Chapter 5

The family car was still at the convention centre, but Lucinda, Fred and Marcie were at her now-former home, busily loading rabbit cages and sending them into space. Fred's other concubine, Ginger, was up on the assault ship Sir Caradoc, busily loading bunnies into storage spaces usually used for Marines. The Sir Caradoc carried only a platoon of its usual complement and a single Leopard assault shuttle; there was plenty of space. The platoon itself was down on the Okanagan Valley somewhere busily filling the belly of the Leopard with yet more plants and horticultural supplies. Captain Fontaine was literally breathing down her neck, anxious to get this miserable business over with and get on their way to the colony they'd been assigned to so she could get a new assignment, one involving battles instead of bunnies. The kids were helping as much as possible, of course, but the most help that Lacey could do at the moment was keep her little siblings from making nuisances of themselves with the Navy crew.

Finally, all of the Everest and Williams dwarf rabbits were aboard the assault ship. Captain Fontaine bedded the colonists down in the forward section where half of the Marines were usually quartered.

The man was neither terribly tall nor terribly short, not terribly chubby or terribly thin, not terribly noticeable in terms of clothing. In other words as he walked the halls of Tri-County General Hospital, Lieutenant Carstairs blended in perfectly with staff, patients and visitors without arousing the slightest hint that he was actually Confederate Navy Shore Patrol. And that's just how Lieutenant Carstairs and his superiors wanted him to be.

Bearing a large briefcase, he slipped into the executive offices and found one whose occupant had long gone home for the day. Sitting in the shadows, he listened to the AI and waited for his cue.

In the boardroom mere steps away, Judge Walter Armstrong and DFCS Regional Adoption Coordinator Lois Abernathy were hearing the testimony regarding four young Wards of the State. The children, still dressed in the hospital-issued pyjamas, had just agreed to be adopted by Sid Cheevers and Victor Walden.

Judge Armstrong signed the approval form. "Miss Abernathy, I'm going to contact the Regional Adoption Coordinator Supervisor. In the future, we'll deputize you and your cohorts to function in our stead. If a volunteer is getting extracted and you agree that it would be in the best interest of the orphaned child to go with that volunteer, then you'll just have to agree in the presence of witnesses for the adoption to be finalized. And yes, the AI will function as a perfectly suitable witness. Just present the case file to my office and we'll sign off." He sighed. "I know it's quite irregular and if we were to disapprove it would be almost impossible to retrieve the dependants, but in the interest of speed and to maximize the number of children we rescue from the Sa'arm, I think it's for the best."

As they left, Lois turned to the Hospital Administrator. "I wish all my caseload could be handled so easily. Some of them have true 'winners' as parents - CAP scores probably less than one on a good day."

Dr. Proctor chuckled, as did Tribune Whitefeather. The tribune knew her CAP score of 6.9 combined with her subscores meant that she was a prime candidate for a position with the Civil Service. "Maybe you can, sooner than you think," the Tribune suggested. She left; her body full of nanites and her head full of conditioning. Lois would not be able to discuss this with anyone else before 24 hours had elapsed.

Moments after they left, Lieutenant Carstairs arrived. Wordlessly, he nodded at the Tribune, opened his large briefcase, hauled out a transporter nexus, and activated it in a corner of the boardroom. After conferring with the AI and the Navy rating at the other end of the transport beam subvocally, he turned back to the Tribune and the somewhat bemused medical staff and dependants surrounding the table.

"If we're ready?" he asked politely of the audience. "We'll take the children up to the Dix. Perhaps we could have Sponsor Victor and Concubine Jacquie act as escort?"

The four wounded children and their medical escorts made their way to the transporter nexus. "Just step through the nexus, and when you reach the other side, take two more steps to get off the platform. They're waiting for you," Carstairs reassured the six, giving them an encouraging smile.

The group emerged into a technological wonderland. A tall man wearing the black uniform of the Confederacy Navy, wearing the rank badges of a Colonel and a caduceus on the service shield over his left breast pocket stood to attention, flanked by similarly-clad officers of both genders. On the wall opposite the transporter nexus was the ship's shield and the pronouncement:

"Ma'am, youngsters, I'm Captain Proulx of the Confederacy Hospital Ship Dix, also known as the Dixie Chick, and I'd like to welcome you aboard our ship," the Colonel announced. He gestured to a kindly-looking older man standing off to one side, a pretty 13-year-old clutching his hand. "These are Sid Cheevers and his granddaughter Vickie. We'll let the Cheevers meet each other as soon as we have the little ones' wounds attended to. If you'll follow the Chief Surgeon to the medical bays?"

At the medical station, the four children found themselves lying down and quickly asleep in medical pods. At the request of Captain Proulx, his executive officer invited Sid, Vickie, Jacquie and Victor to enjoy the hospitality of the ship's Officers' Mess pending completion of treatment - ship's captains are not considered members of the Officers' Mess and so cannot themselves directly issue the invitation.

As befit a ship named after the leading American reformer of insane asylums, the Mess was named the Crazy Horse Saloon. The inside was decorated to look like a log cabin from the Yukon, and the pictures festooning the walls of the chamber ranged from advertising for the early talkie movie Indian Love Call to photos of nude dancers taken at the room's Parisian namesake. On the far wall, Vickie noted a moose head sporting a Mountie's hat at a jaunty angle.

At least the beer was good and the staff accepting of her, Jacquie reflected. She was painfully aware from her research and briefings that her status was "concubine", which elsewhere in the Confederacy basically meant "sex slave". "Yes, we know you're a concubine, and yes, we know you're a nurse," explained one of the officers as they quaffed their brews. The Irish-accented officer took another pull on her Guinness. "But it's the 'nurse' part that's more important on this ship. We intend to put all concubine nurses who want to, into Navy blues with Militia red rank badges. The rank of 'leftenant' won't be officially recognized anywhere but on a Nurse class ship or in a Navy hospital shore installation, but in those places, it will be."

Victor eyed the Captain's epaulets. "That's colonel's rank, isn't it?"

Captain Proulx nodded. "Yes, I'm a colonel. The rank reforms of the Confederacy Armed Forces means that the rank of 'captain' applies to the commanding officer of a ship." He puffed up considerably. "The fact that the Captain of this ship is a full-bird colonel indicates the importance of these vessels. In a war where lives are taken or ruined left, right and centre, we SAVE lives."

In the corner, a talented foursome began singing in A Capella:

"Oh, a way out yonder in the land of far suns
There good times are not forgotten
Look away, look away, look away
Dixie Chick!"

Just then the AI addressed the room. "Patients Amanda and Sarah Cheevers will be released from Medical Bay One in fifteen minutes." Vickie had to laugh: Someone had programmed the moose head's jaw to move and the head itself to swivel whenever the ship's AI addressed anyone in the room. It even sounded like an unemotional version of Bullwinkle.

The now-physically-healed Cheevers children were hustled back over to the Sir Caradoc, still in their hospital-issue pyjamas. A delighted Amanda and Sarah were each given a bunny to care for until they arrived at their new home.

The meeting room at Tri-County General Hospital contained Sub-Decurion Chan, the hospital administrator Dr. Proctor, Dr. Victor Walden and two of his three concubines, Jacquie Mondale and Robert Proust. The display taking up a prominent portion of the room consisted of head-and-shoulder shots of prospective concubines. Victor's third concubine, Penny Mondale, was up on board the Sir Caradoc with her three sisters.

Sub-Decurion Chan started the meeting. As the current hour was too early to earn the description of 'early' in Jacquie and Victor's sleep cycles, each nursed the largest and strongest cup of rocket fuel they could grab from the corner bakery.

"You're being assigned to a growing colony that is home to a research and development facility and when you get there and set it up, a fleet rehabilitation hospital. It will also act as a breeding colony, so we expect lots of babies which means lots of need for obstetrics and gynaecology. That's why we wanted you to emphasize medical training in picking your concubines. So far, so good - but you still have three to choose. You're holding up two other special skills sponsors, so let's get those slots filled. Any questions?"

Victor picked up his coffee cup. "Yeah, can I get this intravenously?"

Chan rolled his eyes at the handsome young man he was trying to help. "Let's see what we've got available. I've got one I'd like you to consider first."

Victor nodded groggily, as Chan pulled up a particular name. "Dr. Beatrice Carmichael, psychiatrist. CAP score 6.2, just missed the cutoff. She's a psychiatrist, and we will definitely need one here to heal the mentally wounded."

Victor knew her slightly. Two kids, both under 13. High mothering scores, high intelligence, low aggressiveness. Divorced, not amicably, which apparently affected her sense of self-worth, which in turn would have helped drive her CAP score down. Libido scores were merely average, but with the sheer number of concubines in his household that wouldn't be terribly bad. Everyone liked her, and she had tremendous success with her patients. She went on the short list, and her secretary was notified to clear the first hour from Beatrice's calendar.

The next two were both specialists, a man and a woman, once again with decent but non-sponsor-level CAP scores. Randy Hopkins, an OB/GYN, and Judy Kirkpatrick, physiotherapist, were on shift; called up and quickly interviewed, both personable individuals were more than amenable to adding themselves and their children, two for Randy and three for Judy, to Victor's rapidly-expanding family.

Beatrice arrived after Randy and Judy transported to the Sir Caradoc. She was more than amenable to becoming his concubine, as long as he took her children with him. Before she left, she wrote a letter of good-bye to her former husband, thanking him for "the past fifteen years of marital hell."

"A psychiatrist with issues?" remarked Victor, surprised at the level of venom in the missive.

"You never met my husband," responded Beatrice. "Or any of his lovers. I did. Every last man."

"Man? Oh. Oh man!"

Finally to the great relief of Sub-Decurion Chan, Victor himself mounted the transporter nexus and departed Earth, never to return.

Shortly after Doctor Victor Walden, Commander, Confederacy Navy, arrived aboard Sir Caradoc, the vessel, with its load of precious plants, bunnies and people were off to supplement the numbers of colonists on the research and development colony of Atlantis.