Every Last Mother's Child

by William J. Carty, Jr

  Chapter 2: Jill’s Gift

  Suzy Gabriel had thought when she saw the immense Ellis facility that it was a shelter that she and her kids would have to live for a couple of months in it. She had lived in a shelter for a time when she had run away to Trena ten years before. She was not going to let her kids to even step into a shelter to see what it was like. They could be very ugly and she wasn’t going to let her kids live in one even for a night. The ship had been bad enough. Twenty five thousand people jammed into it with everything they had been bad. She had been constantly afraid one of the kids would come to grief. She was therefore happy to learn that the immense tent was not a shelter, but a processing center. As she processed through the facility she found out that this first group of evacuees would not have to live in shelters. That between what Ebio had abandoned, and what the first pioneer party had gotten built in the short three weeks they had been on world would be enough to house the first lift to Home. Since she was assigned to Outpost 1 and Outpost 1 had been an established outpost for Ebio she would not be living in a shelter. It had been some sort of a ship building concern, they had found several barracks, and other residential facilities around the small sea port town. Suzy found out that she had been assigned to a home overlooking the eastern ocean. She was surprised when the clerk at the Ellis facility had told her it was hers. It was then that she learned about Jill’s Gift.

  Suzy Gabriel had been amazed at the scope of the gift that Miss Wilson had given the people of Trena and Home. The Wilson family was giving parts of the planet with very few strings attached to the people of Trena. Suzy found that what strings there were, were not that stringent, or onerous. She thought they were reasonable. Though some of her fellow evacuees thought they were fairly stringent. Each survivor of the Trena disaster was granted a four acre plot of land. Even those people who didn’t at first wish a piece of land. Those that didn’t want to own property couldn’t sell their grant. The grant could only be ceded back to the Wilson family for the life of the first generation of Trena’s survivors. Upon their death, the estate could then sell it to others, but first generation refugees would always have first refusal on any property the heirs sold. The first generation was defined as anyone who was evacuated from Trena, or who was born within 8 months of their parents arriving on Home. The crown and the Wilson’s had worked hard on the contract. They had tried to think of every contingency, including people who didn’t want to be big property owners. They knew that some people for whatever reason would not want to be responsible for a big plot of land. Some single and older people would want small apartments, as might couples without children. Others for no other reason than just wanting to explore their new world would not want a large property. But they would want something they could stay in for a while before they moved on. For those the Marshal and the crown had instructed that some of the apartments, small homes, and hostiles left by Ebio be reserved for these people. The apartments and hostiles, the small homes would be provided in the cities and towns at no charge to the first generation of survivors. Jill’s advisors had been wiser than anyone had thought they could be.

  When the clerk had shown her the property, she had told Suzy, that there were other homes closer into town. That many people had refused it for that reason. When Suzy saw some of the other imagery she looked at the clerk and asked, “Did you show them this sunrise?”

  “It is rather spectacular isn’t,” the woman said. “I think part of it is that it is a home once owned by one of the planet’s managers. It’s been fully checked out and it’s just sitting there. The maintenance robots had taken care of it. Originally it was sited on ten acres we’ve cut it down to four. We’ve found a lot of properties like this one.”

  “But aren’t you saving this for one of the nobles, or the Marshal?” Suzy asked.

  “No it’s a first come first served deal.” The clerk said, “Do you want it?”

  “I can have this?” Suzy asked dumbfounded.

  “You just have to sign the grant paper work and it’s yours.” The clerk answered and Suzy signed the paper work. As she did she made herself a vow that she would share her good fortune with her installation team, and their families.

  The home was a V shaped building with the open end of the V facing the ocean with an atrium over a small pool. On the north side of the V were her office and work space, on the south side of the V were the bedrooms and in the base of the V were the living room, kitchen, and common areas of the house. All of the rooms opened out onto the atrium. The roof of the atrium was stained class.

  Now a couple of days after she had arrived on Home she was sitting with her legs dangling in the pool watching the sun come up out of the eastern ocean. The coffee beside her was forgotten as she watched the sun rise. She couldn’t believe her good fortune. She hadn’t been poor on Trena; but she hadn’t been affluent. When she had run away from her mother’s home on the Republic home world she had lived in a shelter for a few months as she trained to become a network installer. While the money wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good. It had taken every penny she had to survive. Then when she had married Igor, things were much better financially. They had a nice place on Trena. They barely made ends meet. Then after Igor had done that dumb stunt at port she thought she would be in trouble and unable to climb out of it. But now three months later she sat watching the most gorgeous sun rise she had ever seen in a home she would never have been able to afford had it not been for the evacuation, she made herself a vow that she would make sure that Miss Wilson’s gift to her would not go unappreciated. She was one of the fortunate ones. It would be years before everyone got a home of their own.

  From what she had learned so far not all of the evacuees would be getting a home as grand as her own. The first to arrive would be given homes out of the existing housing stock. But there wasn’t enough housing stock on the planet to house thirty or so million people. She had been told as part of her in processing that they had found a nearly intact automated manufacturing center that could make the housing they needed. She was surprised to hear that a factory ship had made orbit and it was producing pre-fabricated housing at nearly 100 single family units and one thirty family unit a day. But it wouldn’t be enough to house the nearly 10,000 people a day that would be coming down once the evacuation fleet got in full swing. They were planning to use empty containers hastily converted into homes, and they were going to have to make some more large tents. The colonies leaders were afraid of winter which was coming in ten months. From what the meteorology people were saying Home might have a more severe winter than Trena. The Crown rep had visions of people freezing to death in containers or tents.

  The next day as she drove up to Sunrise cliffs from outpost seeing the containers being rehabbed into housing Suzy wasn’t too certain that the crown representative’s vision may not be too far off. She also knew that she had to be part of the solution. Her new large home was larger than her needs She considered sharing her home with some of her fellow evacuees. But she wanted to be careful who she allowed to share her home with her children. As she passed the driveway before hers, she decided to pull in. At the end of the driveway she found a shipping container. This container though wasn’t a standard evacuation model. On the side of the container was the seal and crest of the Interstellar Rescue Service. As she stepped out of the car, she smelled food wafting out of the container.

  “Hello!” she called.

  “Hello Miss Gabriel,” Michelle Klond came out of the clinic that had now become her home. It had been her home on more than one deployment and had a small bedroom of sorts in the back of it. Some place she could sleep in when she was forward deployed with her doctors. Someplace she could have some time to herself. It had started out as a standard container. Over the years the chiefs and officers who she had shipped with had built into a combination clinic, and quarters. It had withstood all types of weather. Now as she greeted Suzy she wondered how wise an idea it was to retire to
Home and live in it for more than the few months as she had in the past.

  “Hello, Doctor,” Suzy said, sitting down in one of the chairs outside the container. “I see you are getting settled in.”

  “Not much to get settled in about!” the doctor replied, “I have always traveled light. I never bought property, or had a big house, but this is so small. I’ll be happy when my new place will be built.”

  “Doctor,” Suzy said having made a decision as she pulled onto the property, “look my place is too big for the five of us. My kids and me. Why not live at my place while you are waiting for your home to be built.”

  “Miss Gabriel,” the doctor replied, “but it might take years!”

  “Doctor,” Suzy said, “I know. But through a bunch of good fortune, I have been given a marvelous home to live in. Not even my grandmother’s home on the Mother World was this elegant, and beautiful. I don’t think it was this big. I lost my husband through some stupidity, almost lost my life also. I have been given another chance and I intend to help where I can. There’ll be too many of us who will need housing and help. I want to make sure that the spirit of Miss Wilson’s gift is fulfilled to its fullest!”

  “I see,” Michelle said as she remembered her diner. She went in and took it off the small camp stove, and brought the ration pack out to the table where Miss Gabriel sat. She was looking forward to retiring, but one of the reasons she had put it off so long was that she had never married, and the men and women of the rescue service had become her family. Now on Home, she was beginning to wonder if retiring here had been such a good idea. “Miss Gabriel, I may be coming and going at all hours.”

  “Doctor,” Suzy said, “Why are you fighting this? We both know that you need a place to stay, that while your clinic here is great for being forward deployed with your IRS buddies, it’s a lousy home for a semi-retired doctor! Besides my kids already know you!”

  That was true. The kids had found out about the doctor almost immediately. Her oldest had been out exploring when she had stumbled onto the doctor. One of the reasons Suzy had stopped by was to see if Julie was here so she could get the kid out of the doctor’s hair.”

  “Suzy,” Michelle said, “I guess I will take you up on the offer.”

  “Thank you,” Suzy said. Michelle would be the first of her quests at the house.

  A few weeks later after the Deliverance had needed the doctor’s service for one of their victims, they began to tie up on the beach below and when not on patrol they slept in the large servant quarters of the previous owner. Suzy’s generosity was soon followed by others, many families took in complete strangers for a night’s stay, or longer.