Chapter 23

“Excuse me if I work as we talk, Frances. I have to unload my trailer.”

As she did so, she revealed her own family details.

“I came here with my husband Trevor and our two young sons a couple of years back, and we settled in well. He is a doctor and wanted to see what medicine was like in the Colony, and what he could do to improve it. He intended to set up as a general practitioner, but was quickly persuaded to join the staff at the hospital they were setting up. Within months, he was propositioned by one of the nurses, so he brought her home for my inspection and I liked her, so she became his second wife. She still works at the hospital, but is now six months pregnant and we are looking for another girl to help raise the children while we women both work. Trevor is glad to see me happy with my hairdressing business, even though we don’t need the money to survive. He gets well paid. I am just a sociable person and simply love what I am doing.”

“I can see that, Deirdre. Reg was a loner when we found him, so I and another two of us had to teach him how to cope with society while he helped us with our university studies. It all worked so well that we set up house together, became a family group, and eventually got a clergy person to marry us.”

“But there are more than three wives, I was told.”

“It is a long story, but one way and another, several others joined us eventually. Reg now insists we not bring another woman into the family. The poor man is henpecked, I believe, but gets as much loving every night as any man can take, and loves us all. He lets us decide most things in the family, including engaging a hairdresser to call.

On that, if your husband works in the first city, why are you based in the second city, Deirdre?”

“I got the business up and running smoothly where we were in city one, so I decided to expand to the second city before anyone else got fully established in the Colony, and that is what I am working on now. I have staff in the shop for all the routine stuff, and I deal with all the home visits. With a bit more effort, I think we could have more hairdressing shops before much longer. The potential is there, and if I can recruit some more trained hairdressers, I can see a strong chain established in both cities. Everyone needs their hair cut, and the ladies like to have their hair looking good.”

“Good for us, then. We will be looking for a regular visit, if all goes well today. I reckon that one visit for all of us should work out cheaper per head than your shop prices for individual clients. Oh, and Reginald is first for your cutting efforts, Deirdre.”

“Fine. Men are easy in comparison. We don’t need the hair-drier set up for him; just cut his hair to the style he prefers. I expect his hair is too long at present?”

“Yes. I think that we will simply go with the old ‘short back and sides’ for him. Reg is not adventurous when it comes to hair styles. He grew up in a cash-strapped family where his mother cut his hair for him. He can afford better now.”

“Suits me,” Deirdre commented. “Where do I work?”

“Our downstairs bathroom is best, as it has a lino-type flooring, easy for sweeping up hair cuttings. You can use the kitchen if you prefer, but we need access to the cooker, fridge, freezer, and cupboards.”

“You have another restroom somewhere?” Deirdre asked, betraying an American background.

Frances knew the word.

“Yes, there are other facilities upstairs, so you will not be in the way.”

“Right. I need a simple kitchen chair; wooden one will do fine. I have protective capes for wrapping over the client’s clothing below the neck. Lead me to the room, then all I need is Reginald to sit down and be scalped – or whatever he prefers,” she concluded with a grin.

Reginald patiently allowed his hair to be trimmed to the short style Frances called ‘short back and sides’, and making sure his hair at the front did not fall down in front of his eyes. In recent weeks he had held his lengthy hair back in a ponytail, but with the hair length getting much reduced, he wanted the front swept back to one side, so that is what he got.

By the time his mane had been dealt with, lunch was ready, so the hairdressing stopped for that, and the ladies had a great time talking over the food. Reg left them to it, then got a call from Charles.

“Reginald, I have had the drone re-scanning the land we did before, and it has finished. I have downloaded the map of the land, showing where hits were detected, and indeed it looks a bit patchy in places from the activity of these thieves. I have put the machine on charge, and when it is fully powered up, I’ll give it your coordinates and send it to fly to your home.”

“Thanks, Charles. Everyone here is getting their hair done today, so it fits in that they are not visiting you today. Expect them tomorrow or the next day, I think, but they will phone in advance of arriving, so your lady will know how many to cater for. I am assuming she will want to do much the same as before.”

Later that afternoon, while Reginald was going through a pile of emails that had built up, he got another call. He expected it to be Charles saying the drone was on its way, but instead it was Governor Kempe.

Surprised, Reginald said, “Nice of you to call, Governor. To what do we owe this signal honour?” He hardly noticed his own pun about the call.

“Actually, in part it is an apology in advance. My financial staff have complained about me handing over more and more cash to you and your family, when the Colony’s cash input is on the slow side.”

“So you want to postpone giving us cash? I quite understand that, sir; no need to apologise.”

“Not exactly that, my boy. You see, it was pointed out to me that land comes to the Colony administration free, so giving you more land costs us nothing except the handover costs; the legal transfer. I accepted that argument to cut down cash flow and at the same time build up your assets, but then I thought, we can kill two birds with one stone.

The new Park when it is established will require visitors to enter at the official gate and be formally registered. I was worried that some people like your gold hunters might not follow the rules and try to sneak in and out to steal something, so I want to have some means of catching these people who might want to exploit Park resources.”
“I would agree with that assessment, Governor, but I don’t see the solution. The boundaries are very extensive, as you know; not easy to police.”

“Quite so, but if a person crosses private land to get to the Park without being challenged, they can be sued for trespass. My idea is that I give you a grant of a ribbon of land completely surrounding the Park; a continuous strip one kilometre wide. If that land is in your hands, no-one should be crossing it without your permission or they will be sued for, say, a thousand dollars plus legal costs. You can put up signs every half kilometre telling people the charge for crossing your land is a thousand dollars! Each way! You can also post this warning as a news item on the Colony news site.”

“Sounds fine in principle, but how do we identify them? Putting up security cameras every few hundred metres would be very expensive.”

“Now, Reginald, you are being obtuse. The Personalia notified me that you are fully aware of their credit card identification system. No-one moves anywhere without that card. The Personalia can track any credit card from orbit, and so can identify any trespassers crossing your land.”

“Ulp! Yes, Governor, I had forgotten that. So I have to ask The Personalia to scan that circle of land for trespassers?”
“Yes, but the deal is that you get all that land for free, instead of cash that I should be giving you, so if there are any trespassers, it will be a cash income for you. It may be narrow, but it is a huge land area in total, where you can grow crops, trees, have farm animals, or whatever you want to use the land for; even gold prospecting, when it will be all yours if found on your land.”

“Okay, that sounds like a good long-term deal for us. Will we still get that new house at the Park entrance near the rail terminus?”

“Of course. That was a separate deal, in exchange for your existing home and the marble quarry; and that looks like being eminently workable. The company that takes on the quarry will pay for the quarry site, the rest of that land grant, and your house.”

“What about the house contents?”

“If we say that the house is purchased from you complete with furnishings, your new home will have all the same style of furnishings included. I am sure the quarry company will want their manager to live near the quarry, so the existing furnishings would be essential for him and his family. Happy with that?”

“Yes, that would be a satisfactory arrangement, Governor.”

“Right. I have splashed out enough assets and cash for now, committing to a fully furnished home at the Park entrance. Any new ideas for me from your Research Group?”

“Not today. You have the drone metal detector in the pre-production stage, I gather. Other ideas we have kicked around are not going to be viable commercially or uniquely applicable, so we are still looking. Has anything come of our wire wheels suggestion?”

“It is on-going, with companies on Earth looking into the applications you mentioned, such as off-road cycling and motor-cycling. Goodyear worked with NASA to produce the tyres used on the Moon and Mars rovers, but no-one on Earth thought at the time that this idea had applications that were commercial on Earth or in the Colony. The dimensions of the tyres were made to fit NASA’s rover units, manned and unmanned, and not designed to fit normal car wheels. They also found that their wire tyres had a very limited life-span when they were tested; not a problem for short-term use on the Moon, but a major factor in commercial use on paved roads. They partially solved that problem for the Mars rovers, but Earth use was still a bummer for them.

With the technical assistance of The Personalia, the endurance question can be solved, I am sure. Rehome’s present lack of roads could make tough and flexible wheels commercial here, as we can envisage thousands of these being utilised on farmland and on tracks to and from the farms.

Once we decide on standard sizes for our bicycles and motorbikes – very similar to the standard wheels in use - we will probably only work on these two sizes. We are trying to put together a deal whereby a company on Rehome manufactures the wire tyres for the market here, and sells an agreed quota to Goodyear for their own purposes. That company may want to test them for off-road applications on Earth, such as desert environments where the sand is similar to the dust on the moon once you allow for the different gravity and have tougher versions for sand and rock. Geologists and oil prospectors may desire them for their vehicles, but they would either have to be usable on roads as well, or the wheels might have to be changed when they moved from paved roads to the wilderness. We don’t have that problem, as our only roads are in the cities.”

“I see,” said Reginald. “I should have known that NASA was working with a company on developing these wheels for the Moon and Mars. Getting them to work well in Earth’s gravity or Rehome’s gravity must put more pressure on the wheels and also the development team. Our wheels would be narrower for our two-wheeled vehicles, so the physics must be different. I would guess that Goodyear were only looking at multi-wheeled vehicles with wide treads.”

“That’s probably correct,” said the Governor. “I’ll have our own scientists have a look at that physics question. Thanks for your input.”

They said goodbye to each other, and Reg closed his phone. That allowed Fiona to come and speak to him.

“Reg dear, my delivery of pharmacy supplies for the shop is due tomorrow, so I would like to see that it is all sensibly delivered, unpacked, and shelved. The shop fittings man should be finished about now, so I can get a chance to see his work before we fill the shelves.”
“Ah,” Reg said. “I presume that means you can’t go gold digging again?”

“Yes dear, I am out. sorry about that. Do you mind?”

“Not at all. It is a matter of priorities. For the moment, your priority has to be the new shop; setting it up, checking that the staff are familiar with the stock procedures, and then getting publicity in the Rehome media before you open.

On that, you don’t want the news to get out before you have an official opening date. In fact, you should speak with the hospital and any medical centres, to inform them of your shop presence, where it is, and when you will start selling and dispensing for their needs. I am sure their in-house dispensary must be having problems with high numbers of prescriptions.

However, the only names you should give out is your dispenser, John Meadows, and you as the owner. Check to see if John has to register with the Colony as a qualified pharmacist. The Colony Admin will want to avoid letting quacks set up in business, so formal registration is highly probable. Ask John if he has done anything about that.

On you go with that preparation, but belay your matchmaking for the present; this is not the time for such sneakiness.”

“Oh. I hadn’t realised you had thought a few things through for me. Thanks; I’ll do as you suggest, dear.”

Reginald grinned inwardly. He had an idea that most of what he said was already in her mental planning, but it was nice of her to boost his ego by letting it pass.

As soon as Fiona was out of the way, Frances came and accosted him.

“Darling, I didn’t want to talk about this with Fiona around, but John Meadows asked me about our daughters. It seems that his two assistants are pushing about getting occasional helpers at the pharmacy to cover illnesses and holiday breaks, and he remembered we had two teenage daughters that he thought were fairly well educated. Well, they are, by us. He wants our permission to ask them if they would like to do a trial session of a couple of hours to learn the basics of the job and take it from there. The idea is that there would always be one permanent assistant on duty, so the trainee assistant would stick to the counter work at first: handing over what was ordered on prescription after confirming the customer’s identity, and selling anything that was on general sale and had no restrictions on use. To me, it appears to be useful job experience for both of them, but I don’t know what you feel about it.”

Reginald looked thoughtful before replying, “Are you imagining them taking on pharmacy jobs full-time in the future? Have you ever talked with them about careers? And what about Sidra’s mother: how does she feel about her daughter getting a job? I have to admit I was expecting them to join our Research Group when they had enough knowledge to contribute ideas.”

Frances told him, “They are already thinking about ideas, Reg. Elizabeth mentioned a practical idea she had for a snap-on bicycle weather cape, but checked it out and decided it had no real commercial value compared to what was already on sale, simpler and cheaper. That is the type of practical thinking we need, but if she picked up pharmacy knowledge and practical experience of market forces in the retail environment, that may be very worthwhile for the future of our Group.”

“She did? Good news. Elizabeth has blossomed amazingly under the tutelage of you ladies. Okay, I am fine with them getting some job experience if Jessica also gives her approval as Sidra’s mother. I don’t want Jessica to feel she is being ignored in any way as the responsible person.”
“I thought you might say that, dear, so I spoke to her earlier. She told me that her new son takes up almost all her attention and she felt that Sidra was perhaps being neglected a little, though I don’t see that at all: Sidra is a tough teenager; always has been. Jessica wants Sidra to develop in her own way, now that she is old enough to make good decisions.”

“Great. You should call Sidra and Elizabeth into a family meeting to tell them that this suggestion of trainees has come from the pharmacy staff and the shop manager thought of them as candidates, but that the family wants the two of them to come to their own joint decision about whether or not to take it farther. Let them know we have no objection to whatever they decide, but we don’t want them to feel pushed either way.”

“Right. That is what I wanted from you, Reg: general support. Do you want to sit in on the meeting?”

“At first I thought no as it is all girl talk, but if I was not there the girls might assume I was less than enthusiastic about the idea, so yes, I will be part of it. I probably won’t say a word, but my presence will show I support my ladies; all of you of whatever age.” He smiled as he said that.