Chapter 411

The Retreat

After being briefed on the situation, Joyce volunteered to go ask Ship when Jeff and her sister-wives would be released from the simulator. While everyone was gathering in the living room, the AI was calling the other Alphas to ask if they and their families could be at the Retreat at sundown for Jeff’s marriage to Ada and Charlotte.

Sheriff Tate had a staff meeting scheduled for 3:00 P.M., but he told the AI that he would reschedule it, and also said to tell Diana that he and his women would be there with bells on. It took the AI a few microseconds to look up the idiom in its database, but it decided to use the phrase at its earliest appropriate opportunity. As an afterthought, Tate told the AI to tell Jeff it was about damn time he married the two women.

The other Alphas and their families could be there on time.

It was Joyce’s first solo visit to Ship. The deputy had worked through months of academy time, but she always did her simulation with at least one of her sister-wives. Because of the time dilation, the actual time she spent on Ship was counted in mere hours, of course, instead of what felt like months of training.

Tense, she stepped through the hatch, as always feeling the tingle as she did so, but before she could think to say anything, Ship greeted her by name, her mellow voice setting Joyce’s mind at ease almost instantly. “Have you come to continue your academy training?”

Joyce let out a nervous chuckle as she remembered that Ship was intimately aware of everything that happened in her scenarios. Joyce hadn’t made it to actually flying an interceptor yet and had crashed the academy’s simulator over and over as she tried to land. With the inertialess drive, the damn controls are so sensitive even a hiccup while my hand is on the stick would probably jump me a friggin’ half kilometer in some direction. If I ever pilot anything in real life, it will be a shuttle, and even then, I’m going to stick with using the AI as much as possible. But, oh, do I love the guns on that interceptor. But then again, I would have to talk my opponent into standing still. I darn sure can’t fly that thing and fight at the same time like Arlene and Ann can – well, if they need to. And no self-respecting co-pilot is going to fly with me. I couldn’t shake a butterfly off my six, let alone a real enemy in combat.

Joyce suddenly realized that Ship was waiting for an answer. “Uh, no. Although, I know I need to – and soon. But I’ve come to ask how long Jeff, Arlene and Ann will be. Ada and Charlotte have agreed to marry him this afternoon...

“ ... And you haven’t told him yet, I suppose?” Ship finished for her, the amusement evident in her voice.

Joyce barely suppressed a giggle as she answered. “Well, since you put it that way ... Nooo, we haven’t told him, and I want to leave that for Diana in case he doesn’t take it the way we expect.”

“To answer your question, if Arlene and Ann complete their mission and get off the planet safely, the mission should conclude in approximately one hour. Of course, if they are killed in the scenario, the training session will end sooner. If there is an emergency here, though...”

“Oh, no, no,” Joyce hastened to answer. “Nothing is wrong. An hour from now will still leave us plenty of time. Besides, our husband tends to get uptight, to put it mildly, while he’s waiting to get married. As long as there is time for him to get used to marrying later today, it will be time enough. The less time for him to worry, the better. Arlene and Ann have done this before, of course, and they know their parts, so that shouldn’t be a problem. Since we have all been pushing Jeff to marry Ada and Charlotte anyway, both Arlene and Ann will be thrilled about the weddings. Of course, if they don’t manage to complete the training mission successfully, they’ll be depressed. Hopefully, that won’t be the case today.”

“Are you certain you do not want me to inform my Prime about the weddings?”

“Hmmm. No. Like I said, better let Diana do that.” Then to herself, If he bitches, she’ll just stick a titty in his mouth and tell him how much she loves him. He seems unable to gripe about anything while he has an erection, particularly if he has a titty in his mouth.

As she turned to leave, Ship spoke again. “Our data suggest that the aliens will soon be coming toward Earth. You and the others need to complete your academy training before they arrive. Do not forget there are positions that need to be filled in order for me to be the best fighting ship I can be.”

“I won’t,” Joyce called over her shoulder as she hurried through the hatch.

The Prison Planet

... Morales thought about giving some of the meat to Lobo and/or the chickens, but decided against that for the same reason. “We have a whole valley full of buffalo, deer, antelope and other meat animals. I’m going to pass on this guy,” he told his friend. After digging a hole, he pushed the carcass in, minus its hide, and covered the thing up. After scraping the hide, he washed it in the stream, then stretched it on a rack in preparation for tanning.

Back inside, he dumped the badger’s brains (which he had also kept) in the piss/brain bucket, then gave the two new hens another handful of corn, thinking that full bellies might ease their transition. “Well, Ladies,” he said as he stood looking at them, “Gertrude knows her name, so I’m going to have to name you two, and I want it to be something similar-sounding to Gertrude – something that fits a big-ass fat hen who is gonna lay me eggs.”

He mulled over names, but nothing he could think of seemed to fit. “Oh, well. I’ll think of something sooner or later.”

After filling his pockets with jerky, he grabbed the digging fork and put it in one of the rolling cases. “Lobo, you ready to go back to the valley?” As the wolf jumped to his feet, “I suspect what we get today will make for some good eating to pass the time away when the weather is cold and the snow is too deep to get out much. I’ve always loved peanuts, and there’s no way I’m going to let any of them go to waste. Besides, I can’t wait to roast some over a fire.”

By the time he had the cases turned around and hooked together, Lobo was at the bars with the bottom one already pulled free. “Oops. Wait a minute,” Morales said as he finished clearing the doorway. “No sense going by without putting out the trotlines. They’ll work for us while we’re harvesting the peanuts.”

A little later, he baited and tossed out the lines before he and Lobo continued on to the valley. When they got there, he used the digging fork to start loosening the soil around the plants. After finishing a section, he carefully pulled the plants free of the ground, then shook the dirt off, leaving the peanuts hanging on the roots. “When we get back to the cave, we’ll put the vines out of the way to let the peanuts dry. After that, I’ll pull them off the plants and store them in a box. When cold weather comes, the dry plants will go on the fire like all the other refuse. Waste not; want not,” he finished with a chuckle.

Lobo kept staring until Morales gave up and shelled the wolf a handful. “I don’t know whether eating green peanuts will make you sick or not, so we had better stick to just one handful until they’re dry.”

The wolf tilted his head to the side and stared at Morales as if he were crazy. “Okay. So I don’t know what I’m talking about, but let’s wait until they’re dry, anyway, okay?”

Lobo snorted, obviously not agreeing.

After filling the cases, Morales stopped by the fishing area. There was only one fish on the lines, but that was five pounds of fish he didn’t have previously. After removing it, he moved the trotlines upstream a few hundred feet before going on to the cave. When they arrived, he cleaned the fish, filleted it and hung it on his drying rack out of the reach of the two new hens before emptying the cases farther back in the cave. Deciding he would make another trip to the field, even though it would make for a late lunch, he and Lobo hurried out.

By day’s end, they had cleaned the field of peanuts, consisting of a total of six cases of peanut vines hanging full of peanuts. He had no real estimation of how many peanuts he would have when they were dried and removed from the vines, but he was enthused about having something to eat that wasn’t a strict necessity. In addition to the peanuts, he had filleted and hung to dry thirty pounds of fish for jerky.

Gertrude marched up to the bars to squawk for him to open them, all the while looking like a sergeant leading her troops. As soon as her way was clear, she continued on over to the new hens to stare eye to eye at first one then the other. Morales held his breath half expecting another fight, but instead, Gertrude came over to look up at him.

“Okay, okay. Give me a minute,” he said with a chuckle as he went to get an ear of corn to shell.

After he finished shelling the corn, he spoke to his menagerie. “We’re all going to have to wait until I make my freezer run, and even then, the meat will have to thaw; although, I’ll hurry it along a bit.”

Shit, I wish I had something to keep at least a day’s supply of meat in so I didn’t have to walk all the way to the freezer every day. Then it dawned on him. Hell, all the things that came in the resupply case were in separate containers and they were even sealed. I looked through everything, but I just left the contents in several of them until I found time to dig out enough shelves to store their contents. I’ll get around to that when the weather is bad and I have to stay in the cave all day. But dammit, I can’t take that much time out from gathering the food that’s left in the valley. I’ve already seen hardwood trees that have leaves starting to turn. Fall is coming, and since I’m not familiar with the seasons on this world, I have no idea how long it will be before winter is here. As soon as it rains during the day and I can’t go out much, I’ll dig out more shelves so I can free up a container to store a day’s worth of frozen meat in. Hmmm. With a big chunk of ice in there, the frozen meat might last a couple of days, even. That would be handy, but nothing is going to keep me from bringing in as much food from the valley as I can.

After returning from the freezer with deer steaks for the night, plus bacon for breakfast, he set about peeling and slicing a mound of potatoes while he hurried the thawing of the steaks. Remembering, he uncovered his sourdough starter, allowing the interested wolf to sniff it. “Plenty of bubbles,” he told Lobo. “Looks like we might be in business soon, but the article cautioned that the starter had to be fully active or the bread would not rise properly which would cause it to be tough and have a heavy taste.”

After dumping out half the starter for the chickens, he fed it with more flour. As he stood watching the chickens go after the starter, he noted that Gertrude even let the new hens have a little. “I’m going to have to do this every day if I’m going to have bread regularly, but keeping the starter going ties up one of my pans full time. Shit, I hope I wind up with some usable pottery in the very near future. I damn sure need it to store things in as well as freeing up my spare pan.”

As he started to put the potatoes on to cook, “Shit,” he exclaimed. Turning to the wolf, “Watch the food for me and keep the chickens out of it. I need to get my clay jars and bowls inside.” Since they were just outside the cave, he almost went out without his weapons, but it was mostly dark already. Remembering the saber-tooth and the bear tracks, he took time to strap the weapon belts on before hurrying to bring in what he hoped would soon be pottery. Shit. I need to continue making jars and bowls. No telling how many will break when I fire them. It’s not as if I know what the fuck I’m doing. But I’ve read those instructions over and over. Oh, well. Time will tell.

A few minutes later, he sat watching the meal cook when the unfinished wall caught his eye. With a sigh, he went back to his old gripe. “Lobo, there are just too damn many things that we need to do first. We need that wall to be completed for safety, but if I concentrate on that, and heavy fall rains set in, we’ll lose a lot of food that’s free for the taking. But I don’t even know if it rains more in the fall here on 2214. It does at home, so we can’t take the chance. I certainly know this isn’t a dry climate. There are streams everywhere, and it has rained a lot since I’ve been here. If I understand how to use the database correctly, it will be cold as hell in this area come winter. With a fairly wet climate and cold, there’s going to be snow, and probably a lot of it. We need that wall done. We also need more hides to insulate it to keep from freezing our asses off come winter. We need. We need,” he griped. “There’s just too fucking much to do to get our home and food supply ready for cold weather.”