Chapter 39

Dear Willow,

Imagine this, less than a year ago none of the Murphy family was even able to think that they might be emigrating to the stars. Now all of our immediate family has not only been picked up but two of us are sponsors. If I'm reading between the lines correctly Dad probably has a fair chance of reCAPping and getting a sponsor level score as well. I'm going to offer you and Erica this: Since you are going to be in a combat unit and most probably deployed together I will take your entire family as my dependents if both of you are killed in combat. I'm sending along paperwork that with your signatures will make that offer more than just a bit of idle chatter. If I'm unacceptable I suggest you find someone else who is not in a combat role to will your concubines to. That may seem morbid, but considering the mortality rate of combat marines you must consider it for the sake of your concubines. If they do not belong to someone else the best that they may hope for is to be assigned to the unassigned concubine corps. In other words they will be required to service the sexual desires of any marine who shows up at the barracks where they live. But often they are recycled (which is just as awful as it sounds) without a thought as to their possible contribution to the effort to drive the Sa'arm nor with any consideration of the cost of bringing more people to the diaspora to replace them. I understand from communications that I've received that Demeter is a sanctuary planet if that happens to be your final posting. If so then I will graciously withdraw my offer. Otherwise my offer stands.

Violet Hanson, My, My! Aren't you the luckiest girl in the world? And no she doesn't (or isn't the main reason[even before you were picked up I was going to make this offer should you be picked up]) play the most integral part in my offer. Actually I'm thinking mostly of John. Then again with you as an example I suspect that he too will make the cutoff to be a sponsor. Still that is a long way away. There are horror stories told in the Civil Service, but they really aren't horror stories 'cause they're true, of concubines and even dependents starving to death or being suffocated 'cause the sponsor failed to tell the pod to maintain minimum services and call the Civil Service Officer (if there was one on his station) or make a will to someone who survived the battle.

Now that I've reacted somewhat to what you've written let me tell you about my life. We should be down on Atlantis-At in a couple of days. Then you should be able to find that if you ask the right questions of the right people. The problem is knowing what question to ask of what person ... Which is a basic flaw of any large organization. It helps a bit that I'm in the part of the organization that is in place to help break such logjams. Anyway that is not what I wanted to write about. As I told you in my last letter, before I got distracted by some of our newest sprite's activities she convinced me that I really needed to examine myself to see what my objection was to several young men that she had met who recently took the CAP test with scores that made them unable to be sponsors. I was running some personality comparisons through the AI trying to refine a formula that might help increase the success of families. She asked why I wasn't looking at our family. When I answered that it would skew the results.

She asked if I had looked for people who would complement the family and even be able to add strength in areas where we are weak. To say the least when it comes to relationships Lily is scary smart. She could see that we did have weaknesses that needed shored up. Anyway the long and short of the story is that I put our family into the formula that I'd been looking at and the formula showed some definite weaknesses in our family then I asked the AI to give me the names of three men who were not sponsors who would help address those weaknesses. And that is how we eventually ended up with Ron. His was among the names that the AI gave me. Marissa and I interviewed them all ... I have to admit that it was Lily's idea that I go as a concubine and lead her on a leash. I'm sure that our little ruse smoked out at least one incipient sadist. Maybe he'll fit in another family, maybe not, but he wouldn't have fit in our family at all. No one is ever on a leash, except Lily and Lily seems to thrive on walking around on a leash. She goes with me to work about twice a week and every time she goes I seem to do more work.

Mr. Ackermann says that with the initiative that I've been showing that I should soon be promoted to Signifer, which is the equivalent of an 0-1 or Ensign. He said that with the shortage of Civil Service O Officers the only question that would be asked of me would be how fast I wanted to move up. Of course one of the punishments for being good at your job seems to be that you're loaded with yet more responsibility. Part of the reason for that is that people don't want to accept responsibility for themselves let alone for decisions that may harm someone else. I guess that part of what sets sponsors apart from the rest of humanity is our willingness to take risks and to accept responsibility for our own lives.