Chapter 15: Arrivals

CSS Vasco da Gama popped out of hyperspace in Thuleat two days after delivering her cargo to Hesperus. Aboard, she held concubine Belinda Keeler and her offspring.

As senior, and so far only, Civil Service officer on Thule, Samantha Redburn met the passengers as they disembarked at the Primary Transport Nexus Room at Base Scott. The concubines of Clarke's Science Division, at least those not still aboard the research vessel, flanked the pregnant fourteen-year-old, all anxious to greet and help settle in the newest member of the club. All of her assistants wore the ubiquitous grey shift.

The officer in command of the orbital dockyards, as senior ranking Fleet Auxiliary officer, was also present – his blue uniform and the Navy black uniform of the sergeant manning the transporter being the only non-grey outfits in the room. Samantha had requested the man's presence not only as Stan Keeler was in the same branch of the Confederacy Armed Forces, but also to relieve the field of grey outfits that Belinda and her family would face when they first arrived. First impressions, Samantha knew, were lasting ones.

The one nexus connected to the da Gama glowed red, and Belinda and four smaller figures entered the room. Belinda was a slightly chubby, petite, short-haired brunette with C-cups. Her attitude at the moment was slightly anxious, which was quite understandable. Her sponsor, after all, was on another planet entirely.

"Belinda Keeler," the officer stated pleasantly, "My name is Major Gordon Ellis. Welcome to Thule."

Belinda visibly relaxed. "Major," she responded. "Thank you very much. These are my daughters Amy, Sheri and Carla, and that's my son Hugh." The children were separated in age by about two years, from twelve to five, with Hugh the youngest. All shared their mother's brunette hair, although Hugh appeared to resemble his father more closely in terms of physical features.

The Major then introduced Samantha, who took over the family at that point. She started by introducing the other Clarke concubines to Belinda and her brood. "They'll be your best friends until your sponsor returns," she reassured the middle-aged woman. "First stop, though, is Base Scott's Medical Inspection Room. I was told you haven't had anything in the way of screening due to the emergency nature of your extraction. We'll screen you, redo your CAP test and do your body modifications that your sponsor provided us with. Then to your pod so you can settle in."

"Yes, do you know when my husband will be back?" Belinda asked.

"Bel, honey, you do know that you're not married any more?" Samantha quizzed, concerned that she had a case of Upset Wife Syndrome on her hands.

Belinda blushed. "Of course, I misspoke. It's all so new."

Samantha nodded. "I can understand that. Normally, we give the newly created families about three or four weeks to gel, and get used to the new society. Unfortunately, Targeted Extraction families all too often don't get that. Follow me to the M.I.R., though, and let's get you started getting used to life on Thule." As she led the way out of the Nexus Room, Samantha asked Belinda, "Did you and he agree to the body mods? Do you know what you're getting?"

"Yes, that nice Tribune who extracted us told him to not go nuts. Roll back our ages but keep us looking like who we are. He said it's best for the kids if their Mom continues to look like their Mom, only younger and fitter." She blushed. "I wanted to know what I looked like as a blond."

Samantha smiled. "I don't have permission to make you a blond, but we can put up a hologram of you with blond hair, if you're interested."

"Sure," a startled Belinda agreed. She hadn't thought of holograms.

Unlike Camp Shackleton's Art Deco/Streamline Moderne architecture, Base Scott used Late High Victorian as its design palette, with minarets, gargoyles, copper roofs, red brick and lots of fancy filigree in wrought iron gracing its buildings. With the contrasting touches of high tech and anachronistic uniforms, the effect was more along the lines of "Disney meets Steampunk". Samantha preferred the clean and simple elegance of Camp Shackleton's streamlined structures to the hyperdecorated ones here. The kids kept looking around as if their heads were mounted with ball bearings, and Samantha was grateful for the support of the other Clarke concubines in herding the four.

In the M.I.R., Samantha had Belinda take her shift off. Belinda experienced a shot of embarrassment as, naked as the day she was born, she hopped into the medical tube. During their relatively fast trip here, she had worn a shift almost constantly when the kids were awake, only stripping nude to sleep with Stan. Within seconds, she was asleep and the medical nanites were beginning to probe and do basic repairs.

As the kids were lying back in their tubes, five-year-old Hugh remembered something. "De ... Decurion?"

"Yes, Hugh?" Samantha asked gently.

"Do you have hockey here? That big, uh, Tribune said to ask."

"Tribune Whitefeather?" Samantha guessed. There weren't all that many Civil Service officers the youngster would have encountered, and having the standard Marine package, William Whitefeather certainly qualified as "big". In the background, Sheri and Carla rolled their eyes while eldest sister Amy looked on with considerably more tolerance and affection. Samantha noticed, and deduced that young Hugh had more than a bit of monomania on the subject.

"Yeah, I think so," the boy responded, dredging his memory as best he could.

"Well, yes we do. Do you play hockey?"

"Uh-huh," Hugh nodded nervously.

"Tykes," Amy provided.

"Really? I have a dependant who plays Tykes. Would you like to try out for her team?"

The boy's countenance brightened considerably. "Can I?"

"Let's get you, your mom and your sisters settled in your pod. Tomorrow will be soon enough. What position do you play?" Samantha crossed her fingers.

"Right wing?"

"Can you play left?"

The youth shrugged. "I don't know. I can try."

"Let's. My team needs a winger." Samantha could not hide her glee. "Go lie down now. The medical scan won't take a minute, and you'll be sleeping through all of it."

Belinda awoke with a thorough case of disorientation. She knew time had passed, and that things had been done to her, but she had no clue how much time or what things.

Her hand went to her throat – she sensed something unusual there.

"Don't take that collar off," she heard a pleasant young girl's voice warn. Ah, she recognized it now, it was that Decurion Samantha Redburn. Cute, smart ... pregnant? Slowly Belinda opened her eyes.

She was still naked, she found. Her daughters were clustered between her medical pod and that housing her son's. "Is there any problem with Hugh?" she asked, suddenly terrified.

Samantha reassured her as she handed the mother a grey shift, "Nothing to worry about. They caught it in time. Another half hour or so and it'll be all cured."

"Caught what in time? Cured of what?" Belinda was feeling far from reassured.

The tall black-clad corpsman didn't take his eyes off the monitors for her son's med tube. "Abdominal aneurysms. Might have killed him on Earth, but not here."

"Come over here and see what you look like now, before you put the shift on," offered Samantha.

"Yeah, Mom," added Amy. "You look like, totally hot, a stone fox."

Unused to hearing her daughter talk of anyone like that, Belinda blinked. She looked at her still-petite form in the mirror in the corner. "Holy shit..."

She did look good. She was a stone fox. Her butt was reduced, her stomach was much flatter, and her breasts were shrunk just enough. Despite that, she merely looked like a younger, healthier version of the matronly woman who had entered the med tube ... how long ago?

Still not wanting to cover this gorgeous body quite yet, she turned to the Decurion. "How long?"

"Maybe six hours. A half hour for the medical, another ninety minutes for the CAP score, and the rest to make you look the same age as when you and your sponsor married."

"I look better than I did when Stan and I married. I had a small pot then." She suddenly blushed. "Mind you, that small pot turned out to be Amy."

"Mom!" cried Amy with mock outrage. "The things you learn about your parents. You two were frisky back then."

"They were frisky on the voyage to Hesperus, too," commented the corpsman. "Pregnancy is confirmed. Another boy's on the way."

Belinda's daughters raced up to drown her in a happy group hug.

Aboard the CSS Arthur C. Clarke, Payne was struggling to balance no less than five simultaneous priorities: the archaeology project, which now had a half-dozen sites all buried deep in loose, shifting sand; the biology phase of Plan Foxhound; the atmospheric research phase; keeping his concubine Avanti satisfied; and finally, driving Captain Todmorton into a state of catatonia.

Fortunately the scientific endeavours could be completed more-or-less simultaneously. Avanti wasn't hungry for sex, she was hungry for data, so the research projects would satisfy her as well. Something had to give, and that "something" was the twitting of Toddy.

It turned out that the all-hours attack on Plan Foxhound was just what the doctor ordered in terms of the Science Division's designs on Toddy. As the challenges to his authority vanished with the increased workload, Toddy's paranoia increased proportionately. The lack of activity made him feel they were gathering strength for one massive knock-Toddy-wobbly effort.