Chapter 18

In my bus I grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down to think. Charlie's latest maneuver reminded me of what a miracle worker he was. I could call him anytime via the phone in my head and he could pick me up from where I was and then deposit me anywhere on the planet; probably anywhere in the planet also. I'd have to ask him if there were any caves nearby.

As usual, with time on my hands my mind started wandering. Now that we had Charlie there was really no need for anyone to do anything at all, or mostly so. He could provide any material goods we needed. Even a redneck like me knew that was a recipe for more trouble.

Thirteen thousand or so people with nothing but time on their hands was madness. Especially since most of the women had been terrorized since they got here and most of the men had degenerated into near animals. Even now that I had complete control over the lawless men I couldn't just execute them all.

They were going to be punished for sure, and many of them probably deserved death. If I decided that was what they needed I was going to get it for them, but facing the facts, I knew that many of them had been drawn into things they would never have considered in even semi-normal circumstances. It was a little like the children in "Lord Of The Flies," they were turned loose with few or no prospects and adapted to their new circumstances in their own best interest, or so they thought.

Without really making too much of my own virtues, I had to admit that I wasn't easily swayed by what others did. I had my way of conducting my life and it was hard to steer me from it. Besides, I had immeasurably more resources than anyone else who'd been dropped off here and that made my choices more palatable.

Trying to rehabilitate everyone was not in my plans though. The good old US of A had demonstrated to the world that reclaiming criminals back to useful citizens was largely a fools errand. With Charlie's help I had more effective ways to handle criminals than any government on earth would ever have, but I was pretty sure I could make reasonable decisions on cutting my losses. If I considered someone basically useless they were going to be done away with. There'd be damned few rotten apples left to spoil the rest of my barrel.

Apparently thinking was a long slow process for me. Time had slipped away and Charlie gave me a ring to let me know the others wondered where I was, since supper was ready. He popped me back where I'd come from and the questions from the others started. The first one was "Where've you been."

"Y'all told me that I was fucking up by standing around outside being so visible so Charlie put me back in the bus for the afternoon," I said.

"Well that was a good idea for once. Did you get anything accomplished with your afternoon of leisure?" Stacy asked.

"Not much, mostly I was just trying to figure out what we were going to do with the male prisoners we've gathered up," I said.

"Well, you can't kill them all, though I'm sure most of them deserve it. We'll have to try keeping some. Maybe they'll do better if they know someone is watching over them," Jane said.

"I'm pretty sure we can do even better than that. Charlie has already shown me that he can make them all obey with some type of implanted compulsion. That isn't the whole thing though. I'll start with that but I intend to get rid of all those that are just too mean and worthless to be allowed to live," I said.

"Who's going to make that judgment?" Carl asked.

"Anyone in here that wants to, and me if nobody else will. Might doesn't make right, but it can put you in charge if you want it to, and someone needs to be in charge so things won't slip back into what they were," I said.

"They were bad before, but not really all that bad," Carl said.

"They might not have been all that bad for you and Jane, but if you'll ask around among some of the women who've recently been rescued I think you'll get some different opinions," I said.

"That's for damned sure. You really don't know anything about what you're saying Carl. The rest of us didn't have trained dogs to watch our backs. I can't even count the number of times I've been raped since I got here," Gloria said, and I could tell that it was worse than a kick in the balls to Carl.

He wasn't really guilty of anything but an under active imagination though. I could tell that Jane had known it all along and I didn't blame her for not letting Carl in on the full story. No doubt she'd been scared he would try to do something about it and that would have been for nothing. He couldn't have straightened out four thousand raving maniac men if he'd had a hundred trained dogs, not to mention the impossibility with the dozen or so he did have. It took enough firepower to take on all comers to do the job, and it hadn't been available until I got here.

There were no illusions for me either, or at least I didn't think there were many. I'd have been up shit creek myself if not for the tiff between the union men and the crooked administrators. I probably wouldn't have been as far up that particular creek as most others but I'd have been basically fucked just the same.

I wasn't put down here in an impossible situation though. I had enough to get started and once I got Carl and then Casey for a little bit of help we were able to turn the spacemen's Igloo into the heavy side of the balance of power here. I didn't intend to let the scales sway even the slightest bit back the other way either. As long as I lived I was going to run this place with an iron hand if I needed to.

We tabled the discussion, sort of, and found places around the table for our food. It was delicious of course and it made me remember something we'd discussed before.

"Jane, do you still think you'd like to have a big dining hall to feed everybody?" I asked, after we'd mostly finished our meal.

"Yes, but it would take a lot more people to do the work now. No matter how much equipment we can get it still requires people to use it, and to feed this many it will take a lot of people," she said.

"Do you think you can gather up and organize enough cooks if we get a proper building, equipment, and supplies?" I asked.

"Sooner or later, but I'm sure it will be one hell of a job at first. Not to mention all the delays that are bound to come up over designing and building a mess hall for as many as we have now," she said.

"I've just been in contact with Charlie and he seems to think he can give you a good starting point pretty fast," I said, and they all looked at me with their mouths hanging open.

I had been talking to Charlie too, and it was amazing how much you could get done communicating in your head. At least it amazed me. Charlie told me all I needed to do was tell him where the building should be and he thought he could have it ready in the morning; building, kitchens equipment, food to cook, and everything, even including dishes and silverware. I told them what he'd offered.

"But how can he do it? I don't even know where to start on a list of things I'll need," Jane said.

"Charlie has records and information to go on. Why don't we let him see what he can come up with. If you find things that you don't like about what he provides I'm sure he can keep on changing it until you do like the setup," I said.

"Well, it's really no skin off my ass. Tell Charlie to knock himself out and I'll see what he comes up with. Does he have any idea how long it will take?" she asked.

"He told me it would be ready for inspection at first light in the morning. He says the grills will even be warmed up," I said, and she was bumfuzzled again.