Chapter 3

Reg blinked at her. “Brilliant suggestion, Frances. We would continue to have the problem of local materials for making the squares. I heard that our local cardboard boxes are made from a type of seaweed, so the possibilities are there. What sort of surface should the carpet squares have? It would have to be suitable for bare feet, to suit young children crawling around on the floor. For similar reasons, the surface would have to be both impervious to liquids and easy to wipe clean. As we do not have sheep, wool is out for carpeting, unless it is imported – it can be irradiated to kill off any hidden beasties or bacteria.

Seaweed would not work for carpeting, so some other natural material needs to be sought, if there is no local equivalent of sheep. The carpet substrate back home often used rubber. Is there any local tree that produces the equivalent of natural latex? I don’t mean actual latex, just a natural substance that could fit the requirement.”

“Dammit, Reg, we have not been here long enough to know much about the local flora and fauna. Is there an online encyclopaedia for the planet?”

“Probably, but how do you identify plants that provide the equivalent of cotton, jute, linen or bamboo, to get fibres with the right qualities and length? Someone would have to run experiments, testing local fibres, discovering what advantages and disadvantages they each had. It is a bit early for a university here, but perhaps a research lab could be set up to examine local materials. We should ask the Governor what is possible.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, dear? As soon as you get the furniture moved, you can make the call and set the enquiry in motion. Work in the house is priority one,” Frances told him.

“What are you two chatting about?” asked Prudence, wandering in, her son Derek in a sling, happily sucking milk from her breast.

“Carpeting that can be made on Rehome,” Frances told her. “I fancied carpet squares fixed together by nanites once in the position or pattern you want them.”

“Isn’t that a bit too high-tech, Frances? Why not a heat-sensitive adhesive that is activated by applying sufficient heat, such as with a domestic iron?”

Frances’ eyebrows went up.

“I never thought of that. You are right, Prudence dear; we need low-tech solutions. What materials are normally best for carpeting?”

“Mostly wool, I think; hard-wearing, high insulation value and fairly comfortable to walk on, but you need a backing material to stitch the wool into. That might be made from wool, as well as some strong fibres like flax. The problem is, no sheep on the planet! But have you also thought about underlay?”

“Underlay? My God, of course we need that, don’t we?”

Reg offered, “I think most underlay is made of expanded or foamed rubber; but we don’t have rubber trees here, to provide the latex.”

“Who says? Maybe there is an equivalent tree here that no-one has tried to tap yet, not knowing about it,” Frances tried to get back on top of the argument.

Reg topped her with, “I think some underlays are made completely with plant fibre. That should be manageable, Frances.”

“How do they get the fibre?” she asked.

“No idea. Possibly wood pulp, possibly other plant fibres, depending on what kind of fibres are possible on this planet. Wood pulp has pretty short fibres, which is not so good for strength. Surely most planets will have good long plant fibres available?”

Frances recovered her poise and decided to change the subject.

“Right. Reg, furniture moving time. Prudence, get together with the girls and settle the decoration of the second room. I am going to cuddle with my Jimmy; he needs some more loving and milk from his mother.”

Reginald soon was pushing and pulling furniture out of one room and into another, then planning a similar move for the next room to be decorated. He paused to reflect that it would be so much simpler if there was another pair of hands to help with the moving. His first thought was Sandra, if she was not busy with the squad of babies she was responsible for as her first priority. His second thought was that he would be in trouble with his other wives if tending to their babies was not given the priority, so he dropped the plan, deciding instead to appeal to his ladies for help if he really needed it.

Much later in the day, there came a knock on the door. It was Tom Jones, leader of the Governor’s research team to investigate the object.

“Mr Robertson, you demanded feedback on what we found with the new machine. I am here to comply with that unusual request.

I am unable to tell you much, as we had a lot of data collected; the finds went beyond the normal expectations, for we found small indications of graphite, of boron nitride, and molybdenum disulphide. I trust you are satisfied to have that esoteric knowledge in your possession, if you can make anything of it. Farewell, Mr Robertson.”

He turned and walked off to where a colleague was holding his mountain bike; and the pair rode off. Reg was left stunned. Erika was walking by, so came and tapped him on the shoulder.

“Who was that, Reg? What did he want?”

“His name is Jones. He is the leader of the research group that have been examining the rock or whatever in our field.”

“I see. What did he have to say? I presume he had a reason for calling on us.”

“Yes. I had demanded knowledge of what they found, and he told me the oddest thing: Graphite, boron nitride and molybdenum disulphide! He was just being obtuse with his so-called information, wanting to keep it above my head. I don’t think he realises we are university students. He succeeded with me, as \I don’t see what that means.”

“Helpful guy in a way, wasn’t he, even if he didn’t intend to be?” Erika remarked. “Of course, these materials simply means electronics.”

Reg blinked in surprise. “Eh? Why electronics?”

“Darling, the most recent electronic circuits use these boron and molybdenum compounds in their switches, plus a layer of graphene. That is where your graphite comes in; graphene is a single layer of graphite, a two-dimensional thin film with fantastic electrical characteristics. The other two in combination with it allows for an electronic gate to be formed, then you are away with forming atomic-level circuits for a computer.”

“Uh ... I have no doubt you are right, Erika. My knowledge of present-day electronics is pretty basic. So what does the presence of these odd materials mean? An electronic circuit; or simply their presence within the concretion but not necessarily together, as in making up a circuit?”

Erika was clear about that.

“If it is an electronic circuit, potentially it means a high-level computer brain such as The Personalia’s minds are based on, but with such basic data there can be no indication of what level of consciousness it might have, if it has any at all. It might simply be part of a computer guidance unit on a failed missile that crashed on this planet. There may not be enough left of the circuits to salvage, due to the impact itself and the time it has spent in the ground. Imagine a crushed computer and trying to work out what it could do if it was working.”

Reg grudgingly accepted her opinion.

“Okay, but this is all mainly supposition. We don’t have enough information to come to a conclusion about what they have found. How about we ask The Personalia?”

“Sure, but ask them what?”

Reg was nonplussed. “How do you mean? I meant ask them what it is!”

“Have they enough data to know the answer for certain? Presumably they will get what little information there was, and be stuck with not very much more than what you have. Just knowing that there are a few circuits inside the thing doesn’t prove anything, Reg. Logic, my man. The Personalia have to use logic just as much as we do.”

“Hmm ... you are right, Erika my love. I was jumping to an unwarranted conclusion, expecting The Personalia to have solved the equation with major parts missing. The missing parts will require more evidence to be found at the site. I wonder if the research team have made it possible to move the lump?”

“You want to move it, Reg? Why?”

“You are full of awkward posers today, Erika. In this case, it is not so that I can move it. I probably can’t, even with our tractor. No, it is so that The Personalia can remove it to where they want to examine it more closely. It is like an apparent unexploded bomb sitting in the wrong place such as the middle of a road. You want to remove it to take a better look, but moving it might be dangerous in itself, so you take a lot of precautions. With bombs, it means a sandbag barrier or a sand berm around the site in case the bomb blows; but with this object, movement might set up currents within the mechanism, making it live again for whatever purpose it originally had.

I should imagine The Personalia will want it off the planet to where they can examine it at leisure and in safety. Even a small EMP at this distance might be enough to harm your baby, dear. The Personalia will be allowing for such possibilities and be working to mitigate an occurrence like that.”

“So you don’t think they will send a Landership to swoop in and pick it up?”

“God, no! Before they even contemplate moving it, they will want to envelop it in some covering that will negate any strong signals or a pulse. Imagine for example that it was supposed to trigger some nuclear bombs planted nearby at a greater depth. That would be quite nasty.”

“That’s a bit far-fetched, Reg! A trigger would be inside the bombs, ready to accept a ‘go’ signal. There is no need for a missile in that case.”

“I know, but it was purely a ‘for-example’ scenario. The Personalia will be considering every possible outcome if they were to simply come in and pick it up; so they will be working out the best solution for each possibility. What if the circuit is connected to an atomic bomb just below it? That would not be good for us: we would be wiped out in an instant.”

Erika scoffed, “I don’t think that is a reality, Reg. The research team would have registered the presence of radioactive material with their tests.”

“Probably so; however, that was just another thought experiment, a what-if.”

“Ah well, that is okay then. So what you really want to ask The Personalia is, what next?”

“That’s about it. Where do we go from here, sort of thing.”

“Well, I can tell you where you go from here, Reg: to your babies. It is time you gave them all another cuddle from their daddy, so they remember you. Parental reinforcement is emotionally important for babies, darling.”

Reg happily directed himself to that task, while still pondering about wool. You can think while you are cuddling or rocking a baby to sleep. For instance, might there be an indigenous animal that produces the equivalent of wool? If it was an animal that could be controlled like sheep, and not be unruly like a mammoth or musk ox, that might work. There could be a strong local market for wool-like fleeces, for wool is used for clothing as well as for carpet fibres. Wool was anciently pegged down in flowing water as a sieve to collect gold particles from a mountain stream in a gold-bearing area. It also had uses in bedding and in insulation of buildings; it absorbs sound as well as keeping in heat.

Yes, it would be worthwhile trying to identify an animal that grew a decent fleece each year. Asking the Governor that one question would be insufficient. It would be much more relevant to ask if there was a research facility able to look into possible sources of wool, and of plant fibres that could be utilised for a strong backing for carpeting. Even if it was solely a research committee tasked to research local resource materials, that would make a start.

‘Damn!’ he thought as a message came from his hands. ‘This baby is wet; time to find its mother, or lacking her, Sandra can take over while I cuddle another drier child.’

He looked around and noticed Hermione taking a surreptitious look at him from the doorway.

“Hermione, dear? Is this wet child your William?”

She looked unsurprised as she answered, “That one is mine for sure, Reg. My milk seems to rush through him and get peed out at the other end. Sorry if you are experiencing the end result.”

“Oh, I have no objections to real life, Hermione love. It is just that I am a useless male when it comes to changing the little tykes. Can you take him over, darling?”

William was swiftly removed to one of the bathrooms in the new house for his nappy to be changed. These rooms all had a changing table at a convenient height to suit the mothers. Reg wondered who had insisted on the extra bathrooms and changing facilities. Perhaps the total number of bedrooms led to that practical design feature for a planet where multiple spouses was relatively common. He would not have put it past The Personalia to apply simple logic to human needs for attending to young children.

As Reg checked around the house, he found that Jessica had left her son Rex with Sandra in the nursery, so he volunteered to take the currently chuntering Rex for a little while. Sandra gladly thrust the child into Reg’s arms.

“He likes to be rocked gently and steadily. That gets him to sleep quickly, but don’t stop the rocking for a bit after he falls asleep, or he will wake up again. Thanks, Reg. I have several others to keep an eye on.”

The noise in the nursery made that point for her, so he took Rex outside and went for a walk around the house exterior, to get a breath of fresh air.

True to form, Rex was asleep in his arms ten minutes later, but Reg kept up the rocking for another couple of minutes, then simply held him to see if he would wake again. He didn’t, so he took him back into the nursery to see if it had quieted down. It had. Sandra looked up from laying down the last baby and put a finger in front of her lips to tell him to stay quiet. He nodded his understanding and held Rex out to show him as sleeping. She raised a thumb to indicate approval and gestured to his cot. Reg walked to it and gently laid his son down and pulled the single cover over his body. The child did not stir, so he crept back to Sandra.

He kissed her before leaving, and she responded by running her hand over his crotch as she kissed him back. Reg pulled away reluctantly, pointing to his chest and the doorway to show he had to leave. She allowed him to go.

He headed back to his new study, one of the few places he could be alone by himself. His computer was waiting, so he sat down to list the queries for the Governor; carpet materials, wool-growing animals, pseudo-rubber trees, and plant fibres for clothing, insulation and matting; and whether some local research group was looking into such matters. Reg tried to include as many uses as possible for each of these, but eventually found himself stumped to remember every possible answer at this time. He really needed assistance from one or more of the wives in jogging his memory or them bringing up extra uses that he had missed off.

There came a knock at his half-opened study door, and Fiona announced, “Time to prepare for dinner, Reg. Are you busy? The food should be ready in fifteen minutes or so. Wash your hands, love.”

“Right. Thanks, Fiona. I’ll be five minutes.”

He took himself to the nearest bathroom and washed his hands in the washbasin, using the locally-made soap. He realised that even just handling babies, never mind anything else around the house and garden, bacteria could be on his hands.