Chapter 5: A Report to the Archives Committee

"Good day everyone. My name is Arnie P. and I am in recovery. My last report to this committee dealt with the extraction of the "Hapsburg Half Moons". This report will deal with how the "Recovery in the Colonies" program began ... We were extracted to "The Dough Ball", an Aurora class ship. Just after we left orbit headed for Dighton, word got out that there was going to be a meeting on board. The AI said that anyone in recovery was welcome to attend. It did not matter whether you were a volunteer, a concubine, or a member of the crew. It said that if you were a concubine that you had to have permission from your volunteer. For most of them it did not really matter because many of the volunteers had taken concubines from the group. There were three more Auroras with us and they had several groups on board. One from Texas, Ireland, and some Aussies. You talk about confusion! The folks from Rhode Island could not understand the Texans. The Aussies and the Irish did not fare any better.

Word came down that John K. had called the meeting. On the day of the meeting, he was nowhere to be found. In fact, no one had seen him since the Half Moonies were extracted. It was like he just vanished. There were over three hundred folks who wanted to attend on our ship Unfortunately the biggest room on the ship only had room for one hundred and some of the crew had duty during that period. There was some kind of lottery for the folks to attend in person and the rest of the folks got together in mess halls with live feeds from the AI. Each of the other ships had their own meetings and the crew members got feeds through their implants. Once everyone got together, they had a shotgun meeting. A shotgun is when the chair calls the first speaker and the speaker calls someone else. A number of folks shared their experience strength and hope. After the Lord's Prayer there was a call for volunteers and a steering committee was formed.

There was a vote that the groups that had been extracted could continue to meet as they had on earth for now. The groups would then set things up upon landing so that each township could have at least one meeting a week. A motion was also made to try to contact others who had been known to have been extracted to see what was going on on other colonies. They then voted to set up a service committee which would oversee things. Each group would have a member once we landed. The AI serving as the tie breaking vote.

It was at that point that the AI intervened. It said that we could not send out messages by ourselves as this was none of the Confederacy's business. We would be allowed to tag messages onto official communications between colonies but there was no guarantee that they would be received or acted upon. We decided to send the messages to the Civil Service officers as a best guess. The only way to carry the message for the present would be to spread the word in person. This could be done without official channels. A few of the crew members volunteered to work on it. They would be able to pass the word on to new groups.

On Dighton the Civil Service officers were willing to work with us. We were surprised to find out that John K was one of them. He and his superior attended the first meeting on the planet. They explained to us that we would have to be very cautious outside the halls. While we may consider our concubines as full members, the Confederacy saw them as property. Our colony was a new one and it would take time to become civilized. John promised some support but it would be through the AI for now. He also hinted at something else coming up.

At the time of this report, we have been on Dighton for fourteen days and the adventure has begun.