Chapter 1

Reginald’s arrival on the planet Rehome presented a minor quandary for the Governor and his administration team. A man with so many wives, accompanied by very young children was not usual for an immigrant family from Earth. The family size made most of the normal arrangements unacceptable through sheer numbers. Locating suitable existing accommodation was impossible except in town and would involve conversion of a block of housing, and rural settlement had its own difficulties. New arrivals usually were decanted to the countryside to take on a standard plot of land and start farming it.

That arrangement left the emigrant family to build their own home. The administration helped out where necessary with a loan to finance the housebuilding on the plot and provided essential construction plans for putting the kit together.

The Personalia offered additional encouragement in the form of delivery on site of the parts for a kit house of the size required, complete with solar panels for the roof to supply electric power. This was of great assistance, as otherwise how would a kit house, a considerable load at any time, be delivered to where there is no road to your plot of land?

The Personalia had it as one of their many businesses, purchasing the kit houses on Earth at bulk buy prices and transporting them to Rehome for the arriving farmers. The price charged to the settlers was only ten per cent more than the cost of purchase on Earth, and The Personalia got an exceptional deal on the price, as a dependable regular customer that always paid on time. Even better for all concerned, the supplier only had to lay out the kit house of parts as a complete package, with the panels and ready-cut struts, roof tiles, other important parts, nuts, bolts, screws, nails and tools ready wrapped and all securely fastened together, with the order number pasted in large lettering on top so as to be visible from above. The firm would send The Personalia an email to say that this kit, number so-and-so, was ready for shipment, and that night it would vanish from the huge delivery yard when The Personalia collected it and whisked it away into the sky.

For the foundations, The Personalia bulk purchased the cement on Earth, but obtained the gravel from a supplier on Rehome. Plans were afoot for a cement plant on Rehome, but it was not a priority, so not yet built.

Thus, when Reginald’s party arrived on the planet by arrangement, the Governor had already set his own plans into effect. He wanted the second empty city to be occupied, but also needed the surrounding land to be farmed to provide the necessary fresh food for the residents as they arrived. Until fresh produce came from that land, it would have to be shipped in by train from the first city, which was a less cost-effective operation and would not assist the economic development of the second city.

The governor, for his own purposes, had need at times for Reginald and some of his family to be present in the second city for business meetings, so he authorised necessary accommodation to be made available within the city as well as approving double the standard allocation of land for settlement and farming by such a large family.

There was another factor. Reginald and his family had landed a unique contract with the Governor for a business opportunity, not fully defined and yet to start.

The land that was allocated to them was apparently virgin land, despite being close to the abandoned alien city that the humans are now converting for human use.

Reginald was puzzled as to why the land did not appear to have been in use by the aliens while they were here. It is not how humans would establish a city. The Governor explained the puzzle. The alien builders worked in another way entirely. They sent in what was basically several construction battalions to build the six cities of the planet, and the rail link between them, in preparation for a major influx of settlers once everything was ready for them on the ground.

It didn’t happen. The owners had totally abandoned the planet after an encounter with invaders: the hostile alien intelligent spaceships – the same ones that had almost wiped out the Personalia and their creators, well in excess of 300 Earth years ago. Here at this planet it was a close thing, but the invading machines were wiped out by another machine race similar to The Personalia, that were part of a symbiotic collaboration between three species; two biological and one machine species.

Reginald asked the Governor about this story and been told that the race of former owners had almost completed building the six identical cities when the invaders appeared in the star system. The planet’s population was minimal at the time; mostly construction workers adding finishing touches to the cities and the rail system, so this was one of the reasons for deciding to abandon the planet after being attacked: a small population to be evacuated. Their own spaceship associates (a machine species similar to the Personalia) did the fighting and while winning the fight with the invaders were much depleted in strength and numbers, but were able to perform the evacuation. They were, however, apprehensive that the invaders might come back; at which time they would possibly not be able to fight off another attack of a similar nature. They could not offer adequate protection until they had time to restore their numbers. That would take many years.

The settler species chose to retreat. The evacuation proceeded without haste, and the planet abandoned, deemed unsafe to settle for the foreseeable future.

It was written off as an irrecoverable loss to their species, with no intent ever to return, for the population no longer had a wish to put themselves at risk on a new planet.

That was the situation when the humans arrived on the planet, brought by The Personalia. The humans were looking for a planet to settle, and to their shock they found a virgin planet plus six completed, but empty, cities. The Personalia searched all the neighbouring star systems, looking for a space-faring species, and eventually were able to locate the race that had abandoned the planet and their partners.

The Personalia had the power to resist any invaders, so they negotiated a deal whereby the Earth humans would be allowed to take over the planet at their own risk, in exchange for a batch of practical ideas that the original settler race did not possess; ideas that would be useful and profitable (such as copyright and patents) for a civilised society to advance its technology faster.

The Personalia provided a guarantee to the humans that they would guard the planet and the entire system from the previous invaders, should they ever come back. That was enough incentive for the humans to settle, and they called the planet Home.

That name lasted only until The Personalia rescued survivors from a planet that had been devastated by the same machine race invaders. The few hundred survivors out of millions were granted the sixth city – the one at the end farthest from the human-occupied city - as their new and exclusive home. The survivors of this race were guaranteed not to be approached by humans unless and until they desired it; presumably once their numbers had built up again to a viable level, and both species were confident that their diseases would not cross the species barrier.

The planet’s name was altered to Rehome, as the remnant race had been rehomed there as well as the humans. Rehome as a name felt right as a response by the humans in the circumstances.

Faced with their newly acquired but essentially virgin land, Reginald and his family set about clearing part of it for field crops, leaving the forestry part untouched. The process was only practicable if mechanised, so Reginald set about purchasing a couple of decent-sized tractors to enable clearing wild growth from the land and grubbing up the odd tree growing here and there.

The tractors were similar to Earth tractors, but powered by small atomic motors of roughly the same dimensions, supplied by The Personalia. These were guaranteed to run for many years without refuelling, while the rest of the tractor used standard parts of a popular Earth model. The supplying company on Rehome imported the machines minus their diesel engines, and added the sealed atomic motors in their own workshops.

Instead of burning the uprooted undergrowth, that plant material was built into compost heaps, with alternate layers of woody growth and green material. The pattern was one large compost heap constructed for each kilometre square. Once it had biodegraded into compost, it would be spread on the ploughed land to promote fertility. A new compost heap would be constructed each year, from unwanted crop parts, like stems and inedible leaves, supplemented by vegetable debris from the family’s meals. One of the wives suggested obtaining vegetable refuse from a commercial restaurant in the city, and that was put into their advance planning.

Getting a kit house to accommodate the family required The Personalia to make a special order with the supplier for a much larger home than usual, but as it was merely an adaption of existing plans, The firm was able to provide the new variant within a few days, and so the kit arrived on Rehome about a week after the Robertsons gained their land. They used the city accommodation as a temporary measure, with Reginald living in a tent for a few days at a time to start work on the land, beginning with clearing plant growth from the site of the house and garden. Sandra was sent out to assist him with meals, laundry and other home comforts, allowing him to concentrate on the job.

A week later, the house kit arrived from the sky, and a local team of house-builders were contracted to erect it as swiftly as possible. It was a well-paid contract, so they worked had and had it completed in ten days.

The builders travelled from the city to the building site using a small tractor/digger and a trailer, making their own basic roadway as they moved, so that they could ride home to the city at the end of each day in the trailer. A day after the kit house arrived, the domestic equipment asked for by the Robertsons also arrived from Earth and were later wired and plumbed-in by the builders as the building process permitted, so that at the end, the house was a working unit

Work on clearing the land went well for several months, until the tractors were finally used for deep ploughing of the newly cleared ground. This was a much slower farming procedure, as it revealed many boulders unearthed by the ploughing. The larger of these had to be pushed or towed to the edge of the field, while the smaller ones could be ploughed over and back into the soil, helping to prevent compaction.

The second field that was being cleared exhibited a distinct depression in one part. That was earmarked as a possible site for a pond, to hold water for use in dry weather, as it was well away from any of the several streams running downwards through the property.

There was a family discussion as to whether it was a deep enough depression to be just lined with puddling clay, or be dug deeper and wider to provide a more extensive pool for water and a possible swimming pond.

Family arguments included not knowing how much rain there was in the rainy season, and where a suitable puddling clay deposit could be found (with a note to check both of these with the colony administration). That was followed by a decision to excavate it deeper and make it suitable as firstly a water supply, and secondly a swimming pond, with an extra bonus of a fishing pond, once stocked with fish transferred from the nearest substantial streams.

A clay lining would have to be fairly thick to stand up to ground movements and flows of water into and out of the pond, so if the hole was lined with clay it would have to be deeper then otherwise, to allow for that additional clay thickness. Also, the pool could not be allowed to dry to any extent, as the lining clay would dry out above water and start cracking, so any means of keeping the pond full would be a good plan, otherwise the possibly exposed clay would have to be covered with a non-porous material to prevent drying out.

Fiona wondered about the possibility of diverting a small stream to lead to the pond at the upper end and out again at the lowest point. Unfortunately no stream was very close. A pipe might be the solution, taking water to the pool, thus preventing the pool ever getting stagnant or drying out, and probably allowing small fish to enter and thrive if water plants could be established, probably in pots. It also would need some fine mesh to allow the water to exit without any fish escaping. The others adopted that idea at once for later implementation.

The area surrounding the depression was scraped clean of existing lush plant growth then would probably be left until all the details of clay, rainy season, and routes of streams were clarified. Much would depend on the general lie of the land and which way the field sloped and to what extent. The pond’s lower edges might have to be banked up to allow for a pond deep enough for everything that was desired.

Digging a pond was so far found to be more complicated than it first appeared, primarily because of the land’s slope and the position of water courses or the lack of water.

The family meantime concentrated on completing their home with the materials shipped in by The Personalia and the local tradesmen to put the structure together in a safe and secure manner. The first large field was ploughed and planted with broad beans, peas, beetroot and several varieties of turnip in broad strips down the field. No-one was able to tell them if there was a threat to their seeds from local animals akin to mice, so they adopted a practice of running a drone low over the field at irregular intervals, with the drone putting out a harsh noise that should scare off any hungry animals that might have an interest in the planted seeds. This modernised scarecrow device seemed to work, for there was satisfactory germination in due course.

Once the crops had fully germinated, it then became possible to see where weeds needed to be removed. Weeding was a simple mechanical job with a small hand-pushed tilling machine. Time was then available to start work on the proposed pond/small lake/pool in the next field. It made sense to do the excavations first, and spreading the excavated material on the surrounding ground, which would then allow the delivery of the puddling clay to the site by tractor. It made no sense to start on preparing for crops until all this work on the pond was completed, for the field surface would be deterred from immediate planting by the use of a tractor and the spreading of excavated soil, and possibly some subsoil.

It was noted as important to get a dozer blade fitted to a tractor at the first city, then apply the blade to excavate soil from the depression. Other large scale farmers had similar needs, so these blades were readily available at the first city to purchase or hire. Reginald chose hire, as their requirement was a temporary one. The easiest way to work was to excavate a ramp down into the depression, then use the blade to push soil up and out on every side from the middle of the depression. The first few feet went well with it being loose soil, then as the tractor bit deeper it hit a rock and stopped abruptly.

Reginald, at the controls, reckoned it must be a pretty large rock, or a rocky protrusion from below that would have to be blasted away to allow the pond to be constructed. There was no way they wanted a large rock in the centre of the pond. That would be an obstacle too far, yet too low down to be repurposed as an island in the pond for birds to nest on as a refuge.

In order to discover the dimensions of the rock, he asked for volunteers from his wives to remove by hand trowel some of the soil, in order to see the width of what they were faced with. It could be a single large boulder, a cluster of rocks, or the top of a rock protrusion from below that would take a major effort to remove far enough down to no longer be an obstacle for the pond.

They left this field task until the next day, as the ladies wanted Reginald to take turns holding his children, one at a time, giving them each some of his love. Sandra volunteered to look after the babies while the mothers helped dig round the boulder in the field a kilometre away. She wanted to enjoy house living to the full, after ten gruelling days in a tent in the new fields.

During the following night, there was a cloudburst of heavy rain, at which Reginald became glum. Asked about it, he said, “The excavation may have filled up with all that rain. We will have to postpone clearing the rock until the rainwater drains away or evaporates.”

Frances told him, “I was more concerned with whether we had any leaks letting water into the new house. I will organise the girls to each check a part of the house for water ingress.”

Their investigation showed not a single leak, and that pleased Frances no end. She beamed for the rest of the day.

Reginald donned his gumboots in preparation for the worst, and plodded up there in the morning; but his fears were proved right. There was a deep pool at the bottom of the hollow, covering the obstacle, and leaving no chance of accessing the rock underneath unless they dug a drainage trench through the lower lip of the depression. That would be a job in itself, and having to be restored once the pond was emptied. Reginald walked slowly home, to be met by Freda.

She held him close before he said anything, sensing the sadness in him. She thought of something else.

“Reg, did you have a look at our planted field, to see if the seeds are okay, or have been washed out by the torrential rain?”