Chapter 15 – Arrivals

CSS Vasco da Gama popped out of hyperspace in Thuleat two days after delivering her cargo to Hesperus. Aboard, she held concubine Belinda Keeler and her offspring.

As senior, and so far only, Civil Service officer on Thule, Samantha Redburn met the passengers as they disembarked at the Primary Transport Nexus Room at Base Scott. The concubines of Clarke's Science Division, at least those not still aboard the research vessel, flanked the pregnant fourteen-year-old, all anxious to greet and help settle in the newest member of the club. All of her assistants wore the ubiquitous grey shift.

The officer in command of the orbital dockyards, as senior ranking Fleet Auxiliary officer, was also present – his blue uniform and the Navy black uniform of the sergeant manning the transporter being the only non-grey outfits in the room. Samantha had requested the man's presence not only as Stan Keeler was in the same branch of the Confederacy Armed Forces, but also to relieve the field of grey outfits that Belinda and her family would face when they first arrived. First impressions, Samantha knew, were lasting ones.

The one nexus connected to the da Gama glowed red, and Belinda and four smaller figures entered the room. Belinda was a slightly chubby, petite, short-haired brunette with C-cups. Her attitude at the moment was slightly anxious, which was quite understandable. Her sponsor, after all, was on another planet entirely.

“Belinda Keeler,” the officer stated pleasantly, “My name is Major Gordon Ellis. Welcome to Thule.”

Belinda visibly relaxed. “Major,” she responded. “Thank you very much. These are my daughters Amy, Sheri and Carla, and that's my son Hugh.” The children were separated in age by about two years, from twelve to five, with Hugh the youngest. All shared their mother's brunette hair, although Hugh appeared to resemble his father more closely in terms of physical features.

The Major then introduced Samantha, who took over the family at that point. She started by introducing the other Clarke concubines to Belinda and her brood. “They'll be your best friends until your sponsor returns,” she reassured the middle-aged woman. “First stop, though, is Base Scott's Medical Inspection Room. I was told you haven't had anything in the way of screening due to the emergency nature of your extraction. We'll screen you, redo your CAP test and do your body modifications that your sponsor provided us with. Then to your pod so you can settle in.”

“Yes, do you know when my husband will be back?” Belinda asked.

“Bel, honey, you do know that you're not married any more?” Samantha quizzed, concerned that she had a case of Upset Wife Syndrome on her hands.

Belinda blushed. “Of course, I misspoke. It's all so new.”

Samantha nodded. “I can understand that. Normally, we give the newly created families about three or four weeks to gel, and get used to the new society. Unfortunately, Targeted Extraction families all too often don't get that. Follow me to the M.I.R., though, and let's get you started getting used to life on Thule.” As she led the way out of the Nexus Room, Samantha asked Belinda, “Did you and he agree to the body mods? Do you know what you're getting?”

“Yes, that nice Tribune who extracted us told him to not go nuts. Roll back our ages but keep us looking like who we are. He said it's best for the kids if their Mom continues to look like their Mom, only younger and fitter.” She blushed. “I wanted to know what I looked like as a blond.”

Samantha smiled. “I don't have permission to make you a blond, but we can put up a hologram of you with blond hair, if you're interested.”

“Sure,” a startled Belinda agreed. She hadn't thought of holograms.

Unlike Camp Shackleton's Art Deco/Streamline Moderne architecture, Base Scott used Late High Victorian as its design palette, with minarets, gargoyles, copper roofs, red brick and lots of fancy filigree in wrought iron gracing its buildings. With the contrasting touches of high tech and anachronistic uniforms, the effect was more along the lines of “Disney meets Steampunk”. Samantha preferred the clean and simple elegance of Camp Shackleton's streamlined structures to the hyperdecorated ones here. The kids kept looking around as if their heads were mounted with ball bearings, and Samantha was grateful for the support of the other Clarke concubines in herding the four.

In the M.I.R., Samantha had Belinda take her shift off. Belinda experienced a shot of embarrassment as, naked as the day she was born, she hopped into the medical tube. During their relatively fast trip here, she had worn a shift almost constantly when the kids were awake, only stripping nude to sleep with Stan. Within seconds, she was asleep and the medical nanites were beginning to probe and do basic repairs.

As the kids were lying back in their tubes, five-year-old Hugh remembered something. “De... Decurion?”

“Yes, Hugh?” Samantha asked gently.

“Do you have hockey here? That big, uh, Tribune said to ask.”

“Tribune Whitefeather?” Samantha guessed. There weren't all that many Civil Service officers the youngster would have encountered, and having the standard Marine package, William Whitefeather certainly qualified as “big”. In the background, Sheri and Carla rolled their eyes while eldest sister Amy looked on with considerably more tolerance and affection. Samantha noticed, and deduced that young Hugh had more than a bit of monomania on the subject.

“Yeah, I think so,” the boy responded, dredging his memory as best he could.

“Well, yes we do. Do you play hockey?”

“Uh-huh,” Hugh nodded nervously.

“Tykes,” Amy provided.

“Really? I have a dependant who plays Tykes. Would you like to try out for her team?”

The boy's countenance brightened considerably. “Can I?”

“Let's get you, your mom and your sisters settled in your pod. Tomorrow will be soon enough. What position do you play?” Samantha crossed her fingers.

“Right wing?”

“Can you play left?”

The youth shrugged. “I don't know. I can try.”

“Let's. My team needs a winger.” Samantha could not hide her glee. “Go lie down now. The medical scan won't take a minute, and you'll be sleeping through all of it.”

Belinda awoke with a thorough case of disorientation. She knew time had passed, and that things had been done to her, but she had no clue how much time or what things.

Her hand went to her throat – she sensed something unusual there.

“Don't take that collar off,” she heard a pleasant young girl's voice warn. Ah, she recognized it now, it was that Decurion Samantha Redburn. Cute, smart... pregnant? Slowly Belinda opened her eyes.

She was still naked, she found. Her daughters were clustered between her medical pod and that housing her son's. “Is there any problem with Hugh?” she asked, suddenly terrified.

Samantha reassured her as she handed the mother a grey shift, “Nothing to worry about. They caught it in time. Another half hour or so and it'll be all cured.”

“Caught what in time? Cured of what?” Belinda was feeling far from reassured.

The tall black-clad corpsman didn't take his eyes off the monitors for her son's med tube. “Abdominal aneurysms. Might have killed him on Earth, but not here.”

“Come over here and see what you look like now, before you put the shift on,” offered Samantha.

“Yeah, Mom,” added Amy. “You look like, totally hot, a stone fox.”

Unused to hearing her daughter talk of anyone like that, Belinda blinked. She looked at her still-petite form in the mirror in the corner. “Holy shit....”

She did look good. She was a stone fox. Her butt was reduced, her stomach was much flatter, and her breasts were shrunk just enough. Despite that, she merely looked like a younger, healthier version of the matronly woman who had entered the med tube... how long ago?

Still not wanting to cover this gorgeous body quite yet, she turned to the Decurion. “How long?”

“Maybe six hours. A half hour for the medical, another ninety minutes for the CAP score, and the rest to make you look the same age as when you and your sponsor married.”

“I look better than I did when Stan and I married. I had a small pot then.” She suddenly blushed. “Mind you, that small pot turned out to be Amy.”

“Mom!” cried Amy with mock outrage. “The things you learn about your parents. You two were frisky back then.”

“They were frisky on the voyage to Hesperus, too,” commented the corpsman. “Pregnancy is confirmed. Another boy's on the way.”

Belinda's daughters raced up to drown her in a happy group hug.

Aboard the CSS Arthur C. Clarke, Payne was struggling to balance no less than five simultaneous priorities: the archaeology project, which now had a half-dozen sites all buried deep in loose, shifting sand; the biology phase of Plan Foxhound; the atmospheric research phase; keeping his concubine Avanti satisfied; and finally, driving Captain Todmorton into a state of catatonia.

Fortunately the scientific endeavours could be completed more-or-less simultaneously. Avanti wasn't hungry for sex, she was hungry for data, so the research projects would satisfy her as well. Something had to give, and that “something” was the twitting of Toddy.

It turned out that the all-hours attack on Plan Foxhound was just what the doctor ordered in terms of the Science Division's designs on Toddy. As the challenges to his authority vanished with the increased workload, Toddy's paranoia increased proportionately. The lack of activity made him feel they were gathering strength for one massive knock-Toddy-wobbly effort.

Nervously, Toddy entered one of the smaller labs on board his ship. Across the lab, a concubine sat at a computer workstation, manipulating the computer-generated animation hovering in 3-D over the bench that almost filled the room. The simulation was of a planet – probably Hesperus, from the layout of the apparent mountain ranges. On the wall beside the workstation, a large picture of Albert Einstein was mounted. A small rock hammer dangled from a string beside the famous physicist's portrait. A large brass plaque was affixed to the wall below the photo, bearing the legend, “In Case of Emergency, Break Glass”.

Almost every other scrap of wall space at eye level was smothered in monitors and monitoring devices. Many of the gauges were actually projections, but even to Toddy's untrained eye they actually seemed to be projecting real information.

Before Toddy could ask where Payne had secreted himself, the subject of his search barrelled through the door as if being chased by Kerberos itself. “Ready?” Payne asked, the Virginia softness of his voice belying his obvious impatience.

“Ready,” Avanti responded in her cultured Indian accent. “All Science Division repeater monitors displaying current picture. Request permission to proceed with the simulation.”

Payne nodded. Toddy, ignored and obviously not required at the moment, kept his counsel.

Two tiny ships in orbit began firing. A clock appeared at the bottom of the planet, showing that this simulation was tremendously sped up, covering one hour for every second of actual time. Their blasts began to spread large, angry, growing black dots in a sine wave pattern across the upper stratosphere of the planet, extending from the Tropic of Cancer to the Tropic of Capricorn, or at least their Hesperus equivalents.

Occasional large objects were impacting the atmosphere of Hesperus at the same time. These meteorites, made of loose agglomerations of rock and ice rather than hard chunks of iron, broke up in the upper atmosphere and added their dusty mass to whatever warheads the tiny ships were firing, as well as increasing the supply of water vapour in the atmosphere.

Avanti sped up the time. Now every second was one Hesperus day of just over 27 hours. The surface from northern to southern ice caps was invisible beneath a haze of particulate matter.

Toddy glanced at the Science Division commanding officer. Payne was staring intently at the model floating above the workbench. At Payne's nod, Avanti displayed the planet's snow distribution – to Toddy's amazement only ninety Hesperus days had passed in simulation time, yet the snow fields were now rapidly spreading, covering more and more of the planet.

Even as the particulate matter from the upper levels of the atmosphere had dropped to the ground, the snow itself was raising the planet's albedo, reflecting yet more energy from the system's single sun back out to space.

After ten minutes, the simulation had run its course. Between the slower initial bombardment phase and the faster nuclear winter phase, just over a single Hesperus year of 378 Hesperus days had passed. The planet was now covered in snow, the ice pack at both poles had begun an inexorable march that was growing visibly.

The planet bore a remarkable resemblance to Thule – almost completely snow or ice covered. All three present in the lab stared soberly at the results, contemplating what would happen if this same tactic were tried on their own home world.

The command bunker deep under one of Base Scott's outlying martellos held the Governor, the senior (and only) Civil Service officer, the Admiral and a handful of other important officers. All of the duty staff wore daily dress, but the visitors wore their full dress with Sam Browne belts and wedge caps. The corporal manning the orbital control station was speaking to the colonizing fleet's flagship CSS Taurus Clipper at the moment.

“All ships have checked in and are assigned their parking orbits. Estimated time to arrival at parking orbit, fifty-seven minutes.”

Because the families were almost entirely pre-packs, the fleet had taken advantage of the fact to accelerate their transit. Normally, an extracted family was given four weeks to gel, but this trip had taken just over three weeks. The fleet would be returning to Earth within forty-eight hours to pick up another 10,000 or so volunteers for shipment off to other colonies.

Fleet Auxiliary Colonel Fritz Metzger's voice came through loud and clear. “Acknowledged, Orbital Control. Fifty-seven minutes.” A pause, and then, “We have messages for Thule. Would Decurion Samantha Redburn be present?”

The corporal looked over at the Decurion, standing between General Deschenes and Lieutenant Carruthers. Mystified, Samantha shrugged her shoulders. She had no clue what messages would be for her.

“This is Decurion Redburn. Go ahead,” Samantha ventured.

“Decurion Redburn,” came the voice of an anonymous communications rating, “this is CSS Taurus Clipper. We have a Minor Tykes team on board. Any chance at a hockey game?” Minor Tykes consisted of kids aged five years of age.

Before the startled Civil Service officer had a chance of replying, another voice interrupted. “Decurion Redburn, this is CSS Sagittarius Clipper. Please be advised we also have a Tykes team on board, as well as a Minor Novice and a Novice.” Minor Novices were seven years old, and Novices were eight..

As the communications board erupted with Kilo class ship after Kilo class ship reporting the presence of at least one hockey team in these four categories, Samantha's crooked grin grew wider and wider. None of these age group had been deliberately included in the pickups; she'd scheduled games based on the AA teams picked up, ranging from nine-year-old Minor Atom through to 13-year-old Minor Bantam. Apparently enough younger siblings played hockey to arrange for teams in the other age groups.

As she massaged her stomach, she assured the foetuses within, “We're gonna have some FUN!”

Beside her, Michael Deschenes rolled his eyes skyward. “Whitefeather!” he muttered. “It has to be his doing!”

Another corporal at the systems defence station looked at the pregnant girl with a worried countenance. “That grin scares me,” he quietly advised nobody in particular.

“CSS Arctic Princess, ready to offload Filles du Roi,” came yet another voice, from the bridge of the Aurora-class transport.

“I'd better get to the Nexus Room,” suggested Samantha, disappearing as quickly as beer at a frat party.

Before the Filles du Roi began arriving at the Nexus Room, Samantha made a point of inspecting her assistants: a dozen female concubines and a handful of Marines, placed at strategic intersections between the Nexus Room and the Unassigned Concubine Quarters so as to most efficiently direct traffic to their destination. Another handful of women, led by her father's two concubines, were waiting in the UCQ itself to help the newcomers settle in and prepare for that night's welcoming party. The women were all high-CAP-rated and mostly straw bosses, all dressed in body paint that mimicked fluorescent yellow construction safety vests. The sponsors, of both genders, all had available concubine slots. In the Nexus Room helping the adults were Cadet Sergeant Daniel Bachelor, dressed in his red tunic and pillbox hat and with his white swagger stick tucked under his left arm, and his girlfriend Diana, dressed in the same fluorescent body paint as her mother and the other straw bosses.

Samantha returned to the Nexus Room, satisfied. Standing next to the control board, she nodded to the sergeant manning the nexus. He in turn activated the nexus, starting the unloading process.

Behind her, Colonel Chaz Desrochers whispered into Samantha's ear. “I wonder how they'll be dressed this time.”

“No bets,” Samantha whispered back, as the first woman emerged from one of the four nexuses handling the disembarkation of the forward half of the Arctic Princess.

The scene that greeted the General when he emerged from the nexus connecting Camp Shackleton with the command bunker was of organized chaos: a line of women, all clad in the familiar 1640's peasant get-up, tugging dependants and following the shouted commands of Samantha and her minions. “Turn right at the door,” came the loud, clear and youthful shout from Danny. “Your MARINE right!” he added more loudly as one confused concubine tried to turn left, into the chest of the amused Marine corporal blocking that direction.

Before anyone could call the room to attention, Michael ordered, “Carry on!”

“Aye aye, Sir,” acknowledged Samantha.

“Sir, the Arctic Princess has a gift for you,” the nexus operator reported to the General. “It's coming out of Nexus Three.”

All hands in the room turned to Nexus Three. Chaz muttered an “Uh-oh,” as Sandy Hause stepped off the indicated nexus, leading the gift that her pod had hosted in the two-week trip from Earth.

“Oh,” squealed Diana excitedly, “Bâtisse!”

“Bâtisse?” Samantha's eyebrows went up as she beheld the “gift”.

“Oh, shit,” Chaz muttered.

“Yes,” confirmed Michael with a sigh. “Bâtisse. The family pet, named by Diana after the Van Doos' mascot. Must have started eating that fucking bastard's pickup seat covers again.”

Samantha gaped. “You mean that when Penny told me that Tribune Whitefeather had managed to get your goat once, she really was talking about a real goat?”

Michael nodded sourly. Before them, Bâtisse bleated happily as Diana lovingly petted his white and grey coat.