Chapter 13: The Plan

Day 19 Bangalore:

I was up early. A few minutes later Sushi joined me in the bathroom. She reached around my waist and hugged. We were off on another daily adventure.

Sally had a great breakfast ready for all of the humans and smart cats at the farm.

After breakfast, I walked with Anu to the hospital. We had a meeting planned with Mark. Mark had a major proposal he wanted to talk about.

I decided to have each of the department heads at the meeting. We met in the large conference room. We had myself, Anu Malik, Joe Smith, Ted Winslow, Neil Langridge, and Beth Spio, my office assistant, at the meeting. I gave the floor to Mark.

Mark had been busy. He wanted to build a town ten miles south of the hospital he called Equus.

It would be on a bluff overlooking an inlet of the ocean. The inlet had sand beaches and was deep enough to allow a marina. Bangalore has three tides a day.

Mark had laid out a complete town with a city hall, a town meeting hall, school, general store, post office, trauma clinic, a town garden and three hundred homes. The homes would be individual with a common area between.

Mark finished his presentation then waited.

You could hear a pin drop in that room.

Then Neil Langridge started to clap. All of a sudden, everyone was applauding Mark.

"It looks like there is agreement at this table for this plan." I said, "I think we should have a town meeting. We need to see if the rest of the community likes the idea." We voted to take the proposal to the rest of the community in five days. Mark was to prepare a brochure describing the site, facilities, and types of homes for that meeting. The rest of us were to talk it up as a good proposal.

The story of the planned town near the ocean spread like wild fire. By the end of the day everyone had heard about the plan and the first town meeting.

Beth Spio told me that everyone she had talked to liked the idea of a town.

I walked home with Sally and Waush Shaua.

On the way, we met the six Clydesdale centaurs. There were three stallions and three mares. They were all within fifty pounds of each other. One of the stallions and the three mares were white. The other two stallions were black with blond hair. They were grading and rolling the road. Two were hitched to Johnson spreaders, two were hitched to rollers, and two were leveling the grade with shovels and rakes. It was a team effort. They had one and a half miles already graded and rolled. Mark Clemens was supervising. He told us that the grading would be ready for paving when we got the reinforcing iron and cement. He introduced us to the six: Bruno Sharp, Maureen Scorcezy, Bill Anders, Dana Blackthorn, Robert Missal, and Roberta Robinson. Bruno said Dr Steele was cleaning Barn number one.

I got home and Sushi ran to me and hugged me tight. I told here about our meeting with Mark and the six Clydesdale centaurs. We would soon have a paved road between the farm and the hospital. I also filled her in with details of Mark's proposal for the new town Equus and our plans for a town meeting.

Sushi liked the idea of the town meeting. She asked if she could talk to Mark about building a village of homes for the full time employees of the farm. Sushi did not like having the employees share space with the cattle. It was ok for now but we need at least ten homes here at the farm.

I agreed with her. Anu should be in on that discussion.

While we were talking, Sally had fixed another glorious meal. She had a real talent in the kitchen. Sally and Waush Shaua were both excited about the talk about the new town Equus. They said that the whole school was talking about having a real home and school.

After dinner, we went out and watched Tau Ceti set. I looked at Sushi, Sally, and Waush Shaua and said, "We are truly blessed."

Sally then made her announcement. She was pregnant. Her WE reported that she was having a litter of five kittens.

We were all happy with the news. Sushi would not be alone.

Day 20 Bangalore:

The next four days were pretty much wake up, eat breakfast, walk to the hospital, surgery in the morning, lunch, surgery in the afternoon, walk home, have dinner, watch Tau Ceti set and go to bed...