Chapter 13

Dear Willow,

I wouldn't say that I'm satisfied to be a slave, but there really isn't much of an upside that I can see to being a sponsor. Sure I could and would stay with Marissa, but then I could be assigned duty that took me away from the women, including Marissa, whom I love. That by the way is not a hypothetical. The most likely assignment I would receive would be as a combat marine if I should achieve a CAP score of 6.5. So what should I do? Should I continue to be content as a concubine and slave but safe. Or should I work hard and become a combat soldier, putting myself in danger and possibly abandoning my beloved family?

It is a hard dilemma let me tell you. I know that we must face the Sa'arm, I know we must fight the Sa'arm. But for now I have seen very little to tell me that we are even killing one in a million of them. That means that we need to think of more efficient ways of killing them. I've suggested that we should breed rats to explore and map the Sa'arm warrens. Also we should see if there is some sort of pathogen that rats could carry to the Sa'arm. Now I have to research and write a paper expanding my thoughts ... UHG! And what compensation can be given to me for taking my time away from Marissa and our family? Not much! When we get to Atlantis-At we will have a pod or something similar in a community that is under a force-shield bubble that is under as much water as can be managed. Sure that will most likely keep us safe as the one thing that seems to stop the Sa'arm in their tracks is open water.

Still what I mean is that everyone else will have a 'house' that is exactly the same as ours except for any handwork crafts that any of us do ... So I cherish my ability to be home and only go to school. I can't order any fine wood for woodcraft projects but I've managed to obtain some carving tools and am starting to learn to do small things with them. The interesting thing there is that I may actually be able to trade them (if I can make many of them) for other things that other people make ... So the rudiments of commerce is under way. I should like to have had time to do a sweep of the store for any and all vegetable seeds. I understand that we will have room on Atlantis-At to grow a garden. I'm going to look into seeing if there are any ships that make regular runs to Atlantis-At, if so I'll see if I or one of my sisters has some ability with craft work that could be used to trade for seeds ... Holly mentioned that we should see if we can get 'heritage' seeds rather than commercial hybrids.

I wouldn't dislike anything you did to increase your CAP score (except maybe participate in an orgy [but I don't think I have to worry about that, I hope!]) because that does give you more options for getting of Earth. The fact that you will be a slave to the races of the Confederacy who have lent us their technology is immaterial compared to the fact that without it we would have been throwing rocks at a very organized foe that used all sorts of power tools to defeat us.

I suppose I should finish this so that I can send it before the Dawn Princess makes its next hyper jump. I thought that you should know that Beth is pregnant, which means that soon you'll be an aunt ... I hope that doesn't make you feel old :)

Your brother,

Will