Chapter 28 – Arts and Crafts

In the end, they'd had to recycle James Corbell. His psychological profile indicated that he was dangerously unstable, and CAP scoring proved to be impossible. Simply put, Private Corbell had been stressed by the events at Hesperus to beyond the breaking point. Fleet Auxiliary Corporal Henri Cournoyer happily adopted mother and child. The AI agreed that his less aggressive nature would allow Mary-Jane and her daughter to heal more quickly, and the Governor happily signed off on the request for permission for a supernumerary.

Samantha now sat in the Unassigned Concubine Quarters, facing the other Corbell concubine. Callee was a scared 23-year-old with fiery red hair and an equally red-haired one-year-old son named Jason. The young boy was confused and too young to understand what had just happened, and tended to cling to his mother as a result. He cautiously examined the teen with his big green eyes as he tried to ease himself around to place his mother between him and this stranger.

The newly-promoted Sub-Decurion reflected that this had been one hell of a birthday so far: getting her CAP score, her first concubine and her first sexual experience, and now dealing with the most common function of a Civil Service officer, picking up the pieces of a metaphorically shattered pod.

"What happens next?" the teary-eyed Callee asked in a thick Irish accent.

"You've been out here how long?" Samantha probed gently. Behind her, a somewhat sleepy, nude Vickie arrived for work. "You probably have seen this before, I should think, and have an idea about how this works."

"We arrived on the last transport, I think. Maybe six weeks." She glanced at Vickie, who had removed from the replicator a cup of "double-double" coffee and a white concubine shift which bore on its breast pocket the veterinarian's symbol of a gold Rod of Asklepios superimposed by a black "V". "Is she being punished?"

"No, why?"

"She's nude..." Callee was clearly confused. Her late sponsor had used nudity as a punishment.

"All of us are at some point in the day, like when we're getting dressed." She held up a finger. "First, we'll reassess your CAP score to see if you're now sponsor material, and give you a general health check. We'll do a health check on Jason, here, at the same time."

"And if I don't get a six point five?"

Samantha had been doing a rough evaluation during the conversation, and concluded Callee was an unlikely candidate for anything higher than four point nine. This concubine's inability to actually come to any sort of logical conclusion militated against a sponsor-level score. "Then you work in the Civil Service brothel until you get picked by a new sponsor. That, frankly, shouldn't take long." With a lot of the officers and NCO's getting rescored to the next level and thus able to handle another pair of concubines, plus the sheer volume of kids from that hockey tournament extraction turning 14 and getting sponsor-level scores, Thule was running woefully short of concubines again.

They left little Jason with Gladys, who had arrived to open the Beauty Saloon for the day. As she escorted the Irish lass across the dome to the medical tubes for a CAP rescoring, Samantha reflected on a suggestion that Sergeant-Major Blondell had made. "Go for the standard Marine package," she had advised the petite young Civil Service officer. "First, the Marines will look on you as a fellow Marine, which will help when you ask them for help. Second, when you are facing the Board of Inquiry, you'll look more mature than you currently do – you barely look 14 as it is." The more Samantha thought about it, the more sense it made.

As they passed by a playground near the school, Samantha and Callee passed a mother and her young daughter, who looked about five. The mother, who was breastfeeding a newborn, had her ugly grey concubine shift lying on the bench next to her, whereas the five-year-old wore jeans and a T-shirt that advised the reader she was a Concubine Lover In Training. "Mommy, mommy!" the breathless child was reporting. "There's a couple over there, and they're fucking." She regarded her beloved mother with big, round, serious eyes.

"She can't possibly know what that word means..." began Callee, innocent of the knowledge level of children of the Diaspora.

Unfortunately for Callee's comfort level, the five-year-old had heard her. She turned to the redhead, and explained with an exasperated rolling of eyes and a deadly monotone, "They're breeding." You could almost hear the unvoiced complaint of "Stupid adults!" through gritted teeth.

"Are they enjoying themselves?" asked the girl's mother, as she calmly breastfed her baby.

"Yes, Mommy. You can almost hear them from here!"

Callee's ears were quite pink as she followed the Sub-Decurion onward.

Callee's education continued apace as she walked with Samantha toward the Medical Inspection Room. A large Marine, wearing matte-white body armour and corporal's stripes, pointing an RLA-1 laser rifle in one hand and his body armour's helmet in the other, intercepted the pair.

"Sub-Decurion Samantha Redburn!" called the two-metre-tall specimen, as Callee's gaze went up... and UP....

"Ah, Corporal Roger Bachelor, congratulations on your promotion!"

"Thank you, Sub-Decurion, and congratulations on yours as well! Would you like to join us on the rifle range? Instead of the usual training exercise, the sniper class is going to carve some pumpkins."

"Pumpkins?" a blinking Samantha asked.

"Yes, well, it is almost Halloween."

In all the excitement of the past two months and with the complete lack of advertising on Thule, Samantha had completely forgotten Halloween's existence – and Callee had had other things to worry about than keeping track of the date. Both were surprised at the reminder. "AI, please arrange a meeting of the Concubines' Council this afternoon and invite the Governor to attend. Let's see what we can do about celebrating Halloween. That should prove good for morale." She looked up at the dome, which showed the external weather at the moment to be twilight with heavy winds and blowing snow, not exactly the ideal weather to carve a pumpkin outdoors – not that the temperature was ever all that conducive to carving pumpkins outdoors. The snipers' rifle range was located some distance from the dome, pointing toward an out-of-bounds sector. "Now, Batch, what's this about carving pumpkins on the rifle range?"

"Well, by now they should be nicely frozen through and ready to go. The snipers and some of the Corps of Cadets are going to have a competition, to see who can put the scariest face on their pumpkins. We've got a couple of dozen from Hydroponics."

"I was wondering where you got them from. I take it from the weapon in your hands you're not carving them with a K1, but with an RLA-1?"

"Sir, yes, Sir. Promises to be a load of fun."

"Ma'am," interrupted a thoroughly confused Callee, "What's a K1?"

"Show her, please," begged Samantha.

Nodding, Batch tossed Samantha his helmet and pulled a wicked-looking, steel-handled knife from his web belt. Like all items of kit worn by Frozen Chosen marines, the 30-centimetre-bladed weapon had a matte-white finish. "That's a K1." He re-sheathed the knife. "This," he patted the blaster in his hands, "is an RLA-1."

"The first shot will blow them to smithereens," Samantha advised Batch. "You won't be carving pumpkins; you'll be reducing them to soup stock."

"We're using training rounds," explained Batch. "They put out just enough energy to boil away the topmost layer of the pumpkin's surface."

"This should be good," nodded Samantha, still slightly bemused at the thought of using a laser rifle for what was essentially an art project. Maybe it could be called a martial art project? Just then, though, an urgent summons came through her subvocal implant from the AI.

"Before we go, can I borrow your services for a moment?"

Julienne and Mark stared into each other's eyes lovingly, saying a lot of not much in low tones, trying to reassure themselves that everything was OK. Both were topless, being down to shorts and sandals, and each was nervously trying to render the other bottomless.

Suddenly, Mark thought he heard Julienne say, "Hi, there." The look in her eyes changed, though, to one of fright. Both looked up.

They discovered that they suddenly weren't alone in Storage Room 217. The grey-uniformed young lady above was instantly recognizable as Sub-Decurion Redburn. Behind her, trying to hide his amusement, was a heavily-armed, heavily-armoured corporal with his helmet visor locked in the "open" position and a nervous shift-clad concubine.

Both Julienne and Mark, shocked into immobility, could only stare at the trio in terror.

"The AI tells me you're twelve," advised Samantha in a cheerful tone.

"Sorta..." Julienne confirmed weakly.

Samantha shot an amused look at Batch. "'Sorta', she says."

"Isn't that like being 'almost pregnant'?" asked Batch, cocking a quizzical eyebrow at the youthful Civil Service officer.

"I think so," Samantha agreed, still struggling to keep a straight face. She turned back to the two errant 12-year-olds. "OK, kids, what are you up to? And kindly do not try to insult my intelligence, or that of the large armed man behind me."

"We were..." Mark began, faltering.

"You were, were you?" Samantha asked, encouragingly.

"We wanted some alone time."

"Ah. Your schedules say you're both supposed to be on the sports field. So you two thought you could just sneak away and play a little chesterfield rugby."

"I don't think that's on the list of games approved for 12-year-olds," rumbled Batch.

"Not the list that I, as school superintendent, approved." Samantha grew serious for a moment. "Look kids, the AI knows all, and sees all – the ultimate swami. And he tells all. He can't lie, and he can't let two underage kids go any further than a little tonsil hockey. Thirteen, you can go a little farther, but right now you get to hold hands, kiss and look longingly in each others' eyes. And that's it."

"Can we see each other naked?" asked Julienne, eager despite her fears.

"Ya wanna?" teased Samantha. Both youngsters nodded eagerly, then backed away, realizing beyond the last minute that this might involve immediate embarrassment. "You don't see enough nudity in your pods? Or in the schools, or in the playgrounds?"

"Daddy's trying to keep me from seeing that." Julienne's face blushed, and her hand grasped Mark's for reassurance.

"Oh, hormones on overload. Jules, I want an invite to your fourteenth birthday party. It promises to be as wild as mine was. I'm still walking bowlegged from it." Her face took on a faraway look – a sure-fire indication that she was talking subvocally, probably to the AI.

"Ma'am?" prompted Julienne.

"'Sir'," Batch corrected. "She's an officer. You call officers, 'Sir'."

Samantha returned to the here and now.

Mark tried his luck. "Sir? Are we in trouble, Sir?"

"Trouble? No, we stopped it in time, although I think the two of you are in for some severe teasing when you get back to your pods. We've decided on how to handle this situation. Come with me. Batch, good luck with the pumpkin carving."

"Yes, Sir," nodded Batch, heading off to the sniper range for some redneck-style sculpting.

"You two are coming with us. Come along, Callee."

"Yes, ma'am, er, Sir."

The classroom was filled with a mix of dependants, concubines and off-duty Marines in civvies, with an age range reaching down to about nine years of age. Almost all of the participants held large manilla drawing pads and charcoal pencils. Mirelle, the concubine running the class, before being a Fille de Roi had been an art teacher at one of the special "extraction orphan" schools the Confederacy ran on Earth. Now, she taught art both as part of the regular school curriculum and, as was the case here, for hobbyists.

Mirelle welcomed the two youngsters with open arms. She handed each a pad and a charcoal pencil.

"We're going to do life studies today," she announced to the class. "We're going to pair up and draw each other." She hauled out two more folding chairs and placed them back-to-back, about half a metre apart. "You two, sit here." The pair went to sit down. "No, no. Strip first." She indicated the rest of the class – who were all busy undressing, even the handful of nine-year-olds.

Nervously, Julienne and Mark stripped. They then sat on the chairs.

"No, sit backwards. You two will draw each other."

Too late, they realized the Sub-Decurion's cunning plan. She'd arranged for them to see each other nude, just in a carefully supervised, socially acceptable setting. Sitting astride the chairs like this forced their legs apart and guaranteed that each would have a good view of the other's genitalia.

They looked over at Samantha in confusion. She merely regarded them with a friendly grin, and advised them, "Enjoy yourselves!" And she was gone, to resume her journey with Callee to the M.I.R.

Samantha awoke in the med tube, wondering how having a sudden Marine frame would feel. Somehow, it didn't feel any different. She looked down at herself – it didn't look any different, either. Callee was still in her med tube, having her CAP score reassessed.

The mirror quickly revealed that no body modifications had been done on her at all. Corporal Sheena James, the duty corpsman, came over at that point.

"No, we didn't do the mods. Have a seat while I explain."

As Samantha settled into the chair near the corpsman's desk, Sheena explained, "We don't like to do major-league body modifications on pregnant women. Their bodies are changing to accommodate the growing foetus within, and having to deal with the Marine-standard body mod as well is just a bit much. Most can handle it, but it adds unnecessary stress."

"Well, that makes sen- waitaminute. You said 'pregnant'?"

"Yes, Sir. About forty-eight hours along. The AI says the genetic father is Lieutenant Carruthers. And start thinking of boy names – you'll need two."

Samantha blinked. "I thought I had to be on official pregnancy leave in order to conceive, otherwise the nanites would enforce birth control."

Sheena handed her a data pad. "There are two exceptions, authorized by the Governor. Sailors and Marines assigned to training units, and Civil Service officers assigned to garrison duty, which would mean you."

Still shocked at the news, Samantha took the pad. "And he never told me a thing. I went to my birthday party thinking I was just going to practise making babies, not make them for real. Sneaky bastard." She grinned admiringly. "AI, where is Sergeant Bob Redburn right now?"

"Sergeant Robert Redburn is drilling a class in armoured vehicle tactics."

"Please connect me."

A second later, her father's voice sounded in the M.I.R. "Yes, punkin, any problem?"

"No, everything's copacetic," Samantha reassured him. "I just need you to think of names for the two grandsons you'll have in nine months. See you at supper tonight!" As he began sputtering in surprise, she cut the connection. "Home pod, please, or wherever Concubine Monica Redburn is."

"Concubine Monica Redburn is at Camp Shackleton Dependants' School, teaching a class in basic childcare."

And with that, Samantha's mother began to speak. "Is everything OK, honey?"

"Yes, Grandma. Everything's juuuust fine. See you tonight." And again, the connection was quickly cut.

Sheena smirked at Samantha. "You are evil. Colonel Deschenes could learn a thing or two from you on the fine art of teasing."

"Hey, where do you think I learnt that from?"