Chapter 15

When Jim saw that everyone had finished breakfast he tapped on his coffee cup to get their attention. “To hopefully solve some issues, this morning we would like to form four groups. Hopefully by doing this we can focus on finding some solutions for immediate issues. Let’s have Sarah’s group plus Tara, Erin and Claudette start an accelerated training program this morning on Donna’s systems with this leading into a review her programming. The nominal leaders will be Sarah and Rusty. Our second group would be led by Bob and Stan and consisting of Julia, Nancy, Susan, Alice, Jean, Andy, and Jennifer. They will look at security issues. For our third group, we would like Ann and Sam to lead a group to organize the farm and other support items. Judy, Jessica, Mary, Sophia and Patricia will meet with Betsy and Connie to sort out medical support issues. There are a few people I haven’t named, you are encouraged to join a group that fits your knowledge or interests. I am available all the time.”

Amy then added, “If anyone thinks they would be more helpful in a different group and want to change please talk to the team leaders or us before you do that. These assignments aren’t mandatory and were based on what you told of your experience and education.”

“Gina, Dorothy, Marie and me,” said Ann, “will be working in the kitchen area. Jennifer volunteered that she thought she would be of more assistance in the kitchen than on security.” Bob nodded that the change was okay with them.

“Donna, even though you will be focusing on resource issues, you need to provide close surveillance of the kitchen. Jennifer in particular is an unknown quantity,” said Rusty.

“How long have you known of this connection?”

“Since this morning. Until now I only suspected it, but you just confirmed my suspicion. So all nine of us now know we can talk to you directly.”

“I need to tell Amy, Jim and the rest of the crew.”

“Not a problem, in fact judging by the expression I see on Amy’s face, she knows already.”

“Yes. I am surprised this has happened so quickly and spontaneously but it is definitely not a concern. Also, Donna raise their security level to the same as ours.”

“Implemented and active. I made it by request so they can control the flow better until they get fully acclimated to the connection.”

“That was quick,” said Amy.

“I staged the change so I could execute it once you gave the authorization as I anticipated your decision.”

“Very good.” They could feel Donna’s positive response to the compliment.

Rusty looked around the patio. As he looked, he could see and feel all of his family linked with him and found it very satisfying. “Hmm ... family. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way but that is what we have. We need to chat about this later as it raises other questions.”

“Let’s use the conference room for our training on the computer systems. Would someone tell Tara, Erin, and Claudette where we are?”

Sally said, “They already know as they were listening in, at my suggestion.”

“Amy, who will show us how to set up the training helmets?” asked Sarah.

“Oh I can help with that but I think Donna can provide guidance if you need it. They are essentially the same as those you used for the other sessions.”

When the group with Rusty left for the conference room, Bob gathered his group together with Jim and Erica. Bob said, “Do we have a topographical map of the island?”

“Jim just asked Donna for one,” replied Erica.

“We’re going to use a drone,” added Jim, “rather than have Donna actively project it. It will be slower in changing magnifications, but will not use Donna’s resources.” As he was speaking a drone silently moved to hover over their table, then projected an image of the island.

The group with Sam went out to the barns while Ann’s group went to the kitchen. As Ann’s group entered the kitchen four drones soundlessly moved to positions near the ceiling. Occasionally they moved to maintain a clear view of those working there. Donna set the drones to record all the activity, but only to alert her if an unusual action that was inconsistent with the active tasks.

After dinner, they sat around and chatted for a while before Jim stood and said, “We’ve been quite busy today and have made considerable progress. Are there any issues we need to discuss now? Does anyone have any questions?”

Sally stood and said, “Jim, our group will resume our Tai Chi sessions and Aikido practice in three days. Everyone is invited join us. Before coming here, we did this a couple of times a week. For starters I am thinking we should do a short workout every day until we regain our skill level. Yoga may be added as well if there is an interest.”

Marsha asked, “What is Aikido?”

“It is a style of oriental martial arts focusing on personal defense and meditation. If anyone is curious, why not give it a try? There are other exercises that can be done as well, and the equipment is here. This will supplement the exercise benches we use several times a day.” Marsha and several others nodded indicating they would probably be there.

Joyce said, “I think I’m ready to call it a day.” She gained vigorous nods from everyone else. “We have learned a lot today, and even though we were only exercising our minds, I feel exhausted, a lot more than I remember from my school days.”

“I agree,” said Sarah. “In fact I got so wound up in the activities today I didn’t think to release my eggs. I am kind of glad that I didn’t start my ovulation.”

“Is that all?” asked Joyce for she had detected a concern in Sarah. “You sure were anxious to be a mommy this morning?”

“Oh, I am. It was kind of a sudden idea this morning and I thought maybe we ought to talk about it a bit more. Why not discuss it after we get ready for bed?”

They arrived at their room and were soon sitting in a circle on the bed so that each was physically touching another.

“Okay, out with it Sarah,” said Joyce. “You really have my curiosity aroused now.”

“Maybe it is a carryover from before we had our mind-link. After we talked this morning, I felt I had pushed us into making the decision. I know how close I feel to all of you, and it is the most wonderful feeling I can remember.” As she talked her feelings of love and affection flowed over the group. “It feels so good, that I am sometimes afraid that all of this is a dream and I will wake up in some horrible place.”

“Okay,” said Rusty, “Last concern first. I can see and understand your concern. I think, if you look closely at our mind-link, you will see that it is nearly unbreakable.” He paused for a moment as he felt the others assessing their mind-links along with him. “From my perspective, the only way to permanently break our mind-link is for us to die, although it has been indicated that it could be done by us deciding to go our separate ways.”

Big tears formed in Sarah’s eyes, and then as her emotions flowed out affecting the others, their eyes also filled with tears. “I see what you mean Rusty. I am so glad I have all of you.” She looked into each of their eyes and said, “I love you.” The group raised their arms to wrap around each other’s shoulders. They could feel themselves moving deeper into each other toward a new level of oneness. They sat quietly for some time.

“Guys,” said Sally. “First I don’t believe Sarah pushed us into the decision we made this morning, but based on today’s events, I think we ought to wait until our intensive learning sessions have slowed down.” She felt some hesitation from the others. “We don’t know how long that will be. My inclination is to wait a few days then reassess our timing to do the deed. After several days like today, we should have a better idea of how difficult our projects will be.”

“Why don’t we wait a week?” said Terry. “Then talk about it again. I’m sure it will not be far from our thoughts.”

“You know we could time it so we all conceive on the same day,” said Janet. “That is if Rusty can rise to the task, or should is say keep it up.” Everyone chuckled at the implication.

“I kind of like that idea,” said Sarah, “however that raises several concerns. Would our facilities be able to handle it? Even if they can, how will we care for the babies and still do everything else that needs to be done?”

“We can probably manage all of us being impregnated at the same time,” said Judy. “If Rusty releases his cum close to our cervix, it will increase the chance of us conceiving. Nearly all the times we have fucked, his release has been when his cock was deep within me. This puts the sperm right close to the mouth of the cervix when we are ready to conceive, presuming the changes in our bodies haven’t changed this, which I doubt. When we ovulate the cervix becomes softer and feels something like our lips, it also moves to a higher position. This orientation moves it closer to the end of our sheath. Normally it is in a lower position and feels hard, like your nose. From our experience with flexing our sheath muscles, we may be able let it open a little more.

“As to timing, I’m not sure why, but I think doing this together will strengthen our group bond. We should be able to stagger our deliveries to some extent, with as much active oversight as we have of our bodies.”

“What do you mean by ‘relaxing the mouth of our cervix’?” asked Joyce.

“Several changes in the cervix aid in fertilization. One is the movement upward, so it is in more of a straight line from our vaginal mouth. Another is how far it opens. The texture of the mucus also has an effect. Just relaxing the opening a small amount will ease the entry of his cum. Our caressing, kissing and other intimate actions and expressing our love for each other, helps our ability to relax the opening and increase the mucus. If we do this I think it will bless us in ways we don’t anticipate.”

“How did you know that?”

“It came together as we were talking. The physiology, I learned in medical school. I have to admit this is the first time I’ve thought of it in quite that way.”

“I was just curious. Can we feel the change in our cervix when we become fertile?”

“Yes. I can show you if you are interested.”

“Sure, but not tonight. I’m ready to sleep.”

“I agree. Now let’s lie down and sleep,” said Jill. They all looked at each other and nodded indicating their agreement as they lay down.

Rusty broke the thought stream with, “From what we have learned today, it appears that resolving Donna’s resource issue could be quite easy.”

“How?” they exclaimed.

“At the moment, I can’t put it into words. We should know in a week or less.”

Over the next week, everyone focused on their tasks. Bob and Erica’s group defined the security changes needed to provide advanced warning of anyone approaching, or attempting to land on the island. A series of detection rings were established around their settlement. The density of detectors increased as they came closer to the settlement. They had also decided on a number of defensive measures to be taken around the valley, to make it easier to defend themselves. Bob brought a new system to use for monitoring from his estate, along with the control console. It would give them the capability to secure the valley in much the same way as their estate was. Unfortunately, they couldn’t integrate the system with Donna as the architecture was very different, this was without taking into account Donna being short on resources.

Initially passive sensors were installed around the valley perimeter. These would only transmit when something was detected; however the sensors were smart enough to disregard animals. The problem was that if the intruder knew where they were then they could be fooled. While there were concerns about the lack of active surveillance capability with this setup, everyone realized that it was a good start.

The group with Sam began putting in a large garden, while the group with Ann was busy preparing their meals.

By the end of the week, the programmers and hardware specialists in Rusty’s group completed their training on Donna system’s. This included protocols and how they were supposed to inter-operate with the ship’s systems. They quickly realized that one reason for Donna’s resource issues was the big bottleneck caused by a lack of storage space. The volume of information accumulated since the accident was so large that it was now infringing on buffer space. In fact the system had trimmed buffer space to the minimum. This in turn slowed processing and added time for decompressing retrieved information before using it, as it was all stored in compressed format.

In analyzing the problem, they found that the protocols for automatically transferring the data to the ship had not executed since the accident. The system didn’t have any provisions to erase storage space until the data was transferred to a designated storage unit. The transfer was programmed to happen automatically each time Donna’s ship connected to the ship’s systems. They did determine that the link to the ship’s data bank was still active.

Once they were certain the transfer was the bottleneck Rusty said, “Donna, execute the command to initiate a data transfer and show us the dialog.”

After she started the transfer, there was a long delay before there was any response. When the transfer was confirmed, the source of the confirmation on the ship appeared to be a different location from the target, then nothing happened, and no transfer was initiated.

They waited a while and then decided that the system had ignored the request. Puzzling through the various options on why that would occur, Alison said, “Donna, is this the same connection you used before the accident?”

“No. It is in a different part of the ship. In fact until the accident none of the crew had been in this part of the ship.”

“So your request is coming from an address that is different from where the system thinks you should be?”

“Could be. Before the accident, there were several ports I could use in our area.”

They attributed the lack of response to the change in port now being used on the ship. “Donna, ask for your build profile and the most recent activity records?”

The response was quick. It included the profile information but indicated that the ship Donna was assigned to was on a mission.

Donna said, “The dates in the activity records are from before the accident.”

After discussing the results and reviewing the program, they decided the problem was likely due to flight traffic control not logging Donna back into the ship’s system, so the data bank would have no reason to query for a download as the protocols required. Since Donna was on a mission her query requesting a download would be seen as unauthorized access regardless of the port used.

Now that they thought they understood the situation, the question was how to make the ship’s data bank accept Donna’s data and place it in the correct spot.

“Donna does anyone left on the ship have any knowledge of traffic control operations?”

“Yes. Several do but none worked in that section.”

“Wonderful,” said several as smiles broke out in the group.

“Donna,” said Sarah, “it is nearly dinner time, so would you ask those who are familiar with ship’s traffic control to document what they know of the procedures and send it to us tomorrow?”

Sally said, “Let’s call it a day as we are all tired.”

“Yep,” said Alison with a smile. “It will be easier to relax tonight since it looks like we have a clue to resolving part of the issue.”

“True,” responded Joyce. “I’m ready to let my milk down and relax.”

“You can relax on the exerciser,” laughed Terry.

“Sure I can relax my mind while my muscles get their exercise.”

“Oh, okay. I agree with Alison about our accomplishment.”

“This could still be very difficult issue to solve,” said Rusty.

“Yea, but we made progress,” responded Janet. “I’ve looked at so many lines of code I think my eyes are crossed.”

The patio was very quiet at dinner time as everyone was tired. Once they had finished and cleaned up, Amy opened the evening’s discussion by asking for a status on the projects.

Bob said, “You already know about the detection rings we planned to set up. Well we’ve populated most of them and are in the early stages of linking them to the controller. In a few days, we should be in pretty good shape.”

Then Sam said, “The first planting cycle for the garden is done. In two weeks we will repeat this planting. By doing this until the weather changes, we should have sufficient fresh vegetables for our meals and to preserve. Unfortunately, we don’t know the growing season so we are sort of flying blind. Tomorrow we will begin making more permanent arrangements for the livestock.”

Ann said, “Even with produce from the garden we will still be using the food replicators.”

Andy stood and said, “I don’t know where the food comes from but you all do a great job preparing it.” With that everyone began applauding.

The kitchen staff blushed and Ann said, “Thanks for telling us. We were pretty sure you liked it based on how quickly it all disappears.”

Joyce said, “We found a major bottleneck today in Donna’s system. Basically information isn’t being transferred to the ship like it should be. We think if we can resolve this, it will solve some of Donna’s resource issues.” Her comments prompted Amy and Erica to smile, as the additional resources would greatly increase Donna’s active capabilities.

Sarah stood and said, “I can see everyone is getting very tired of the continuous effort we are making. Why don’t we work the next two days as usual, then relax for two days? I think we could all use the break.”

“Yes,” said Betsy. “I agree with Sarah, in fact she beat me to the idea.” With those comments, some relief showed on everyone’s face.

Amy seeing the response nodded and said, “I think that is an excellent idea. If there aren’t any questions, see you all tomorrow.” With that everyone began to leave for their quarters. Without exception, each left with a bit more spring in their step, knowing two days of relaxation were coming up.

When they reached the conference room the next morning, Donna had the requested information on docking procedures. They compared Donna’s flight record for her return to the ship against the procedures as even though it was a simulated return the same procedures should have been followed.

They quickly discovered that normal procedures were not followed when Donna returned with the crew to the ship. This was after the accident, and they were unable to get flight control to respond. Their solution had been for several crew members to force their way on board and then set up for manual docking. The reason attributed to this was lack of power in flight control.

Since the manual docking with the ship, a number of systems had been brought partially back on line. The data indicated that the main computer system was still actively attached to the docking bays.

After reviewing the information the group looked at each other, then Sarah said, “Think we can do this?”

“Yes.”

With that they began writing a script for Donna to follow from the command module on her scout ship. They studied the details, relating them to each step, to make sure each perspective was correct. Their script had Donna executing the post docking procedure just as if she had just docked. Before this could be acted on they needed to ghost an acknowledgment transmission to the scout ship from traffic control. They called Amy, Jim and Erica in to discuss the plan.

When they arrived, Sarah said, “We think nearly all of Donna’s data storage could be freed up by downloading it to the ship’s data center. This is normally an automatic transfer that should have taken place once Donna reconnected to the ship. The ship’s data center is still active. We believe it failed due to the way you all returned to the ship, that is by manually docking. The ship’s database still shows your ship out on a mission. By freeing up Donna’s data storage, she should be able to support everything we need assistance with here.”

“This is too easy,” said Erica. “How do we know the ship won’t send some kind of destruct signal?”

“We don’t,” responded the group as one voice. Erin, Claudette and Tara were now firmly embedded in their mind-link. “There isn’t any record of computer viruses being an issue when the ship’s systems were active. We can disable Donna’s self-destruct command and reroute the backup. Erica, do you know of any security issues we have missed?”

“None that I can remember,” replied Erica.

“Can we deep scan your minds to look for any hidden command sets that may have been given to you during training?” they asked.

After looking at one another Amy, Erica and Jim nodded their agreement.

They split into three groups so they could quickly complete the scans with Sarah, Sally and Rusty each leading a group. In each they found an area, isolated from the rest of their thought activity. They left the isolated area to be evaluated last. A careful review didn’t show any conditional hidden command sets.

Their focus moved to the isolated areas. As they moved closer the area became brighter but remained hazy. All three began to breathe heavily as their metabolism increased. “Relax we have only come here to find things to help us restart the main ship.” The group projected calming thoughts and the three relaxed a bit. They watched as the isolated areas cleared, to show reserved emergency procedures and the associated codes to be used. Once all the information was gathered they pulled back, but left the three of them with feelings of love and respect.

Looking at Amy, Erica and Jim, they said, “Thanks. This clears up several things that we did not understand about the procedures. Do we have your permission to proceed?”

“Yes.”

“Donna, initiate the script, except we need to place active holograms of Erica, Amy and Jim at their command station.”

“The main computer system will recognize the holograms and refuse to acknowledge.”

“If we create them, the computer systems will not recognize them as holograms. Can you give us a video feed of the command deck on your scout ship?”

“Yes.” The screen lit up showing the command console. Just then images of Amy, Jim and Erica appeared on the bridge. They looked so real that unless you were standing with them you would not know they were only an image.

“Execute script, Donna.”

“Running.” They watched as the figures went through the docking procedure to bring their ship to active standby. A small inset in the screen showed the scripts’ progress and communication with the main ship computers.

“Donna, set up a proxy on your inbound communications from the ship. This will slow the data exchange a bit but provide a bit of reaction time if something goes astray.”