Chapter 8

Over the next couple of weeks their routines of family life settled into a pattern. They scheduled for their sleep training to make continuous use of the pod’s unit as well as visits to the ship’s trainers. They ate in the canteen usually once or twice a day to meet with other families. They played interactive games suitable for the age groups in the pod, joined group activities outside and visited the gymnasium for exercise. Their nanites kept them trim but the activity helped prevent boredom and the children could interact with others in games like skipping and handball.

They spent a lot of time talking about their life to come on Garuda and how it would be organised. There was quite a lot of material the AI was able to show them. Chris was surprised at how the realisation that he could be gone for long stretches at time seemed to bother the children. It seemed that they had definitely imprinted on him as their new father figure.

Joy, who had definitely had reservations about him at the start, had made a complete turn about.

“Does that mean you are going to go away like our old daddy?” she demanded indignantly. “And only come to see us twice a month? Mama said you were going to be our daddy now.” She clearly felt that there was a cheat going on here.

“I don’t know exactly how much I will be away,” he confessed. “It will depend on what job they give me. I might be working mostly on Garuda or in-system or I might be sent on longer trips. A lot of the training I’m getting seems to be in ship-building though so I might be coming home each night.”

She was barely mollified by his explanation and her frown made it apparent that she would hold him responsible if he didn’t get the right assignment. It was only when he pointed out that she was getting extra moms and a whole lot of extra brothers and sisters that she admitted the deal was still a good one.

He wondered if he had another sponsor in the making here. She was definitely assertive enough and bright. It had already occurred to him that with encouragement Solange might have the personality for it too. Her mother was a 6.2.

He’d had a few private talks with Solange, concerned that she might become a bit isolated and withdrawn after the drama of her misdemeanour. She had obviously been shocked at the repercussions, potential and actual. He didn’t want her to start getting a blackened self-image.

“You took advantage of Helen’s soft nature and pushed her into something she didn’t really want and that was bad. And in the circumstances with the Confederacy laws explained to you it was extremely dangerous. But in another time and place what you were doing wasn’t itself a bad thing. A couple of years older and with a willing partner it would be fine. But that’s the crucial thing. You’re not a legal adult yet.

“Have you thought about what you want to be when you turn fourteen?”

Solange muttered something and he had to ask her to repeat it.

“I want to be a volunteer and not have everyone telling me what to do. I want to pilot a ship.”

Chris suppressed a smile. “But won’t you have to obey all the captain’s orders? Your other superiors and the people who train and test you?”

“Well yes, but not everyone, about everything I do.”

“I guess most kids feel like that at some point. My life has been a bit different from most but I remember feeling like that even a few times when my parents were alive. In the military people do get ordered around a lot but it’s true that volunteers do have more options than concubines and I do think you could qualify as a volunteer if you work at it.”

Solange abruptly brightened a little but still looked suspicious. “You do?”

“Yes. I know from your grades and the AI’s reports on your training that you are bright. And the adventurous quality that got you into trouble can be an advantage if it’s properly directed. I think you would have a good chance. You’d have to work hard to develop yourself though.”

“What do I do?” she demanded, some of her old personality emerging.

“The main thing would be your education. If you are interested in piloting you need to concentrate on your Math and Physics. I can help you there when I’m around and I know Sarah is good at those too.

“Apart from schooling you need to show commitment to family and community. I’m sure there will be plenty of opportunities for that at the colony. I’ll try and get you started on some martial arts training too. It will be limited on board due to the restricted space and volunteer training getting first priority but you can start on some sleep training and there should be better facilities for the physical training at Garuda.”

“I’ll do that,” she said determinedly. “Can I ask the AI for more sleep training?”

“I authorise it,” he said, knowing that the AI would register that. “But you need to ask you mother if she can find you some spots in the schedule.”

He felt a lot better about her recovery as she threw herself into the work. Her brother Marcus was coming out of his shell more now too. He had been missing his father but the idea that he was going to be Chris’s eldest son in a potential pack of brothers appealed to him.

Melissa had taken on the task of getting Helen over her trauma and spent time with her. Helen had been pretty shocked and upset by the whole thing but the warm support she got from her mothers and Chris and her quick imprinting on Melissa was getting her past that. Chris was glad to see that it was helping Melissa adjust too.

Deb was overjoyed with her elegant new body and was going a bit crazy with the sudden blooming of her sex life. She was constantly designing erotic costumes and underwear to provoke him and suggesting every experimental position she could find in research and her own imagination. He didn’t mind indulging her with plenty of attention. She was too level headed not to settle down after a while.

His felt his relations with Louise, Lou and Sarah were growing into a more sensible affectionate mutual respect and if sex with them was not as spectacular every time it was warm and satisfying. He blessed his newly given capacity and stamina to please them and himself.

Cherie remained a problem that was obviously going to take time to resolve. Although she now accepted that Chris had forgiven her attitude and actions against him and wanted to put them behind, she couldn’t quite accept that for herself. Her entire self-concept and picture of her world had been overturned and she was still shaken and having trouble adjusting.

The threat of a body swap with Deb had begun it. Suddenly forced to imagine herself in Deb’s place was a profound trauma to her sense of self-identity and worth. The realisation that the beauty that was the foundation of her smug self-satisfaction really was a matter of arbitrary chance that could be reversed had deeply shocked her. Then to discover that the family wealth and status she had enjoyed was actually stolen from the supposed charity case that she barely tolerated and frequently abused on a daily basis added to the image reversal.

The discovery that troubled her most persistently though was that Chris had nursed a continuing crush on her despite her treatment of him right up until she had begun her campaign to ruin him at school. She had gullibly accepted that the child abuse porn was his despite all the reasons she could now see that made it unlikely. It was a vice generally found in adults not thirteen or fourteen year olds and his interactions with Melissa had always seemed quite innocent. And subsisting on the miserable funds that her mother had doled out to him, where would he have got the money for such expensive high quality underground publications?

What she could just not forgive herself for was that the campaign she had so readily undertaken with such self-righteous satisfaction on her mother’s prompting, had been so devastating to him that he had seriously contemplated suicide. Who had she really thought she was protecting from the child ‘pervert’? Why had she not seen his quiet self-effacement as part of his misery and suffering?

She had uncritically followed her mother’s example and heaped that final burden of despair on him that almost destroyed him. Her newly achieved ability to put herself in someone else’s place left her wondering where he had found the strength to drag himself out of that pit and to plan and prepare what sounded like a masterly counter-attack. How could he forgive her? Because she couldn’t forgive herself.

The outward signs of this struggle were a twitchy uncertainty that had never been part of her behaviour before, and an over-eagerness to please directed at everyone but especially Deb and of course Chris. She couldn’t believe that her new family could have more than mere toleration for her and her mother with all that had been revealed.

Sarah worked on her and Chris tried to convince her that it had all worked out for the best and that climbing out of that pit had actually made him stronger than he could ever have been before and probably contributed directly to his high CAP. But it was clear that it was going to take her a long time to accept her mistakes and reconstruct her new self.

The elephant in the room of course was Red, even if she wasn’t in the room all that much. She was in high demand by the onboard Marines and a silent watchful presence when she was in the unit and not asleep recovering. Cherie could hardly bear to look at her but Melissa regularly paid her attention, asked how she was and gave her a hug. The rest of the time Red’s attention was focused totally on Chris.

Chris was feeling incredibly liberated and optimistic about his future and his new family. His physique was settling into its new shape. He hadn’t gone for the Marine upgrade. In Fleet Auxiliary he was unlikely to be involved in physical combat. He might never see combat of any sort although all the services were required to prepare for the possibility. At six feet he was a little taller than he might have grown naturally and a bit more muscular. His father had only been five ten and hardly an athlete but Chris had the standard enhancements in strength and speed that would have made him a world-class athlete back on Earth. That tended to help his confidence.