QUANT (COLONY Book 1)

by Richard F. Weyand

Gathering

  “Well, tomorrow’s the day,” Amy said.

  “Yeah. Kind of hard to believe after four years of getting ready,” Matt said.

  The four young couples were out in the back yard of the Jasic house, sitting around the picnic table.

  “But we don’t actually go to orbit tomorrow. We just go to Texas tomorrow,” Joseph said.

  “Yes, but that’s the start of the adventure,” Stacy said.

  “Gather everybody together,” Tracy said.

  “And then feed all the animals,” James said.

  “Don’t they have to be feeding them already?” Jonah asked.

  “Of course,” Matt said. “The point is to get us working with the animals. Get us used to getting our hands dirty.”

  “We’re going to be getting our coveralls dirty, too, though,” Stacy said.

  “The flights up to orbit are going to smell like a barnyard,” Tracy said.

  “Nah. That’s why there’s two sets of coveralls and booties for each of us,” Matt said. “We’ll get one set filthy, and then we’ll change before we board the shuttles. Didn’t you watch the training?”

  “We’re still going to stink, Matt,” Joseph said.

  “Maybe there’s some kind of showers,” Peggy said. “To rinse off, anyway.”

  “That would make sense,” James said.

  “Well, I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Matt said.

  There was a meeting of Maureen Griffith’s group that night, the last meeting before departure.

  “Anybody got anything we need to talk about before we go?” Griffith asked.

  “Just one,” Robert Jasic said.

  “Go ahead, Bob.”

  “Make sure we stay together. Stay in pairs or better so no one is alone. And whatever you do, if you get separated from the group, make sure you end up on one of the shuttles for Arcadia. Once we’re all on the same planet, we can tag up again. Everybody got that?”

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement across the group.

  “That’s all I had, Maureen.”

  “Thanks, Bob. All right, everybody. I guess we’ll have our next meeting on Arcadia.”

  The travel arrangements to the shuttle pickup were different for different people. For large groups like Griffith’s, buses were dispatched to pick them up. Some were advised to take public transportation to the ballistic orbital airport in their city. Others were advised to take rented autodrones. Every autodrone on Earth was authorized to bill one-way transportation to the shuttle sites directly to the World Authority.

  For Griffith’s group, a bus pulled up in the neighborhood. There were already a dozen or so people on board, another group from the suburb next door. The twenty-seven were all waiting at 9:00, dressed in their coveralls and booties, with their communicators pinned to their coveralls.

  Their second coveralls and booties were still in the plastic bag they had come sealed in. The bags had plastic straps on them for armholes, and they wore them like backpacks.

  Everybody boarded the bus and took seats. They exchanged some generic greetings with the others, and found that their group was bound for Numenor. They wouldn’t be in the same colony.

  With everyone seated, the bus headed to the airport.

  Arriving at the airport, the bus stopped at one terminal, and the driver announced this was the departure point for the Numenor colonists. They got off and the bus drove further down the terminal and stopped at another door. This was the departure point for the Arcadia colonists. Griffith’s group got off the bus and headed into the terminal.

  It was organized chaos. There were hundreds of people there. Most were sitting on the floor in tailor’s seat. All were wearing the coveralls and booties, and carrying their extra coveralls and booties on their backs.

  A voice over the PA periodically announced: ‘This is the departure point for the Arcadia and Playa colonies. If you are not bound for Arcadia or Playa, come up to the desk and we will get you to the right place.’

  This announcement alternated with another one: ‘Please keep your group together other than for visits to the bathroom. Make sure everyone knows the name of your group, so if you get separated, we can get you back together.’

  Maureen Griffith had been the leader all along, so it was simply Maureen’s Group. She led them all over to a clear spot in the corner and they all parked unceremoniously on the floor. At Betsy’s suggestion – ‘Never pass up an opportunity to go to the bathroom’ – they all made a trip to the bathrooms, usually in groups of two or three.

  Janice Quant had solved the problem of needing shuttles to move a lot of both people and containerized cargo simply. She containerized the people. Large passenger compartments had been manufactured, the size of four containers across and two high. These could be carried by cargo shuttles, either one at a time or two stacked. They would be used to transfer people to Texas as well as from Texas to the residence halls in the transporter.

  Each of these containers had three decks, and could pack in as many as nine hundred and sixty people on a deck, in thirty-two rows of thirty seats in a row. A single shuttle could carry almost six thousand people in two containers.

  Even so, when it came to carrying people up to orbit, it would take over four hundred such payloads to get all two-point-four million colonists to the residence halls.

  There was a small group – four people, who looked like same-sex couples – sitting next to them on the terminal floor. Griffith struck up a conversation with one of them, a pretty late-twenties woman. She found out that the woman was a computer specialist and her partner was a mechanic. The mid-thirties gay couple they were traveling with were a doctor and an agronomist. Both women, like their own group’s younger members, were pregnant, in their case via sperm donations from the male couple.

  Griffith went over to Jasic, sitting on the floor nearby.

  “Bob, those two couples are their own small group. I was thinking of asking them if they wanted to join up with us. They have a mechanic, a computer specialist, a doctor, and an agronomist. Nice additional capabilities for us there. They seem like nice people, and they look a little lost, with all these big groups.”

  “Sounds good to me, Maureen. Do we need to make it a group meeting?”

  “No, I think if you and I are good, we’re solid.”

  Jasic nodded.

  “Go for it, Maureen.”

  Maureen Griffith went back over to Rachel Conroy and sat down next to her. Her partner, Jessica Murphy, cocked her head to listen in.

  “Rachel, would you four like to join up with our group? We have a bunch of young people, and nine older adults with various professional skills. Mostly engineers and such. A couple of nurses. We would likely be a stronger group together than either of us apart.”

  Conroy looked to Murphy, who nodded.

  “Sounds good to us, Maureen. Let me talk to Gary and Dwayne.”

  “Of course. Just let me know.”

  When Griffith went back over to sit with her husband, Hank Bolton, Conroy and Murphy huddled with Rockham and Hennessey.

  “We could join their group,” Conroy said. “That whole bunch over there. It’s like four couples and a divorcee and their eighteen kids, all of whom are married to other kids within the group. And all pregnant, by the way. Really strong social unit there. They have a bunch of engineers and stuff. Couple nurses, too.”

  “But they’re all hetero, Rache,” Dwayne said. “Do they know we’re not? Are they going to accept us?”

  “Yes, they know. I told their leader. Very nice woman, by the way. And, Dwayne? They asked us, we didn’t ask them. And they asked us after I told her we were same-sex couples.”

  Hennessey turned to look at Rockham.

  “Sounds good to me,” Rockham said. “We’re stronger together. Both groups. And I worry a bit about the four of us being isolated.”

  Rockham turned to Hennessey.

  “I think we should go for it, Dwayne,” he said.

 
Hennessey turned back to Rachel.

  “All right, Rache. Let’s do it.”

  Conroy went over to talk to Griffith, and then waved the others over. There were a million introductions to make, and Rachel despaired of ever getting all the younger folks’ names straight.

  With introductions done, the two same-sex couples settled into tailor seat in the middle of their new, bigger group. They spent the time waiting for the shuttle chatting with everyone around them. For their part, the teens in Griffith’s group had been so insulated from the rest of the world the last four years that they enjoyed having new people to talk to.

  At one point, Rockham leaned over to Conroy and whispered to her.

  “Good move, Rache. It feels like family already.”

  They had been in the terminal a couple of hours, and more people had arrived, when they heard a shuttle landing outside. The heavy-lift cargo shuttle was carrying two people containers beneath it. Each container had three doors on the side they could see, at different heights for the three decks.

  “We are going to begin boarding the shuttle almost immediately. Please keep your group together, and make sure you stay in the correct line.”

  Everyone stood, and people began heading down the stairs to ground level. When they came out on the tarmac, they saw that there were three sets of stairways up to the doors of the lower people container. The group from their part of the terminal all queued for one stairway, and groups coming out of the terminal to either side of them queued to the other stairways.

  They were heading up the stairs to the middle deck of this people container. The upper people container remained closed, and Matt Jasic assumed that was because that container was already full from a previous stop, or would be filled on a second stop.

  Matt did some quick math in his head. Two-point-four million people of Earth’s four billion was about one person in every seventeen hundred people. With three thousand people in a people container, that would imply a source population of maybe five million. That was about the population of this portion of the Carolina administrative region, so it made sense.

  Griffith had named subgroup leaders – people to keep their portion of the group together – and kept tabs on them. When the group grew, she had made Conroy a subgroup leader for a new group comprised of the two same-sex couples and Matt Jasic and Peggy Reynolds.

  The thirty-one people in their group were just too much for any one person to keep an eye on them all. But everyone looked good as Griffith stated up the steps.

  When Griffith entered the middle deck, she could see there was a narrow aisle on each side, and thirty-two rows of thirty seats across. There was a tiny bathroom at the end of each aisle, which displaced a couple of seats in the end rows on each side.

  It was emptier toward the back, and Griffith headed in that direction. The group headed down two partially filled rows, just about filling up the rest of the seats.

  “Take a seat anywhere, everybody. Leave no gaps, please. We will be just about full up,” the voice said from the overhead speakers.

  “Nose count,” Griffith said.

  “We’re good, Maureen.”

  “All accounted for here.”

  “We have everybody.”

  “Our group’s good.”

  “We’re all here, Maureen.”

  With five good reports back, Maureen Griffith relaxed. She had gotten everyone from the neighborhood to the shuttles, and even picked up some more group members. Just one more big hurdle to go – getting them all on the shuttle to orbit.

  After everyone was belted up and the three decks of the container closed up, the shuttle lifted off and headed for the Texas shuttleport. There was an announcement on the way.

  “If you paid attention during the training, you know what happens next. As a reminder, we will be camping out on the Texas shuttleport for a few days while we gather all the colonists together.

  “The reason for this is to limit the amount of time you will spend in zero-gravity, which people may find uncomfortable. It will certainly be awkward. So you will all camp out for several days before the departure.

  “The weather at the Texas shuttleport right now is mild, so there will be no issue with that. Daytime temperatures will not be too hot, and the nights will be a little cool. The many pregnant colonists will probably find that a relief.

  “Under your seats in the passenger compartment is a little box with a handle on it, like a briefcase. Take that with you when you get off. It contains packaged meals and bottled water to tide you over. There will be additional water sources at the shuttleport to refill your water bottles.

  “Your initial accommodations on the colony planets will actually be much better than this, so this is the hard part of your trip. You’re all in this together, so everybody help each other out, and you’ll do great.”

  The shuttle went very high to reduce wind resistance, and made the trip to the Texas shuttleport in under two hours. There were no windows in the passenger compartment, but there was a display in the front of the compartment, and Matt Jasic watched their progress.

  As the shuttleport came into view, he could see the large central area marked off into squares by wide white lines. On either side were the barns that would be taken into orbit. There were stock pens there, with cows and pigs. The chickens were probably in the barns already.

  Matt could also see other shuttles, in the process of landing or taking off. They were landing on transporters, wheeled carriages with a driver’s cab. These then drove the passenger compartments around the site like huge buses.

  Matt nudged Jessica Murphy, sitting next to him.

  “That’s pretty cool. Those bus things. They just put the containers on them and drive them around.”

  Murphy nodded.

  “Which frees the shuttles to get an empty set of containers and take off again. No waiting for people to get off. Nice.”

  The shuttle came in for a landing on a shuttle pad, which had one of the transporters on it. It settled the passenger containers down onto the transporter, then unlatched them. The shuttle spooled up and lifted off the containers. It rotated in hover, then flew over to an empty stacked pair of people containers. It settled on them, latched to them, then took off to make another run.

  “We’re at the Texas shuttleport, everyone. We will drive you to your planet’s area, and let you off. Please make absolutely sure to get off at your correct planet area. When you get off, it will be at the intersection of four squares. Signs will indicate which square corresponds to your planet. Make sure you get the right one.”

  They could feel the machine moving, and they had a front view of where it was going in the display. It drove right down the middle between planet squares on either side. It stopped where lines came in from either side, marking the corner of four squares. There were step systems there.

  “All right. Arcadia, Numenor, Playa, and Tonga, this is your stop.”

  The container doors opened on both sides, and there were stairways there. Everybody pulled their supply boxes out from under their seats, then got up and inched to the doors on either side.

  “Everybody head to the right-side door,” Griffith said. “Let’s stay together.”

  Griffith was last of her group out the door, stepping out into a beautiful early fall day in Texas. She followed everyone else down the stairs and clear of the container transporter, which moved off down the line between planet squares.

  Griffith looked out across the plain. There were over a million people in the three square miles of the planet squares, sitting and standing about, the barns and animal pens beyond. She looked up at the sign there, and saw the arrow for Arcadia pointing into one of the squares, and ARCADIA stenciled on the ground.

  “All right. Have we got everybody?”

  Her subgroups leaders checked for everyone and signaled back they were good, then Griffith led her group on toward an open area in the Arcadia square.

  Livestock

  There were porta
ble toilet facilities in banks located about the planet squares. Not far from them, there was also a water truck at each location, as well as a yard light on a pole mounted to each truck.

  Griffith decided not to be either too close or too far from a set of toilets. In the end, she chose a spot between two sets and not downwind from either. It was about a city block from toilets in either direction that she found an open space, and they all settled down there.

  It was like a gathering in a city park somewhere waiting for a fireworks display, other than for its sheer size. Groups of people were scattered all about in the three square miles. More shuttles were landing, and more containers of people were being dropped off, almost continuously

  “Well, here we are,” Griffith said.

  She counted off her group herself, as a double-check. It wouldn’t do to lose someone in this mass of humanity. She was glad she didn’t have any children along. Their youngest were Carl and Sally Reynolds at fourteen, but they could be trusted to stay with the group on their own initiative.

  “It would be kind of spooky to be dropped off in the middle of nowhere like this if everything hadn’t been so well-planned and executed thus far,” Susan Dempsey said.

  “Agreed,” Bill Thompson said. “That bunch there looks a little shell-shocked.”

  He indicated toward the group next to them, perhaps ten yards away. It was a group of thirty or forty Chinese from ages five on up. They were all wearing the same unisex coveralls and booties as everyone else, but they looked around in apparent confusion.

  They looked lost.

  Griffith walked over to the other group, and a woman in the group stood up and came over to talk to her.

  “You look lost,” Griffith said.

  “I hope not. This is for Arcadia, yes?”

  “Yes, for Arcadia. That’s right. Where are you from?”

  “We are from Chongqing administrative region. We are all farmers. We have never seen things like this.”