Chapter 4

“The Personalia, of course. They would have had no trouble getting them made on Earth and placing them in the appropriate orbits around this planet.”

“Oh, yes. I should have thought of that. So we should treat GPS data as normal; or at least normal for this planet?”

“I should think so. Have you completed the garden ground for planting?”

“Ah, yes, dear, more or less. I have yet to do the tilling stage.”

“Wait a moment ... Isn’t tilling supposed to be done a month or two after the ploughing?”

“Is it? I thought you just ploughed the ground, then tilled it to break down the clods.”

“No. You are supposed to plough in the winter, then till the ground a couple of months later, once the frost has broken down much of the clods of earth; but I suppose our present timescale is out of sync with that. We have arrived around springtime, so you can’t do it according to the book this year. Let me go and see how the ploughing has left the soil. There may not be many clods to break up.”

Frances preceded Reginald to the garden area and cast her gaze over the exposed soil before giving her verdict.

“Hmm. The soil must be fairly sandy, for you don’t have many clods in evidence, and the soil seems to have dried somewhat. In that case, just take your rake attachment and run it over the ground lightly. That should be enough for this year. We can see how our garden crops survive and grow, and later decide what to do for next year. Once it is raked, the girls will lay out rows and mark them for each type of seed.”

“Thanks for the compliment; I like to do a good job. Another bit of news for you. The Personalia now want me to butt in and do another test of the rock object. They are sending me a new machine that is more accurate or more powerful; probably both.”

“Will the equipment tell you if the object might blow up, Reg? I don’t want us to lose our husband too readily. I love you, my darling, and want to keep you.”

“By the sound of what they are saying, our space friends don’t believe it to be a bomb, so we can forget that worry; and I love you too, Frances; I love all of you girls.”

The paired bike-riders towing their cargo trailer turned up as scheduled, their trailer loaded with bulky wallpaper rolls, heavy paint tins, and masses of decorating gear such as paint trays and roller brushes, edging tools, masking tape and touch up brushes. Reginald had got a bulk deal on all the equipment, ignoring the small range of brushes that he had in his bag of DIY tools. Everything would be well used, he was sure.

He was dragooned into helping unload the load and carrying the items into the house, where it was all laid inside a shelved wall cupboard. The older of the two riders, not much more than fifteen by the looks of him, asked if there was an order to be taken back. Jessica was immediately there, to hand them the printout Frances had done on the house computer. The lad scanned the words and grinned.

“From this, I believe we will be back in another couple of days, Mrs Robertson. Someone will phone to say when we are coming again.”

Fiona came to offer the lads a cold drink before they left to return to the shop, and they gratefully accepted. Once they had left, Frances instructed her husband, “Time you were back on your tractor, Reg. Finish off the garden soil preparation, and then start ploughing one of the fields that are still untouched. We need to get a crop into the ground if we are going to get the value of the growing season. It is the equivalent of spring at present, so we need to get going smartish.”

That focussed Reginald on his duties for the rest of the day. He spent it ploughing a large field, stopping only to return to the house for his meals. One thing that the day told him was that he needed a place on the tractor for holding a container of water or other liquid to assuage his thirst as the sunny day wore on. He found a small closed pocket under the dashboard, like a glove compartment in a car, and decided that it would act as storage for a compact bottle of water or lemonade in future. He also decided that the pad on the metal seat needed to be thicker to protect his bum from all the bumping caused by uneven ground. No doubt a professional farmer would have long ago got used to this, but his tender behind was symptomatic of his former academic life, where his fundament was solely conformed to static seating.

The day after, as he was getting the tractor adjusted for working on the next field, Tom Jones, the leader of the Governor’s research team, showed up again looking for him.

“Mr Robertson, I just wanted to warn you that we are still making investigations of that object, so you are hereby ordered to keep clear for a few more days until we have done all we can with it.”

Reginald retorted, “Sorry, Mr Jones, but I cannot guarantee that I will be able to comply with your instructions.”

“Eh? What do you mean? These are orders from the Governor’s office. You can’t ignore them, young man.”

“Naturally, Mr Jones, but at the same time The Personalia have given me requirements of their own and I believe their wishes are paramount regarding mysterious objects.”

“Not with me, Robertson. Stay away! You have been warned.”

Jones turned and marched back to his mountain bike, having given his final warning. Reginald just shrugged, for he as yet had no equipment for advancing the wishes of The Personalia, so could not do anything for now, even if he wanted. Getting back to the tractor, he finished his maintenance tasks, and it was ready for the day’s ploughing. Once he had a second field ploughed, he could switch to tilling the ground, just like he had done with the garden area, for the soil of this field looked similarly a sandy loam. He was still busy after a snack lunch when he noticed a shadow above him. Looking up, he saw another small drone, just like the one that had delivered the detector for the research team. Why would it be near him in the field instead of arriving at the house?

He halted the tractor and waited, curious at this change. Moments later, the machine landed beside his tractor, and his phone rang. He answered it and The Personalia voice told him, “We have delivered the device we promised, Mr Robertson. It is beside you, having homed in on your phone.”
“Ah, so that is how you directed it to me? My phone?”

“Yes. We can detect your phone, even when it is switched off, as it maintains a continuous GPS link. This is a useful feature of all phones on Rehome, for it assists in maintaining a location for everyone, so that no-one need ever be lost permanently. It is why we pay to provide limited access phones for children.”

“Very useful indeed,” Reginald agreed. “Do I take the equipment out of your drone and fix it to my tractor while I complete the field, or should I take it home before continuing my ploughing?”
“Take it home, for preference, so that the delicate parts do not get disturbed by excessive movement. It is securely wrapped at present. If you can keep it in the defensive packaging until you get it home, that would be advisable.”

“Okay, I’ll take it home at once. When do you suggest I use it? The Governor’s research team leader warned me this morning, to stay away from the object.”

“Is that so? We are not in a rush, so leave it for a few days. We may advise the Governor that we are employing you to perform a task for us at the object, if the research team are in the way for more than two days.”

“Fine. Can I suggest something to you?”
“Feel free. We always listen to what people have to say. Listening is simple.”

“Great. I was talking to the company that makes paper for the colony, and their materials are too coarse for high quality writing paper. That needs clothing rags as a good component, but they are in short supply on Rehome. Now, as you deliver many house kits from Earth, I wondered if you could persuade your manufacturer to wrap the house kit parts in old clothing for protection from bumps and scrapes. When they get here, you could ask the builders putting the houses together to save the rags and send them to the paper company as a resource?”

“If that would help to produce better quality paper, then we can make that request of our supplier. I take it that clothing rags are a cheap commodity on Earth?”

“They are, but they would be a bulky commodity to bring on their own. If they were used as a protective later round kit house parts, they would justify their arrival that way.”

With that dealt with, Reginald was able to conclude his call and return to his drone problem. Reginald discovered he had no way of attaching the drone to his tractor, so he awkwardly wedged it behind his seat, and tried to drive the tractor home as slowly as he could without dislodging the drone. He managed it eventually, and drove the tractor round to the back door. There, he unloaded the winged drone and banged on the door to attract attention. Jemima opened it and peered out.

“Reg? What brings you home so early? What is that funny thing you have with you? It is like no farming implement I have ever seen.”

With a raised hand, Reginald got her to cease the questioning. “Jemima, this is another delivery from The Personalia; it holds some kind of measuring device that I have to use on their behalf after the research team have left. Do we have space where I can park it for now?”

“Oh, let me see. Oh, yes, we have that extra room that we intend for a second nursery later, when we have more children in the family. You can dump it there until you need to use the machine. That room naturally is low priority for decorating.”

He left it there, surprised at how light and easy to carry the whole shebang was in total. Reg was not sure what he was supposed to do with the drone, but suspected it was on a one-way trip; he’d have to ask later. The interior protective wrapping for the measuring device would quickly degrade in atmosphere, as he recalled from the last one, so he didn’t want to take it out of the drone until he was ready to use it.

If Reginald thought the research team would leave him alone, he was mistaken, for next day the same man, Jones, was at the door of their home, banging for attention. Frances opened the door and asked him what he wanted, or who he wanted.

“The little shit who I assume is your husband, girlie. Get him here now.”

Frances looked him up and down, frowning at him then turned and yelled, “Reg! Some angry asshole is looking for you, my love.”

Reg stopped what he was doing and ambled through to the door. Seeing who was there, he put on a big grin, and declared, “Why, it is our friend Tom Jones! How are you, Mr Jones?”

The man’s face darkened as he replied ominously, “You have been going behind my back, kid! Telling the Governor you are taking over!”

Reg raised a hand up, palm forward, to stop him. “Correction, sir. I have had no communication with the Governor in quite some time, so your accusation is unfounded. Have you checked your facts?”

“What? It was the Governor’s office that told me you were going to be taking over when we finished, so there!”

“So no-one said I had asked the Governor anything, right?” Reg smiled sweetly at Jones.

The other scowled. “Eh? You must have asked him; how else would he say that?”

“Perhaps if The Personalia had made some sort of approach to the Governor? It was certainly not me. If The Personalia have their own agenda, and have given me instructions, who am I to contradict them? Perhaps the Governor agrees with them.”

Jones was stunned, then recovered. “If The Personalia want you to poke your nose into the object after we have done with it, fine! But you steer clear until we have concluded our work: got it?”

“Of course. I will not interfere with your investigations. Did you find anything more about the electronic circuits?”

“Electronic circuits? What electronic circuits?”

“Why, the ones you told me about. One of my wives explained to me that your information had described the components of an electronic circuit, and I listen to my wives.”

“What your wife said? Bah! Load of rubbish; woman talk.”

“If you say so, sir. My women are clever; university people; usually know what they are talking about. I thought you were trying to be helpful, mentioning these chemical components to me.”

“What did I say to you?”

“I don’t recall exactly now, but Erika said it might be part of a electronic circuit.”
“Oh, your wife was making a guess, or an assumption. She should stick to housework in future. Goodbye, and remember: stay away!”

“Very well, sir.”

Reginald shut the door as the man turned and stomped off. He sighed and commented, “There goes a man who doesn’t like to do any logical thinking.”

Frances chuckled, “I almost said to you, ‘Clearly a man who works for the government’, then I remembered we have our own deal to work for the governor!”

Reginald smiled back.”I nearly forgot that, myself. For now, let’s just concentrate on ourselves. What do you need me to do next, as a dutiful husband?”

“You could hang out another load of washing to dry. It was just as well that building the house including installing the poles for drying wet clothes outside. The babies go through at least two nappies a day, as we no longer have disposable ones available; not that any of us really want to have them, for they simply foul the environment in landfill. We should aim to not making a mess of this planet with our garbage like we did with Earth, particularly in the USA where they call them diapers for some reason. I hope we are growing enough cotton on this planet to let our businesses make our own towelling for things like towels and nappies or diapers.”

“Uhh ... Frances? Why two different words for the same thing for wrapping round babies bottoms? It seems weird that us and the Americans have completely different words for that simple object.”

“Nothing odd about it, Reg. Both date back a fair bit, time-wise, but diaper is from the Old French term, diapre, which in the 16th century meant a white silk decorative fabric, or other expensive material, but the word when it got to the USA later, then got used for birds-eye cotton cloth. When that was used for babies bottoms, due to the pattern in the material, then the cloth name was applied to the object.

Nappies is simply a British short version of ‘napkins’, and comes more directly from the cotton fabric used for napkins at meals. Curiously, it derives from the French word nappe meaning tablecloth, followed by kin, meaning little tablecloth. Weird, huh? That word for tablecloth also got used for snooker tables, but got converted to be the type of surface, the nap of the table surface.

Even odder, cotton was domesticated independently in both the Old world and the New world. Didn’t you know that, dear?”

“No. I don’t know everything, Frances, despite my wide reading. I imagined that cotton came solely from the USA, due to the prevalence of cotton during the rise of slavery. Where did it come from on this side of the pond?”

“Originally somewhere in the vicinity of India or Pakistan, or even possibly Persia. There is written evidence if it being found in several of these places from a very early period. In one of my courses, the history of agriculture, the lecturer jokingly mentioned that when it first came to Europe, it was assumed to be wool, and when one of the first descriptions claimed it came from a tree (Not realising it was a bush), it became known as ‘tree wool’. The man who called it that imagined it as tiny sheep growing on the tree and as the bolls of cotton grew larger, the assumption was that they bent down to the ground and became actual sheep!”