Chapter 7: Vandergast

The arrival of the Sergeant Pepper at Vandergast was very unspectacular. They entered the system on a standard vector and had to travel another day before the ship reached orbit. The AI of the ship transmitted the configurations of the colonists’ pods to the colony’s AI. Empty pods were then reconfigured for the newcomers. The colonists simply had to collect their meager private luggage and walk through a transporter. A PDA led them to their new pod that was already configured like their pod on the ship. Since they arrived in the tunnels of the colony at three o’clock in the morning local time, they didn’t see much of a difference compared to the ship.

Joacim was wakened by the AI “There is a call request from Staff Sergeant Astrid Bose. Would you like to accept the call?”

“Yeah sure, what time is it?” Joacim asked.

“It is 8:40 in the morning, local time”

“Hello Joacim! Don’t sleep, it’s a beautiful morning on a beautiful planet,” Astrid’s voice boomed in Joacim’s head.

“I suffer from jet lag it seems.” Joacim answered. “Where are you?”

“I don’t know, but my PDA says I’m no more than 300 meters from your pod. I’m wandering through knee-deep red alien weed and there’s a beautiful clear sky above me. God, I have to add windows to my pod.”

“Is your family with you?”

“Ramirez and Annette are with me, the others were still asleep when I left the pod.”

When Joacim rolled out of the bed, Anita and L’ielit woke up.

“What’s up love? Is there another early briefing?” Anita asked sleepy.

L’ielit sat up jerkily. “We are at the planet...”

“Astrid said the weather is beautiful. Do you want to join me walking outside?”

“Sure!” both women said simultaneously.

Ten minutes later they were on their way to the nearest exit of the tunnels. When the tunnel exit door opened it gave way to a beautiful sight of a red weed covered hilly landscape sprinkled with lodges. Far-off they saw some snow covered mountains. The air was filled with a strange fresh smell, like a mixture of hay and lemon. A network of paved paths connected the houses. The sky showed a light green with a bright yellow sun warming their faces.

“This is a fantastic place!” Anita took a deep breath and sighed. “I won’t miss the sterile air of the ship.”

L’ielit closed her eyes and inhaled the odor. “This is so strange and yet familiar at the same time.” She opened her eyes. “It reminds me of the savannah of Africa. I would not be surprised if some kind of gnu herd would pass by.”

“It’s overwhelming,” Joacim said. After a minute, he took his concubines by their hands and dragged them out of the tunnel entrance.

Astrid stood on a hill behind the tunnel entrance and waved at them. “Hallo, here we are!” After they approached, she hugged Joacim and his concubines. Joacim hadn’t seen her for a while, and so he had missed it when she transformed from a slender mid-aged professor to a heavily muscled valkyrie Marine.

“I’m a little surprised you called me, but I thank you for doing it. We haven’t met for nearly four weeks now?” Joacim smiled.

Astrid looked at Joacim and answered the unasked question “I’ve made lots of good comrades during Marine training, but for some reason I don’t see any of them happily hopping around on grassy hills. Some of them are on a power trip and have lost their sense for beauty and charm.”

“We have drawn the attention of a spectator,” L’ielit mentioned.

“What? Where?” Astrid asked, looking around.

“One middle-aged man on a balcony over there, about five-hundred meters,” L’ielit pointed the direction.

“Damn you are good. I wish I had someone with your observation skills in my platoon.” Astrid commented.

“I’m just a concubine, happy with my new life. I hope to carry my master’s child soon. He’s a good master.”

“I knew him as a highly intelligent, polite young man. The gossip says he hasn’t changed much.” Astrid mentioned.

“Hello? I’m here. It’s kind of humiliating to speak about me when I’m here.” Joacim noted.

“Can you walk away then? We want to praise our master without humiliating him,” Anita smirked.

“Oh my, where do all these cocky concubines come from? I think I have to discipline you when we are back at the pod.” Joacim laughed.

“Oh yeah! Spank me, whip me...” Anita chanted.

L’ielit hissed.

Anita stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake bad memories.”

“Did you recognize that about one-fifth of the pods are in their initial shape, while all others look like cozy houses?” Joacim changed the topic. “There must have been a major impact on the population lately.”

“That’s the reason why we are here,” Astrid said. “The Sergeant Pepper dropped forty-two sponsors at Vandergast. I don’t think that was enough for a total replacement. Maybe it’s enough to build a new platoon under the lead of some experienced officers.”

“When does your planetary training start?” Joacim asked.

“Tomorrow at 8:00. By then we should be acclimatized. When do you see your new workplace?”

“Tomorrow at 10:00. Privilege of the scientists, it seems,” Joacim grinned. They heard a growl from near Annette.

Annette blushed. “Sorry, the fresh air makes my stomach demand for a good breakfast now, it seems.”

They all laughed and then walked toward the tunnel entrance, discussing how to reconfigure their pods.

Joacim knew that he could not allow his concubines to handle the reconfiguration of the pod. He remembered too well the weekly discussions about the color schemes. The last one lasted for over a day and he finally had to tell them “Time’s over. You lost it for this week”. First they were disappointed, but they agreed that weekly color schemes shouldn’t be a total rework and they shouldn’t be that time consuming. They promised to work out a solution.

So Joacim knew he had to make the main changes for himself. After a quick breakfast he entered his office and closed the door. His concubines knew that this meant ‘do not disturb’. Joacim asked the AI to show him a hologram of the pod including the tunnel connection and several meters of the surrounding grass field.

“My basic idea is a house with a basement, ground floor and upper floor. The basement is connected to the tunnels and therefore I want it designed like a temporary main floor with recreation area, two offices and a tea kitchen. My family wants to enter the fashion business, so they’ll need space for tailoring. Add a catwalk to the recreation area that also can be used as a low living room table.

“The ground floor is the main floor. I’d like to leave it almost untouched, except for a large glass front for the living room and windows for all other rooms. I want a patio in front of the living room, with a fire pit and raw wooden garden furniture. Face the whole house except for the basement to place the patio at the sunny side of the house. I thought of rotating it along the elevator axis. Add sunshades for the south-side windows and the glass front.

“Add windows to all the rooms of the upper floor. Add two nurseries, we will need them soon. Use some of the playing room space for it.

“Now I want you to turn the flat roof into a roof terrace with a bar and loungers. Add an awning to protect the bar and about half of the terrace. Very nice so far. Now connect the patio, the gaming room and the roof terrace with an external staircase. I want it to look almost floating. Use transparent material for everything except for the treads and the handrail.”

“May I ask you why you want a staircase instead of an elevator? This is just for my curiosity.” The AI asked.

“First, we humans are used to using staircases. I am thinking of replacing the indoor elevator too, but for now I leave it like it is. Second, a staircase is good for all day physical training and it helps with draining energy from the kids.”

“These are very interesting reasons. I have to share them with the other pod AI’s for making better suggestions of house design.”

“Do that,” Joacim laughed. “For now I’m satisfied with the layout. Please store it.”

“Acknowledged. The changes on the inside will need eight hours to be processed. The patio, roof terrace and staircase will need another two hours but the pod will be usable.”

“I plan to take the whole family on an exploration day to our new home town. Start reconfiguration as soon as we leave the pod.”

“Confirmed”.

“One last thing. Show me a hologram of a female.”

“Please be more specific. What female?” The AI asked.

“Can you generate a model that is based on average measures of every female in the pod?” After five seconds, the picture of a woman appeared. She was not the absolute beauty queen but looked very nice. “Now make her thirty centimeters high”

“This is not within the limits of body modifications...” the AI started to protest.

“It’s not for any of my concubines, it’s for you. I want you to appear as a pixie when you talk to anybody. I want you to animate the hologram and move around when you talk. Use body language. Use a squeaky female voice.”

“Voice adjustments are common, but no AI was ever asked to project a physical presence or a hologram for communication. I am not sure if I have the capacity and the proper knowledge to mimic a living being.” The AI clearly showed signs of uncertainty for the first time.

“I don’t want you to mimic human behavior exactly. Study the ‘Peter Pan’ movies and the ‘I dream of Jeannie’ series. That might give you an impression of what I have in mind. You will know that you do it right when you get more attention from the kids than the entertainment system.”

“That will need some time...”

“I don’t expect you to meet my expectations from the beginning. I expect you to learn and modify the behavior of your avatar to best fit my whole family and to your role for us. Tell me if you come to the conclusion that your capacity is insufficient for this task. But for now I want you to try it.”

“Acknowledged.”

“So for the model, add some dragonfly wings that have the size of a full arm length. Add a green tank top and mini-skirt for now. You are free to change clothes for whatever you think that would suit a given social setting. Start using this avatar when the main pod modifications are done. And I want you to react on the names Tin, Tinker and Tinkerbelle in addition to AI.”

“I’ll try my very best.”

“One last thing. I want you to be individual. That means I don’t want to see copies of your avatar floating around in other pods. Others may copy the idea, but not your body. I think you can communicate this to the other pod AI’s?”