Part 1 Chapter 1

"Sarah? We got it! Call the clan; Extended Version. I need to call to confirm for tomorrow with Maggie and Mei Ling."

"OK, now that we are all here, I think we should introduce ourselves to the four 'almost members' of our family. They each only know about half of us." There were six adults and eight teenagers, evenly divided male and female, sitting around the dining room table of the Winthrop home. The littler kids had been farmed out to a neighbor for a sleepover for the evening.

" I am Major General Fred Winthrop. I am also the Assistant Director for the National Security Agency. Giving you those titles isn't really bragging, as it is important that you realize where I am getting some of the clout to pull this off. Those titles are two of the three things. This is my wife, Sarah. The identical twin redhead is her sister, Rebecca, who just happens to be married to my little brother, John, who is sitting next to her. He's retired from the army as a Colonel. Our little sister Elizabeth over here is married to and sitting beside Franklin O' Neil. My son Mike, my daughter Jackie, John and Rebecca's son, John Jr. usually called Johnnie and lastly, Liz and Frank's daughter Cynthia, who just turned fourteen two months ago. OK, kids, could you introduce your dates and give us their ages please."

Mike, at seventeen, the oldest of the teens, went first. "This is my fiancé, Susan Bellows. She is sixteen and a half. We've been going together for eighteen months now." Mike looked like a younger, slimmer version of his father, medium height, neat light brown hair worn short and intelligent, hazel eyes. Susan was a bit taller than the average girl, slim, but not skinny, with a very nice figure and long, dark hair.

Chestnut haired Jacqueline, at fourteen and a half, jumped in next. "This is my boy friend, Don. Donald Rasmussen. We have known each other forever, but have only been seeing each other for about a year. He is fifteen which is good, 'cause I like older men." Everyone laughed at that except Don, who blushed like a beet. His pale complexion showed even the slightest flush. You could see his blush through his blond hair.

Johnnie politely stood up and held his hand out to his girlfriend, who stood up somewhat demurely, considering her size. Sandra was as tall as he was at five foot eight and she had a large frame. She made you think 'healthy farm girl' in a good way, whenever you saw her. The pretty face, blonde hair and blue eyes just made the rest of the package that much better. "This is Sandra Lee. She's sixteen years old, the same age as me. In fact our birthdays are only three days apart. That'll be handy. My birthday will remind me that I need a gift in three days." The couple sat down again to chuckles and knowing glances from the married ladies. Johnnie had the family's medium build, brown hair, intelligent eyes and basic good looks.

Cynthia piped up and introduced her boy next. "This is Pat Michaels. He is fourteen and a half. About the same as me." Cynthia was barely five feet tall and only about ninety pounds. She was slim to the point of skinny, but that was despite her appetite. She just burned it off as fast as she could stow it away. Pat was more solid that her. He wrestled and played football as a tight end. He was five feet nine inches tall and weighed one hundred sixty lbs. They both had dark brown hair, hers was straight, and his was curly but short.

"Welcome to all of you." said Fred. You may have noticed that I said "almost members of the family" earlier. Well, that is because a unique situation has arisen. Our kids have decided on you. They have each told us that you have directly confirmed with them that you want to spend your lives with them. If that is incorrect, I am sorry for the embarrassment, but please let us know now. If so, we will have to ask you to leave as this is a somewhat private family meeting." There were a few glances around, but no one got up to leave.

"All agreed? Great! For your information, we parents have agreed on your inclusion in each case. And that is after I used all of the government resources at my command. I ran a complete background check on each of you and your families. I looked at all of the privacy protected sub-categories on your CAP scores and anything else I could think of. Now hang on! You may think that was a bit intrusive and actually I would normally agree with you. However, this is a special situation. I think it's time we laid our Cards on the table." With that, he pulled out his wallet, took out his CAP card and dropped it on the table in front of him. Then he watched as his wife, brother, sister, son and the rest of the people related by blood or marriage dropped theirs also. The four young guests were a bit surprised, but then they each hauled theirs out. Fred slid them all in the direction of the newcomers.

It was obvious from the relaxed attitudes that all of the Winthrops and O' Neils knew what the cards said, so it was only the four "almost family" that started looking through the cards.

Susan stacked them up and reading the scores out loud. "Sarah has a 9.2? And Rebecca has a 9.1, John a 9.5 and I knew Mike had a 7.6. Johnnie has a 7.3 and Jackie has a 7.2. Elizabeth has an 8.4, Franklin a 7.3 and Cynthia has a 7.1. That's compared to ours. Pat has a 7.3, Sandra a 6.6, Don with a 6.5 and my 6.8. You know, I felt like I had a great score until I saw this. Oops, the general's was on the bottom. A 10.0!" She sounded shocked and a bit depressed.

Mike leaned over and gave her an affectionate, comforting hug. "You do have a great score, Honey. Only about one guy in ten gets a 6.5 and only one girl in thirty. Our family is a really weird fluke, but we, all of us, picked you four as the best choices we could find. There were some higher scores in our class, but none of them were right for me."

"I know, really. It's just a shock when you see these all together like this. Ok, I'm good. Please go on, General."

The General picked up the universal remote and pressed a couple of buttons. "For what it's worth kids, higher scores seem to come with age, so I have no doubt that you would all do better if you retested several years from now. If you will all look at the TV screen, I have some video to show you. This is our new planet. It's not a pleasure planet at all, but it will get better. It is called Geratat by the Confederacy and it's in the Gerat system. We are going to call it Vulcan. It's not named after Spock's home planet, but after the ancient Roman god associated with fire, volcanoes and the working of metal. As you can see, there are lots of volcanoes on the planet and it is tectonically very active. Volcanoes and earthquakes with some pollutants in the atmosphere from the volcanoes, but some work is already being done to fix that by way of a few catalyst stations that bind the pollutants to various soil components. We should have much cleaner air within a year. It looks like the more stable areas have better air already and the AI tells me that it is currently not really harmful. It's mainly smelly and good for spectacular sunsets. The other reason to call it Vulcan is that we are going into manufacturing in a big way as soon as we can. There is one small moon, Caeculus, which is named after Vulcan's son. It's a lot like our moon, Luna, but smaller. Caeculus is only about four hundred fifty miles in radius. Luna has about a one thousand mile radius. There also small rings around both Vulcan and Caeculus, probably from a smaller rocky moon that broke up eons ago. Vulcan has a large axial tilt. Almost 30 degrees compared to Terra's 23 degrees. That means there will be rougher weather and a lot of variations in temperature as the seasons go by. We will need to site our colony carefully.

"OK, I had some negotiable demands for the Confederacy, as represented by the AI. Unfortunately I got everything."

"Wait!" Don was not the only one looking confused, but he was the one to speak up first. "Why 'Unfortunately'? He stressed on the "un".

"It shows how badly the Confederacy feels the evacuation and colonization efforts are going. Pick-ups have almost stopped in the US. Currently, you are actually a lot more likely to get picked up during a two-week vacation to Europe, than during the rest of the year in the US. And when you realize that we, the US that is, have more trained troops and combat veterans than the entire EU, well… Also, the Confederacy seems to have not realized that it would take this many ships. The Darjee seem to be compelled to finance the whole operation alone, which is why they are giving us the ability to make our own ships. They can't make them fast enough and it costs them too much to tie theirs all up doing the evacs. They're merchants and they need to use the ships to make money.

"So, here is what I asked for and what I got:

"First. I wanted a planet, with me in total control as military governor. I got Vulcan and Caeculus. The Navy may be putting an orbital base that I will also have under my command, but if they start putting any capital ships in-system, they will bring in an admiral to command the fleet.

"Second. I wanted authorization to raise and train up to a Division. I got that. I actually have gotten authorization for more if I can swing it. For as many troops as the colony can support.

"Third, I asked to set up manufacturing facilities to make ourselves self-sufficient, with the ability to make up to Bengal attack shuttles, A20 close support craft, F50 fighters and other non hyper craft that can be made planet-side, as well as the ability to make our own pods. That was a slight sticking point, but I pointed out that a lot of the pods are being made by the Confederacy, which was a drain on their resources. Some are currently being made here on Earth, but between the zealots and the Sa'arm we can't count on that production for much longer. Also, I found that some, but not all, of the evacuation liners, including ours, are making three legged trips, not just two legs. They start in the Confederacy, pick up a load of pods, take twenty days to get to Earth, take a week to three weeks to load the volunteers. Then they take a month to get to the colony, mostly to let the people adjust their thinking, get used to their new bodies and each other. Then it takes two to five days to unload the Pods two or more at a time depending on the ship and its tenders. Add another week or so to get back to Confederacy space and it's taken two months for the trip.

"I asked for two of the big ships for ten trips each and one of the smaller ninety-six or similar sized ships for at least one trip immediately and preferably permanently. What I got was two big Star Class ships for six months. The little ship we might get later, but we do get one for one trip early. I will get to that in a bit.

"I asked for an experienced company of Marines. I got them. We will use them for the extractions, then for assistance in setting up the training battalion as well as for cadre. Also, I had reports that there were several Independent Companies that were actually committed to combat well before the general public was even aware of the Sa'arm threat. Some of them should have been in combat for four years now. However, there didn't seem to be a lot of data on them. I talked the AI into giving me one of these. There apparently were originally a dozen, but now only six are left. It's just a gut feeling, but there seems to be something about them that the AI felt I didn't need to be told. I should be talking to their commander in ten days.

"My next request was a bit more difficult. I wanted to talk to the Darjee. Specifically, I would like to negotiate with the Darjee, through an appropriate AI interpreter. I realized that they are staying at arms length as much as possible, but they are apparently bearing the brunt of the financial expenses of our colonizations and I believe that I may be of some small assistance to them. We got that too, kind of. The ninety-six-pod ship is one that is being run by the Darjee doing material supply runs. Usually they have very little contact with us, but with stipulations, we can and will get the ship for one trip and we can negotiate for the duration of the trip.

"The last request was that I wanted more people. I would take them in three ways. Firstly, mother figures. After some discussion, they agreed. All volunteers will be allowed ONE extra mother figure that has a minimum of five child years of experience. Which means, one five year old, or a four year old and a one, etc. They also need to have carried a baby to term, to have a minimum CAP of 3, a parenting sub score of 5 and the volunteer involved has to take all of their available children to qualify. I've already checked. All of the mothers on your lists officially qualify as mother figures. The second method of getting additional personnel is that I will be extracting trained, prior service military people and other needed personnel that meet certain minimum CAP sub-scores and offering them a Sub-citizen status that is still above the Concubine status. They will be need a minimum CAP of 5.5, they will be limited to service on that one colony, will be required to be members of the planetary garrison and they will be trained in a manner similar to but more intensively than our American National Guard troops. Full Marine initial training to start with, then weekends and full weeks several times a year. They will be allowed two concubines only. No bonus mother figure. They will also be working at regular colony jobs such at agriculture, research and manufacturing. The AI 's agreed to this as well, after some logical argument and negotiation. I mentioned that Demeter is already freeing some of their concubines on the condition that they join the garrison, complete their training and serve a certain minimum period. Five years I think. I told the AI that I could just pick prior service personnel, get them to the planet, release them to garrison duty and then come back for replacements, again and again. They gave in. Lastly I got the ability to award Bonus Concubines. These will be the only real reward system other than recognition and rank. I will have to clear each one with the AI on a case-by-case basis, so I expect to use them sparingly.

"So, as you see, we've gotten everything except the total commitment in ships that I wanted. We old fogies have been making plans for a while now, but you guys need to know what is going on so that you can help and not hinder due to not being briefed. Mainly, you have to keep all of this secret. There are people out there who would kill to get on a ship and there are people who would kill to keep us from getting on a ship. Some of them are the same people.

"We are extracting next Friday. P-Day. P for Pick-Up. That evening we will hold a private party in a local restaurant. "Frank and Paulo's" We are renting the whole place for the evening. It was scheduled to close this Wednesday due to declining business. If everything goes as planned, we will take every person in the place. Frank, Paulo, wives, waitresses. Everyone. We should have about one hundred adults and about half that many kids. Frank, his wife Angela and Paulo, his brother, are all volunteers and they and I are handpicking their staff for that night. There will be a couple of extras, but our Marines will be also all be allowed to use the new rule about mother figures, so they actually need about one hundred fifty more concubines to fill up their rosters. You youngsters have a small job to do after that. Some of us will be going with the Marines for a few extractions, so we would like you to keep track of our people while we are off ship. I think that since we are pre-picking people and letting them think about it in advance, we should not have any real problems for a while.

"The six of us have already got jobs assigned. I am Military Governor which means I command the colony, the bases AND the troops. Sarah has had a lot of executive experience with the foundation as well as being a general's wife during our army days. Lots of work to that, organizing the various unofficial support groups, etc. She is going to be the Colony Administrator, kind of like a combined mayor and city manager. John is going to be the primary field commander of the troops. We'll call it a regiment for now, so he is still a colonel. Rebecca will be the head Civil Service commander and will also be setting up the Education system."

"Excuse me, Sir, but what is Civil Service? Like the Government clerks and postal employees?"

"No, but that's a good question, Don. The AIs will actually be handling most of that stuff. Someone realized that we have no one to keep track of spare concubines… We have got to come up with a more comfortable name for these people than that. Anyway, there was no also one to set up the various social services such as education, recreation, etc. It's the kind of an undefined job that Becky loves to just grab onto and run with. Rebecca, we may be able to use the AI to assist with schooling. They seem to be doing something like that on Demeter, but I am not sure how. The amount of processing power needed does not seem to match up with the little that we know of their capabilities.

"Next, John and I are trained to destroy things, but Elizabeth is a civil engineer who builds things, so she knows a lot more about town planning and such than the rest of us. Therefore she is in charge of that and also of the initial colony placement, geological surveys, etc. Franklin has been running various factories for years and his corporate bosses are constantly having him go to assist with new factory set-ups. He also is our best trade negotiator, which is why he and Elizabeth are going on the small ship to negotiate trade deals with the Darjee, get to the colony first, pick a site and get the colony core set up. The power plant, the AI core and a couple of other items are already en-route. The basic light manufacturing setup will take twelve pods. The major facilities that are included are a four-pod remote manufacturing facility that can make most un-powered devices and a similar three-pod assembly that will make the equivalent of electronic circuit boards. Also we will have a five-pod assembly that makes self-contained power supplies. All of these facilities are remote controlled by the AI and therefore will get by with a minimum of staffing requirements. The assembly of these items is where we will need both some trained and untrained labor. Also, we will need another four-pod set-up to make major structural members for pods and for other large structures, similar to hangars and warehouses. We will need them to build and house the pods, Shuttles and Fighters. Also another pair of pods will apparently be needed to make some specialty parts like wing structures and such for the shuttles and fighters. That is eighteen pods used, plus four for the two of you and your people. You get allocated one pod per five or fewer adults. Franklin, you have four plus a mother, plus yourself. Liz, you get six plus one, plus yourself. So you will each get two pods. You can keep them separate or one big happy family. That leaves seventy-four pods for your teams. The AI has a lot of data available, but you need geologists, meteorologists, biologists and agronomists to interpret it. Try not to build the colony in a flash flood zone under an alien Vesuvius, OK? Franklin, I think you said you had your teams almost worked out. Trade negotiators, supply chain managers, etc?"

Franklin had a very composed face with a look of quiet, self-assurance. Even though he had the lowest CAP score of the adults, he knew he was more competent than 95% of the rest of the male population. He also had a rugged face, which tended to let the floor workers and foremen on his crews think that he was a tough customer. He rarely had people problems with other competent people, though. "Yeah, with the AI's to handle most of the paperwork and limited actual contact with any of the other colonies, we don't need many of those people. We just need a few who really know the job, mainly to set it up correctly at the start and to look for innovations as we add new manufacturing capability. I also am bringing some of my old senior employees who can train the relatively small workforce that we will need for the assembly work and such. Also, we need a couple of people to help with factory line layouts for the areas with people, mostly ergonomics people. I think I need about twelve pods. How about you Liz?"

"I need a big biology, agronomy and chemistry team to see what crops we can use for recyclable biomass. The more edible the starting crops the better the replicator food will taste and the healthier it should be. Also, we intend to take some small quantities of our seed stocks and such and see how they grow on Vulcan. Especially, we will try spices and coffee, specialty fruits and such. Replicator food is ok, but if you make replicated grain foods from real grain it's a lot better, and you don't need the highest quality grains either. Also, we need several meteorologists and a dozen geologists. The thing is, I am planning to grab some people from a few colleges. For example, I found one husband and wife, both volunteers. He teaches meteorology and has a special upper grad level class with a dozen students. She teaches Biology and has been teaching a special project series on Xenobiology. Their students are also high CAP people. I am still looking for a few more people, but I think I can get all I need in twenty pods. My only problem is how to get the volunteers to pick the right people. I think that I will just grab entire classes and somehow arrange for a couple of extra volunteers to be around to pick up those that their classmates and teachers don't. Anyone have any ideas?"

"Mom?"

"Yes, Cyn."

"I heard Uncle Fred saying that the Marines can pick up "spares". Can't they just do that with everyone there that we want and who wants to come? Then make some other pickups someplace else where there are not enough concubines. "Sorry, sir or ma'am, we ran short here, but we have some college boys and girls up on the ship as spares. Would you like to check them out?"

"Excellent! I really like the fact that you have actually been listening to us these last couple of months. I know just where to get the guys, but does anyone have a clue where to pick up several high CAP girls with an insufficient number of guys?" Fred was smiling at his pretty niece.

"I have an idea sir, but I also have a bit of a reservation." It was the most Pat had said all night.

"OK, let's hear both."

"Well, We are arranging to take our family and friends, but most people will just be getting the luck of the draw. It doesn't seem fair. I realize that the world is not always or even mostly fair, but it will probably backlash a bit when they find out later that the "bigwigs" got to bring all of their family. However, if you let them reach out a bit to grab one of their family, then they will think that this is better than the other colonies, where NO ONE gets their wives and kids and such. Well, except the thirteen and under kids. Anyway, my idea is this. Near the high school is one of those fitness clubs that only takes women. Most of them are a bit out of shape or even quite a bit out of shape, as the really fit ones go to co-ed clubs to show off. However they are working on their problem, so I figure that shows some determination. I can see it now. 'May I have your attention? This is an extraction. We have special rules for this one. We have some college age guys on board the ship already. Anyone willing to accept one of them will be allowed to pick one adult, who is NOT here, such as your husband or your sister, and we will go collect him or her. Yada, Yada, Yada. Oh and we have special medical tech on the ship that can reshape you in the manner you wish. More T&A or less T&A. Toned, tight, slimmed down or bulked up, a body to make Olympic gymnasts and movie starlets envious. And we have nanites that let you eat about twice as much with out gaining an ounce,' etc. Anyway, those clubs are all over. Hmm, or how about day spas?"

"Great idea. And as to the fairness concept, you are right. In fact we didn't get around to telling you guys yet, but we had already decided to do as many follow up pickups as possible. We will ask if the guy wants anyone from home and collect those people in the same way as we collect the kids, but they only get one shot at them if they aren't there. I actually think that the more loyal a person is to his family, the more loyal he is overall, so that is a benefit to us."

"Oh. Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, you stood up for what you believe in. Hmm." The general opened up a folder and selected a sheet of paper. "Yeah, I thought so. Look, here's a print out of your CAP sub scores. See that 8.3? It says that you will do or say what you think is the right thing, even if you think you will take heat for it. That's called moral fiber. It's one of the reasons that we think Cynthia made a great choice with you. OK, Cynthia and Pat, between you, this was your idea, so you two need to research the locations and operating hours for ladies-only fitness clubs, day spas, etc. in about ten major cities. See if you can find times for them in two or three levels of busy. Like fifty people, one hundred fifty and two hundred fifty people. Try to think of any other businesses or venues that are female specific, also. We will probably need a minimum of fifty at a time to get even one or two volunteers. I will handle the male only venues. Liz, Franklin, remember that if you can get a needed specialist with a 5.5 or higher, you can offer him or her the limited pickup status, two concubines, no bonus mother figure, stay on the planet.

"So, seventy four pods, minus twelve pods for Franklin and twenty pods for Liz equals forty two. And let's say two pods for your seeds and such. I will be sending some of the veterans who have training experience along with you. They can advise about or actually do much of the training base setup and start laying out the regimental HQ and three separate battalion areas. Your ship is not going to dawdle along to give your people time to become settled into you new roles. Eighteen days in flight and you will be there. In other words you will see Vulcan, in person, three and a half weeks from now. The priorities are to get the Training area set up, so that we can start housing and processing troops ASAP and then to get the factory complexes started. We need the standard small arms and armor, and later some light transport vehicles. The next priority is for the pod manufacturing plant. That will let us save that two to three week delay in picking up new pods and unloading pods. Also, I want to start speeding up the transit times from Earth to Vulcan. Currently they are taking a two week or so trip and slowing it down to a month to give the people time to get used to their new groupings, their new bodies and their duties. I think we should handle this in the traditional military basic training way. Hit them hard and fast with new concepts and training, don't give them time to think about back home or the fact that they are now effectively slaves. So, two weeks in transit, three at the most and then they are unloading. I was hoping for an eventual trip time of one and one half weeks, each way, with only a few days for pick up. One month, maximum round trip instead of each way. However, it looks like the ships just can't go that fast. Maybe we can cut it down to thirty-six days or so with no loading time and keep the pods on board, just transporting the people down.

"Franklin, here is what we need to know for trade: Money and Trade Goods.
Money- Specifically, we need to know what medium of exchange exists and how we can start accumulating the same.
Trade goods- We'll be like a third world country asking the US if they want to buy our state-of-the-art rocks and sand unless we can find out what, if anything, they need that we can make. I figure we will primarily be making things that they are hauling to the colonies that currently have even less manufacturing capability than us, things that they can haul from home. However, if they get it from us, it will be closer and it won't be such a drain on their economy. Bend over backwards to find some way that we can assist in some way that helps the Darjee and/or the Confederacy. We want in on the ground floor with them so that they will keep assisting our colony when we really need it. Also, see if you can find out information about any other buildable factory complexes besides the ones we know about.

"OK, does anyone have anything else to ask about before we go over your personal lists? No?"

"Great. OK, for each of you couples, you have at least two different options here. One option is that you share your households. You will be allocated resources as if you were two separate families, but you can attach the pods to make a bigger house. Kind of like a prefab temporary work trailer, that has other trailers attached at some of the outer doors. The pods seem to be bigger than that and have various layouts available just by asking the pod to reconfigure. They apparently triple in size when deployed on the surface. The second option is to keep separate households. You each can errr… cavort with your own Harem, as well as with each other. The third option is a version of the first or second. That is where you leave existing families alone and only use the singles for your own use. I don't encourage that, as it will lead to some jealousy and it will not accomplish what both we, and the Confederacy, want. We want lots of kids, with as many high quality parents as possible and with as much net diversity as possible. Let me give you an example. Sarah and I get my ten, her eight and two more as mommies. We have agreed to share households and we will actually qualify for five pods, three for me and my eleven, two for her and her nine. We also expect to start with about a dozen kids. Now, Sarah and I have had a rich fantasy life and have actually had a few discrete encounters with…. Quit blushing, kids. You need to hear this. As I was saying, Sarah is going to be actively bisexual and intends to have her way with all twenty-two adults in the group. I will be ignoring the guys, but all of the women will be fair game. And yes, there will be either three or four other guys in our group. Keeping twenty-one women satisfied would be way too much like work for me! However, I will be getting EVERY female pregnant at least once. Actually, for what it's worth, Rebecca and John, as well as Elizabeth and Franklin are going to be set up in the same way. We have also agreed that if any of us are lost in combat or accidents, that the rest will inherit our Harems. Otherwise they go to the colony for, errr, disposal. Since Rebecca is in charge of that, it should not be as bad as that, but on some colonies and most ships, it is just as bad as that sounds. To continue, the six of us are making our separate households available to each other. So, for example, if I am deployed off planet, John and Franklin are expected to come by and keep my women happy. All of my women."

"Umm, Dad? Does that mean…?" Mike was a bit startled.

"Yup, We've talked this over between the six of us. Three guys, with three women, no boundaries. Well, no guy-guy stuff."

"Wait! You mean you and MOM, too? But she's your sister?" Cynthia was looking like the deer caught in the headlights.

Elizabeth decided that she needed to answer this one. "Yes dear. For what its worth, I've wanted to fool around with both of your uncles since I was a little girl and Franklin has known that for a long time. He's Ok with it. Heck, he and I were playing "Big brother comes home from the Academy" when your little brother was conceived. " Cynthia was turning red as a beet.

Franklin joined in with the logical arguments. "There are three main reasons that incest is prohibited in what used to be 'today's society'. Inbreeding leads to genetically recessive problems such as hemophilia, sickle cell anemia, heart problems, cancer susceptibility, etc. However, the Confederacy medical program can fix those and keep them from being passed on. And now, limited inbreeding will tend to fix high value recessive features into the gene pool, features like intelligence. The next issue is the law, which was mainly a societal response to keep the inbreeding problems from getting out of hand. Fred gets to make the rules on Vulcan. We have noticed that on all of the other colonies, there seems to be NO law against it and there seem to be reports of it happening on most or all of them. So, he is specifically NOT making a rule against it. The last reason is societal pressures. Well, that will still exist, but most of the people that will be disapproving will be those still on Earth and possibly some of the concubines. The volunteers seem to generally let each other do whatever they want with their own Harem."

Fred noted that while the kids were still concerned looking, that no one seemed to be seriously upset and indignant. "OK, let's get back to your Harem lists. Mike and Susan. He gets four, she gets two and you each get an additional one if she is a mother. Here are your lists. Mike gave me these names over the last couple of weeks. Since you each get one more than you thought, you may need to juggle a bit to keep from breaking families more than you want to. Each one has had their CAP sub-scores printed out and a description of what they mean. So, Mike has both Susan's mother and father listed with the two minor children and, I believe, Rachel is your fourteen year old little sister?"

"Yeah and she won't be a problem. She has a BIG crush on Mike, but you are saying that Mike needs to be having sex with my mom and me and Rachel and any others as well, to keep them pregnant?"

"Essentially, yes. Look, I am going to be contacting a lady that I work with. She is married to a man she dearly loves and they have a thirteen year old who turns fourteen this Thursday and I bet she gets a 6.5 CAP Score, easy. Either way, she goes with us. Janet has bad arthritis and Robert has a heart problem. I will talk to Janet, Robert and Gillian, all together. Sarah will go along with me as well. I will give them the entire spiel. Janet and Robert will be each other's main squeeze but I reserve the right to spend some time with her and she will probably have at least one of my kids. She will also have Stephen Knight, one of our neighbors, who will be giving her a kid. Robert and Stephen will both be distracted, on occasion, by Sarah, Rebecca and Elizabeth as well as the other eighteen women in our household and the thirty or so neighbor ladies. This will all be gone over with them IN ADVANCE of the pickup. In fact, Sarah and I expect to get so much sex this coming week, as we interview our prospective Harem members, that we may have problems thinking coherently by Friday. So yes. Mike should be having sex with your mom and your sister and all the rest, but the key thing here is what are you doing?"

"Me? I will be with Mike, uhh, and the one guy I am taking, a friend of ours."

"Ok, and that should work, but you should probably decide, before you talk to anyone, if you are going to be bi-sexual. It seems that female volunteers have a higher chance than the normal populace of leaning that way, possibly because it is a way of bonding your Harem to you and the AI probably has a bias towards it. What IS known is that the AI will insert nanites into everyone. In the concubines, some of the results are a higher sex drive, a desire to obey the volunteer and a bonding effect when you have sex with them. The friend you are taking, that's Ricky Smith? Along with his big sister?"

"Yeah and his mother was on our back up list, so we will probably ask her as well. His sister has a baby and he has another little brother and sister."

"Great. Who is getting those two pregnant and keeping them satisfied? Mike? Remember I said that the sex drive is enhanced. If Mike is gone for a week, then all six of the girls will be climbing the walls. You will need to get Ricky used to the idea of being with your little sister and maybe your mom and your dad will be helping with Rickey's sister, his mother and the other two ladies you choose for Mike. You also have the option of turning off the incest prohibition. Actually, it would be a matter of commanding it to be ignored and pairing people up, maybe for command performances. That gives you a lot more options, however, it means that you need to be able to compel it and get away with it. If you decide that you want to do that, then you and Mike need to put that to your family before you leave and you have to participate."

"You…!" Susan's voice cracked and her eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of their sockets, but several of the others noticed that even through her shirt, her nipples were getting visibly hard and protruding. "You mean ME and DADDY?"

"Susan, this is not something that I can or will command. IF you decide that it is something that you two want for your combined household, then you will need to be part of it. For example, lets say you just decide that Rickey and his sister will get together for a baby. Then they will have a legitimate beef that they are being forced to do something 'wrong' when others, your family, are getting preferential treatment. His mother will resent it also. Even if no one says anything, there will be tension. The other thing that you seem to have passed over was the concept of being bi. I think that it will be a big advantage in bonding a large household of mainly women together and if you need to discuss, err, technical issues, then Sarah, Rebecca or Elizabeth can help."

"Uhh, Daddy?"

"Yes, Jackie? What have you and Don been whispering about over there?"

"Well, with these options you are talking about, we were wondering, uhh, that is… Well you know when I said I liked older men? Well, I meant YOU and we want to join in with you guys and Don thinks Mom is HOT and…." The words came out in a huge rush and Jacqueline's and Don's faces were competing with each other for which could be redder.

"Ok, We would be glad to have you. In both senses of the word." The last was said with more than a hint of a playful leer. And Sarah seemed to be licking her lips just a bit as she studied Don.

"Just like that?" Mike asked. There seemed to be some consternation among all of the youngsters, but none among the adults.

"We have all six discussed this, well in advance and we were planning on inviting you, all of you, to feel free to participate in any consensual manner. We wanted to take our time and not shock any of you or worse, scare you off from making the evacuation. It is entirely voluntary, but to be clear, if any one of the four of you young men would like to have sex with any one of the older ladies here, just ask them. They will probably say yes and we, the husbands, will not be upset. Young ladies, you can ask to be with any of us older gentlemen and we would be happy to oblige. Or, if you are interested in trying the other ladies, just ask them. But rest assured that no one is going to compel any of you to participate. For example, now that Jackie and Don have asked to be considered, Sarah and I will consider them fair game to invite or seduce. You other three young ladies and gentlemen are still off limits until you let us know otherwise

"It does give us one more tool for the coming week, though. Don, you and Jackie get two and four and two mothers. I noticed that Jackie has listed your Father, your Mother and your Aunt, who is your father's sister, correct?" Getting a nod, he went on. " Ok, you two are not taking any other guys, so the only men in your two households are you and your Dad. So who sleeps with your aunt? Your Dad, with his own Sister? Or you? Either way, we have opened the incest worm can again. So you either need to open it up right at the start, or trade her off, or bring in outside pinch hitters, such as myself, or Mike or whoever. As to trading, there are about eighty people going to be in our fourteen households, so I expect we will have a few chemistry problems that have to be settled that way. I don't really want to be just trading every one around in wholesale lots, but we may have to fix a few things in that manner. Let's go back to the 'one more tool' concept, though. Let's say that you two go to talk to your family. Sarah and I come along to show that this is a real situation, not just a juvenile fantasy. You decide to hit them with the incest concept and we just sit there smiling. They reluctantly decide to go along after some discussion and you decide that they need to do something irrevocable to prove that they can handle it without the roof caving in. So you put the moves on your Mother, Sarah grabs your Dad, while Jackie and I grab your aunt, just to show that's it ok. We 'grownups' have all planned and agreed on this in advance. If any of you need us for moral support with family groups, just let us know. If you need us for, errr, sexual support, just let us know ahead of time, so that we know if you want actively bi ladies, or incestuous contact, or if you want something like that avoided. Also, don't wait too late for this as our time is going to be limited. Well, do any of you have any questions or any major yelling to do?"

"Sir, wouldn't that be General, yelling? Or more to the point, Major General, yelling?" The smirk on Pat's face was in contrast to the slow fade of a blush that seemed to be prevalent on the other seven teenage faces.

"You know, puns are proven to cause a five point reduction in CAP scores and they're a court martial offense punishable by flogging." The resulting laughter finished lightening the mood.

"OK, back to work, Susan is taking Richard Smith, his sister and his mother, Mrs. Smith. Mike is taking Mr. and Mrs. Bellows, Rachel and you get two more picks, Son."

"Well, I was going to take Richard's Mom, but now I get one more, so I can take Susan's girlfriend and her Mom. The dad is a real loser who left years ago. And uhh, I can tell you that Susan is already actively bi-sexual. At least she is with her friend Angie. We did a threesome to see if she was compatible with us. She is actually our first choice outside of family, but Susan thought that she needed one guy. Angie hangs with us around school, just in case."

"OK, next in order of age are John and Sandra. Sandra you have your Mom and the twins, brother and sister and a couple of little kids? "

"Yes, I had not really thought that through. Billy is ok and uhh, constantly horny, but I don't know yet about doing it with him, or him with Mom. I think he and Wendy have played "doctor" a few times and he would probably go for it, but I don't know about her. I will have a little discrete conversation tomorrow and we may need to swap someone to Johnnie. Johnnie has my cousin Julie, her parents and we are going to ask Mrs. Thompson from school. She has two beautiful little kids and her husband got killed in an accident a couple of years ago. She has all of the straight guys in school drooling over her, and probably half of the girls. We just need to decide on one more girl."

"OK, next we have…"