Chapter 133

Dear Brother,

Whatever you do you better get home to Marissa. She needs you and the fact that you are gallivanting across the universe is almost criminal. Yes, I did use a big word. Your sister has been sitting in on some college level lectures.

Fine, I cheat on that. I've written that we have several former college professors in the unit. Well, a couple of them confessed that they actually enjoyed teaching, so ... we now have Trinary University on Wadi. It's not a big school. We have the three professors from our tank squad who were willing to found it. We also discovered that three of our concubines have masters degrees and can teach at a college level. Hillary even convinced Professor Paxson that she's almost ready to receive her doctorate.

They have some kind of deal worked out where she finishes her class work with his support and they'll get her certified as having earned her degree somehow.

Anyways, since Erica and I are nursing newborn babies, we decided to sit in on a few classes. Professor Paxson studied societies and cultures, so his class is an examination of social dynamics in what he calls a surplus culture. I think he's using the students as research subjects, but he does get a good crowd. I even got John out of his chemistry lab to take a few classes.

Actually John is now communicating with some research scientists. I have no clue where the base is and don't really care. I guess John's experiments with the biological compounds we have available here on Wadi got noticed. Since John was the person doing most of the work, the queries about it eventually reached our brother.

I do know that John has categorically said he won't leave Wadi unless he has to. He loves the planet. He's even been working on some kind of anti-predator netting that can be set up in a way to create a few more protected beaches suitable for swimming.

It's not all relaxing here on Wadi though. Planning for our attack on Tufts continues. Erica and I have actually installed a pair of small flame throwing units on our tank. They have almost no fuel, but we'll probably be in the middle of the grasslands when we set them off. Our tank has been getting an armor upgrade to protect against heat so that we can be in the middle of the fire.

At least that idea makes sense. The Sa'arm will have lots of difficulty aiming at anything in the middle of a raging wildfire. Colonel Frost isn't exactly "frosty" with the idea. (I swear that is his words.)

Other than that life does just kind of slip along in our tropical paradise. We have lots of babies to care for, but Louisa puts in a fantastic effort to make sure that we never have a baby crying because they are hungry or need to be changed. We do as a group work to make sure that a baby crying because it is demanding extra attention is allowed to keep going until it stops and that only after the tantrum ceases do we stop by. I don't know where Louisa heard about that, but our babies rarely play "air raid siren" just to get attention and they are remarkable cheerful. Well, your half-brother Piotr can be a problem. He's the most demanding of the babies. At least Sage and Cee get along very well. Erica and I spend so much time with Bree and Violet that if those two didn't get along we would all be miserable.

The baby boom has taken over the whole island, but with our recent break no one is complaining. In fact Fabio was suggesting that we set up a nursery area where concubines will be able to leave their babies with the babies of other households. It would require concubines to run it, but every household has at least one concubine who enthusiastically volunteered to be one of the child caregivers. I have to say I was proud of our group when every concubine in the household volunteered.

Phoebe is still on Morass. We are going to send Alexis to her to visit, although Alexis is going to be forced to leave her daughter with us. We talked about sending Vincent, but the commander over there specifically said that "female" concubines could come for quick conjugal visits. Phoebe is happy and Alexis promises to leave her satisfied.

I should go and work on a paper. I'm supposed to compose an analysis of some of the militantly secular groups that rose up on Earth shortly before the announcement about the Sa'arm's existence.

Your busy sister, (busily bored – Erica)

Willow Murphy