Chapter 110

Dear Willow and Erica,

Hello my dear sisters in law. I got your letter to me and the one you sent to Will. I think that I can assure you from what I've learned from the colony AI that Will was not wasting time or resources when he sent his letter to you along with the data packet that the Aer Lingus AI sent to help it build a picture of where it is.

If I understand their dilemma correctly they needed more resources than they carried on board their ship in order to make a survey of the area where they arrived. Until they can figure out an azimuth leading back to diaspora space they cannot even begin to make their way home. Part of that is being able to compare what they're observing versus what the various observatories in the Diaspora are observing. When they figure out where they are, then they have to determine how they got there and if they can use the same 'route' to return to us. All of that will depend on not just their ship but analysis by the entire diaspora AI collective. That is because they will need more than one observation from one known point to begin to find where they are. Since they can 'see' no familiar stars they are going to have to hope that they can find objects that they and the diaspora AI collective are mutually observing.

It is all very complicated and part of why space travel is impossible without some extremely powerful computers. I can tell you that one of my tasks has been to help humanity reverse engineer either the AI's or computers that have enough capacity to make it possible for us to navigate through space, especially hyperspace, without being dependent on Confederacy technology. Maybe when we do that we'll have to give up nanite enhancement and medical technology, but in my mind I think that it will be good for us to go our own way as it were. And I'm not nearly as paranoid as Will.

Yet how shall we trust machines that we didn't build? How shall we trust machines that may not even understand us? And finally how do we keep the ones from the Confederacy as well as the ones we build from lying to us?

I don't mean to sound paranoid, yet if the AI or the power plant for our community were to fail everyone here would die a short and horrid death of oxygen deprivation. And it it had failed before we got the new dome installed we would have been crushed by many tons of sea water. Even now that may be what would happen as we've left the force-shield dome in place, but now it is inside, rather than outside of our dome.

Well I suppose that is enough information about how we live, and as much as I can understand about what has happened to Will at this point. I keep insisting that there must be some sort of time travel involved in FTL or hyperspace transfers. The AI says there isn't but it certainly seems that way to me. After all we get to stars in that method that are not in positions where we see them with our eyes. Then again that is part of the reason for needing very powerful computers to practice much space travel at all. No matter where we see stars we have to be able to compute where they'll be when we get there no matter what method we use.

The most interesting thing to happen in some time was Lily asking for a chastity belt. Now I think you know that we are essentially a nudist colony, with the only clothes normally worn being those necessary for our work (either for safely or identification) so even something so minimal would have stood out quite a bit without some serious thought. I did want to accommodate her though because I think a chastity belt as a transitional object of sorts is a good thing for her. So with the help of the AI and the replicator we made a close fitting shell that leaves her looking nude if you don't look too closely. The only time she wears it is if she is going to the park with the other concubines (or spouses in my mind) without a sponsor. And since I'm the only sponsor available to go with her she would otherwise have become housebound I'm pleased with with the AI and the Governor letting us bend the rules a bit for her.

The children in the house are all growing so fast that it is amazing. The only thing I think that is more awesome is feeling the baby (girl as usual) that your brother left me with. Of course he didn't intend to leave me with a baby and only a cospouse who is really going to be a big brother in some ways to most of the first half dozen kids we have, even if most of them are not his offspring.

The oddest and most exciting feeling in the whole world is when the baby Will and I made rolls over of stretches inside me. Soon she will be too big to do that. And then all I'll feel is the pushes with her hands and feet. Most of the time with the med-tube and nanites helping me balance my hormones I'm not nearly the bitch that I remember my older sister being when she was pregnant.