Chapter 7

"Alright," Tonto said. "The final report of our planetary investigation teams indicates that it has been agreed that we will send three sensor probes to take a detailed orbital look at H-3 while we concentrate our family efforts on H-4. We will wait until we are just outside of the H-4 moon's orbit before launching the probes and we will set up a relay station at the northern pole of the moon."

Jason asked his grandmother's question, "Enough of this H-3, H-4, and H-4 moon business. We need names for these various bodies that are clean and easy to use. And for Grandma's sake lets not copy anything from the Earth's solar system lest we confuse the old girl."

"Don't talk about my grandmother that way," Ellie demanded. "She's not only older than you, smarter than you and better looking than you but she will box your ears for disrespect when she arrives."

Jason looked at his wife and out of habit began to argue just as he had when she was his little sister. But before he got a single word out he saw his dad shake his head slightly and silently mouth the words, "She's also my mother and your mother's mother too, cool it!"

Jason shut up and Katie came to the rescue. "Tonto," she said, "There is a point to Mr. Big Mouth's comment, we do need names. How about if we have all three Tontos huddle with their respective human families and try to come up with the best possible names. I think each name needs to be short, to the point and clearly understandable. Does that sound like a good idea, a little friendly competition with no eavesdropping by the Tontos outside their own humans?"

Tonto replied, "Are you not concerned that such competition might lead to a harsher rivalry and perhaps hard feelings, even anger. I would not wish to start a war over something so trivial and human history is rife with bloody massacres fought over less."

"It's time for another lesson in humanity, Tonto," Katie said. Brothers have killed brothers over whose gift was better received. Women have caused their entire family to be slaughtered in the desire for power. Kings have beheaded wives because they were tired of them and wanted greater sport. In every case it was because the perpetrator valued themselves above everyone around them. Their drive to succeed was warped by their lack of love for others. Our families are based on love, not greed or self-gain. Every member of every family has been carefully chosen to assure that more than anything else, they want joy for the entirety. As long as we guard and defend that concept we will succeed together and when any other attitude creeps in we must rely on the rest of us to treat it as a disease that has infected a beloved member of the family.

"There will be many that are not capable of living in love, we simply shall not invite them into the family. There will be others who may stray under pressure of one sort or another; those we must help find a cure with love and patience.

"We will compete because we are competitive by nature and at the end we will have the best possible names and they will be our names. Not the winner's name but names that all of us will embrace. We shall not dine on sour grapes."

"Whoa, that's a big speech sweetheart," Rob said taking his wife in his arms. "But I love you for saying it and I think we should engrave it in something like a family coat of arms."

"We are approaching Fam," Tonto said as the Kedah prepared to enter orbit abound the moon. Fam was the winning entry submitted by the Tonto Three family for the moon. "We will be dispatching the three probes toward the third planet which has the temporary name of Toohot, at least until more is know about our nearest planetary neighbor. Once we enter a stable orbit around the planet in conjunction with Fam, we will launch the communication station to be placed at the north pole of the moon and its sister station that will be in stationary orbit above the north pole. The three probes at Toohot will remain there indefinitely. Are all launch crews in place?"

That last question was for the benefit of the human family members as the Tontos knew exactly where every member of their family was at all times. With the question answered, the people knew too. Within two hours the probes were well on their eight-day trip to Toohot and both Fam's north pole station and the one in stationary orbit were operating at full power and function.

The Kedah's bow swung around so the primary thrusters would push them toward their new home. The competition had been particularly fierce as various families jockeyed to have their favorite name for the home planet accepted. The one common theme was the Darjee designation for the entire system as Hilaris. All knew that Hilaris as Latin for joyful, gay, cheerful, a place of happiness. All three families wanted that in the planet's name. The compromise was not to change the name of the planet but to change the name of the system. They now officially recognized the central star by the name of Hilaris Sol, the name of the entire system as Hilarity and the name of their home planet as Hilaris. No single family submitted the change, it just was worked out as part of resolving the competition. Tonto not only logged the names and transmitted them by to the Darjee at KTT; but also understood something more of the nature of humans who often use competition to come up with better solutions.