Chapter 34

In group settings we weren't able to separate the wheat from the chaff like I did with the Fartblossoms. Basically, Dr. Atkinson had hourly addresses in the gym with hypnosis generators running as his background to prep families as groups. Then we would direct parents to their child's home room, where the teachers -- or more likely, a Fleet Auxiliary team supported by teachers -- would make the pitch, which was, basically, (from one I attended), something like this:

"Okay, we promised something big today, and we're delivering on that promise. Basically, we're making a one-time offer to extract your entire family to the colonies. If you're sponsor-class, we'll be offering you an extensive selection of concubines in orbit. If you're not, you can expect to BE in that extensive selection. What we would LIKE to do is maintain the current family groups as much as possible -- but this presents issues in the case of non-sponsor-class males. We're going to have a glut of you -- and if we can't find a sponsor to accept you, we're going to try to offer you a place to live and work to do and limited citizenship -- but your family will likely be moved to a sponsor, who will control your access to them. In any case, there will be no further children from you borne by your ex-spouse under those circumstances, until and unless you attain sponsorship status."

"Ladies, you're all mothers and therefore all precious to us. We WILL find a sponsor for you and your children. We're not doing the usual twenty-minute 'blow and go' here. The initial phase will be sorted out in orbit -- and it will be longer in duration and the sponsors will -- I hope -- be thinking with BOTH heads. You will have a sponsor, unless you have serious mental or emotional issues, by soon after arrival at our destination at the very latest. As you should all be aware, purely physical issues are repairable."

This was a third grade class; there were women there with kids on their hips and kids in strollers and husbands carrying kids and mothers alone -- and a couple of fathers with the kids and no mother. Some guy raised his hand -- which I considered to be fine indoctrination. "So, what are the options again?"

The presenter -- a Fleet Auxiliary NCO -- sighed. "Okay. If either you or your wife -- or your child, if you have one of age, although I realize that probably won't be many in this particular group -- is a volunteer with the proper CAP score, we will do our utmost to preserve the family unit. We'll ship you and your whole brood -- and the sponsor will be responsible for the rest of you. There will need to be some accommodations to some situations, but it's a pretty clear-cut deal. Mothers with children in families where no one makes the cut for CAP score can be evacuated more or less as if this were a normal pickup -- except we WILL accept you, period -- there is no competition here on the surface. However, the usual rules apply; if you can't find a sponsor who will accept you AND your husband, he has a problem. We'll find you a sponsor -- and he'll own you -- and depending upon a number of factors, your husband may be shit out of luck. Again, that's more or less like a normal extraction. Husbands in families without a sponsor may be evacuated -- we'll take you -- but you're going to need to find a sponsor or we'll be assigning you to a facility where you'll live and work with other guys in the same boat. You aren't going to be full citizens, and in some cases a male concubine may be better off."

A woman spoke up, "My husband isn't here."

"Sorry about that," the noncom replied. "Usual rules apply. You can go or not as you choose -- but we're not hunting him down. Is he a sponsor?"

"No."

"Are you?"

"No."

The NCO eyeballed Junior. "That your oldest?"

"Yes."

"Okay, then." He shrugged.

Another woman raised her hand, "Mine is."

"Yours is what?" the NCO asked.

"He's got a good score."

The NCO pursed his lips, thinking. I waved at him. "See the Lieutenant," he told her. Turning back to the crowd, he said, "Okay. There are three or four of us available for questions. Look around the room. We're going to take those who want to go in ten minutes or so. Discuss it among yourselves. As an aside, you need to be sensible about this -- we won't put up with any of you guys slapping the old lady around in order to get your way -- or vice-versa, for that matter. For you mothers, it's really your call; your old man's choice isn't yours -- you have to face it separately. We won't kidnap you -- but we won't let him hold you here against your will, either. Keep it civil."

Naturally, there was an uproar. The volume level went up the scale rapidly -- and stayed there.

The woman with the sponsor-husband approached me. "Show me your card, Ma'am. What's your husband's name?"

"Eugene. Eugene Bradley." While she gave me that, the AI cross-referenced the data on her CAP card, confirming it and her husband's eligibility.

When the AI gave me the thumbs up, I said, "Where is he? Somewhere local?"

"He's at work. Some repair thing -- all weekend. His work is... important to him."

"More than you?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Yeah," I nodded. "You're at a school thing and he shouldn't have to worry about you."

"Yes." The third grader next to her eyed me, restive, while she shifted another little girl on her hip.

"Let's step outside." The teacher guarding the door stood aside for us and we moved into the relative quiet of the hallway. I handed her my comm link. "Call him. Cell phones don't work here, but this will. You can't tell him what is going on here, but any means are justified. Understand?"

"Yes, sir." She put her little girl on her feet and dialed a number. After a few seconds, she said, "Shit."

"Voice mail?" I queried.

"Yes."

"Leave one. Urgent. Tell him it's serious. Maybe we can find an office line..."

"Thanks." She went on to leave a message begging her husband to call.

The guy called back almost immediately; I could hear it all over my link. "What's the matter, Hon?"

"Something serious has happened up at the school, and I need you," the woman said.

"What can go on up there?" Eugene rasped. "You KNOW I have to get this in this weekend..."

"Look, Sweetie, I can't tell you WHAT it is, but it's REALLY important!"

"Come on -- at the school? What did Gina do?"

"Sweetie, please, PLEASE!"

"I HAVE to finish this!"

"Is it life or death?"

"Well, no, but..."

"Sweetie, you KNOW I NEVER bother you about stuff. PLEASE, trust me -- this is EXTREMELY important!"

"Okay, I'll break in..."

"NOW, Sweetie RIGHT NOW!"

"I can't just..."

"You CAN! You MUST!"

"What the Hell IS this?" Eugene rasped. "I need to know! I can't just walk out on..."

I'd had it! "You need to listen to your wife and get down here," I rasped, "Now!"

"What? Who is this? Kathy?"

"I'm here."

"Are you hurt?"

"No. Not yet, anyway. PLEASE come -- right now! It will be fine if you just come now! You can go back, after..."

"Who was that?"

"He's a... cop! Please! It's BIG, Sweetie..."

"I'm coming! Fifteen minutes!"

Kathy handed me the phone. "God! It's like pulling teeth, sometimes! Fortunately, I don't try, usually..."

"Quite the work ethic he has..." I chuckled.

"Yeah, well..."

"He's coming."

"Only because you scared him!"

"Wait here for him." I went back inside the classroom.

The door guard had a questioner, "How bad is this?"

The teacher sighed. "I've never been there, but..."

"What's the question?" I interrupted.

"We're... not sponsors. What's the worst case scenario?"

I frowned. "This is all kind of experimental, but it goes something like this -- the worst case is that you just can't find a sponsor who will accept you as a couple. If that happens, you'll be split up. You'll be working for the government and living in what amounts to a barracks with a bunch of other guys. You'll have someone keeping an eye on you, sort of like a parole officer and unemployment counselor rolled into one. You'll be a second-class citizen, unless you can improve your CAP score."

I eyed him. "This is where it could become untenable. Your wife is going to belong to someone else, and she's going to have his kids -- and whether he lets you hang out around his place is totally up to him. I'm sure you can see that in some cases, if he feels threatened at all, or you have a poor attitude, it's not going to be in his best interests -- or your wife's." The guy looked angry. "Look, I know this is a lot to absorb, but a lot of this stuff is in the standard system already. You get a break, actually, in that you go off-world, too, and in some cases will be able to see the wife and kids. But I wouldn't expect any more than that, if I were you -- her new sponsor isn't under any obligation to allow conjugal visits, and you won't be allowed any more offspring, in any case."

Another guy was standing there. "What works? What could I say that...?"

I shrugged. "Maybe nothing. We're going to look at giving sponsors an extra slot to take the husband. But YOU'RE NO LONGER HER HUSBAND! If a sponsor takes you both on, she's HIS woman and any sharing goes from HIM to YOU, not vice-versa. He's doing you a big favor -- and if you spit in his face, you might wish you'd never been born!" I eyed them both. "Frankly, I think we're asking for a lot of trouble -- we should split EVERY family to keep people from getting stupid. Something like forty percent of concubines who screw up radically and get dead in the first twenty-four hours after a pickup are concubines who had been their sponsor's wife before pickup. They think they still have a sacred relationship and are Numero Uno and they get jealous of the other concubines or do something stupid. Can you imagine how much WORSE it will be with husbands? Think about it," I asserted, waving at one of the guys' wives. "What would you want to do if I took..." I waved my hand at her.

"Alice," she supplied.

"Alice, here, over there and proceeded to fuck her brains out in front of you?" I finished.

"I'd want to kick your ass!" the husband asserted.

"You need to stay home," I told him, "because you would get dead, right then and there. The minute I accept her as a concubine, you have no rights -- and if you touch me, you're dead -- the review board will close the case in less than thirty seconds. Stay here." I turned to Alice. "That makes it your choice. Which is more important to you? Your husband? Or yourself and your kids? You two can discuss it -- you can argue about it -- but in the end, it's your decision. If you join the outbound group, you're going, and he has no say in it."

The second guy said, "If I do whatever and I have the right attitude and I get a sponsor to take me, too, can I...?"

"Male concubines tend to continue to father children, although you may get told no, or you may be told to concentrate your efforts on another female," I told him. "Once again, the sponsor dictates -- but male concubines left at home usually keep the ladies happy while the sponsor is elsewhere."

The other husband was sneering at him, so I added, "You might have a shot."

"Why don't you just bend over and take it up the ass?" the sneering one said.

Time to break out a stinger... The look on nasty guy's face was priceless as he collapsed, and I got a lot of attention from the room. I turned to Alice, "Now you don't even have to discuss it. You can be here when he wakes up in a few hours, or you can be gone -- end of story." Turning to the other husband, I added, "You could get asked for that -- or worse. Define your limits. Would you suck a black guy's cock to get him ready to impregnate your one-time wife? Some sponsors might debase you like that -- and some just might be bisexual. You could get a great guy who let you sleep together and have more kids and wants very little from either of you -- or you could get a bastard who gets big kicks out of making you both do things that will hurt your relationship. Unfortunately, a CAP score of six and change doesn't make you a saint. As you move up, things get better, but aggression is big."

"Thank you." The guy backed away, thinking. I raised my voice and announced, "I'm going to throw this out in the hopes some of you are listening! Gentlemen! A bad attitude will get you your nervous system scrambled, a long nap, and a headache when you wake up -- and perhaps the loss of your wife and kids. Ladies, hubby doesn't get to say no! He can ASK you to stay, but he can't TELL you to stay! If you join the group leaving, he has two choices -- he can join you or he can watch you leave! You don't have to worry about what will happen if you don't get to go, because you can ALL go, so there are no long-term consequences if the old man is a little heavy-handed, shall we say? Time's getting to be short -- you need to make up your minds and get ready to act!"

A couple of minutes later, we got under way -- and you could almost hear relationships tearing in some places. On guy got stung trying to drag his woman back across the line; later it was discovered that while they had kids together, they weren't married. Three additional women crossed the line after that, one husband following. There were ten unescorted women -- nine of whom crossed the line. Eight couples committed despite the risks; seven women crossed solo, and five elected to stay. One woman waited until the transport pad was running to dash across the line.

Eugene Bradley was interrogating his wife Kathy when I exited the room. "There you are! Step inside, please."

"What's going on?" Eugene looked around, aggravated.

"We're all operating under the impression that you're planning to make pickup when called, Son," I said, chuckling. "Your wife damned near broke her hump trying to get you here for it."

"Pickup?" Eugene's face went white.

"You're late. The transport pad is over there," I said, pointing. "You can thank Kathy, here, for begging us to be allowed to chase your silly ass down. If you don't want her, I'm sure we can find someone who values that kind of loyalty..."

"I want her!" he yelped, clutching her to him. "She's my wife!"

"She's your concubine," I corrected, "not your wife! It would be wise if you both got that through your heads, very clearly, because remembering that might save her life!"

"Yes, yes, of course, of course..." Eugene looked around, dazed. "I was working on something..."

"Important?"

"The customer will think so..."

"Can you give me a number to call? We can't tell them what's up, but we can tell them to find a new boy..." Eugene nodded and gave me a number, then gathered his family and stepped onto the transport pad. I got a kick out of calling the number and saying, "Hello? This is to inform you that Eugene Bradley has been taken into custody and will not be returning to work..." -- and hanging up.

Later, things got more interesting -- but were sometimes easier to unravel. The students had been generally trained in pickup implications all along; eighth and ninth graders knew their status as they hit fourteen. They were eligible to lug the family along -- but they weren't obligated. Besides, there were the usual complications, which have been covered before -- but in case you were asleep, the big one is incest... Picture, if you will, a horny tenth grader with a seven point five CAP and a big sister who is a Senior in the concubine track and making straight As. Mama either has the same skill set or can acquire it rapidly, and dear old Dad is out of town on business. I COULD be talking hypothetically, but I'm not -- we're discussing Johnny Tafarelli. Mama Gina is a dark Italian goddess and big sister is 'Moaning Mona' Tafarelli, a legend in the boys' locker room. Johnny didn't bother to mention Family Day to his dad, Marco 'Snake Eyes' Tafarelli -- who would have presented us all with embarrassing issues, anyway. Mona briefed Mama, but not in-depth, as it were. So Johnny could -- and did -- play the incest card twice -- and could still draw two. Mama was going to be surprised in orbit, but Mona knew the score... Conditioned as she was to 'shut up and do as you're told,' Mama would undoubtedly roll over. Johnny stepped onto the transport pad grinning from ear to ear.

Seniors were all over the place; more than one left their families to fend for themselves to collect a pre-pack of fellow students their own age. There was one case of a girl who put her mother on the street for 'irreconcilable differences' -- but kept Dad and both parents of an eleventh grade male she'd taken a fancy to.

About three, Beth hunted me down. "That woman from the lingerie store is outside. She's got another woman with her. They can't seem to figure out what they should do."

"Go invite them in," I directed. Things were to the point where we could handle a little invitational activity. "As a matter of fact, if you two want to hang out in front and invite selected passers-by inside, do it." As luck would have it, Frieda went out to engage them in conversation -- and was recognized by Jolene -- so they'd hung around. When Beth popped out and invited them in, they were more than willing. A couple of minutes later, I was reassuring some woman that sex with teenage males would be educational for them and rewarding for her and no one would get arrested when Frieda tugged at my elbow, "Hey, Master, remember Jolene?"

"Sure..." I turned and took her hand. "Welcome!"

Jolene looked around. "Want to tell me what this is?"

"Confederacy pickup. We're taking anyone qualified who wants to go," I explained.

"Really?" Jolene gasped. "Am I qualified?"

"Got a pussy?" Frieda asked. "You're qualified. She is too," she added, pointing at the other woman with her thumb.

"That's the sister?" I asked.

Jolene nodded. "Bernice."

"We discussed her, as I remember. We can help." Bernice was painfully thin, and dressed like a hooker. From Jolene's description of her, the outfit didn't lie.

"What do I do?" Jolene asked.

"Step on that," I replied, pointing at the nearest pad. "The meat market will be in orbit -- we're not doing it here. It's a free ride in that you don't have to compete for a seat. You'll end up doing the same thing, though."

Jolene nodded. "I owe you, big time! Come on, Bernice!"

Bernice stirred herself. "Where we going?"

"Somewhere you won't have to hook," Jolene replied.

"How am I gonna eat?" Bernice worried. 'How am I gonna get drug money?' might as well have been printed on a sign above her head.

"We'll get you all hooked up," Jolene assured her. "Everything you need."

Bernice eyed her sister distrustfully. "It's not some hospital..."

"No, not a hospital," I interjected. "You'll be working for me -- entertaining. You're good at that, right?"

Bernice eyed me. "I've got a pimp."

"You're changing neighborhoods," I told her, "Upscale." Bernice looked mulish, so I frowned and added, "I'm not asking."

"Oh." That resolved things -- clearly, she DID have a pimp -- and she knew what happened to girls who argued. "What do you want?"

"Go step on that," I pointed at the pad, "then step off. I want to see you move." Bernice did as she was told -- and promptly disappeared. "She'll step off the pad in orbit. Go chase her down and keep her under control. Tell the transport crewman Lieutenant Harper said to get her to medical."

"Bless you!" Jolene kissed my cheek and stepped on the pad.

"You're too sweet for your own good, Master," Frieda observed.

"Yeah, yeah," I grunted. "You two go out front and do some very selective recruiting. Try to keep the number of low CAP males to a minimum. If you can figure out a way to collect high CAP males, let me know..."

Frieda grinned, "Okay, Master!"

About that time, Maureen came by and said, "Jack! Mark says you've got a special in room 210!"

My name is Gonzalo Amador De La Cruz Cuatrecasas. I come from a country, well, somewhere to the south. Except for periodic trips home, I have been living in the United States for six years. My son Antonio and my daughter Isabella attend the Seifort School.

In my country, I am rich; in the United States, I may only be well off, but I think I may be rich. My current wife, Marie, is not the mother of my children -- she is a blonde Anglo who is very decorative, very adept at lovemaking, and knows when to keep her mouth shut and her eyes open. No, my ex-wife is not dead; she is pretending to be a widow in a little village at home, because good Catholic women do not get divorces in my country. My being out of the country most of the time is a help to her charade, but she knows better than to cross me, for money is power in my country.

In my country, if you are rich you were either born rich or you are a criminal; there is no legitimate way to become rich. The entrenched rich merely have criminals in their family tree in the more distant past than the nouveau riche. I am nouveau riche; my father was -- is -- a criminal. Technically, perhaps, I am a criminal, too.

You see, I participated in the family business -- in an administrative capacity, not like my father did in the bad old days when men had to be terrorized and murdered to ensure that no one impeded his climb to power. We are established; brute force is no longer required, although periodically Papa waves the sword to remind everyone that he still holds it. I play chess with inventory and funds and stock, defeating my enemies via my business acumen rather than by lopping off heads. Papa admires this in me, but feels that one must be able to back up any threats with force. What he does not realize is that it is unnecessary to threaten someone; in most cases, you can utterly destroy them without warning -- and a threat is a warning. I don't threaten my competitors -- I merely beat them.

But that is all in the past, for today, my life changed.

It all started with 'Family Day' at my children's school. During the week leading up to this event, both my son and my daughter approached me very seriously about this event -- and Marie, although mildly amused by it, agreed that we should go, if they both felt so strongly about it. In any case, Marie found the letter of invitation from the Dean Atkinson to be vaguely disturbing.

Marie championed this particular school to me -- and I saw the wisdom of it. If the Cuatrecasas name were to go to the stars, Antonio would no doubt have to carry the torch -- and if that were the case, then his preparation should be meticulous. I had barely missed the desired score with a six point three; Antonio had it in him to make the cut. Isabella, for all her spirit and fire, was a woman -- and that is clearly a handicap where CAP scores are concerned.

We arrived for the afternoon session and immediately I had the sense that Marie was right; something was going on -- something unseen, but momentous. There was an air about the place... I could not put my finger on it, but I sensed it. We made our way to Isabella's homeroom, but outside the door, I was met by a man whose authority was an aura about him, presented discreetly -- not boldly, like the police. "Mr. Cuatrecasas, if I may have a moment of your time?" he asked.

"Is there a problem?" I asked. "I am about to see my daughter's class project."

"You will miss nothing, I promise," the man returned, smiling. "We would like to discuss a few specifics regarding her efforts."

I knew that this response was less than accurate -- but it was also clear that I was not going to avoid this interview, so I smiled and nodded and followed the man into a nearby room.

There was another man already there, frowning at me as I entered, but he held himself silent. The first, however, settled himself casually on a teacher's desk and considered me. "We have a problem."

'Straight to the point, this one,' I thought. "And?"

"It concerns what we are doing here -- and what we should do with you," he replied.

"You'll forgive me if I profess ignorance," I offered.

"Just about everyone here today can be categorized, one way or another -- and we have various options, based upon those categories," the man related. "You, well, you're a fringe element. Some of us want to place you in one category, and some in another. You see, some of us -- well, most of us -- disapprove of what you do for a living."

"I see," I mused. "This is not a new thing. However, I am unaware of any laws that I have broken in this country."

The other individual -- by comparison NOT a gentleman, rasped, "That's irrelevant. A snake is a snake, whether he manages to conform to the letter of the law or not!"

I returned my attention to the first gentleman, ignoring the outburst. "Am I to be arrested, then? On what charge?"

"This isn't about law enforcement," came the reply. "It hits closer to home, perhaps." The gentleman at the desk flashed a look at his colleague. "Suppose you describe your job..."

"I am employed by my family's business," I replied, "in an accounting and management position."

"You manufacture and distribute illegal drugs!" the bad cop -- for that is what appeared to be happening -- we were playing 'good cop, bad cop' -- snarled.

"That is perhaps our primary business," I admitted. "I am more concerned with asset acquisition here in the United States." I eyed the 'bad cop.'

"So you're a businessman," the 'good cop' mused.

"Exactly."

"Does it bother you that your product causes untold suffering here and in other countries?" the 'bad cop' snapped.

"This is akin to blaming a beer distributor for drunk drivers," I reposted, "or weapons manufacturers for murders using a firearm. It is foolish to attribute blame or guilt to a product; the chain of guilt only stretches so far before the links become invisible."

"The drugs are illegal!" the 'bad cop' protested.

"So was alcohol, for a period in this country," I retorted. "And bootleggers were blamed for all manner of ills, including poor product. But many of them are now legitimate distillers..."

"We would be better off without your poison on the street!" the 'bad cop' snapped.

"Would you?" I replied. "Without the product of my family's company, the supply here would tighten considerably, but not disappear. Prices would go up dramatically, and conflicts would ensue. The weak and the desperate would contend with the strong and violence and blood would result." I cocked my head. "While I do not participate in that arm of the business, I may inherit it. If that should happen, and if I were to cut off the supply to your country out of misplaced altruism, I would damage the local economy back home -- and would undoubtedly be called to answer for it -- and my replacement could well be considerably more rapacious than I am." I shook my head. "In a perfect world, those poor souls who are dependent upon the product would reach out for treatment and be cured, and the market here would balance itself -- but we live in the real world, do we not? Many would die from having purchased poison masquerading as the product they desire due to the greed of the distributors -- something else I have no control over."

That, in a nutshell, was the problem with Gonzalo Cuatrecasas. It was easy to dismiss him as a criminal, and we could leave him on Earth while evacuating his family based upon those criteria -- but were they accurate? While perhaps technically illegal, funneling drug money into other business pursuits was not the same as actually bringing drugs into the country. And he presented a reasonable case for their existence in the first place; in my humble opinion, the war on drugs was a joke! We spent a lot of time and trouble interfering with a situation that would fix itself -- through Darwinism, if nothing else...

One reason for this interview was to determine how Gonzalo characterized his role himself. Without a doubt, Gonzalo's father was a murderer, an extortionist, a direct trafficker in illegal drugs, and a laundry list of other things -- but was Gonzalo? He insisted that he wasn't -- and the AI reported that he believed in those claims, implicitly!

Did we have to care? Maybe not. But Gonzalo was by all accounts a shrewd businessman and an able administrator. Who pointed that out, you ask? The AIs, actually. According to the AIs, Gonzalo was a product of his environment -- and no more tainted by it than was necessary to survive. In a different environment... <The subject is not dealing in falsehood, and his assessment of the situation is logical and untainted by emotion,> the AI insisted. <Several Confederacy firms produce pharmaceuticals that produce pleasurable responses to the detriment of the host body -- to include at least one that causes paroxysms of pleasure that result in death. The individual's right to do whatever it likes with its body is upheld by Confederacy regulations, even though some few races legislate otherwise at the local level.>

'So from a Confederacy standpoint, Gonzalo's family's business is legal,' I confirmed.

<Affirmative.>

"I'm going to take a while to get used to it!" Mark snarled, and slammed out of the room.

"Such anger," Gonzalo mused.

"He has his opinions," I replied. "I disagree with them regularly, but your case resulted in a split decision." I got up. "I could just let you walk out of here and join the herd, but your case continues to be borderline, one way or another. Please, sit, if you like." I stood, vacating the desktop.

Gonzalo crossed to seat himself in the teacher's chair. "I assume that all will be made clear?"

"That's the plan," I agreed. "The long and short of it is that a Confederacy extraction team is in the process of extracting the entire student body -- with families, where applicable. The school will be reconstituted as the nucleus of the educational system on a colony world."

"Ah," Gonzalo mused. "I have been on trial for my life, then. You were deciding whether to extract me with my family, or leave me, ostensibly to the aliens."

I nodded. "Just exactly."

"You realize, of course, that I am ill equipped to be a concubine..."

I nodded. "Which is why we're still here talking. The AIs believe that you will attain a sponsor-level score in the near future -- particularly if you are placed in other work in a different environment. We know that you are an able administrator, and we have, well, needs..."

"Yes?" Gonzalo cocked his head.

"We are being forced by the situation to accept a number of non-sponsor-class males by the nature of the pickup," I explained. "These males will be employed and entertained as best we can organize it -- but they will be second-class citizens -- not allowed to procreate. We currently organize a number of colony support functions under a government department called the Support Directorate; these men will be integrated into this structure. As a part of the package, we see each of them being assigned a pseudo-sponsor -- a kind of mentor and parole officer, if you will. Creating and administering this structure in such a manner that it manages not to resemble a prison will be a huge undertaking."

"I begin to see..." Gonzalo murmured.

"I can't really offer to MAKE you a sponsor -- but I can offer certain... privileges... based upon the AIs' assessment of your potential. For one, until you attain sponsorship, I can't allocate you two concubines, but I can allow you to continue to possess your current wife in that role and keep your family together. You'll be treated as a sponsor, and we won't be making it obvious that you are NOT a sponsor, if you understand my meaning. In return, we would ask that you create the necessary structure to support the population I described."

"I'm to be... warden, then?" Gonzalo asked.

"I'm hoping you can put together something a whole lot more permissive," I replied.

"Yes, yes... This could be very difficult..."

"You appear to be qualified," I assured him. "What we DON'T want is a disaffected group of crazies with nothing to lose disrupting things. We'll be trusting you not to create your own little empire, too." I grinned. "Oh, and did I mention that you'll be working for the gentleman who just left?"

Even Gonzalo saw the irony in that...