous that she didn’t even bother to study, instead she walked around outside with Solomon while keeping an eye on Bobo.

Hope saw Sonia coming towards her with the tall Indian woman and a motherly looking black woman she didn’t recognise. Realising that this was her turn, she sent Solomon to fetch Bobo and went to meet the three women. The black woman, Isabel, was as motherly as she looked. She hugged all three children and they all went back to the pod to pick up their stuff. Sonia had made sure that all the children had packed their things before she’d let them out to play. Solomon had his laser rifle of course, Hope had her e-reader and notebook in a bag while Bobo carried his toy Zebra.

Sonia and Hope both cried as they hugged each other goodbye. Isabel assured them that they would be able to keep in contact, but they cried anyway. They had come to know each other well during their time together.

Isabel took the long way round to show Hope and Solomon a bit of the town centre. There was a small market, two restaurants and some official looking buildings. She pointed out the town’s meeting hall, the transporter station, the Civil Service office with the town brothel next door. A brothel! Hope was very shocked at that. She knew that such things existed, but to have one in such a prominent place in the main square and officially recognised as well!

“Are there any churches?” she asked Isabel. There weren’t any on the square.

“No, we don’t have any. If people want to follow a religion they do it in their own homes. We do have a few ministers who’ve been extracted. The Civil Service has a list.”

“What religion is your family?” Hope asked, quickly adding, “If it’s not rude.”

Isabel smiled. “We’re a mixed bunch. Jun-Hee, our sponsor, is Buddhist, Diane and Steve mostly don’t bother, Laxmi is Hindu and I’m Christian.”

“Do you know a Christian pastor I could talk to if I need to?”

“Yes,” Isabel replied. “There’s Father Paul if you’re Catholic or Episcopalian and Reverend Tony if you’re more low church. They both broadcast services every Sunday and you can watch old services on other days if you want to.”

Hope silently considered the new information. If people were being extracted from all over Earth, then they would be following a lot of different religions. Back in Africa she had met other Christians, Catholics, Muslims and a few Hindus. The tall Indian woman at the compound had looked Muslim, so there were probably others here as well. Isabel seemed happy with the situation, so it probably wouldn’t be too bad. All she knew about Buddhism was that Pastor had called it satanic, but he said that about any non-Christian religion. Khadija was Muslim and she hadn’t been satanic at all. A bit quiet maybe, but always pleasant and polite. Maybe this was another thing that Pastor had been wrong about? She was discovering that Pastor had not been nearly as right about things as he thought he was.

Away from the town centre, pods lined the streets. These were a lot bigger than the ones in the small compound. Isabel explained that pods could grow bigger if they had to. Hope remembered Natalie saying that pods were for larger families. “Isabel, how many children are there in our new family?”

“We have sixteen at the moment, so you three will bring it up to nineteen.”

Sixteen! Not as many in the Kindertransport pod, but still a lot of children. “How long have you been here?” Hope continued.

Isabel paused, thinking. “About nine years. It doesn’t seem that long, but Ram, Hilary and Marsha are all eight now. Marsha is mine – I was pregnant when we landed.”

“Nine years!” Hope exclaimed. “How old were you when you arrived?”

Isabel laughed. “I’m a lot older than I look. I was thirty-two when Jun-Hee picked me which makes me forty-one. Everyone gets made to look younger in the med-tubes, so I look a lot less than my real age.”

Hope nodded. She’d been told that, but this was the first time it had really hit home. Thinking about it, the ship’s crew had probably been made to look younger as well. None of them had seemed older than their late twenties.

The family’s pod was too far out from the town centre for Bobo, so by the end Hope put his Zebra in her bag while Isabel carried him on her hip. He took to her instantly and she to him. Bobo was very good at making friends with everybody.

When they got to the pod, Hope could see that it was in a big yard, with plenty of space around it for sixteen children to play and for three more to fit in. It even had its own play area, with a swing, a playhouse, a sandpit and a small soccer goal nearby. There were a few children already playing there, so Bobo immediately climbed down from Isabel’s hip and ran over to join them. Suddenly he wasn’t tired any more.

Sonia waited with Kwanza, Siti and Khadija. All her other charges had gone to their new homes. That was sad for all of them; Sonia had been like a mother to them and now they would have to get used to new mothers. At least she still had Kwanza and Siti with her. She was looking forward to rejoining Julius again as he could scratch some of her itches, the ones that the children couldn’t.

Shahana approached the four of them, though she didn’t have anyone with her. “Hello, Sonia, I’m here to collect Khadija. She’s joining my son Mohammed’s family, which gives me an excuse to visit him.”

Khadija was happy her new family was Muslim. “Are his concubines Muslim too?” she asked.

“Yes, he has two: my niece Little Shahana and Robinah.”

“That sounds good,” Khadija smiled.

“It’ll be fine,” she reassured the eleven-year-old. “Sonia,” Shahana said, “I’ll put you and your two through the transporter and then take Khadija to meet her new family.”

“Will there be someone to meet us at the other end?” Sonia asked, worried. “I won’t know where to go in the new town.”

“Julius or Masika should be there to meet you or the AI can direct you if they can’t make it,” Shahana reassured her.

Julius was busy training so Masika met them at the Lansdowne transporter terminus. She was wearing a flowery red blouse and blue skirt, much nicer than Sonia’s horrible grey shift. She hugged Sonia and the kids and led them off towards one of the large apartment blocks. Sonia could hear the AI’s voice from Masika’s collar directing her. Obviously she hadn’t learned the town’s layout yet.

Their apartment was on the third floor of the block. Not as big as a pod – it only had one level – but it was enough for the five of them with room for more when babies started arriving. Kwanza and Siti shared a bedroom and bathroom. Sonia and Masika each had their own room with a shared bathroom between. Julius had a huge bedroom with a big bathroom to match. Sonia suspected that Masika wouldn’t use her own room much as Julius would want her with him most of the time. That was OK as long as she got a piece of him as well.

Unfortunately, with Julius away the AI wouldn’t let Sonia have any new clothes to replace her shift. It wanted Julius’ permission first and it wouldn’t interrupt his training to ask him. “Insufficient priority,” was its excuse. The only alternative was nudity and she wasn’t ready for that. She’d seen some topless women in the town, but none actually naked. Since there was nothing she could do about it, she settled down to talk to Masika and wait for Julius to return.

The kids seemed happy playing indoors for the moment. At least the AI would allow Masika to replicate toys and games to keep them interested. They’d had time outside yesterday and this morning, so they were content to play in the apartment. Kwanza and Siti loved having Sonia all to themselves without having to share her with the other kids. Kwanza especially liked having more time with his mother.

On the way into the block, Sonia had noticed a children’s playground, bigger than the one at the temporary compound, so they would be able to play outside later. That would have to wait for Julius to return before they tried it though. She didn’t want to go outside in the horrible grey shift unless she absolutely had to, especially not now that Masika was dressed nicely.