Chapter 49

Dear Willow,

Home life ... It is odd. I guess that is the best way to put it. Holly isn't pregnant yet, just Beth and Dana. Dana's sponsor committed the crime of failing to reproduce. He found the idea of sex with a woman so repugnant that he couldn't even perform that function while stimulated by his male concubine. Mr. Ackermann helped refine the CAP test to prove that was the case. Sure I suppose he could have been sent on to a combat unit to act as cannon fodder but our route didn't take us near any such places. Apparently the Dawn Princess was making a run with a bunch of oddballs to fill needs in various research and breeder colonies.

I don't suppose that it would have been too much trouble to send the two of them off on another ship, but they made it fairly clear that they were interested in other marines or navy men. Eventually someone who was a sponsor would have been insulted by their approach, so it was just as well to recycle them both, even if it was somewhat of a waste of lift space.

My main project other than whatever drawings I'm doing is getting to know my lovely ladies better. I don't know how much you can stand of me telling you about our bedroom activities ... I'll just say they are varied and satisfactory. The oddest part of the family now seems to be how well Ron fits in with everyone. He's definitely a confirmed bisexual with no performance problems with the ladies, though he does seem to have a bit of a preference for giving head. I have to say I don't mind. It's sort of like Katy after she got over the 'I'm a lesbian' bit about licking pussies. Now she is the best and most enthusiastic at that chore. I'm guessing 'cause she knows the landscape so well :D! The same thing is true of Ron. He knows what feels good to a penis. He enjoys making me nearly scream with pleasure with his mouth. The most interesting thing is that sometimes he'll be giving me a blow job and cum when I do without being touched. Well that's not entirely true ... I do make sure to caress him and to let him know that his efforts are appreciated. The others in the house could get jealous of him, 'cause he likes that activity so much that he'd keep me drained dry by himself if they didn't demand rides. Beth should have her babies soon. Then we'll see how the household adjusts. Once we get used to having them under foot Marissa plans to have every other lady in the house get pregnant at six month intervals. Lily will be first and that should probably happen before Dana delivers her twins.

Mostly I'm working on what will be required for a garden and small orchard. Some of the issues are that there isn't much topsoil on Atlantis-At. So we'll probably have to import it. Right now we've instituted a policy of having all the 'vegetable' scraps added to a compost heap. We ordered red worms to help with that and worm casting heavy soil as well. One other problem is that we could employ a fleet of stagecoach class ships or even a few freighters, and simply don't have the available personnel to man them, in supplying all the things that we could use here. The Governor has made it a priority that we get at least a little bit of our own food growing. I guess that Quay is heavy on his mind.

Rebecca and her family arrive soon. She has promised to look me up. It will be strange to have brothers and sisters the same age (or younger!) as my on children ... Still I think that it will be good to see Mom and Dad. Someone ordered a bunch of chickens (I think I told you that?) so we should have eggs (Maybe... ) in a year or so. But not a lot. Again the Governor has made it plain that he wants us to have a backup plan for keeping the population fed. That is a big issue for us. It seems that it takes an AI to manage the real fusion reactors that are used to power our cities. You asked if it is dark, or if we can see the ocean from inside our domes, the short answer is no and no. We have artificial suns that run along the arc of the dome. Each dome has its own 'sun' of course. They provide light and some heat and are somehow powered by the fusion reactor that powers our other services including our pods. We couldn't see much outside anyway, as there isn't much life in the Atlantis-At oceans yet. The Governor is working with ship designers to design a special transport ship to move some ocean water here. Something like one tenth of a cubic mile of water. With special agitators and things to make sure we get a full load of living ocean to seed into ours. I understand that our oceans aren't quite as salty as Earth's so that may be a problem in the long run, but we'll see how our fish soup adapts...