Chapter 73

Dear Willow and family,

It takes about two weeks for most fast transports to move from point to point. Oh it can be shorter but most distances that the human diaspora is spread over make that about the average. Some hops will be shorter, and some longer, to even get into the center of the diaspora. That is if the diaspora can be said to have a center ... In some ways looking at the star map we have mostly a half-sphere extending away from the direction of the Sa'arm advance with the greatest concentration of the advance in somewhat of a cone. Atlantis-at is somewhere near the center of the cone but a great distance from the point (which is Earth) of origin. Sure there are specks like Wadi along the front of the Sa'arm advance, but for the most part we look like we're fleeing a great disaster.

That we're fleeing a disaster is true. What we're hopefully doing as well is buying time for the people like yourself to learn to cope with that disaster. Given the rate at which we suspect that the Sa'arm multiply we also need to increase the number of humans available to wield the weapons that we're developing. Of course you know all of this in an altogether uncomfortably intimate fashion. After all you're one of the ones who is wielding sharp sticks against an altogether physically superior enemy.

Heat isn't what you'd look for when searching for a space ship. At least not a confederacy one. You look for traces of its exhaust. In this case radiation in a certain wave length. Yeah that's a lot like heat but it comes from charged particles. At least that is how I understand it. Again I'm more of a guns and bombs sort of person. I know how those work and can project what a different explosive will do when used as a propellent or in a bomb. Spaceships are somewhat of a mystery to me. But it does seem that if Katy's ship had been destroyed there would be evidence of the event in terms of wreckage. I suppose that I will find out what is known when I return to Atlantis-at. Marissa's keeping me informed on what is known, or rather she should be forwarding information to our first port of call. The last I had heard was that they had sent a drone down her exact path, 'sniffing' if you will for her exhaust trail...

I must say that having Holly with me all the time has been like a second honeymoon for us. Every day I learn that her quiet competence is something that I probably should have been leaning on even more heavily. Holly is gentle, sweet and kind; yet she can manage in just a few words to make sure that I know that I've been an ass. The most amazing thing is that she manages to do that in a way that is witty and disarming. If I thought that I was in love with Holly before this mission started I know I was wrong. I don't know what it will do to the rest of the family that we're getting so close, but it is a concern. One that I have to be aware of, for I wouldn't want to gain what I have with Holly yet lose my first love, Marissa.

Holly's sitting on my lap as I write this and she says we won't forget Marissa, and we won't let our closeness get in the way of the family. Yet as I look at her I do wonder. For a great many years the expectation that I had was that I'd grow up and marry someone like Katy, and if we both worked hard at it she would be my one and only. The woman who I shared the rest of my life with. That isn't possible in the diaspora, so far as I know there are few places outside of Atlantis-at where Holly wouldn't be considered my property, something that I could dispose of in any way I desired. I could torture everyone in the family to death except for the children and Marissa and on most worlds get nothing more than a reprimand. I've read enough reports of families and even whole colonies gone wrong to know that what we have on Atlantis-at is a rare and beautiful thing.

That on top of unexpungated histories of various human societies is enough to convince me that I need to watch myself so that I too don't fall victim to believing that my power, my abilities, given me by the godlike technology of the Confederacy make me into a better person than everyone who is not a sponsor.

No Holly, I'm sure I wouldn't ever kill everyone in the family. I was just using it as an example of some of the things that I've seen in the files I've read through in learning to be a Civil Service Officer.

Yes, sweetheart, I do love all of your sisters. Yes I love Marissa too.

Do I want to make love?

Of course!

Let's make a baby!

Yes Holly, Marissa and I decided that you can have a baby next.

I didn't have much to do until we picked up our first guests, who would live in one of the pods that had been converted to something akin to a barracks. I knew there probably would be issues of keeping mothers and children together too, so I left one of the pods set up with about six fairly large rooms or apartments, including a shower and 'private' restroom for each 'apartment'. Some of what I'll do with the people depends on what I learn about them as they come on board. But my main goal will always be to keep families as intact as possible.