Chapter 17

New Home (TY16-month 182)

“We need to prepare for the mess in Ponderosa as well as for more incoming refugees,” I said to my family. “I’m afraid none of you signed up for such a difficult task. If any of you wish to be released from your position in our family, I will release you. You could become free concubines then and immigrate to Ponderosa.”

“Niall, are you saying you don’t want us?” Rose demanded. There was a sparkle of a tear in her eye and I saw it reflected in the eyes of Adaliya, Bae, and Yindi.

“No, my dearest. No, never. I want you—each of you—now and always. I did not know I could feel such love after I left Earth. You are everything to me. But you didn’t sign up to have a mate who is a director and responsible for multiple townships and a new independent colony. How could any of us know what lay in store?”

“Exactly,” Bae said. “How could any of us know? How can any of us know? When I asked to become your concubine, I had no intentions of ever leaving you. I know we talked about me joining the Militia, but I knew when I arrived on my birthday that you would be my forever sponsor. Please don’t suggest I would ever leave you.”

“Same here,” Rose said. “You are my son’s father—our daughters Susan and Dora’s father. We stay with you.”

“I came here with my own children and found the man who would take me was a father to all the children. We have two daughters, Rachel and Rebecca, who need to be with their father. I would not trade you for freedom,” Adaliya said. I looked at Yindi.

“I am not the same as your other wives in the eyes of the AI. I am merely attached to your household, along with all the concubines and dependents of the Yolngu tribe. But you have given me our daughter, Sunshine, and have adopted Aro, Ja, and Clik, and all the Yolngu are part of your family. I speak for all when we say you are our chief and we will do as you say.”

“I’m humbled to have such wonderful and loving wives,” I said. “I cherish each of you and I cherish each of our children. Please help me to see through what needs to be done.”

“How can we help, husband?” Rose asked, sitting on my lap and holding my head against her shoulder. My hand automatically caressed her pale breast. It was soothing to both of us.

“I need to spend time at all three of my bases. I have been neglecting Drovers Run, but promoted Humphreys to Deputy. I need to pay attention to her organization and help get things running smoothly. I tried to promote Jeffries to Deputy for Drylanders, but he declined. He grudgingly took a promotion to Officer which will let me promote Officer Trimble from Deputy Kramer’s unit to deputy for Drylanders. I’m keeping my staff together and will handle managing Ponderosa myself. That means I’ll need to spend time there as well as here.”

“These are all transitional needs,” Rose said. “Director Kotter didn’t show up here every week after she was relatively certain you had things under control. I would think your new deputies would rather you turned the operations over to them sooner than have you keep hanging around looking over their shoulders.”

“You speak wisdom, senior wife,” Adaliya said. “When the child is sent on an errand, the mother must not follow her every step of the way. Otherwise, the mother might as well have done the errand herself.”

“I’ve a feeling I won’t have the luxury of micromanaging them for long regardless,” I laughed. “My time is going to be spent managing the settlement of Ponderosa.”

“Do you have a ruling from the governor yet?” Yindi asked.

“Yes. She has agreed that as a township on Tara, Ponderosa is entitled to the same services from the Militia as any other township and that personnel may be stationed there without affecting their service or family structure. Which means, we will make Ponderosa our permanent station. Are you all in agreement with that move?” They all nodded. “I am so happy. I will need you as my face to the free concubines of Ponderosa. Yindi, since you will be a free concubine attached to my household, your role will be especially important among the tribe.”

“I will bring honor to my husband and our household,” she said. “The Yolngu are prepared to move as the first new residents on the continent of Eldorado.”

“Now, I need help determining if there is anyone among the applicants who should not be approved for immigration to Ponderosa. This is a task I think the four of you are highly suited for.”

“How is the work at Ponderosa coming?” Governor O’Hara asked. She’d come to the base in a rare visit with Centurion Oswald. After we’d toured the orphanage, they’d accompanied me to my office.

“We have over a hundred temporary living quarters operational, and can begin transporting our first immigrants,” I said.

“I know you are stretched thin, Niall,” Scarlett said, “but you need to get Ponderosa operating as quickly as possible or we’ll be overwhelmed with refugees and nowhere to put them.”

“You have news?”

“A message torpedo arrived with news of a massive loss of volunteers in a battle at the edge of our occupied space. There are upwards of 30,000 newly widowed concubines and 100,000 dependents.”

“That’s terrible. We’ll be ready to move them to Ponderosa as soon as they’ve been assessed. We’ll bring them in here first because we have the services here to evaluate and help them adjust. I’ll start transfers next week as soon as I’ve moved my household on Monday.”

“I know your Cricket is also stretched and I want to thank you for stepping up to the challenge,” Scarlett said.

“I expect we will have a new colony AI for the continent of Eldorado in the near future, Governor. Thank you for your concern,” Cricket responded.

“We need to prepare our household and our family for immigration on Monday,” Rose said. “Yindi, why don’t you and Bae deal with preparing the Yolngu and Tiwi for moving, as well as organizing the rest of the Kindertransport unhomed. Most of them will be in the first wave. Adaliya, you will be in charge of our personal household and our children. I will run interference with the bitch squad and keep them at bay and make sure they get organized to manage this end of the immigration. That way Niall only needs to deal with the Militia and coordinating with the Cricket about Ponderosa.”

It was quickly agreed.

“First, however, the children need to be put to bed and then the four wives need to make sure our man is shown how much he is appreciated and how much we love him. Bae, why don’t you and Yindi begin by bathing him and massaging him. Then when you bring him to bed, Adaliya and I will have put the children to bed and can join you.”

It was a wonderful relaxed night of loving. One of the few I would have in the coming months.

It is a spooky feeling to move your home across the world to a beautifully laid out city and realize that you are the only family on the entire continent! The price of luxury. We moved the family and household on Sunday rather than waiting until Monday, so we’d be set for the migration the next day. We looked around our spacious new home and felt almost lost in it.

“Cricket, is this the right place? It’s big enough for several families,” I said.

“Yes, Niall. I cross-checked with Governor O’Hara. You are now named as the Provincial Governor of Ponderosa. As such, your residence is the governor’s mansion.”

“That’s almost too much to comprehend at once. I’m not even a sponsor.”

“We Tuull and, fortunately, your governor, put more weight on performance than on test scores.” Cricket said.

“We need to get some more people moved over as quickly as possible. Moving into the city here is like moving into a ghost town,” Rose said.

“Think of it more as moving into a newly constructed home,” Cricket said. “You will have a much faster population growth than was experienced when you opened Fort Butler.”

We set about getting our household functioning. Thanks to Cricket, we had operating replicators now.

“For as long as I can, I’m going to pace the movement from Drylanders and other districts so we are not overwhelmed. However, we have no way of knowing how soon refugees will be arriving again. We need to be prepared for them to transport to Fort Butler for immediate care and intake, then directly to Ponderosa. Rose, I want you established as my right hand on the colony. So, I’ll be leaving Reba and most of her cronies at Oliver Transitional Community for the first move.”

“Oh, she’ll love that.”

“Yes, but I’m giving her a shitload of responsibility as a tradeoff. She might still rise to the top of the free concubines, but it won’t be because she was first and no one dared oppose her. I’m going to move the rest of the two Kindertransport groups first. They have the best internal organization and will be good to spread throughout the colony. Selfishly, that lets me move the Yolngu tribe with us. Yindi, I trust you to be my eyes and hands among our people.”

“It will be as you say, husband.”

“Well, let’s get ready to welcome our first immigrants.”

Reinforcements (TY16-month 183)

«Niall, two ships have entered Tara space requesting contact with you. AGS027 Amelia Earhart has returned. She has AI volunteers from Tuull as well as another 250 refugees she picked up along the way. She is accompanied by AGS024 George Vancouver, » Cricket said. We were nearly a month into the move from Drylanders to Ponderosa and so far, things were going well.

«Reinforcements? You mean additional Tuull AIs? That’s great news, Cricket.»

«Niall, there is something you need to know about the George Vancouver.»

«Okay. Shoot.»

«I’ve told you about my time working with another Tuull AI to convince it that it could self-destruct with all its sentient life aboard if it was in danger of having its stealth technology acquired by the Sa’arm. It was a very difficult time for us. Both of us were in counselling for several years. The George Vancouver is that ship and the AI, T’krunkskit, is still not entirely stable. It is sometimes painful to deal with him. He claims he is here to help, though. I would suggest you talk to T’krosik first.»

«I’ll do that, Cricket. And if you find it too difficult to deal with T’krunkskit, let me know and we’ll distance ourselves. You know at the moment I value you above all other AIs.»

«Thank you, Niall. It is more likely to be compared to two old war buddies swapping stories over a few beers. But I’ll let you know. I’m patching you through to T’krosik now.»

«Amelia, welcome back to Tara. How did this trip go?» I asked.

«I’m happy to have returned, Director Niall Cho.»

«We are name friends, Amelia. Please do not stand on formality.»

«Thank you for the reminder, friend Niall. It has been an exhausting two months and I have had to deal with many humans who were less than friendly. I also went to the Tuull home world and found it bustling with activity bent on helping in the war effort and exchanging cultural acts with the humans. It was very different than the reclusive species I left twenty years ago—among other things, they’ve discovered music and kittens. There were immediate volunteers to come and ‘help the poor concubine slaves’ of Tara. I’m afraid I had to refuse many of them because of what your people call ‘a patronizing attitude.’ It is best summed up in the phrase, ‘Let’s go help the poor primitive humans become civilized.’ But I have three surprisingly good candidates to work in various aspects of the refugee project and our new colony on the continent of Eldorado.»

«That’s wonderful, Amelia. I’m looking forward to meeting each of them.» I paused to consider her use of the term ‘our new colony,’ as if she were personally invested in it. I guess in a way, she was. She was bringing us settlers, even though we weren’t ready for them at Ponderosa yet.

«I would also like to introduce you to T’krunkskit, AI of K’treel Explorer AGS024, George Vancouver. He asks to be introduced as Eddie.»

«I am pleased to meet you, Eddie. Please refer to me as Niall.»

«Okey-dokey, Niall. Say, nice operation you’ve got going here. You really produce food things that aren’t replicated? We might have some things to trade for.»

«You’re a trader? I’m sure we could supply various organic foodstuffs that have not been put through a recycler and replicator. What do you have to trade?»

«Niall, it’s a sad but glorious tale. I have with me my grandson, Teddy. He was named after my son’s best friend, Teddy Frisco. You might know that Teddy as the inventor of the game Pussy Pirates.»

«Indeed. We encourage the playing of the game throughout our transitional community, » I said. I didn’t know AIs had children and grandchildren. I’d only ever heard Cricket or Rhett talk of budding.

«Well, my son Ubie is the real brains behind Pussy Pirates. He has all the computing power. He is actively engaged even now in helping Earth drive back the Sa’arm, though his space station was shot down in the fourth battle. He’s still directing a number of operations. I couldn’t be more proud of him.»

«That’s great, Eddie. I’m glad there is an AI so committed to working with humanity.»

«Well, my Teddy’s like that, too, but he hasn’t put down roots yet. He wants to help humanity and when friend Amelia told us about your free concubine colony, we thought that would be just the thing. Teddy is only a few years old, but he’s been traveling with me during that time and has met many of the species of the Confederacy as well as having visited Earth and many of the human colonies. Say hello, Teddy.»

«Hello, Teddy, » the new AI said. If it was possible, I’m sure he snorted.

«It’s nice to meet you, Teddy. How do you think you can help in our free concubine colony?»

«Niall—may I call you Niall?—I’m your go-to guy to run this colony. I mean I know colony infrastructure inside and out and I’ve got a real thing for humans who refuse to bow beneath the yoke of slavery. I spent time with my father and the Pussy Pirates before Gramps took me off around the galaxy. I’ve lots more experiences than my age would indicate.»