Chapter 12: Saturday Afternoon - Orientation

The first meal on board a colony ship is always a memorable one. The replicators are a complete mystery and the food choices are often overwhelming. The clothing is new, the ship is confusingly laid out and the colours in your pod are very alien, and in general there's a lot of getting used to things going on.

Ben started taking charge immediately after he came out of Medical. He instructed the AI to restrict the food choices to four kinds of pizza (pepperoni and cheese, vegetarian, meat-lovers and Hawaiian), and the drinks choices to one brand of soft drinks and fruit juices, milk, coffee and tea. To minimize the time that each person took at the replicators during the first pass, he further limited each serving to one slice each for the kids under 9 and two slices for anyone older, and one drink apiece. Additional servings were allowed at the same rate, but only after everyone else had received their first serving.

Major MacAllistor stood on a low podium to start his talk as everyone sat back from their repast. It hewed fairly close to the standard lecture; anyone who had ever been on a pick-up had heard it all before. "First, sponsors: you are citizens of the Confederacy with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities thereof. You are NO LONGER citizens of whatever country you belonged to before. You are here to do two jobs, the one that you volunteered for, and to reproduce. You are subject to the Uniform Code of Military Justice for as long as we continue to battle against the Sa'arm. This crew is off to a breeding, research and training colony called Atlantis, in a system called Atlantisat. The planet is roughly the size of the Earth, in a similar orbit in terms of shape and distance, from a star similar to our own former sun, or Earthat as it is known in the Confederacy. Because this is a breeding colony, female sponsors among you are thereby granted immediate permission to become pregnant, and are recommended to bear one offspring at a minimum of every two years. Normally, ladies, you'd have to serve a given period of time first before you'd be given pregnancy leave.

"Because of the 'breeding colony' nature of your new home, we've relaxed the proscription of no more than two concubines for every incremental increase in your CAP score. If you pick up at least one couple with children, you get an extra concubine — a supernumerary. We also look at the nurturing score of your concubines rather closely: if they get high numbers consisting of a nurturing score of at least eight, plus a second factor that adds together the number of offspring and their ages, then we allow a second supernumerary. If any of your dependants do not get a sponsorship-level CAP score on their fourteenth birthday, they become your concubine without any decrease in your allowable head count.

"Now, concubines: your status is not the same as a sponsor. You are breeding stock, to put it bluntly, and are owned by your sponsors. They're responsible for your behaviour, and you are answerable to them. Yes, they can have you recycled if you misbehave severely enough, and yes that is as ugly as it sounds. They dictate what you wear or don't wear, when and with whom you breed, how many kids you have, what enhancements you get, the works. Hopefully your sponsor is smart and wants a happy pod, as they'll consult with you and not make you do anything too outrageous, but basically nothing in the Kama Sutra is too outrageous to be done publicly. As far as your marriages go: they're over. You are no longer married. You are owned. Where the wife is the concubine and the husband is the sponsor, he can kick you to the curb. If you want to stay with your husband, you do exactly what he wants and help your sister-concubines to adapt. If both husband and wife are concubines, again your marriage is over: the man is expected to sex all the women in the household and if there's another man or two then the former husband is expected to share his former wife with them.

"Dependants, we've got two classes of them: under 13, and 13-year-olds. Under 13, the rule is mitts bloody well off. You can kiss them and hug them and if they fuck up you can spank them on their bare butts with the open palm of your hand, but that's about it. No sex, and 'no' very definitely means 'no'! If you get caught, and with the AI in attendance at all times you WILL get caught, the penalties are severe — you'll wish you'd never been born.

"Dependants who are 13 years old, fall into a sort of nebulous netherworld. It's all strictly voluntary for them. They're allowed oral and anal sex, but nothing vaginal at all. So if your little 13-year-old dependant wants to sixty-nine someone, she or he can. If it becomes too intense and they want to stop, it stops immediately. Pop their cherry with their permission or not, and as with anyone under 13 years of age you'll wish you'd never been born.

"We have another class on this boat, first time and therefore without precedent for us to go by: junior sponsor." He subvocally commanded to the three Haywood sisters, 'Stand up.' They did, waving to everyone around them.

"Don't ask how they got scored, I don't believe it myself and I was in the loop for much of this. Anyway, they're in an even more nebulous situation than the 13-year-olds. They're all under 14, so they shouldn't even HAVE a CAP score. They all scored eight plus, so we should theoretically be allowing them six to eight concubines each. But the AI agree that they're not mature enough for their own households."

Carrie stuck her tongue out, and spoilt the effect by giggling happily. The crowd laughed.

"Ah, yes," MacAllistor rolled his eyes. "They will continue to be part of their parents' joint household. The restrictions on sexual activity are the same as for dependants. They will be permitted two concubines, a couple preferably, but any order they give their concubines or dependants can be countermanded by their legal guardians, in plainer English their parents. If their concubines think the order's unreasonable, they can immediately appeal to their junior sponsors' parents, and if they're unavailable then on up through the colony chain of command."

Various adults' eyes boggled at this. Underage youths with their own concubines? Unheard of! What they didn't know was that this set of rules had been the result of much discussion between various AI's, commanders and the Haywoods. It was far more restrictive than Carrie, Melodie and Marcie wanted, while at the same time far more permissive than was wanted by the Haywood parents. Only the constant presence of the AI and the promise of remaining in their parents' joint household had finally calmed everyone's most serious worries. It hadn't eliminated the worries, just reduced them to an unpleasant itch.

Major MacAllistor let the crowd take in the momentous changes for a moment. Marcie took advantage of the break to whisper to her family, "Guys, anybody note the weather in the geofronts?"

Ben got the faraway look as he chatted subvocally with the AI. "Anything we want it to be..."

Marcie indicated with her eyes the outfit that she, like everyone else in the dining hall, was wearing — or rather, wasn't wearing. "It'd look like Cap d'Agde, only bigger!"

"We'd need to have a word with the Planetary Governor," Ben smirked, winking at them. "And now that we've had a word with the Governor, let's let the Governor have a word with his Council."

The Council being the former Board of Directors of the Pine Point Resort, the discussion to turn Atlantis into a planetwide Cap d'Agde was brief. Most of the replies were snorts of merriment and thumbs up from the 12 persons of the Council scattered around the two dining halls.

The Council had made its first momentous decision on the future of Atlantis.

"Welcome aboard the kilopod transport City of Paris," greeted the young Decurion to the Haywoods. Due to the size of their requirement plus the factor of the 'junior sponsors', it was decided to deal with them separately. The Decurion looked at the five, all decked out in Navy black. The three youngest wore the butter bar of the Ensign, whereas Ben wore Commodore pips and his mate Marianne Colonel's markings.

Decurion Lisa Price led her charges to a nearby lounge. "I understand you have some criteria set up?"

Marcie nodded. "My sisters and I need two apiece, Mom needs eight under the revised rules and Dad needs ten. We'd like most of them to be couples, although Mom and Dad will probably take on a couple of single moms. And the more kids that tag along with those the merrier."

They entered the lounge to find themselves facing a small platoon of worried mothers and fathers, and a cacophony of sound from energetic youngsters cooped up too long and just trying to burn off a little steam.

"OK, let's get this party started!" hollered Carrie. "I now introduce the Governor of the brand-spanking-new colony of Atlantis, Ben Haywood!"