Chapter 25

Turning Aetherkraal into their new home seemed to bring out the very best in Ben. Sarah watched in awe as he gathered raw materials for the replicator and produced more drones which he then tasked to a whole range of projects.

The number of projects he had running was dizzying and she had to ask Ben not to continually seek her input. It was nice to be included, but she found it all completely overwhelming.

Construction drones were busy building the house and also a complex set of underground facilities that Ben said would be a manufacturing plant.

"We'll have drones manufacture everything we need and keep it all hidden underground so we don't scar the landscape," he said.

"But there are only six of us, why do we need a manufacturing facility?" Sarah asked.

"There might only be six of us now but in twenty or thirty years time there will be hundreds of us and we'll continue to grow!" he replied.

The fact that her twin was planning that far ahead impressed Sarah and not for the first time she wondered how Ben managed to cope with it all.

"I've already got drones making some solar power cells and batteries. Given the climate here, I thought that would be the sensible answer to our energy needs. Oh and what do you think of 'New Woden' as a name for this planet?"

Sarah was getting exhausted just trying to keep up with the questions never mind the decisions Ben was making.

The children also took to Aetherkraal right from the outset. Ben did as he had suggested previously and produced a drone for each child. The little 'minders' hovered above their charges, constantly scanning for any possible dangers. The children thought having them was great fun and they took to trying to knock them out of the air with stones and sticks. Needless to say the drones were far too nimble to be at risk.

At first the children missed all of their 'cousins', but the urge to explore the new and exciting places surrounding Aetherkraal soon put that to the back of their minds. Ben even programmed some drones to build them an extensive tree-house with its own steps cut into the trunk of the tree. Sarah wasn't keen on her little ones climbing up so high, but Ben pointed out that the drones could easily catch them if they fell.

Another project on the go was the cutting of an effective irrigation system that would help keep the crops Ben was planning watered. Farming drones had already scoured the continent for the appropriate seeds and they were now preparing the soil for planting.

Yet another set of drones was working on the river that flowed close to the site for the house. Pipes were going in to take water to the house and here again Ben showed he was thinking ahead.

"I've made sure the pipe is wide enough to take enough water to service another one hundred houses," he said. "There's no point in just linking our house, eventually there will be others who want houses of their own."

The drones were also widening a basin in the river and dredging the river bed to clear it of stones. This was going to be the family swimming pool and it was already a favourite place for the children and their minder drones to play.

It had only been a week since they had fled from the group, but an incredible amount had been achieved in that time. The drones had all but finished the huge house and were now down to working on the most intricate details such as the inlaid wood around the edge of the dining table.

Ben sat on the steps and looked down the valley. He was feeling satisfied with how things were turning out and what they had achieved. Sarah joined him and put her head on his shoulder. They shared a few moments of companionable silence before Sarah shared her news with him.

"Hannah used her nugget to link with me this morning," she said.

Ben sat up straighter and turned to face his twin.

"What did she have to say for herself?"

"She knows we controlled her and got her to return your pouch and she's still mad about that. The group are trying to figure out where we are and how we left the valley without leaving any tracks."

"Ha ha! Good! Let them keep trying to figure it out."

"Hannah could tell from the link that we're somewhere that has a time difference to the caves and a different climate. So, not only is she at me to tell her how we left without leaving tracks, now she wants to know exactly where we are and how we got here so quickly."

"I think those are things that we'd best keep to ourselves," said Ben, "the less they know, the better as far as I'm concerned. If they don't know where we are, then they can't come and cause problems."

"Yeah, Hannah told me that Adam has calmed down a lot, but he's still holding a grudge against you. Even if they knew where we were though, how would they get here? We're thousands of miles away from the caves, most of it over ocean."

"Oh I'm sure they'd find a way. Adam is obsessed now and he won't ever give up completely."

"Your right, Hannah told me he's already gathering materials for the replicator so that he can get it to produce a boat. He's planning on crossing the great river to try to hunt David down."

"Shit, I'd best prepare a drone to keep an eye on him. I'll programme it to warn me if he gets to within a hundred miles of where David is. That way I won't have to keep checking on him using the nuggets," said Ben.

"That's probably a good idea. Would you mind if I told Hannah about using drones? It would certainly make their life easier," Sarah asked.

"NO WAY! Think about it, Sarah. If Adam could create drones he'd have them out scouring the entire planet until he tracked down both David and you and me. No, they'll just have to get by without them."

What Sarah didn't know was that Hannah had spotted a drone while she had been linked that morning. She hadn't mentioned it to Sarah, but as soon as she had broken the link to her friend she sought out her twin to put the idea of producing their own drones to him.

"Adam, I've had an idea," she said when she found him playing with some of the children.

Hannah knew she had to make sure not to give Adam any indication that she was in contact with Sarah and Ben. For that reason the drones had to be something she had come up with herself. She saw that Adam was looking at her, waiting for her to explain what her idea was.

"Why don't we make some drones? According to my memories there are all kinds of drones and they could make life much easier for all of us. I'm sure Thomas would be in favour of that, ha, ha."

Adam's eyes widened in surprise at Hannah's suggestion. He sat still for a moment but then leapt up to hug her tightly.

"What a great idea! Why didn't we think of it before? Drones can do all sorts of things — building, carpentry, mining, farming — you name it, the little blighters can do it! Fantastic! What an idea!"

Before she knew it, Hannah had been abandoned to look after the children while Adam dashed off to the cave where the huge replicator was housed. The resource bin clearly had sufficient materials for this job because he was able to order up six assorted drones without any difficulty.

Ben had clearly been right to worry about Adam having access to drones, because the first thing he did was programme a drone to go out and conduct a systematic search for David and Ben. The one saving grace perhaps was that Adam was too simplistic in his programming and the search pattern the drone began to use would mean that it would take years for it to even get close to the great river. Adam didn't know it then, but it would in fact take thirty-one years for the drone to find David and return to report his location.

Once he had sent the first drone off on its search mission, Adam turned his attention to figuring out what to do with the others. He was nowhere near as good at this kind of thing as Ben was and his thinking was on a much smaller scale. Nonetheless, he was able to identify that gathering resources for the replicators was the greatest priority and he tasked three of the remaining five drones with surveying the surrounding landscape for ore and other useful material.

He knew the drones would be able to work without becoming tired and with them mining the necessary raw materials; the replicators would be kept well fed. That in turn would allow them to produce even more drones to do other things! The possibilities seemed endless.

Losing Lillian was still a fresh scar that he was struggling to come to terms with and for that reason, the last two drones were quickly dispatched to begin to patrol a perimeter around the caves and the valley below. Adam implanted details of each member of the group into the drones and they were tasked with ensuring no harm came to any of them.

Just as the last of the drones swooped off to begin carrying out its duties, Elizabeth came running into the cave.

"Did I just see some drones flying past? Who came up with that idea? It's brilliant!"

"Hannah thought of it and you're right, it is a great idea. We should think about all the things we want done and draw up a list. If we can manufacture enough of these things we'll make fantastic progress. In no time at all we'll have everything we ever wanted — all the technology that Woden has created should be available to us. We'll become so powerful that the mighty Ben will be sorry he ever chose to try to cross us! As for David, I will find him and then there will be a reckoning."

Elizabeth looked at the fire in Adam's eyes and shivered at the intensity. She wasn't altogether sure that Adam's obsession with David and Ben was healthy and worried what would happen if he ever fell out with either her or Thomas. It wouldn't pay to be in his bad books.

"Maybe we should concentrate on things that will make life better?" she suggested tentatively.

Adam seemed to snap out of the state he had been working himself into and calmed down.

"Of course, isn't that what I'm saying? We should meet as a group and draw up a list of priorities."

"Some decent toilets would be a good start and maybe we could dedicate some smaller replicators to cook with rather than use the open fires? For that matter, the caves could do with being completely modernised to make them more comfortable. Perhaps we should install heating? Furniture has got to be high up on our list! Think about it, a bed! None of us has ever slept in a real bed before, but now we could!"

Elizabeth's excitement was growing at the list of things she was imagining having available. Adam was also mentally going through the things that they could produce and not surprisingly, his list was markedly different to Elizabeth's.