Chapter 21

Dear Willow;

Life on board a ship is very different from life on Earth as you can probably guess. I'm constrained to the amount of space that I can have in an unexpanded pod. I'm fairly sure I got a mockup of your tank when I was working on the loader. However to do what you suggest may require a revamping of the whole tank ... But enough of business. I do enjoy solving mechanical problems of this sort so I cannot complain about having even more technical drawings show up with your letter. In essence your tank has become my job! Well one of my jobs. I'm working (I think I told you) on acquiring a pair of rats, that project is still underway in some manner or form. It just seems that the tank idea is receiving more heat from someone up the chain of command from Marissa.

It might seem like we only work or have sex here, and Marissa tends to agree. She has had a talk with Mr. Ackermann (I think I mentioned him? He's the Civil Service Officer for the Dawn Princess) about that. He says things should be better when we arrive at Atlantis-At. Apparently the colony was formed by picking up a whole college! MIT to be exact ... Anyway with your new grades I was wondering if you happen to be taking any AP or extension courses? Other than your tank driving course. I drew up a couple of restraining systems that I think should work to keep you from being rattled around in there like a couple of dice in a cup! Also I worked on materials for padding. The Confederacy Navy and Marines seem to be very urgent about some of my ideas! I don't know why, I mean I was only trying to help keep you from getting hurt. One possible solution is for the driver of the tank to have a special interface installed in a med-tube so that they become almost like a part of the system. The Confederacy doesn't think much of cyborgs though, and I got a long sleep-trainer session on the history (FRIGHTENING!) of that particular path from their perspective. Anyway if humans decide to go that route it looks like it will be without support from Confederacy tech.

Marissa of course sets the parameters of my work and I wouldn't think of doing anything to displease her (Like work twenty four hours straight, Or forget to give everyone kisses when I stop) in any way. Still I do get your drift on that. We've instituted a game hour where we pick out a card game or board game or even a computer game (so long as we interact with each other in it rather than the computer) to play as a family. That is interesting as it can cause us to team up against each other or to do other things that could cause hard feelings, yet at the same time it helps bring us all closer together than almost anything except spending an hour with all of us making someone in the family feel good (I Shan't say more on that subject)...

In some ways I cannot imagine being a parent but I will, and they will be twin girls according to the pod AI. That was another reason that Marissa put her foot down about not having every woman in the family pregnant at the same time. It seems that the AI's and the Confederacy are encouraging us to have twins with every pregnancy! She said there was no way that we would possibly survive having three or four sets of twins with no experienced mothers in the family! I agree. I think (from watching other families that are headed even further along the Dawn Princess' route) that I should surely go insane if all the women in the pod were pregnant now.

Well I must go to help all the others make sure that Katy feels loved today.

Your busy brother,

Will