Chapter 12: The Farm and Capture

Day 7 Bangalore:

Remember that I said that I felt something was wrong. Well I was right!

The evil Doctor Steele wanted to get to the farm. He had two more controller boxes stashed in a storage locker here. He took control of the farm... Yep Sushi and I were captured too.

Nancy had been on watch and she alerted Joe, James, Helen and Beth. They suited up in their Gore-Tex and headed for the farm. Joe did not ask questions, he shot the controller box out of the Evil Doctor Steele's hands. Nancy came and kissed Sushi and me on the ear.

I got to experience a second system restore. When I came to my senses I was pissed. Anu had a team of six centaurs with Clydesdale bodies. These were not the cute little Disney Centaurs of "Fantasia." These were the bruisers of muscle beach on steroids. Anu gave the Evil Doctor Steele to them to watch.

I contacted all the controllers and requested a net meeting. I wanted this meting to be public wide network broadcast. I wanted every one on the WE net to know what the Evil Doctor Steele had done. I wanted them to see how he was dealt with.

I started with stories of the abuse of the staff and the forced conversion to centaurs. Then I had Nance show all of the activities he did to counter the WE Law once we arrived. Finally I detailed the crime ending with his takeover of the minds of all of those on the farm this last time. This was in violation of the WE — Human communication protocol. Not since the beginning of the WE had the process of lobotomy been used. The ten controllers all agreed that there was no hope for Doctor Steele. He was given a lobotomy. He became a part of the housekeeping staff. He cleaned the stalls in the clinic.

I then had every storage facility on the island opened and inventoried. Yes we found two more controller boxes. They were destroyed.

The next seven days went quickly. We were healing more and more patients. The doctors finally came to me and had me run Marsha through Joe's machine. She was back to being human again.

Day 15 Bangalore:

What a day--the Endeavor returned with Fran, Wendy, Heather and Kara. Sushi had her bull semen and Anu had five hundred chicks for the hen house brooder. There would be a lot of happy cows and we would soon have fresh eggs for breakfast.

The real prize was the lumber mill. It had been rebuilt so it was centaur compliant. We took it to the stack of trees that Anu had cut to clear for the farm. The first tree gave us fifteen hundred board feet of stud lumber. We had wood. We used the first run for building a kiln drier for our lumber. We still needed a surfacing mill. All our lumber would be rough cut for now.

Anu found a good sand and gravel deposit near the farm. We could use it to make concrete. It pointed up the need for a gravel plant. The sand and gravel were not optimum for maximum strength but would work for now.

James had Joe grade a site for the classrooms. We found the care package of nails, hardware and glass sheets for windows in with the Portland cement. It was not a lot but there was enough to build some shelters and classrooms and a meeting hall. James quickly drew up plans for the buildings and their location near the hospital. We would be ready for the stormy season. Everyone would have a place to get out of the weather. Fancy would come later.

Marsha and I stepped back; the staff doctors were doing fine. We would take a rotation position so there was R&R time for the other doctors. I sent the message to Dr Oedipus at UC Med Center in San Francisco. It was the one saying all was well. We would see him in December.

The Challenger arrived. Dad had a special gift for Bangalore. It was a tank of marine plant and animal plankton that would thrive in our oceans. We would soon have a fishing industry. These were the plankton that the larger fish and crustaceans would thrive on. The oceans of Bangalore were very shallow the deepest was only 500 feet deep, average depth was 50 feet. The plankton would be very happy. The oceans were almost as salty as the oceans on Earth. There was lots of food for the plant plankton.

There were ten containers of frozen food and ten containers of dry food. We would soon be off the SRJCMREs.

James had built a giant barbeque outside the hospital. Dad had enough steaks and giant shrimp for all 500 on Bangalore. House keeping made lots of side dishes to go with the meat. The real hit was the corn on the cob. None of the foals had ever had it. Anu was besieged with offers to help on the farm if he would plant corn. The other hit was ice cream.