Ninth day Josette splits off a dozen duplicates that head to the library, moving boxes from the pallets and bringing out the supplies. When Professor Eppes arrives the next morning he finds Josette working in her office and piles of books on the counter behind the checkout desk.

"They're all ready, they just need to go into the system." She says, looking up at him. He grins and puts an armful in front of him. By the end of his shift he's got two piles done and is started on a third, Professor Druid taking his place after he finishes a book and the student employee signing in starting to shelve them.

"Is this everything?"

"No, I've got at least one more major working next 9th day then whatever is left over can be worked on during the week. Because when I'm done here I'm working in the library at town and then my stuff." Professor Druid sniggers, she knows Josette's stuff is probably at least twice what the two libraries got.

The snow finally begins melting and they open windows for more than a couple minutes to start airing out the dorm. Manure is spread on the garden and fields, being tilled under a few days later.

"Two down, two to go." Alexander says as he slides into a seat at the pushed together tables when they go out for their finals. A few minutes later Michael sighs and looks over everything before holding up his hand. Josette looks up from the notebook she's drawing in.

"More quilts?"

"Tapestries." She looks over and puts up a shield around the table. It's still a few minutes before the buzzer sounds to end the morning session and Vincent's dishing up plates.

"Granda says they're expecting a zero population growth period. The end of next year at the latest. . .our time. And it's going to be a long one."

"That's why we've had so many students and they're moving beyond the school." Michael says. Josette nods and brings down the shield.

Later that night Josette looks up as Professor Druid, Principal Madison, and President Bartlett come to the dorm.

"Okay, everybody's here." Josette starts pacing the floor. "I already told Michael and Alexander this at the testing center when I told Drs. Stark, McNider, and Cross. Granda says they're entering a zero-population growth period, by the end of next year at the latest . . .our time. And it's going to be a long one."

Principal Madison sighs. "We were expecting something because of all the students we were getting." He slumps into one of the couches, getting a cat in his lap and being handed a cup of decaffinated coffee. "That's why he's expanding into other things."

Josette nods. "We're expecting large years for a while. Then the class sizes will start dropping off. In about thirteen years expect no new students to be coming out, after the last students have graduated figure on a good twenty to twenty-five years without students until schools start regular classes again. I figure longer than that before parents start sending their kids to boarding schools, even Granda's."

"That will give us time to clean and inspect the buildings." Professor Druid says. "But. . .some schools might not reopen on Earth."

"Probably not, the older teachers will have retired and it will be sink or swim for the new teachers."

"Is this going to affect the city-ship and satellite?"

"Shouldn't, there will be a good pool of workers over the years. And they're not going to be colonizing planets for couple of decades, by that time they'll be having children again."

"What about the colony dimension?"

"We're hoping that they're not affected but there's going to be an influx of new settlers over the next couple of decades as it gets settled."

"I can't see many married couples moving out there at first." President Bartlett says.

"No, mostly single young men and maybe some women. And we all know that the first several years establishing a colony and getting settled means babies take a backseat. Even here and on Archimedes where we brought our homes with us and it was business as usual. . . .just you know on another planet." Everybody sniggers.

"So. . . ."

"We're looking at maybe fourteen years before we start getting no new students. That will see the last of the children born this year and next in high school."

"So sixteen to eighteen years to have the last of the students graduated?"

"And at least that long before we get new students."

"School employees?"

"Granda plans on paying the employees through the end of their contract here and will probably keep most of his employees on in some function or another. The school might be a spa for a few years like that fool woman wanted." The others snigger.

The next day Josette picks up the recycling from the other planets and the school, the students walking through the tesseract onto Ulonda as Josette settles on Hidalgo and both go to Earth. Principal Madison and Professor Druid had come out and plan on talking to Calvin about what would be happening over the next couple decades.

"This last batch of sheets and towels . . ."

"Should be it until the school closes. Now. . .we might put in another order and pop them into stasis until they're needed."

"Mattresses?"

"We're getting orders of them over the next few years, some of them are getting to the stage they need replacing. We don't stop to think that the school's been open for over 30 years already."

They talk about their plans for the future, Calvin nodding at Josette's suggestion for a drop-off center by the school. "All the new businesses would put too much of a strain on the one in town. And we're putting up a substation."

Ellis smiles as Josette brings out boxes of books. "My show is tomorrow night so you can put these out after that."

"Thank you Josette, and thank you for these." He looks at the signed copies of Josette's books as they walk into his office. They talk about the school's order and plans for the others to come out after the Harvest Festival.

Josette is busy after the Harvest Festival, hopping the trains to other suppliers to go over what they have and placing orders. When she's not doing that she's picking up orders, shopping at various malls, or working at various recycling drop-off centers.

A couple weeks after the others have headed off Josette comes into the manor, dropping her bags on various flat surfaces and dropping onto a couch for a nap. A few hours later she orders food from the local pizza parlor and starts sorting out stuff, empty pens going in the replicator as the first batch of laundry starts running.

"Rest after you got back?"

"Yep, I put everything down, slept for four hours, ordered some food, and started working on stuff."

"Buy too much stuff?"

"Yes, in addition to the books I visited a couple conferences and cons." The others laugh at Josette. "Okay, we need to start going through everything here?"

"Yep, and get an idea of what we need to replace. Pots, pans, dishes. . ."

Nods from the others as they select rooms and start looking through everything over the next couple of days. Pat sighs when she finds out what they're doing, Doc nodding that they need to do the same.

The crops start coming in a few weeks later and everybody is busy canning, drying, or storing the food and planting the new crops. They finalize the list of stuff they're going to need to replace and Josette splits off other selves who start going through the supplies on the ships to get some of it. The larger stuff is ordered when the school's order goes out and Josette is busy filling various rooms.

"Was the cotton planted?" President Bartlett asks at their next 'government' meeting.

"Yep, this year and next. The towel factory is getting ready and the orders are coming in. They'll start operating after the Harvest Festival along with the paper factory. The paper factory will be operating through the end of year after next with all the orders, the towel factory should be shutting down the end of next year." Josette looks at her PADD and nods.

"Glass?"

"We're good on bottles and canning jars. I need to check the supply of the other glass, we might need to run it for a couple years for the specialty stuff." The others nod. "Now, school supplies?"

"We're getting in shipments of silverware, dishes, and cookware for the kitchens with the new students, double what we'd normally get since we're expecting a mass influx of students. We ordered furniture along with the mattresses, box springs, and textiles for the dorms, they'll be held back until needed. We check the empty rooms when students graduate but . . ."

"It's different than going through each room when an entire dorm is empty."

"We'll be able to do that for all the buildings soon enough." President Bartlett sighs. "Gods, you're getting old when you think sixteen to eighteen years is nothing."

"I swear I remember when 29 was sooooooo old." Josette sighs. The three older men snicker and pat her on the shoulder.

"Okay, we're looking at eighteen years for the school with this one, looking at the contracts. . ."

"We should be closing the school with a year left on the second year employees contract. Depending on the class size Granda figures on giving the first year employees a year extension and having everybody go home at once."

Josette vanishes and reappears a few seconds later.

"Fucking idiots." Josette scowls.

"Another lost world?"

"Another lost world. Magical war, the fucking magical morons from Harry Potter kept oblivating non-magicals, a war escalated. Somebody had the brilliant idea to remove their magic. . .that way the war would be magically over and they could round them up and 're-educate' them into society."

"And there's magic in everybody, though most people can't really tap it." Doc sighs. Josette sends off the messages and the others start arriving. David opens tesseracts to the ships and Clark and one of the Josette's split off to get the other ships. They arrive back on Haven five hundred years their time.

President Bartlett pats her on the shoulder. "All of humanity gone for the problems of a few old men. The rest of the world didn't know about or didn't care about the 'threat' because they don't isolate themselves like the Europeans did in the books."

"Always going to be hateful bigots who think nothing of destroying humanity. I'm sure they're currently rotting in whatever version of hell they feared instead of basking in heaven like they thought was their right."

Meanwhile Dr. Stark is talking with Principal Madison, getting in a flyer. President Bartlett looks over then at Josette.

"Dr. Stark had a few ideas since you're enlarging the fish farm next year."

Josette starts looking through the inventory of what's on the ships over the next few days when she's not checking on the crops, working on a last few special orders with Alexander and Michael, or getting in classes.

Josette slumps into a seat in the office since Jane had made a 'hold up' gesture then pointed at Calvin's closed door. Bringing out a textbook she settles in to read, looking up at Calvin's chuckle.

"Are the others getting used to the idea of the loss of students?" He asks after bringing her into his office, closing the door, and putting up the shields.

"We're holding off on the announcement to the teachers and employees until it's confirmed, right now it's making plans for the future, being able to clean every building."

"You're getting the first shipment of the mattresses, furniture, bedding, and towels. Both you and the school. Along with your usual supplies."

Josette looks over the file Calvin sends her and nods. "Now. . .as for the last students?"

"We were talking about it a couple weeks ago, we figured since it was so close to the second batch of employees leaving you'd have the first set stay over an extra year and have everybody go home at the same time."

Calvin nods. "That had been my thought. Are you staying a while?"

"At least a couple weeks, I'm looking into making hats, gloves, and scarves for the school?" She looks at Calvin who nods. "Okay, I was asked if I wanted a shipment that had been in the warehouse when a business went out, I'll purchase a couple of extra knitting machines from Ellis and if they take off I'll order more."

"Mittens too?" Maria asks from the door.

"Yes, they keep your hands warmer than gloves. . .or at least that's what the experts say. I haven't felt any difference but . . ." Josette shrugs.

"Have you opened the sweater factory?"

"Next year, the announcement will go out after the Harvest Festival with all the orders due in by the Lights Festival."

A couple weeks later Josette returns to Haven and starts bringing out pallets of yarn and the cases with the new knitting machines. Creating a couple tables she sets them up and starts them running.

"Josette?" David asks in a calm . ..to him anyway voice from the doorway. Josette sniggers so it obviously wasn't as calm as he thought.

"Hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves. I got asked if I'd take an order that's been sitting the warehouse thanks to a business having a fire. So I brought a few machines."

"Did you talk to Calvin about the returning employees?"

"Yeah, he was thinking the same thing, having the first employees stay an extra year and have everybody go home at once since it's so close to the last of the students leaving."

"Orders?"

"We've got the first part of our orders, I expect two or three more batches coming up before we get everything." David nods as Josette selects everything and starts them running.

"Second crops."

"Should be coming in hot and heavy in a couple days, same with the yearly crops. Then the offworld harvests are going to start coming in." David sighs and nods. "Going to be like that the next couple of years."

Josette brings in a couple containers that she puts on the floor next to the desk. Joyce looks at her. "Hats, gloves, scarves, and mittens. I was asked if I wanted an order that had been in the warehouse for a while when a few businesses went under. I'd been thinking about making these so I brought a few machines to see if there was any interest. Calvin already said he'd be interested."

Joyce opens the containers. "Oh yes, this is excellent. Both gloves and mittens?"

"Mittens keep your hands warmer since your fingers are together." Principal Madison says from the door of his office. "But gloves are easier to work in. Unless they're the ones that you call pull back to expose your fingers."

"Which pretty much throws keeping them warm out the window." Professor Druid snorts as she and Professor Fletcher come out of the office and start looking through everything. "Where do you have these set up?"

"In the front room of my studio for right now, I'm going to need more tables though if the demand is as good as the socks. And basically doubling the yarn order."

"You said Dad is interested?"

"Yep, I asked him before I brought the machines. Otherwise I'd have used the yarn for something else. Lord knows we'll always have a need for more socks." Joyce chuckles. "Do you have the room for more machines?"

"I can open another room down the hall."

Principal Madison sighs. "Double the yarn order and buy. . .twenty-five of the machines. Do you have more yarn?"

"Yeah, this is just part of one pallet, the order was huge. Five thousand boxes."

Joyce whistles despite herself as she empties the last container, laying everything out on the table. "That's pretty much a warehouse by itself."

"Yeah, They brought in bulk once a year or so and had a fire. They're arguing with the insurance about rebuilding. You know big business. . .hurry up and wait." The others sigh and nod.

"Especially if it's money going out and not coming in."

"And they have a clause in their insurance for lost income, the insurance company is wailing like an opera diva."

Back at the dorm she sends off the orders and heads to the first planet to pick the yearly crops. A couple months later for her she comes back with everything, sending pictures of how the building is coming on the first planet to the others before she joins the others walking to dinner.

"Get everything?"

"Yeah, I stayed long enough to let the black olives ripen. Planted more coffee on the first planet besides what I'm growing on Brigadoon. Expanded the espresso and coffee offworld harvests. Yes, I already took some to Vincent and Dr. Stark. Dropped the cotton harvest off at the towel factory. Dropped off the wheat at the flour factory, potatoes are at the store and the manufacturing satellite."

A long three weeks later Josette sighs as the last of the crops is canned, dried, or stored. The fish had been harvested and were in stasis or dried until needed. The new crops had been planted and the others were settling in upstairs.

"Is this a late offworld harvest year?" Bronwen asks on the way to dinner.

"Yessss." Josette sighs. "They'll start coming in hot and heavy after our first testing week."

"Offworld harvests?"

"Planet sized gardens that are meant to be a good chunk of our winter food. There's three each for the fourth through eighth planet, the 9th planet has two, while the 10th planet has one. Every year they come in earlier and earlier thanks to the difference in years, eventually coming early early enough that it's still winter when we're harvesting. Those years we can harvest twice and plant cover crops of rye and barley. The robots that handle the larger offworld single crops handle them."

"And the other offworld harvests?"

"Two hundred people. With the time dilation we're only gone an hour but we've been picking and putting the food in stasis for six months. It's a lot of work so they get a bonus as well as being paid for the work. The downside is that for several weeks I'm going to be offworld twice a week."

"What happens to the food?"

"If it's for us it will all be brought out and either canned, dried, or stored. The other planets, I'll bring out what needs to be dried or canned, then it will go back to the ship until I deliver it."

"Do the ones picking ...?"

"No, they head to the laundry, the temporary dorm for a nap and shower, or to the communal kitchen for a meal before heading home depending on if they're from Haven or another planet. The big building will be asshole to elbow people. . .especially with two harvests coming in."

"How much . . .?"

Josette pulls up files, putting them on the screen. "This is the pantry in the manor after our third harvest, this is the pantry after our share of the offworld harvests have been delivered." The shelves are full with boxes on the floor. "And that's not all of it, we have food in the basement here and our kitchens."

"Do you have a root cellar?"

"Yes, and that's just as full." More pictures.

"What are the barrels?"

"Green olives from the first planet. I either pop them in brine to eat or press them for oil. Every few years. . .this year one of them I leave some on the trees to ripen and slice them up, bringing out a container at a time for pizzas or sandwiches. I also use the paste from pressing the olives on sandwiches. And the skins and stems from the grapes when we make wine goes back to the vineyard for the new growth." Doc nods in satisfaction.

"How much garbage do you generate?"

"Ourselves, maybe a bag every other week. The dorms and dining halls generate the most waste because there's still so much food packaging that can't be recycled or composted."

"Dorms?"

"Thousands of teenage girls. . .that time of the month?"

"Ahhh yes." The others chuckle.

"We have containers next to the recycling bins in the girls dorms for their makeup containers when they're done, otherwise it would be even more. Clean them with the replicators and they can be used as raw material."

"We shoot the garbage at least once a term, more during warmer weather when it starts to stink."

"Shoot?"

Josette brings out the hand unit for the replicator. "It takes at least two crystals to empty a dumpster, more often filling two and partially filling a third. When we go out we take dozens of the crystals, filling them and bringing them back to the dorm where they go in the replicator for energy. Even then most of the time we fill them before all the dumpsters are empty. So we empty the crystals into the replicator, eat lunch, and get the rest afterwards. There's larger units that don't have the crystals, they go directly to the unit that were used with larger objects, Earth used them in emptying garbage dumps. The ships just skip the middleman. Turn to another setting on the replicator and it turns what it was used on into raw materials, Becka uses them when they take care of paper ends since they don't have a replicator large enough to handle them. The roll goes into one crystal, the paper goes into another. Same thing when I take care of them on the ships."

"Storms?"

"Yeah, back on Earth we'd get storms that would dump on us for a couple weeks. Before the replicator we'd put the garbage in an empty room until we could take it out to the dumpster. The larger dorms piled it outside in the tunnel, either for maintenance to deal with before the replicator or for one of us to get afterwards. They still do it during a bad storm now."

"How bad a storm. . .?"

Josette gets on the servers and brings out a few pictures, one showing snow partway up the sliding glass door. "And that was in May." The others moan. "That wasn't a bad storm, just a lot of it dumping on us all winter. Professor Eppes joked on our senior trip that it wouldn't melt until July, by June we didn't think it was a joke anymore. And that was before the winters really started getting bad. A few years after we left there was snow on the ground year-round in most areas, not just the mountains."

"Was that the year the flea market was shut down?" Bruce asks walking through. "You wanted one of us?"

"Yeah, look this over." Josette sends him a file. "I have to be making a mistake somewhere but be damned if I can see it. And yes, that's the first year. The old flea market building had been taken over by the town since the owner was arrested for arson and insurance fraud. They'd been using the grounds to put snow, when they were moving it one of the columns was hit and it collapsed, bringing down the roof." The others all look at her. "Dry rot. . .somebody was supposed to have had the building inspected but Killingmesoftly hadn't bothered when they took it over, instead using the inspection reports the old owners had submitted. Which were fake, when they went after the guy who supposedly inspected it he had never been there and had been in Jamaica with his family on vacation when the inspection supposedly took place. The city council had to pull their big boy pants on and rebuild it, the new one is the building in town."

"First year?"

"The town council tried desperately to find a place to put the flea market, first asking the principal in town to use his school, then coming out to our school. We had to help them, we had tables at the flea market so of course we'd have a reason to let them use a building. Then they found out we went year-round, how many classes, we offered, how many students we had. . .we had 500 students a year back then, the school in town didn't have 500 students in all fourteen years if you include pre-school and kindergarten. They finally realized they didn't have a choice and started paying back the fees the vendors had paid for the year."

"The second year?"

"The year that the power was out for nearly six months." A house elf appears with a note and Josette thanks her before she disappears. Reading it she begins cackling.

"Becka's pregnant, so's Idina. She realized she was gonna be turning 40 and was feeling old."

"Awww." Susan purrs. "Wait until she's our age."

"And the twins."

The visitors blink. "Hermaphroditic males, a good ten percent of their population is hermaphrodites. Idina and Danita are hermaphroditic females."

"Are their bodies going to adapt?"

"I don't see it, while their year is nearly twice that of Earth the day's only 40 minutes longer. And most of them have already started aging slower thanks to the others." The doctors in the group nod as they start walking to the dining hall.

"Do you go in and clear out a crop?"

"No, we pick what's ripe and that takes several days. We have picking groups of two or three people who fill containers per crop while more people come in with flyers and wagons, picking up the full containers and dropping off empties before taking them back to the ship. Usually once in the morning and after lunch unless they get a call they need a pickup or more supplies. There's groups on the ship putting everything away in rooms or cooking and some people have the day off and are in the movie theaters, libraries, or in the waterpark. They'll shift positions in the afternoon."

"What happens after an area has been picked?"

"Either compost is spread by the robots and tilled under later or the plants plowed under. And the robots rotate the crops yearly." The others nod in satisfaction.

"Could the robots harvest everything?"

"Yes, but we want everybody to be self-sufficient."

"I'm getting the same results Josette, so are Doc and Long Tom." Bruce says when they return to the dorm after dinner. "It looks like you've created a power source similar to the ones the others were talking about."

"Then I won't go to the ships to run the simulation." Josette says. "We don't need it for a while but if we ever need a larger source it's good to know we have it."

"No more buildings piggybacking off those with alternate power sources?" David asks.

"Yeah, one large power unit with the boxes that get power from the turbine. If we go that way though we'll have to set up a power company."

"May I?" Doc, Charles, and Richard look it over. "We use something similar."

"Josette, the machines in your studio?" Hannah asks.

"I'd been thinking of adding hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves to the school supplies and got asked if I wanted a rather large shipment that was sitting in a warehouse since the business it was going to had a fire and. . ."

Bronwen says a name and Josette nods. "Yes, the insurance is dragging its heels, they're about to get their asses handed to them by the court for their stupidity."

"Anyway I asked Granda if he'd be interested and brought four machines to start making stuff. I showed what I'd made from a partial pallet to Joyce, Principal Madison, and Professor Druid and they told me to order more machines and double the order of yarn. The boys are making tables for me and I'll open a room down the hall from the socks for them."

"And if they hadn't been interested?"

"I'd have found a use for them. Socks if nothing else."

"Plain hats, gloves, and scarves?"

"Yes, not those damn infinity scarves, you can't wrap them around your neck for warmth for all that you can pull them up over your head." The others nod. "Hats keep your head warm."

"If you wear them, that's why we keep pulling your hood up all the time." Principal Madison says dryly as he comes in with Calvin and Professor Druid. "Josette, do you have more completed?"

"Yeah upstairs, I gotta bring yarn out for all three rooms." She heads upstairs, the hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves being looked at as she brings out pallets for each room. The others start grabbing boxes and filling containers with yarn.

"Oh yes, these will be good. I can see them being brought after the first cold snap."

The next morning Doc blinks at all the supplies being brought out.

"Washing windows, we try to do it every month during the spring, summer, and fall." They all start adding extension wands to the sprayers and turn them on, coating the windows. Scrubbers come out with soap and the windows are scrubbed then rinsed clean.

After the Harvest Festival the new students start coming in, being sent to the office to sign in and get the folder with the school information then to the auditorium as Josette delivers their belongings to the dorms. This lasts nearly three weeks and she slumps into a seat at the pizza parlor, getting plates put in front of her and a bottle of caffeine free Haven Dew in her hand as the seats are taken around her by Frances, Amanda, and Professor Parker.

"Is this the last students?"

"For this year, yeah."

"We're on an upswing of students."

"Yeah Granda says to expect it for a few years."

"Did you get in more supplies?"

"Yeah, the last of the bedding, towels, and furniture is coming out when we take the graduating students back. I brought out the last of the school supplies so if you were still looking for something, maintenance will be delivering it over the next few days."

"How are you coming on the hats, gloves, mittens, and scarves?"

"Good, I'll have a good supply in the office before it starts turning cool."

"Did Doc and the others stay out?"

"Yes, they planned on it, this allows them to spend some time talking with the others on the other planets, investigating the first and second planets, and they wanted to see an offworld harvest. We were telling them about them but. . ."

"They think you were exaggerating them? Just like everybody thinks we're exaggerating the pouring piss from a boot rains until they've lived through them?"

"Yep."

"Did Charles and Clarinda head off?"

"Yes, they wanted to stay out here until the twins were about three and can start taking simple classes on Legion World. It's not like we're not in each other's back pockets even in other dimensions." The others nod.

"Josette, are you going out to Ellis's?"

"Yes, I'd planned on putting the announcement on the server next week, going out after midterms when I'm taking in the last of the students belongings back, picking up the supplies for the school, and dropping off the recycling. I ordered 25 knitting machines for the hats, gloves, scarves, and mittens and doubled the yarn orders, but those won't be coming in until the end of the year. Not that I don't have a shitload and a half of yarn yet."

"Started new books for your quilts yet?" Professor Parker asks with a smirk.

"Don't give the evil imp in my head any ideas."

"Your other books?"

"I have one coming out midterms."

"Are you going to start printing them here?"

"I was planning on putting sample chapters of the books on the server, if there was any interest I'd start a run."

"If there's any interest she says." Frances rolls her eyes.

"When are you going to start a book. . .hmmm?"

"Half past never." She says firmly, the other two laughing.

Professor Parker looks at Josette, of the three of them he's the one who had her as a student in high school so he's got a little more influence over her. "There's a reason why we've been getting so many students." he says quietly.

"Yes," Josette says as quietly. "But it's not my place to say. Dad's going to be making the announcement soon."

"Who knows?"

"Me, Mom, Dad, President Bartlett, and the others. On the eighth planet Drs. Stark, McNider, and Cross. Nobody else."

"Are we going to be getting. . ."

"As many students every year? No, it will start leveling out in a few years."

"Is there anything new coming out at Ellis's?" Frances asks.

"Yes, which is why I'm going." Amanda sniggers. "That week is going to be asshole to elbow with the offworld harvests and Christmas. I'll make a special day trip out there." The others nod. "If there's any other places you or the others want to visit we'll decide then."

Back at the dorm she joins with her other selves that had been taking classes or delivering the last of the supplies, looking over as the switching station buzzes and Doc, Charles, and Mara walk out.

"Is this it for the incoming students?"

"Yeah, it's a bitch going back and forth every day but this keeps the incoming student number down so the school isn't completely overwhelmed. It's a holdover from Earth."

"The new students start classes after the first of the year?"

"Yes, this allows them to get settled in the school, learn where everything is here and in town, talk to their advisors. . .especially if they're dual enrolled, read through their books, and work ahead on some stuff. The older kids take the younger ones under their wings and they already have study groups set up before the first day of classes." Mara nods in satisfaction.

"Josette, was there anything from Ellis and the other suppliers?" Pat asks, looking around the door from Headquarters.

"At least a hundred shipping containers, I'm bringing it out tomorrow since it's for us, the school, the stores, Edinborough, and Assyrian." Pat nods in satisfaction. "And midterms we're making a special trip out to Ellis's since he's going to be getting in new stuff, I was going to put up the announcement next week. It's going to be asshole to elbow that week with midterms, Christmas, and two offworld harvests. If there's anyplace else we want to visit, we can talk about it before we go." Pat nods in satisfaction. "Get your knitting machines?"

"Yes, but they're staying in a container until the boys finish the tables."

"They're done, we've just got the sealant drying right now."

"I'll bring everything out next week after our tests then."

A couple weeks later Doc, Richard, and Mara stand beside Josette's chamber as the ship approaches a planet. Probes go down and pictures of plants fill the screens. The ship settles on water and a map of the planet starts going up on a screen as the lid hisses open and Josette sits up.

"It will take a few hours for the map to be complete."

"Are you starting harvesting today?"

"Tomorrow, that gives everybody time to get supplies out and set up."

"Do you only have one area being picked?"

"No, we have at least two areas being worked on with three groups per area. Each room has a list of food that will go in it so people know where to put it."

An hour later on Haven David opens the tesseract, people having their PADDS scanned as they walk out, heading different directions. Doc, Mara, and Richard look around as Josette brings out the containers, they're grabbed by the people waiting on them and moved different directions.

Drying tables are being set up up and down the street and are being filled, the screens being put down almost as soon as they're lifted.

"What happens when the offworld harvests. ..?"

"Come in early that it's still winter? Josette takes the drying tables to the first planet until anything set outside dries instead of freezes. It usually takes about three harvests."

"Do the kids always volunteer?"

"Usually when they're in high school or taking university classes, this way they can put the money away towards their future homes or apartments. The kids are planning on buying apartments in town for work but also planning on land where they can grow crops. It will be a few years before they can start growing crops. By then they plan on having a house up on the land since at least one of them will be out there weekly. . .if not daily."

"Have any of the others done that?"

"Yes, usually after they've been working for a while and are 'retiring'." Susan does the finger quotes. "The kids are starting out differently in that they're not going to either the fourth, eighth, or 9th planets for internships at Stark, Wayne, or either Eureka. Once Thomas planned on bringing out the businesses, they planned on doing their internships here and started saving money for their apartments instead of living in intern housing for three years."

"Do your banks have . . ."

"monthly payments? No, as long as anything is paid towards the loan it's good. When people were first starting out they split their pay three or four ways, part going into a savings, part going to pay down the cost of their homes and coming to Haven, some going towards future land and supplies, and some going to pay down the items they purchased at the stores on credit. You can either pay cash or credit at the stores, the accounts were all set up that way from when the new settlers started coming up and hadn't started working yet. Every dollar they put away now is less money they'll be repaying when they buy the land and start building the house. I know they hope to have one good sized harvest to sell before they start construction."

"What's the interest rate?"

"Five percent, but it's offset by no interest being paid on charges at the stores. And the interest goes in a fund for the planet. And that's a one time event, not every month like you would a regular mortgage on Earth" The three nod as everything is delivered and Josette comes through the tesseract.

"Was it everything Josette and the others said?"

"Oh yes." Mara chuckles, sending a huge file to the others. "Probe data that was used as a map to every growing area, pictures of the growing areas. . ." A whistle from Matthew when he sees them. "Pictures of the rooms being filled with containers, a total of how much food was in each room, and pictures of everything being brought out and moved to either the drying tables or the big buildings so it could be canned.

"Is that the kids?"

"Yes, Susan says they usually volunteer while taking high school or university classes to save money for apartments. The kids would normally be heading to Stark, Wayne, or GD for internships after they graduate and live in intern housing for three years before getting permanent housing. When Thomas announced he was bringing out Wayne, Dayton, and DI they decided they'd get their internships in there. There's not any intern housing there so they're putting part of the money they get for the harvests towards apartments and plan on buying land to plant crops sometime in the future."

"Not the first ones, some of the older kids have 'retired' from their jobs and brought land." Pat says from the door of Headquarters. "Good. Josette, I need you to bring some stuff out for me."

"I figured you'd be running low on stuff." She follows her into Headquarters to her workrooms and starts bringing out rolls of fabric and other supplies from the shipping containers. Looking at her workrooms she brings out stuff from her own containers, replacing stuff that's nearly empty. Measuring the leftovers she tags them and puts them with the remnants and other fabric before walking downstairs.

"Get your supplies taken care of?"

"Yeah, I knew I was running low on some stuff." Josette puts the large rolls on the ship. Richard is looking for her. "A lot of the stuff I was running low on comes on huge cardboard rolls, I just moved them to the ships."

"No sliding them down the stairs?" David asks as he walks through.

"Not this time."

The others look at them. "The first time Josette had to replace a roll she slid it down the stairs and propped it up against the wall by the recycling containers."

"I didn't have the ships back then to move the recycling to. I hadn't gone offdimension yet or even started picking stuff up."

"You still drop the cardboard down the laundry chute though."

Doc sighs as Pat chortles. "The recycling bins would get full every other week on the second floor and I wasn't going to carry them down two flights of stairs."

"Even after being able to put stuff in subspace and we had an elevator?"

"Still had to go down to the basement anyway." Josette shrugs. "And manage to find space for everything in the container. As it was a few times we had to call maintenance and have it emptied before the break." Josette looks at her family. "Who did I inherit the winning things from?"

Everybody sniggers and looks at Charles. "You too?"

"It started when we went out to Vegas one day, I played a couple machines and hit. I realized I could 'feel' which machines were going to hit. . ."

"They almost screamed at you?" Mara asks with a chuckle.

"Yes, and once the casino figured out I wasn't cheating we went out multiple times over the years. But the winning thing didn't get bad until I went to my first expo."

Pat sighs. "The door prizes?"

"Yes, and for every damn new expo I attended I won the doorprize. And a few times the ones I'd been attending for a few years." Josette checks the server and finds a couple pictures of everything in the second floor hallway she puts on the screen. "If Alan wasn't home from his residency I took both the laundry carts to the office and we bucket brigaded everything down the stairs, then we had to carry them up the stairs. Once I figured out how to do it it was just find the flag in my mailbox, go to the office, get the pile pointed at, and pop everything in subspace."

Alan chuckles. "I still remember the look on Joyce's face when I came in and got the boxes that one day. Of course that was a Monday and she still had the boxes from Saturday in her office too."

"About as bad when Buckaroo sent stuff to us, when you got birthday presents from everybody who hadn't made the party, or when we were pregnant and everybody in Albatross sent stuff."

"Agatha and her packages." Josette says. The others nod.

"Breaks when we were gone and had totes full of mail."

"Or when we had a storm and didn't have mail delivery for a week."

The others look at them. "We got our mail directly from a sorting center, when a storm was coming in they'd hold the mail for us until we could start digging out."

"One year we had five totes when we came back, but that was with nearly three weeks worth of papers. . .including all the 'buy this' Christmas crap." Josette snorts.

"And you'd won the doorprizes so the room in the basement was full of packages for you. The second floor hallway was just as full when you went to expos." David chortles suddenly. "The Boston expo."

"Oh god, that and the Vegas expo." The others look at her. "Vegas we had some absolute twit who didn't like the idea of sharing an elevator with the expo attendees one year and demanded that we be removed from the hotel. Since we weren't doing anything and the expo made a shitload of money for the hotel they were told no. They went to the police and were told the same thing . . .no! We weren't doing anything illegal."

"And I take it they didn't wike that?" Amber rolls her eyes.

"Ohhhhh no. The next day the police were back conducting raids on various rooms because they'd dropped a dime saying that the vendors weren't really selling yarn." Charles chortles as the others either laugh or roll their eyes. "The night before I'd been contacted by the police along with the person running the expo. The police asked if I owned a store and I said no I was a librarian in Boston and knit for pleasure but Boston was shut down thanks to the morons at the electric company who refused to come out and start working on the lines. . .using generators kept them from working on the lines." Stares of disbelief and rolling eyes.

"Their own stupidity kept them from working on the lines." David snorts. "None of the other companies had problems with their customers using generators. The governor finally had the head of the company arrested for causing a hazard to people's health and safety. That was after a couple weeks of not having power?" The others nod. "Power was out nearly a month, the schools around us went over nearly two weeks. Since the flu was going around the same time they used that time to thoroughly clean the schools."

"Anyway, years later we figured that one of the whiners must have complained about the expo not being open to the public but since I'm not a vendor and there were one day passes they could buy. . ."

"Whining about how they weren't getting their own way."

Josette nods. "After the police found nothing but yarn and other crafting supplies in the rooms they were asked to leave the hotel because they were causing trouble."

"And they didn't go quietly." Richard sighs.

"Yup. I'd left the hotel after the expo to go to the one we usually stay at in Vegas to play with the ten dollars of my own money I allow myself to gamble with these trips."

"The rest of your gambling money is comps the casino had given you." Susan says dryly.

"And eat my body weight at the buffets .. .twice." Everybody laughs. "Anyway back at the hotel I found everybody milling around outside. . . one of them had called in a bomb threat but didn't realize the entire hotel would be evacuated."

"Only the wrong sort of people would be asked to leave so they'd have it to themselves?" Alice snorts, rolling her eyes.

"Exactly."

"So what were they doing?" Andrew asks. "I've seen everybody at the Albatross Nest in the middle of something, they'd ignore a fire unless it was going to burn what they were working on. Then they'd slap the fire out, open the door a crack to air it out, and go back to work."

"I said it was Elvis, Godzilla, and the president doing the macarena in the elevator. Anyway it turned out they were high-priced call girls, they were afraid somebody might see all the people on the elevators coming to their rooms and recognize them."

"Isn't prostitution legal in Nevada?" Matthew sighs.

"Only in certain areas, not the hotels. That's why all the brothels are outside Vegas." Pat says, rolling her eyes. "Were you able to get back in?"

"No, so I spent the rest of the night sleeping in the truck. The next morning since we were going to lose a day of the expo it was canceled. Non-vendors were able to go to their rooms with a hotel escort and pack up, I got in line, had the GD affiliate pick up the truck and headed home. Meanwhile some twit with the hotel was trying to give the expo organizers hell for inciting the other people."

"How? by existing?" Pat asks dryly.

"Yeah, the organizers opened up on the moron with both barrels and said they were guaranteed those floors and the concourse without any interference. By the time they were done talking about how had a contract and penalty clauses that they could enforce with having to cancel the expo early he was whimpering and saying they'd sue the other people. The hotel management thanked them for not hurting the moron." Rolled eyes.

"Was that the same guy who caused problems later by yanking that week from the expo?"

"No, but he must have gone to the same school of what not to do in hospitality management." Josette snorts.

"And Boston?"

Josette sniggers. "One year somebody heard people at the expo talk about hemp, put two and two together and got seventeen and a half." James laughs despite himself. "But the expo ended before they could do anything. The next year they saw they were back and called in a tip. Police cars started rushing in and we were all escorted into a meeting room. I called David to say something had happened at the knitting expo and I wouldn't be home that night, somebody with a clue realized what was going on. While we might have had hemp our drug of choice was yarn." Mary rolls her eyes and counts to ten trying not to laugh. "I asked Sue if I could borrow her couch for a few hours because I'm too cheap to spend a couple hundred dollars on a room I'd only get a few hours use even though I'd just spent that much money a couple weeks ago for supplies for a quilt for my last class from Assyrian. A couple days later it was all in the paper--my picture with Drug bust turns out to be a real bust as the headline."

"And if Sue hadn't been there?" Doc asks dryly.

"Slept in the truck again. One thing about being short I can fit in seats better than the others. . .though even my back was hurting after the senior trips. I'd been heading to the truck to drive home when the police arrived, by the time everybody was allowed out of the meeting room it was nearly three in the morning."

"What not to do school of hospitality management?"

"The hotel in Vegas had recently been renovated, the expo had to take a week in June and nobody was happy. We didn't have the concourse, we weren't able to get the rooms all in one area, not everybody was able to make it then, and the hotel had to drastically slash their rates to get the expo to take that week." Pat sighs and nods. "Then some nitwit yanked the regular week out from under the expo, he'd been contacted by a tv show that wanted to do a live week of shows then and he figured they didn't need to be bothered by knitters."

"Get his ass kicked?"

"Yep, the expo sued and since the hotel had breached the contract they had to pay. That week arrives and surprise, surprise . . .the hotel that is usually packed is empty." Charles sniggers. "And to top it off, the tv show bailed. .. the week of live shows canceled. His boss asked him about the contract . . ."

"Which he hadn't bothered to get?" Richard asks dryly. Josette nods as the others laugh or sigh.

"Yep. He yelped that the expo had canceled, they could pay a penalty only to be told that they had a valid contract, the hotel had breached the contract by giving their week away, and they had to pay the expo money. And the hotel had lost it's most profitable week, the hotel made nearly a half-million in profits thanks to the expo. He was . . .'but they can still take June.' Reminded that this is how this had all started and they didn't want June, he whined that 'are you sure they won't take June'? The expo started looking for another venue, dumbass sued to force them to stay at the hotel and take the week in June. He got his ass kicked up around her ears for that stunt." The others roll their eyes.

"Did you keep the hotel?"

"No, and we got a few members coming back once we moved because they'd had problems with the old hotel. The first year they'd just renovated so management was scurrying around fixing stuff. . ."

"That should have already been fixed? Before they reopened if somebody had done their job." Amber snorts.

"Yes, the first room I had didn't have any water, the second didn't have any electricity. . .the manager put me up in a suite for all the problems and I gave the extra beds to others who didn't have rooms. Which helped out since I had to pay for my own hotel room there instead of staying in the room GD kept there." The others make ooh la la gestures and Pat chuckles.

Josette waves a hand the next day, containers of mail appearing in the living room. "Granda's talking about putting up a tv or radio station at the school. Or rather the government is talking about the school putting up a tv or radio station at the school."

David just looks at her. "That's the same look Principal Madison had at that news."

"Universities have tv and radio stations, usually manned by the students in those programs."

"And are generally PBS."

"They're going to talk about it over the next couple of years."

"Why?"

"Somebody in the government has a wild hair up their ass. They drooped when they found out our school doesn't actually run either station but that was only a momentary setback. Somebody with a brain will figure out what they're doing and tell them to knock it off." Sighs and nods from the others.

"They do need a tv station out there for PBS." Alexander says slowly. "The nearest satellite station that carries those channels is a good fifty miles away."

"I think that's one of the reasons they're talking about a station. Though the cynic in me is also thinking somebody's thinking a cushy job with money coming rolling in from pledge breaks then whining when they realize they're just passing the programs on and the money doesn't go to them." Signs but nods.

"I can see regular tv or radio stations the school owns going in myself." The others nod. Josette adds that to the list of possible things to go in around the school and sends it off to Calvin.

"He's going to have a talk when you go in a couple days to get the mail."

"Probably."

Jane snickers as Josette comes into the office. Maria starts humming taps as they both point at the closed door. "Myeh." Josette waves a hand and brings out containers. "More hats, scarves, mittens, and gloves, I figured you'd need them."

"Thank you Josette, it's beginning to turn cool and our supplies took a hit even with the students making a trip to Burlington's coat factory." The door to Calvin's office opens and he gives her the not amused look as he waves her in. Unfortunately she's not the least bit bothered by the look.

"We all talked about what could go up around the school a few months ago when I found out you were buying more land. And you can't tell me somebody didn't think about pledges when they wanted a tv station at the school."

"No, I thought of it myself." he says as she settles in midair. "Are the others still on Haven?"

"Yep, they had their first taste of an offworld harvest a couple days ago and figure on staying until the Lights Festival. Next year we'll start going out here and there."

"Books?"

"I got a meeting with Madison and Jessica later today, I'm here for a couple weeks since they got me passes at a couple book fairs. A couple expos, and visit some stores."

"Last of the students belongings?" Jane asks from the door.

"Already announced that since midterms and Christmas break are so close they'll be bringing it back themselves. And to tell whoever is picking them up so they have the room. Those who are staying with friends or host families I'll drop it off in the office when we arrive."

"Thank you Josette."

Josette returns to Haven nearly three weeks later her personal time. Boxes are sent to various rooms as she looks at the time and dials herself a meal from the replicator.

"Josette, we're going to have to make barbecue next year." Alan says, coming out of a room.

"Yeah, I was checking the stock last night and planned on saying something at lunch. We can start the vat meat growing this weekend. And the spices."

Alan nods. "We need to take care of the herbs anyway."

"Yeah, they're gone to seed."

Richard follows them into a room. "This is the fishtank."

"Yep, this was our first aquaponics unit, this and the fishtank in the administration building. They're both used for herbs." Richard looks at the clipboard by the door that has a list of herbs they usually grow in rotation. A different sheet is brought out and they start seed trays.

"Does everybody grow herbs?" Mary asks as she comes in with David.

"Oh yes, every kitchen has at least one pot of herbs on the windowsill. More if you have the room. One of the greenhouses in town is just for herbs."

"The farms outside town?"

"Have herb gardens. And either dry the herbs on tables or put them up in bunches and dry them that way." Mary nods, remembering kitchens with bundles of herbs drying. Josette looks at David. "Remind me next year to put out a message about herbs when we have the smokehouse going? I know some people have the small smokers in their homes." David nods and writes that down on his PADD. "Are the offworld strawberries coming in yet?"

"The very early ones. Probably two more weeks." Richard looks at them. "A couple years ago they planted another variety of strawberries on the seventh planet. With the different growing seasons on the planets something fresh is coming in all the time."

"We need to expand the u-pick farms again." David counts back how long it's been, sighs, and nods. "They all have the room to plant more crops. We made sure of it when we laid them out."

"Growing commercially on the other planets delayed having to expand them." David nods. "As well as giving us fresh fruit and vegetables when we're not producing. Beyond the growing buildings."

"Josette, did you take in the cotton and pulp trees?" Mary looks from Principal Madison in the doorway to Josette and back.

"Yes, the last of the orders for the towels are due by the Lights Festival. The paper factory is busy producing toilet paper, paper towels, napkins, and cardboard boxes for the pizza parlors. If they run low before they're done they can replicate or I'll break into the stores on the ships."

"Josette grew cotton offworld this summer for the towel factory and harvested scrub trees for the paper factory, we've got several planetoids covered with woods and for every tree harvested we plant another. Next year she'll be repeating this step when the charmin style toilet paper is made." Alan tells Mary.

"Do you have many supplies on the ships?"

"Tons, there's buildings full of the little boxes full of stuff. And that's after turning a lot of it into energy or raw materials. Do I need to bring out more paper?"

"Yes, I was going to ask you about that after we get back from Christmas."

Mary looks at Alan again. "We take the students back at the end of the semester to pick up supplies and spend time with their family. . .or host family. We also bring them back for Christmas, with the time difference we can be in Granda's world four to six weeks and be back an hour later on Haven. This year it's going to be after the school's midterms. Last year with the time difference we took them in twice, thankfully the second time was close enough to when the graduating students and returning employees went home that we didn't have to make a second trip. Josette, the student's belongings?"

"Already made the announcement that they're to bring them back themselves for Christmas after letting their family know they're bringing them back. Those students visiting friends or host families I'll take their containers to the office."

Alan chuckles. "During the first semester their senior year students start packing up their belongings, starting with old books and seasonal clothes. Once they got their names and an address to send them to Josette takes them to the other school where their family, friends, or others are contacted to come get them or they're stored until the students graduate. Their floor monitors will talk to them about it over the year, *they'll* be doing the same thing when their contracts are up. Midterms the third semester is the absolute last trip Josette makes out with belongings, anything left over they'll have to take it back on the ship with them. Most students only have a couple bags on the trip back, one of clothes and one with textbooks from their last semester."

"That is decent, I can imagine trying to get everything back otherwise."

"Oh yes, and Dad doesn't allow dorm refrigerators, tvs, microwaves, or pets like our school did back on Earth."

The next day after returning to Haven and moving food via subspace Josette checks the list of supplies that she needs to bring out, popping boxes in subspace before flying back to Town. Looking at the mill she finds people shredding paper to start soaking and heads to the glassblowers, the recycled glass had been piling up again.

"Thank you Josette." One of the workers calls through the slightly open door as he hears the glass shattering. "We were going to tell you after midterms that the glass needed to be handled."

"I figured it had to be piling up."

Back at the dorm David fills the last container with the glass, taking it up to Josette's glassblowing area in the studio and putting it in the container. The recyclable paper had already gone up to her papermaking area and the rest of the recycling had been put in crystals.

"That everything for a while?" James asks as Susan cleans the recycling containers.

"Until next year. We usually do this batch at the end of the year but things were piling up early."

"How often do you fill the containers?"

"Usually three times a year, we did it more last year when we were emptying containers. And the room will be just as full again thanks to getting in supplies. Let alone Josette's books."

"Glass." David says at lunch, pointing his fork at Josette.

"I took care of the pile in town and I'll work on mine over the next couple days since you moved it for me. They were shredding paper at the mill when I looked earlier, the pulp should be ready to after the first of the year. I'm bringing more of the new paper and any other supplies we're picking up in Granda's world after midterms."

/How are we handling mail after the schools close?/ Anna asks.

/The office will still be open to handle everything they have around them, I can run in every week to pick up mail./ Josette says. She swears, holds her head, grabs her PADD, and starts typing for several minutes before putting it back on her belt.

"Get jumped by a bunny?"

"Yes, and it's looking to be a multiple book series again." Her loving family sniggers at her hangdog expression.

A couple of weeks later Doc blinks as he finds Josette sitting on the couch typing on a laptop. He knows she and the others just left to go to Calvin's dimension for Christmas. Josette looks up and grins. "Energy duplicate, I generally have a dozen of them out and about every day, more when we're in the middle of harvest."

"I'd wondered how you managed to be in so many places at the same time." He says dryly.

"I kept saying I needed to be in three places at the same time. One day I was." She shrugs and finishes typing something, saving it and closing the screen. "There, outline for the books I got ideas for a couple weeks ago. I'll clean them up and send them off to Madison to be cussed at about when we go out to take back students"

"Why is Calvin making plans for businesses other than the schools?"

Josette sighs. "This is common knowledge in their dimension and Dad plans on making an announcement before Thanksgiving. For whatever reason it is they have periods of time where there are no pregnancies. It's like somebody sees they have enough people and flips a switch. Most often it lasts twenty years, sometimes 25 years, and a handful of times it's been 29 years. They had one in the 1900s, in the late 80s."

"And they're in a period right now?" He asks quietly.

"They're on the very edge of one, by the end of next year there definitely won't be any more births. They've already started to slow down. They're already predicting this will be a long one."

"No longer than 29 years?"

"The children born recently and next year would be too old to have children if it were any longer." He nods. "Granda figures eighteen years to get all the children through school with no new students after thirteen or fourteen. And about twenty years after that we'll be shut down since we're a middle and high school and nobody sees the large class sizes we had been getting for a couple decades. He's expecting a lot of public schools not to reopen with some teachers retiring and a lack of new teachers. Like our school, he'll keep his teachers employed until they can reopen. This gives him plenty of time to work on curriculums and go over the buildings with a fine tooth comb. We'll be doing the same here."

"How long has the school been open?"

"Thirty one years this year. So not quite 50 when we close it up again. Not a bad run."

"The employees?"

"Going back with the last of the students, we figure one group would have been leaving the year before, Granda plans on giving them a year extension since that would leave the other teachers shorthanded without new teachers revolving in. And the students are already familiar with them from the last five years." She grabs her PADD. "Gotta find out about the cooking school. And check the schedule for replacing a lot of the mechanicals over the next couple years. Even with regular maintenance it still wears out."

"Usually at the worse time possible."

A string of mental invective has Josette sniggering. Doc looks at her. "The me upstairs just got latched on by the quilting books bunny. Since she's working on a quilt right now."

The others come back to find James, Josette, and Doc talking over the list of everything that needs to be replaced the next year. Josette waves a hand, boxes being put in various rooms. "Everything quiet?"

"Once the me upstairs stopped cussing about being hit by more quilting book ideas."

She comes down the stairs. "Another 28 books not counting the ones that were left over from the other books, that brings it up to 36. . .and eight more notebooks of quilts." The others snigger as they're flipped off in triplicate. They share a look and nod, that Josette flying off to the ships to bring out some of the fabric from the planet. They'd found the thicker fabric that was used for blankets they'd use for batting. She'd plant a couple more while she was there.

A couple days later David opens the tesseract for everybody who had wanted to go to Ellis's and the other suppliers.

"Spend too much money?" Alan sniggers as David opens the tesseract an hour later.

"Yep, good thing I have all the bonuses from the offworld harvests to pay for everything. Including the massive yarn, fabric, batting, and supplies order I put in while I was out there apart from everything I purchased. Let alone the new quilts."

"Awww, going to have to write more books." Susan purrs. Josette slaps her ass in a 'bite me' gesture that has everybody sniggering. "And yes, the others ordered just as much. Good thing the offworld harvests are only half over, I'm going to see a bunch of them doing it to pay for everything. And to put money in the fund."

"The factories will be opening next year, that will help."

"Yep, there's a difference between working at the store extra shifts to help pay for your latest quilt and 'oh shit, we emptied the fund again?" Michael sniggers this time. He hands over a list. "Raw materials we need."

"Second floor, rooms 2018, 2019, and 2020. I knew we'd be running low on a lot of this stuff by now." She brings up the file of what's in which room and which box and he nods. "Mechanicals?"

"We've got the list of what needs replacing and we'll bring each out as it's needed or in some cases we've got replacements for something else that might be affected by it."

"Has anybody else got the talk about coming out for a while and attending university beyond the classes we took?" Susan asks.

"Oh yeah, I got hints about the school Becka went to in their dimension. We go out I'll go on a tour."

"You're the only one who looks young enough to be a university student." David chortles. Josette rolls her eyes. Pat had overheard them and chuckles. "What do you need replaced?"

"Pretty much most of the mechanicals, they've been maintained over the years but everything came up from Earth. They were inspected and worked on then but it's still old and going to fail. Earlier this year we went through every room and made a list of what needed to be replaced and brought out stuff we hadn't thought about until then, pots pans dishes, lamps pillows. . .stuff like that." Amber nods as she comes through with Susan.

"Hot water heaters? Plural?"

"We've got about fifteen of the industrial heaters in various parts of the dorm?" Alan says.

"Twenty-five. They're checked yearly but eventually the liners will crack and they're going to rust out. We've got leads on them so if they start leaking we can check them and shut them off if necessary."

"On demand hot water heaters?"

"We've looked into them but hated the low flow since it's heating the water as it runs. The ones we have are meant for heavy duty like hospitals, hotels, and laundries." David says absently.

"High hot water use." Matthew says.

"Yes, even though you can't really get hot water at a hotel." Amber sniggers but nods.

"Did we stock up on more Christmas lights?"

"Yes, the order was in. We have eighteen pallets of them, the school has nearly fifty. Both the LED lights and the regular ones."

"You order them?"

"We can get a discount buying in bulk and get a better selection than the ones in the stores." Nods from the others as they come into the living room. "Same with Christmas decorations."

"Most of the ones in the stores are gaudy." Pat sighs. Everybody nods. "We purchased a lot from the glassblowers and whenever we go to a planet we look into glassblowers and other artisans since they're usually nicer."

"And it's nice to support small business." Pat says. Everybody nods.

"Josette, are you making more fudge?"

"Yeah, I planned on it next weekend. I know the supply is getting low. The bakery in town was talking about doing it tonight since this isn't a night they're making bread to raise."

"You mean like the big logs we saw them making in the stores when we went to that island for the conference." Amber says. Josette nods. "I have a setup upstairs where I make several hundred pounds three or four times a year."

"Speaking of bread."

"Planned on it next week too, that and tortillas."

"Crackers?"

"I'll do a few batches at the end of the year, start the list." The others look at them. "We have a bakery upstairs, we can't make the commercial batches of crackers like a factory that specializes in them, but we can use it for smaller batches. The bread factory handles larger batches, but they only make a couple flavors." Nods from the others.

/Oh shit, the bread factory. They'll lose a shift when the school closes./ David sighs.

/It's still eighteen years and it's not their only source of income. They'll handle it./

Charles looks around the fudge making room as Josette brings out supplies.

"Do you have a list of what all is in the dorm?" Josette puts it on the screen next to him as she checks the recipes.

"Why?"

"It's either stuff we brought out that I wanted to make sure would run without problems before it was needed, stuff that we wanted, or stuff that was added to the dorm back on Earth."

"What's this . . .supplier?"

"A few years before we moved to Haven a supplier in Canada was selling his business with the court's blessing to keep his money-grubbing whore soon to be ex-wife from getting her hands on it. He had testicular cancer when he was younger so no kids to pass it along to and the cancer had come back." Charles shakes his head and sighs. "It was by bid, ten thousand dollar deposit as earnest money, a credit check, and why you wanted it. I think I got it because I talked about how it could be used on Haven, most of the others were like 'I can sell this, this, this, that, that, that. . ." Pat sighs but nods since she'd come in the room behind Charles. "His wife was left without a dime, own damn fault for cheating on him and went on to the next sugar-daddy, or tried anyway but she was getting old and her looks were failing. He had about five buildings that I got lock, stock, and barrel. Including machinery to make fabric since he made and painted his own. It's not big enough for major batches but it's good for small uses."

A couple months later the last crops start coming in and Josette delivers the last of the canning jars to the kitchens. Doc and Richard join Josette, Alexander, and Michael in the switching station to head to Archimedes.

"Wait for it." Dr. Stark says with a smirk as Josette pauses her typing, lifting her head to look at the boys. Doc and Richard stare at the two of them, then the boys as Alexander holds up his hand.

"Done?"

"Yes." Alexander gets up. . .walking a few steps towards the table and suddenly dropping to his knees, sliding on the floor with his arms going over his head in a victory sign as he laughs maniacally.

"Yes. . .It is over."

A few seconds later Michael hands his PADD over to the proctor and joins Alexander on the floor, laying on his back and moving around in a circle. Sniggering Josette goes back to her tests.

"Alexander and Michael have been going for a doctorate in Art History from Oxford, only taking four classes a year it took nine years." Dr. Cross says at their 'what is going on and you'd better tell me now' looks.

"And they just finished their last tests." Richard chuckles. No wonder Josette had smirked when she suggested the pair come with them to Archimedes for their tests.

"You realize this means Granda's going to be talking to you about starting another degree. Or Dr. Blake?" Josette smirks as she finishes her last test. Holding up her hand she hands over her PADD as the boys moan. Dr. Stark smirks behind his mug of coffee.

"Josette, how many degrees do you have finished?"

"Only nine since the last graduation, are you holding one next year?"

"Yes, since the boys finished their degrees." She walks over their theatrics on the way to the bathroom. On the way back she walks on them, but anybody who looks carefully would see she's actually hovering a quarter inch over the boys.

"Are you finishing up any multiple degree curriculum?" Dr. Cross asks as she settles in her usual seat.

"Two, the shipwrecks degree from the Naval Academy and the degree on the Green Hornet from Montague. I'm two years into the Green Hornet and nine classes into the shipwrecks."

"Is that all the multiple degree sets, not counting the mega ones."

"No, I got two more three degree sets from Montague I got two of them in, I can start them when I'm done with the others."

"How are you at Princeton?"

"Just finished my second year."

Dr. Cross clicks his tongue. "Laying down on the job aren't you? You finished two degrees from Harvard in two years."

"They pissed me off and I had to show them what a real student looks like." Doc and Richard look at her while the boys snigger. "Granda talked me into applying to the ivy league schools. I was accepted to all of them but Harvard, yet a few months later I had somebody come to one of my book tour stops trying to get me to make a donation to them. Of course I was all 'I'm good enough to give you money but not good enough to go to your school?'. People started investigating and found out that deserving students were being turned away because they either needed financial assistance or didn't have the 'right' name to get the school noticed while less deserving students whose parents could grease palms got in. And usually flunked out their freshman year, even with being on academic probation."

"And if you'd mentioned you were my granddaughter you'd have been right in." Doc sighs.

"Yup, the bad publicity meant a lot of people lost their cushy positions. A couple years ago somebody went looking for my grades and realized I'd never been accepted to the school, they thought I'd been welcomed in with open arms."

"More likely were looking for a way to say 'see, I told you she wasn't the type of student we wanted'." Richard sighs. "Art history from Oxford?"

"The others said it would be a good draw for the shows and they can get the degrees recognized in their dimensions. We all had art history degrees from Assyrian or our original school but it didn't have oomph that Oxford had. We tried telling everybody we didn't have the brains for Oxford." Alexander says.

Snorts in unison from the three doctors and looks from Richard and Doc. "Yeah, that was pretty much everybody else's reaction to that bs." Josette says. "My gift gives me an edge, that's all. Just like your gift gives you an edge in the art department." Nods from everybody in earshot. "You guys all kept up with me in making the presidents list more than once on Earth."

"Oh god those luncheons were awful." Michael moans. "The school president giving the 'you're the best and brightest of the school' speech, the same speech he'd give the sports teams the night before. . .because they were the real stars of the school. The servers wondering why anybody would want to get perfect grades in all their classes. . .wasn't that like hard?" Richard sniggers despite himself. It had taken years and talking to people before he could at least attempt to start showing emotions again. As it was, he only shows emotions around the others and the kids. "Assyrian was the only school that served decent food, not artfully decorated plates as Josette complained more than once. Even if that would be a normal meal anywhere else."

"And after the meal at Assyrian we took the gift certificates they gave us at the award lunch and went to the bookstore to stock up on stuff since it was marked down to get in new merchandise."

Josette pulls up a couple of files on her PADD she sends to the boys. "Here some degrees you guys will enjoy more than those damn boring ass art history degrees. Yes, they're from still from Oxford. But they're lit degrees. Amanda and Professor Fletcher have been talking about them and I'm signing up for them when I finish a degree."

Josette leans around Professor Druid at dinner when they come back from Archimedes.

"Got a letter from Becka, she and Idina had little girls, Alexander and George had boys."

"Oh really," she purrs and laughs. "What happened to 'get away from me with those looks, go knock each other up'?"

"She realized she was turning 40 the next year and was feeling old. She's turning 42, the kids are turning two. They've had a couple more power outages on earth as dumbasses try to get their own way on everything." Principal Madison and President Bartlett sigh and nod. "They're looking at homeschooling the younger ones, in addition to Ray's son there's a boy a year older from the other people on Mars. Becka says Danita's grumbling, Ray finally talked her into getting a masters and she was two classes from finishing it when the power went out this last time."

"Damn it not now. I was so fucking close to finishing the damn thing?" Professor Eppes asks with a smirk.

"Exactly. Ray was not happy since he was that close to getting Danita and Gabrielle finished with their masters. He made a joke about them doing it deliberately but Danita said if she'd done that, she'd have done it before she started the damn thing." Nods and laughter from everybody around them.

"Did the boys celebrate finishing the doctorate?" President Bartlett asks. Josette smirks and he chuckles. "I reminded them that this meant they were fair game for Granda and Dr. Blake. And passed along the degrees Amanda and Professor Fletcher are looking at."

"Meeting tomorrow night after dinner."

"Thank you everybody for coming, I know some of you had to delay your classes so I'll make this brief." Principal Madison looks at everybody in the auditorium. "Earth is entering a zero-population period, the end of next year at the latest. And it's going to be a long one. The experts are projecting another 29 years."

"Shit." Everybody that came up from with the school or the orphans looks at the others. "Earth periodically enters times where there are no pregnancies, nobody knows why it happens it just does. They last at least twenty years, some twenty-five, and a handful of times twenty-nine years. It happened last in the 1900s, in the late 80s. Josette likens it to somebody saying 'okay, we got enough people' and flipping a cosmic switch."

"Others have said the same thing." Somebody says from the seats. "Nobody knows why it happens despite all the scientists spouting theories."

"And the crackpots." Somebody else snorts. "How long?"

"We're expecting no new students in thirteen to fourteen years with the school closing a few years after that. With the school closed for at least twenty years after that."

"Staffing?"

"Dad's keeping everybody employed though they'll be switching to other areas. We're also seeing some public schools not reopening with older teachers retiring, especially if there's no young teachers coming out of university to replace them." The teachers nod.

"Is all the unemployment going to affect the economy?" President Bartlett asks.

"No, we've experienced this before and as schools close teachers will find other employment. Was yours affected?"

"Yes, there was a good bit of unemployment when the American schools closed. Not as bad as the great depression or even the recessions but for a while it was rough as people were competing for jobs. With teachers leaving as their grade empties it should be easier."

"What about the colony dimension and city-ship?"

"They don't think no births on Earth will affect the colony dimension, but it's going to be a few years before people are settled enough to start having children." Nods from everybody. "It was a few years on Haven before we started having children and we basically moved everything overnight. As for the city-ship there's still going to be workers to build it, by the time they find a world and start making colony plans Earth will be having children again."

"They'd need a good influx of supplies. . .and that means money. And a way to make more of what they need. That was the problem with our Mars colony, even if big business hadn't fucked around and put it in a spot they knew had a very good chance of getting hit by space debris, there was nothing there that would make money for the colony or big business. Even if they didn't want to believe it."

"I can see the city-ship mining asteroids first."

"There's a good number of mining colonies in science fiction."

"We did a good bit of asteroid mining in the beginning on the seventh planet and selling it to Earth."

The next morning Josette, Doc, Charles, and Matthew head off to the other planets to pick up their recycling. Some of it is moved to other planets and Doc looks at her.

"Plastic for the buildings. There's files on the server for kit homes if you don't want to design your own." They look everything over on the way back.

"Reminds me of the kit homes you saw in the old sears-roebuck catalogs." Pat says, looking at the files when they return. Josette is putting the rest of the school's recycling on the ship while David is taking care of the garbage.

"There's builders that still specialize in them." Anna says, walking through with a flatbed cart of boxes. "We got their drawings and plans as part of the supplies when we first moved to Haven. We've added to them over the years, especially with homes coming up from Earth being added onto."

"Are the finals done?" Amber helps her start putting food away in the first floor kitchens.

"Yes, the teachers will be busy the rest of the week putting grades in the system while the graduating students are doing laundry and packing up the last of their belongings. Eighth day is Thanksgiving and ninth day we'll be heading back to Earth."

"Did Josette e-mail Madison the book outlines?" Alexander asks, coming through with another cart.

"This morning before everybody headed off."

"Is this from yesterday?"

"Yep, once it was cooled we started moving everything so we have room for everything we're canning today to cool."

"How long will you be canning?"

"Should be three more days, this is the last of the late harvest. Next week we'll till the plants under for the winter."

"Are the cisterns empty?"

"Yes, we started them draining last week. We'll clean them next week and cover them for the winter. Start seedlings upstairs, start working on the Lights Festival decorations, and put away the offworld harvests when Josette brings them out. But after next week it will be quiet until spring planting."

"You are evil!" Madison says a few days after Thanksgiving Earth time. Josette smirks as she settles in the chair in her office. "Sales on your new book." She slides over papers. Josette flips her a thumb drive. "Sample chapters, I did a lot of writing nights after the harvests."

"Quilting books?" She asks as she copies the files.

"Second set of two of the new eighteen next year my year, and I got jumped with more." Madison laughs at her hangdog expression. She tosses her another thumbdrive as she gets that one back. "A couple of short stories. . .be warned. One is very. . .weird and the other. . .is for adults only. I know your friend was complaining about not having any good smut for her line."

Madison calls her friend and e-mails her a copy of the file, she's busy reading it and blushing bright red. Later that night she gets very happy with her toys, looking up when her friend walks into the bedroom, plucking the dildo from her vagina and replacing it with her dick.

"I'm going to make you scream." she says as they kiss.

"About damn time you two got together." Jessica says the next morning when Madison and Joanne walk into the office. Looking around Joanne kisses her full on the lips. "You're in the middle tonight."

"I'm still sore from last night." Madison whines.

"We'll be gentle." they smirk. "Talk to your client and see if she has any other stories for me." She walks off swaggering and Madison moans. She's going to be soooo fucked tonight.

"Yep." Jessica smirks, goosing the other woman before she walks off.

Madison winces as she sits down, even with soaking she is sore from last night and if she's not pregnant she will be tonight. Turning on her computer she sends Josette an e-mail, getting a sniggering one back a couple hours later and a massive attachment. Reading she moans and sends it to Joanne.

A couple days later Josette chuckles and waves Madison to a overstuffed seat, Joanne and Jessica taking seats on the couch. "Been there, felt that."

"Yes, with the eight of you I'm sure you have. Joanne Parker, this is Josette Takahawa. Do you have any more in the fucking fairy tales universe? You left that story rather wide open."

"Three books in the need to be beta'd stage, one I'm currently writing, and outlines for a set of tie-ins about the 'evil' scientist. How and why he's doing this. A couple prequels. . .one with the two girls and one with the boy. Possible books about some of the others in the new kingdom." All three women nod in satisfaction. "I can see the interest in that and I'll add a section after the story saying there's more books coming out." Joanne makes a note on the notepad in front of her as they talk.

David opens the tesseracts and the students and employees walk through, students heading to the auditorium to have their bags checked as Josette starts delivering containers and joins the others in the dorm a couple hours later.

"Everything for Haven delivered?"

"Yep, I'll drop off the rest when I take out the offworld harvests. Decorations?"

"Brought out and moved to various rooms so we can start putting them up."

The lights and decorations go up over the next few days, the others seeing the buildings at the school and in town being similarly decorated. It's beginning to turn colder and they see wagons being loaded up with the fake wood to be delivered to various buildings.

"They're getting ready for winter."

"The furnace was running this morning when I got up and they had to close the windows a couple days ago."

Back at the dorm Josette brings out a roll of the thick fabric, bring out complimentary colors for the top, back, and binding and cutting it out before it goes on racks.

"Is that going in the books?" Alexander asks from the door.

"No, the fabrics can't be replicated commercially."

"Nice and thick." He touches the fabric.

"It was used in blankets, I'm using it as batting." He nods as the fabric is put on the table before they walk downstairs.

The next couple of weeks fly by and the others come out for the Lights Festival. Hannah bites her hand to keep from laughing when she hears about the new quilts and Bronwen cackles. Josette gives them the hairy eyeball, making them laugh harder.

"Madison says the new book is selling well. Joanne says the fairy tale short story is going in the next short story collection that's going to the printer in a couple weeks. There's going to be a small blurb in the authors section so they're expecting some more interest in your other books." Josette sighs and looks up at the ceiling, the others chuckling.

"Did you finally get everything unpacked?"

"Yes and the totes are in their usual room."

"Order from Ellis's?"

"Everything should be in when I go in for midterms. If not when we take in the students." The door to Headquarters opens and Josette's waved inside.

"Josette, do you have any of the full-grown buildings copied?"

"Yes and the ships all say that being in 'limbo' won't bother them. I'd been thinking of bringing one out next year instead of planting one, we'd need to dome it for a couple years even with the furnaces but we know transplanted crops need a little extra protection." Doc nods. "Now, coffee and oranges?"

"Planted last year, they should be producing next year but won't be enough to pick until year after next." He nods in satisfaction and Josette heads off. The others look at her. "Talking about bringing out a building next year and the new oranges and coffee I planted on the first planet and offworld."

"Didn't I hear something about Doc planting on the 10th planet?"

"Yes, they've been talking about it. Either doming the orchard or planting in the tropics."

"We could do the same thing here." David snorts.

"I've been thinking about it, The reason why we didn't start planting them on Haven was because we didn't have anybody in that area even though it's not that hard to fly out every few days for an hour or so."

Nods from the others. "If we have to grow more we can talk about planting in the tropics. Maybe even on more than one planet so we got fresh coming in all the time." More nods.

"We're going to have snow by dark." David says as they walk to the dining hall.

"Yep, it will pass through in a couple days just in time for the Lights Festival. Give the festival the 'ahmbeeance' the nitwits on Earth are always drawling about." The others snigger and nod.

Pictures are taken of the snowfall over the next couple of days and after the Lights Festival the dorm empties out.

"The others aren't going to be making the meeting." Josette says as she slides into her seat in the government building the first day of the new semester. "They're going over the list of what needs to be worked on over the next couple of years."

"Anything new?"

"Something Doc, David, and I have been been talking about over the last couple weeks. Planting in the tropics."

President Bartlett nods. "You did just enlarge several of your crops either on the first planet or offworld."

"Yep, if we plant in the tropics here, the sorting or animal planets, Archimedes, and maybe the 9th or 10th planets we'd have them all coming in at different times so it would be fresh instead of popping everything in stasis."

"Something to think about in the future. We didn't plant there in the beginning because we didn't have anybody out there but it's not that hard to fly out a couple times a week." Josette nods.

"Do we have more planets for offworld harvests."

"Yes, I was thinking of one for citrus fruits. . .eventually."

"Juices." Principal Madison says. Josette nods.

"I understand from Dad you have another agent?"

"Yeah, that fairy tale fic I was telling you about a couple years ago, one of Madison's friends was complaining she wasn't getting any good smut for her line so I passed it along. She loved it and asked if I had any more. . .I sent Madison more of my adult writing and she asked if I had any more in the fairy tale universe. She's already brought the first three."

"Printers?"

"I got jumped with more quilting book ideas last fall while everybody went to Earth for Christmas, twenty-eight new books plus another eight from the others. They should be ready to start printing in a few years."

"Get hit by more quilts?" President Bartlett asks.

"Eight more notebooks." She says sourly. Her loving family sniggers.

"Are you planting on the first planet this year?"

"Yes, I'm going out later this week."

Doc looks over when Josette comes in, putting the bag of doughnuts in her first floor room. "How was the meeting?" She was gone longer than he expected.

"Quiet, the only thing new is the possibility of planting in the tropics in the future and possibly adding an offworld harvest of citrus trees." Doc nods as Josette settles on the couch. "The closer we come to the school closing the more plans we'll make for the future."

"Shipments?"

"While not supplying the school, we'll still get stuff like books, music, DVDS, we'll still have the government orders."

"Did you get the shipment of the new yarn?"

"Yeah, I brought it back when we came back, I gotta bring out yarn here this afternoon, I brought out yarn in town after the meeting." Doc nods in satisfaction. "The stores?"

"Probably will need supplies this fall. I usually bring out two years worth of the major stuff, if they run out of something before then they'll grab a flyer and pick up what they need."

"Josette, is that thick fabric . . ."

"From the plants? Yes, they used it for blankets. . .I'm using it for batting in a quilt. They use a slightly different version for outdoor clothes. Just as warm but not as bulky. More like fleece or those insulated fabrics. We don't need anything like that yet, we have plenty of outerwear."

"The winters on Earth made sure scientists created light-weight clothing that still kept you warm when you had to be out." Alexander says dryly as he comes through the pocket doors with a package of toilet paper. "We need more kitty litter, the room is getting empty."

Josette's eyes glaze over a second and ten pallets appear in the hallway, being emptied and put away. "Do we need to think about making it?"

"Something to think about in the future." David says, making a note. "Same with animal food." A cat jumps from the floor to his leg to his shoulder and then Josette. "You couldn't walk six more steps and jump directly on her?" he asks with a smirk. Josette sniggers and pets her.

"Classes?"

"I'm gonna try to finish Princeton this year, I'm halfway through the last degree on the Green Hornet, those are the only two I'm close to completing."

"The rest of you?"

"The twins and Alan are going to be three years into their degrees, Susan, CJ, and I just started new ones last year. And the boys are pissing off everybody by taking a year off to relax after their doctorates." Alexander snorts and pets the meowing monster at his feet. Food is scooped into bowls and animals emerge from everywhere to eat. Looking at the time they head to the dining hall for lunch.

After bringing out the yarn Josette settles in her workroom, looking up as Doc walks in the door. He looks at the fabric on the table, feeling it when Josette nods. "This would be good for blankets. Have you found a plant that grows boots?"

"No, but they have to have had a way to make foot coverings." She sends off a message to the ships. Then eeps when she disappears. Reappearing she sighs and pulls Doc along with her. They return to Haven an hour later. "I guess that answers the question about boots."

"You went back?" David asks.

"Before I arrived the first time. I found a lot more stuff than the first time around. And we rescued a drifting colony ship. The colonists were gone, but we were able to rescue all their supplies. Ulonda is accessing the computer system for their history and a list of what they were carrying."

"How much more?"

"Oh *tons. . .literally." Josette pulls on a sweater from her first floor room before her eyes begin to glaze over. "We're going to have a humdinger of a storm blowing in by third day."

"How long?"

"Two weeks of heavy-ass snow, three weeks to dig out."

"Fuck, by third day?"

"Yeah, it will start in the morning." David starts sending off the message as Alexander and Michael head downstairs to start charging extra batteries.

"We'll get the animals in tomorrow night and dial up six weeks of food." Susan says. The others nod. Elsewhere others are making plans as the notice goes out. A couple days later the sky starts getting dark early and more than one person silently thanks Josette's weather sense that gives them a heads up as they settle in for a long storm.

"How is it on Haven?" Dr. Cross asks at the testing center.

"We're slowly digging out, the animals are enjoying the fresh air even if we haven't got everything dug out yet. We've nearly got everything shoveled out. . . and I got more seeds."

"From there?" Dr. Stark asks, looking at her.

"Yeah, Doc was asking me if I'd found any boots. I said not yet but they had to have had foot coverings when I disappeared. When I came back I took Doc with me, seems we'd been there before I arrived the first time."

"Anything new?"

"A lot." Josette shivers and looks towards the door.

"Yes, we're expecting a dump on us for four days rain tomorrow. Our second of the year but it will put the plants off to a good start. Have you gone to the first planet yet?"

"Yeah, I went the next day since we'd be blown in for a while. The building's looking good." She sends them a file and they nod as the buzzer sounds and Sheriff Carter comes over after using the bathroom.

Josette settles on a couch a couple hours later, looking out the sliding glass door to see the maintenance working outside. Pushing herself to her feet she checks the time and heads upstairs, going to check on the power source she had created last year. It's running well and she heads back to her workroom to start cutting out pieces for blocks.

The next month passes quickly, Josette heading off to the first planet to green pick some of the peppers and tomatoes, selling them to the cafes and commercial kitchen before putting the rest in stasis.

The last of the containers are placed on Brigadoon as Josette, Ellis, and representatives from the other suppliers go over the orders. A couple hours later Josette walks into the Albatross Nest in Albatross, calmly settling in mid-air.

"The orders are in, is there anything that you wanted me to bring out right away?" She knows the others would have brought out what they needed right away or wanted with them.

Marilyn pulls up the order and looks it over, handing the PADD over her shoulder to Agatha when she's done. "Not that I can see Josette."

"Neither can I, so wait until spring and bring out the containers then. Now, did you get hit with more books?" Josette's moan makes everybody in the building snicker. "Yes, 28 new books and another eight from the other eighteen. And yes, I got hit with more quilts too." More laughter. "And I've sold more books to an erotica line."

"Does that include the princess story?" Suzie asks.

"Yes, that's going in a short story collection to be printed in a few months. And it's going to be a series. The others are expecting more sales with that release."

"Quilting books?"

"Three and four of the last eighteen being debuted this year."

Josette leans between Frances and Elaine at dinner. "The orders were in, is there anything you wanted right away? Otherwise I'll bring them out this spring with the others."

"We're good Josette, we brought everything we needed right away. Your purchases?"

"I'll be moving stuff for weeks." The others snigger at her. "Yeah, I know. Own damn fault. Poor me, poor me, poor poor pitiful me."

"Classes?" President Bartlett asks.

"I'm concentrating on the Princeton classes, trying to get it done this year. That and a degree on the Green Hornet from Montague are the only ones I'm anywhere close to finishing."

"Clocks?"

"There was so much information that it's been split into two basic degrees, then the hands-on classes." Josette looks at Principal Madison. "Do you see the cooking school staying open much longer?"

"No, Dad already said not to expect any new teachers in a couple years. We've got tons of classes on the servers." Everybody nods. "I'd say the classes here will be helpful for the colony but they'd have to have a way to cook beyond over a stove." Josette nods. "Most recipes have evolved beyond that. No fix it and forget it there."

"Ooohhhh, weightless cooking." Amanda smirks. She grins at everybody's moan. "I'm sure somebody would try it if they had a way to recreate weightlessness."

Josette facepalms, looks up at the ceiling, and grabs her PADD to make a couple notes before going in the back room.

Calvin gives the e-mail from Haven that look when it arrives. Jane chuckles. "Who did what now?"

"Josette was wondering if the cooking school was going to stay open and James told her that they weren't going to be getting any new teachers in a couple years. The other teachers nodded that they had tons of classes on the servers, there's not really that much more they could learn." Nods from Jane and Simone. "That devolved into whether the classes could be of use in the colony dimension but most recipes have evolved past a wooden cook stove."

"Which is what they'll be using for both heat and cooking for years. That and fireplaces. They need to learn how to cook with those."

"Yes, then Amanda mentioned weightless cooking."

Simone blinks and counts to ten as Jane cackles. "If they could replicate weightlessness, I'm sure somebody would. But how would you keep the food in the pot? The first time you took off the lid to stir it would start floating away."

"Probably one of those 'reality' cooking shows." Maria snorts from the door. "Jane, that order is here."

"I'll be right out."

Josette can be heard cursing from the vicinity of her second floor room the next morning.

"Get hit by a bunny?"

"Too late for that. The damn hot water heater went out, I relit it and warmed the water with a fireball so I could get a shower."

"At least you can do that now."

"And the entire dorm isn't without hot water because one went out."

Josette tosses Bethany a thumb drive that afternoon. "Something Amanda said a couple days ago bunnied me. I ended up writing all night." She looks at Doc. "And yes, I slept too."

Bethany is cackling as she reads, the others getting the file off the server.

"And what brought that on?"

"I asked Dad a couple days ago if he saw the cooking school staying open much longer. We've basically learned every cooking style there is out there." Pat nods. "We have tons of classes and recipes on the servers and can replicate any of the books."

Josette nods. "Dad said there's not going to be any new teachers in two years. I made a comment about how the classes could be used for the colony but they don't have the appliances we have. Can't fix it and forget it there."

"They'd have to have classes in fireplace and cook stove cooking. I know there's some out there but it's not everyday cooking."

"Exactly. Then Amanda made a comment about weightless cooking. That" Josette points at the computer screen in front of them. "Was the result."

"I heard some unpleasant language this morning young lady." Doc looks at Josette.

"No hot water. I had to relight it and used a fireball to warm the water so I could get a hot shower. And I'm very glad we can do that and one hot water heater going out doesn't affect the entire dorm anymore." Pat nods vigorously.

"So how long do you think it will be until your books are available in the others dimension?" Bethany smirks. Josette sighs. "I give it another couple of years, I noticed the files of the older books had been accessed." Doc smiles, he'd have done the same. "I don't know if they know a tame agent like Bronwen did. That's why I had a couple years before they set me up with an agent in Mom Clarinda's dimension."

"Did the orders come in?"

"Yes, yours and mine are the only ones I'm bringing out since we have the room inside for the containers. The others I'll bring out this spring." Pat nods.

"How is the building on the first planet?"

"Growing by leaps and bounds." She brings out pictures taken from when she was on the first planet. Doc nods in satisfaction. "I figured on undoming it at the end of the year. By then it should be well settled."

"We'll have to see."

"Speaking of buildings. . ." Josette brings up pictures that has Pat moaning. "One of their major sewing buildings. I was planning on bringing it out later this year. We'd have to dome it for a couple of years, even with the furnaces until it got settled. But the question is. . .where? Outside of town? Albatross? In between? Or somewhere else? We can add a tesseract link for people who can't walk to it."

"How big is it?"

"Big. A good two hundred fifty thousand square feet. . .per floor. And it's ten floors."

"We'll figure out a place to put it."

Josette brings up another file and they nod. "I'll bring it out after we plant."

"What's going to happen to the cooking school?"

"The universities are taking over the buildings for classes and stuff." Doc nods in satisfaction.

Eighth day Josette flies back to Brigadoon and starts delivering the containers to the dorm and Headquarters, Pat telling her where to put everything.

"Get everything delivered?" David asks at dinner.

"Yep. Now I just gotta start bringing everything out. That's going to take the longest." Alan sniggers.

Josette sighs as she settles in the steaming tub, idly warming the water further with a fireball.

/Are we looking at a storm?/

/Yes, I was just looking because you're not the only one cold./ Anna scowls. /Not as bad a the other one but it's accompanied by bitter ass cold that's not going away by as far as the weather satellite can forecast./

/Wonderful, at least we've got good cold-weather gear for when we have to go out. All the farmers know to dress for foul weather./

The next morning Josette heads out to the ranch with David, the animals being let out as they empty the waste containers onto where the manure pile started last year is under the snow. The containers are put back as the animals walk outside.

"Enjoy it while you can guys, we're getting snow and bitter ass cold." The horses neigh and the cows and goats seem to sigh. Alexander chuckles as they head back to the dorm.

"Get the animals out?"

"Yep, and emptied the waste containers. The chicken manure is aging well, we'll be able to bag it up this summer."

"What's going to happen to the cooking school stock?" The school had flocks of chickens, geese, ducks, and a few cows for milk and cheese.

"They're going to Assyrian since they're so close." The others nod.

The next couple months pass slowly since the damn cold snap doesn't seem to want to go away but finally it starts getting warmer and Josette spreads manure on the fields, plowing it under a few days before they plant.

"How many classes did you get in?" Calvin asks when Josette comes out to bring back students to get supplies. She's also visiting local chain stores with the others for this and that.

"Nineteen, not counting the nine I took from Princeton. I wanna get another nine in this summer and finish the degree this fall."

Josette puts the bags of DVDS she'd picked up at the dollar stores and the clearance bins at Walmart on her table when they return to Haven.

"You talk to Madison and the others?"

"Yeah, the book with the fairy tale is due out by the time I go out again for summer midterms to take back student belongings with the first book due out a few months after that. Madison, Joanne, and Jessica are just back from maternity leave. Madison had identical twin boys, the other two had fraternal girls. . .each."

The others chuckle. "Did you send out pressies for a baby shower?"

"Yep."

"Is multiples. . ."

"This close to the zero-population period normal? Yep." Josette brings out three bags and a couple boxes. "Books on what happens, Granda already weeded out the self-published psycho rants. I copied them on the ship and sent them to the others." Doc looks into the room and nods at the familiar boxes and bags on the table. "Who all got them?"

"You, Clark, Thomas, Dad, Dr. Stark on the 8th and 9th planets, Doc on the 9th planet, and Doc on the 10th period. President Bartlett will probably read Dad's copies after he's done."

"What's the population?"

"Hovering around five and a half billion, they figure under three at the end. That's just from old age deaths, not counting accidents, illness, and people moving to the colony dimension."

Josette starts putting away the DVDS she'd purchased as well as the new clothes she'd picked up on sale.

"Supplies?"

"Being delivered right now, including the containers from our super duper uper schmuper orders last year." David sniggers. "The other planet stuff is going out later this week."

"Did you bring out that building you were talking about?"

"This morning, Doc probably just got back from there."

"I did when I found the books, is this everything?"

"After Granda weeded out the self-published psycho bullshit. That probably would have tripled the books. They're bleating about wanting their own colony, the government's about ready to punt their asses to one and make them sink or swim on their own."

"They'll pout." Susan snorts. "Because while that's what they said they wanted, when they get it it's a different matter."

"Yep. Because having to start a new settlement is hard. Hell, most people can't stand being without electricity for a few hours, how would they handle not having any power at all unless they had solar panels and even then it would take a few to run a regular house."

"No running water, flush toilets, and heat coming on automatically when it turns cold."

"Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of whiners."

Doc shakes his head as he counts the number of containers in the room Pat had set aside for them, He knows that if he opens one he'll find them all full*. . .so full that Josette will have to start bringing stuff out. And that Josette has at least twice as many containers.

"How many containers did Josette bring out for the others?"

"Just as many. Josette's going to have to bring stuff out before we can get into the containers."

"Because what you're looking for will be in the back." Doc chuckles. Pat sighs but nods. "Did you bring the building out?"

"We just came back. Pictures didn't do it justice. Even for me. And I'm not a crafter."

Frances and Elaine moan as they open the containers. Josette walks behind them. "If you want something right away tell me and I'll find it in the inventory, otherwise I'll start bringing stuff out until you can get in the containers."

"Thank you Josette, is this everything? For us anyway?"

"Yes, not counting the regular orders this summer."

"How long do you see the massive student numbers?"

"The year after the cooking school teachers head off, with class sizes starting to drop after that. Whether it's quick as parents pull their children closer to them or they stay nearly the same because there's parents out there who should have stuck with their damn purse dogs." President Bartlett chuckles as he walks to them, Mrs. Bartlett nodding frantically. "Either way we're not seeing any new students in ten years since there won't be younger kids. And when they do start having children it will be at least a decade after they start having larger class sizes, I'd say even longer than that."

"Which isn't a bad thing, this gives teachers more time to help each student."

The first day of the summer semester Josette leans back in her chair to take a break as David leans against her door frame. She disappears and reappears behind David a few seconds later, splitting off a dozen duplicates and sending off messages.

"Another planet lost?" David asks. She sighs and nods. The others arrive and they head off.

"A blue dwarf?" Thomas asks as the ships arrive.

"Yes, Atlantis says their sun shifted to the ultraviolet range and everybody and everything died from the increased radiation."

"Wasn't this . . ." Fargo begins to say.

"An old outer limits episode? Yes, I was thinking the same thing. But Earth didn't have a friendly planet that had gone through the same thing and sent music to help them change so exposure to the sun didn't kill them within hours." Josette sends off probes from the ships to start digging huge mass burial pits as more probes start bringing out bodies.

"Outer limits?"

"It's on the server, we found it on the trip back because I remembered the episode."

"Christmas is a horrible time to die." Doc says as more probes start shutting off electronics and emptying buildings.

"Is there a good time to die?" Dr. Stark says quietly. "For all that new years is all about one year dying as the next is born."

"Home in your bed surrounded by family and friends after a real long and happy life?" Josette asks. The others finally nod.

"Okay." Josette looks at the others on the trip back to Haven and the other planets. "Does anybody want one of the power facilities brought out right away?"

The others think a moment and slowly shake their heads. "Thomas, Dr. Stark, what about the other dimension?"

"It won't be needed for decades, if not centuries." Thomas says. "And we have other sources of power if needed." Dr. Stark nods.

"Doc? Your Earth?"

"They're working on other forms of energy, bringing that out might cause them to backslide." The others nod. "Our Earth would have been the same."

"What are you thinking Josette?" Everybody recognizes that look.

"This is very similar to what Becka was talking about building in Europe, I was going to go out in a while and see if she wanted one as a backup. They've got stuff in limbo, it would just be a matter of adding it to her files." The others nod slowly.

Josette drops off the other supplies on the trip to the other planets, settling the ships on Haven as she starts an inventory of everything.

"When do you plan on going out?"

"Probably tomorrow."

Everybody that Josette had asked to come to the dorm is waiting on her when she returns from Becka's dimension. They walk into the library at Headquarters.

"Okay, a whiny asshole trying to get his own way talked his butt buddy the lord high muckety-muck on the Supreme Court to pass an illegal injunction barring Becka from employing anybody to put up the power facility they'd been planning and turned on the machine that shut off the power to make sure he got what he wanted. So I offered Becka the power facility we harvested since the injunction only kept people from building it. . ."

Evil smirks that Josette knows is identical to the one on her own face greets that news. "Sooooooo whiner didn't get what he wanted after all." Dr. Stark purrs.

"Nope." Josette leans back in the chair, her stocking feet going up on the table until Doc pushes them off. "We brought out the boxes and people were lining up to get them once they saw people starting to get electricity back. In trade I took all the supplies that would have been used for the power facility if it was built." Josette sends the inventory of supplies to the others. "Is there anything that is needed right away? We don't need it for a power facility, I can bring out one and the boxes when we want to go that route, the others wanted to make sure I wasn't shorting our planets offering them that one, I told them that once something is in 'limbo' I can bring out multiple copies of it." Nods from the others as they start scrolling through the list of shipping containers. "Also. . ." she looks at the others from the 9th planet. "I offered to bring out a group of people to build the ship on their planet since the government took over the job of building it with the settlement in Europe gone bye-bye with the power facility not being built."

"And we aaaalllll know how well the government can screw something up." Charles sighs. The others nod. "I'll let the others know they might be asked to come out and do that. Is the machinery still on?"

"Yes, so supplies are slow being delivered with only spring operated trucks on the roads."

Josette comes out of Headquarters and takes a deep breath, a cat winding around her ankles until she sits down, picks him up, and starts petting him.

"Nothing like a child or animal to get your over your gloomy thoughts." 9th planet Dr. Stark says as he comes out.

"Shouldn't that be a child, a pet, or a mate to get you over your gloomy thoughts?" Charles smirks.

Josette snorts in unison with both Dr. Starks. "They bring their own problems." David cackles behind them. "What?"

"We need more animal food."

"Cat or dog?"

"Both." She 'looks' to the containers and waves her hand, eighteen pallets appearing in the hallway. The large bags are put in a room along with the cases of cans. The now-empty pallets are put on the pile to be returned in a couple months when Josette goes out to bring back school supplies and take out students belongings.

"Do we have another barrel of the additive? This one's running low." Alan calls down the hall.

"I replicated a half-dozen last week, they're in the other room."

"When does your yarn come in?"

"Midterms. I gotta hit a few expos while I'm out there." Josette checks her calendar and nods. "Four."

"Shows?"

"Me next week in Momma Clarinda's dimension, the boys when the students are coming out after the Harvest Festival."

Dexter looks at the books. "Do you have any other books?"

Josette grumbles as the others snigger. "I'm writing them now."

"How many?"

"Too damn many. Thirty-six, eight of them quilts from this set since I could make three or even four books from some of them." Dexter shakes his head as they head off. After shopping for a few hours and eating at a restaurant they head to the rooms. The others are waiting on them. "Josette, M'Lynn wants to speak to you in a couple days. Do you have anything new?" The others snigger.

"Okayyyyy." Josette looks at M'Lynn. "I do have a new universe ready for print but I don't know about it selling here. It's got smut scenes." M'Lynn holds out a hand and she hands her the thumb drive and waves her off since she knows Josette has to get ready for her show.

M'Lynn arrives the next morning to find Josette blinking over a cup of coffee, Clarinda putting a bowl of oatmeal in front of her after she's drained it. David sniggers as he refills the cup and puts it in front of her again.

"How long were you signing books?"

"Hours." Josette sighs. "Dexter should be out tomorrow with the totals." She looks at her. "The universe?"

"Definitely smut. . .the higher ups are moaning and having trouble sitting if they're in relationships." The others snigger. "I got another agent out of that series and Madison, Jessica, and Joanne ended up pregnant with twins . . .each." The others blink and laugh. M'Lynn hands her the thumb drive and she puts it in her pocket, pulling out another one.

"I've got another series but I'm still working on the books." She hands over the other thumb drive and M'Lynn looks at the outline and sample chapters. "Are you planning more books in that universe?"

"Yes, I'm writing a fourth book in the series, I've got tie-ins outlined, a few about the 'villain' and why he's creating the new kingdom, some one shots about characters in the kingdom, and a couple prequels, one for the two girls and one for the boy."

"Do you have anything else?"

"Yes, but it's in the outline/sample chapters stage." Josette brings out another thumb drive as she takes the other one back, M'Lynn opening the files and looking everything over as she heads to shower and dress for the day. She comes out to everybody cackling. "Oh tell me you didn't pass along that damn weightless cooking story."

"Can you expand this into a book?" M'Lynn asks. Josette moan makes her smile. "Already have?"

"Yes, with five more stories in the outline phase because the fucking bunny howled last night when I laid down."

"I thought your room was a little too quiet last night." Clarinda says dryly.

"Everybody had already stayed up late to be with me when I was signing books, you needed some sleep."

"So did you." Black Jack says dryly.

"If I don't write it down I either forget it or the damn bunny keeps me up anyway." She sighs. Grabbing her PADD she starts making notes and puts it up.

Several weeks later for them Josette and the others return to Haven.

"How was it?" Doc asks from the doorway.

"Sold everything at the show, got tons of requests. Signed books for hours after the show. . ."

"Got tapped for books in the fairy tale universe, got tapped for books in the weightless cooking universe. . ." David chortles. Josette flips him off. "The new series got some interest too."

"Are you harvesting asteroids?"

"Yes, I noticed we were running low on raw materials and figured I'd do it when I went out to harvest the cotton and scrub trees. Just before the Harvest Festival." Doc nods as he makes a note on his PADD. The others will start getting in requests and Josette will make an announcement for any last minute special items before she goes.

Several weeks later Josette heads off to Calvin's Earth, picking up the school supplies before she arrives at the school. Waving a hand four piles of boxes and totes appear. Since both Jane and Maria are on the phone she drops the list of supplies Joyce needs and sends them the file for that dropoff, mouthing a number for each pile. Jane nods as she finishes the phone call and waves her to Calvin's office.

"That's an evil fic young lady."

Josette snorts. "I got jumped with making that into a full book and several more on top of it."

"How long are you here for?"

"About three weeks?" Josette looks at her PADD. "I got about four expos to attend, I'm putting in a bid for a supplier going out of business sale, and I gotta talk to Joanne about the fairy tales books since the short story is coming out this week."

"Another supplier?" Calvin asks.

"Some asshole is suing to have the business shut down. . .so he can have it. So they're selling everything."

Josette tosses Jessica a thumb drive the next day. "I can't stay, I gotta head to an expo. But you look like you could use a cheer me up. The babies keeping you up?"

"Yes, thank you god for Nannies."

Josette blinks as the buzzer for the gate sounds less than an hour after she got back from the expo. Turning on the camera she rolls her eyes up at the ceiling as she sees Jessica, Joanne, and Madison in a car.

"Were you waiting on me?" She asks, opening the door.

"Yes, we knew when you came home. That story is evil."

"It's being turned into a full book. . .series."

"Is the book going to be different?"

"Somewhat."

"Then we can publish the short story online as a preview of the book."

Josette slumps onto the couch when she returns to Haven.

"How long were you gone?"

"Nearly five weeks, I stayed longer to talk to the people over the sale of the supplier and visited Vegas. I'm on the short list since I'm not 'I can sell this, this, that', I've got plans for the future." The others nod. "The announcement that they're entering a zero-population period is going to be in the next databurst." She tells Principal Madison since he came in the room. He sighs. "That's going to be rough on the students."

"There's been hints over the last couple of years. I think they've been halfway expecting it." Principal Madison sighs and nods.

"So did you break Vegas?"

"Not for a lack of trying." Josette chuckles. She brings up a file that she sends to Principal Madison. "The latest on the planned construction around the school. The mall is going to be open by the time we bring the students back in a couple months."

"I'm sure that will have them all excited. Now, are you going out to Doc's dimension?"

"Yes, in a couple months and again after Thanksgiving. Vegas, Vegas, Vegas. . . money, money, money. To pay for the university the others want me to attend if nothing else." Principal Madison sniggers at her hangdog look. "How are you coming on your classes?"

"Good, I'm five out of the nine classes I wanted to get in to Princeton this summer, this leaves a semester this fall when it will be asshole to elbows with the offworld harvests."

"Anything new happening?"

"I handed Jessica the cooking story because it looked like she needed cheering up with the babies keeping them up, all three of them were at my door an hour after I got back from the expo. They're going to be putting the short story on the website before the first book comes out. There was a good bit of talk about the fairy tale story when that short story collection came out, Madison says the author section for me got a few hits."

Josette blinks as stuff appears in subspace and is moved. "More stuff being replaced?"

"Yeah, the furnaces. Easier to move it in subspace rather than try to bring it out." One of Josette's other selves says as the parts are shot with the recycling gun to fill crystals with raw materials.

"Did you get anything?"

"Tons, I'm delivering it right now upstairs. And . . ." Josette sends Pat, Principal Madison, and the others lists. "I'm going to be ordering monthly or every other month from the places the schools do, let me know if you want something special beyond the usual."

"Did you take out the empty containers and pallets?" Principal Madison asks, looking the lists over.

"Yep, though we're going to be getting this or even larger shipments every other month until the school closes so we have lots of stuff on hand. Granda said something about making a stasis chamber like we have the containers in to store stuff."

"We need a larger freezer." Anna complains.

"I brought a commercial one out a couple years ago." Josette says. She looks at her and she tells her where it is. "Okay, that will last us a while."

"Why?"

"We were outgrowing the chest freezers and stasis chambers. This way we've got the room to get in supplies when we're not getting in shipments after the school closes. And Granda said he and the others are putting up a building on the school grounds for a freezer, they want to add onto ours too. And see if Headquarters needs more room." Principal Madison and Doc sigh but nod.

"Are you still looking into duplicating recipes for the frozen stuff?"

"Yes, I've been talking to the teachers about it on and off. I've got a good list of recipes on the server. The problem is they make this stuff in huge batches and while I got the factory upstairs, we don't need it yet." She makes a get the hell away from me fingers gesture.

"Bunny wanting you to start writing cookbooks?" Abby snorts.

"Yes dammit." The others chuckle.

"Canning factory too?" David asks with a smirk.

"Yes dammit."

"How much frozen stuff do you have on the ships?"

"Tons from the lost planets, there's entire buildings that are deep freezers full of frozen food that I bring out a little at a time. There's also buildings that are full of boxes full of stuff. And I swear the buildings are getting bigger whenever I go out."

"Quite possible, they'd be bursting at the seams otherwise." Doc says.

Josette looks in the basement a couple weeks later. "Huh?"

"Second furnace system to help with bad winters, one of us can throw a fireball in it to add more heat." Josette nods as she checks the list of what has been replaced. She shakes her head. "Yeah but this was one of the major things. The other stuff should go quicker."

Josette flies out to the new building, the door opening as she approaches the building. She looks through everything for an hour before patting the wall and flying off. She knows the others have been out since the building was brought out.

She checks the outside of the windows back at the dorm, seeing if any need replacing rather than just periodic caulking. The roof and solar panels are checked next and she heads back inside.

"Windows and roof?" David had seen her outside.

"Good and good." He nods and makes a note of that. "That saves a crew from GD opening the windows and poking their heads outside to inspect everything. With so many rooms and so many buildings that would take days."

"Or putting up scaffolding. I know window washers did it but that'd be a good bit of work just to inspect the windows. Something we're going to have to do when the dorms empty. Remind me to ask Dad if he wants me to inspect the school's windows when everybody's gone for Christmas." David nods.

"Josette, message for you in the databurst. You got it." Alan calls from the basement door. "They want a call as soon as possible to handle the arrangements."

"I'll head off tomorrow."

Three weeks later on Earth she lifts off on Ulonda, she'd gone to Vegas again to replace some of the money she'd spent on everything. Doc had sighed but Charles and Dr. Cross had chuckled at her reasoning.

"How much did you get?"

"Tons, I've got an inventory on the PADD. Some asshole playing mas machos about not getting what he wants, why should the guy who's been doing this for years have all the customers? He should own the business. . .his wife spends enough there, they deserve that money back'. Though his wife has her own money because she's a self-made billionaire and he's never spent a dime on anything there."

"Ahhh, he getting his ass handed to him.

"Probably, he'd made a grand appearance at the business and was stunned to find it shuttered with the stock gone and employees hired somewhere else. . .at one of the guys other businesses. He was sure he could just walk right in and take over. . .how dare they sell everything on him?'"

"Don't they know who he is?" Pat snorts from the door.

"Exactly, I'm sure the shit will be hitting the fan in the next databurst. He'll bluster, demand, whine, pout, finally walk away in defeat after having to pay the other guy damages, the supplier will open back up and everything will go back to normal."

"Always going to be somebody who wants what everybody else has but is 'above' working for it." Doc says from the doorway.

"Yep, look at the assholes who tried taking over Haven and Becka says there were people demanding they be given Mars once they found people have moved there. They walked off pouting when they were told if they wanted their own planet to put together money for the ship, supplies, and find colonists. They didn't want to live on another planet, they just wanted another planet so they could sell off 'honorium' plots, spaces nobody could even stand on but they could say they owned land on another planet. . .they'd be wich."

Pat says something uncomplimentary.

"Yeah, from what Becka was grumbling about the industrialists wanted their own dimension and she found one that can't grow food. They'd have to bring in everything and put up housing and food production buildings for their employees. They're pouting."

"Isn't that what they'd have to do for a colony?" Alan snorts as he comes through. "We've got to take care of seeds next week."

"Yeah, the ones that we left for seed must be dry by now. Alex said they'd been taking care of the stuff they left for seed a couple weeks ago."

"How did Thomas handle that in his growing area?"

"Alex said he and Tim's father owned stock in a horse farm outside Gotham, they got a couple loads of manure in September, adding it to the outside garden and shoveling it down an opening where the kids were waiting with wheelbarrows, then spreading it on his raised beds. A week later it was tilled under and they planted.

"Have you checked the building recently?"

"Yesterday." Doc nods in satisfaction as Josette disappears. She reappears and sighs, walking to the screen. "Thomas, come over here with Clark. I think I just found a way to save Earth. No, correction. I know I just found a way to save Earth. . .and why the population was staying steady." She, Doc, Thomas, and Clark Kent head off to Atlantis when they arrive, arriving home an hour later.

"Did you save Thomas's Earth?" Pat asks.

"375,000 people. Orphans from all races and countries on their planet twenty-one and under and their support personnel including schools, pets, and supplies. They were going to be sent away because it was an 'us vs. them, we're soooo much better because we have families'." Pat snorts. "And it only takes an accident to turn them into orphans?"

"Oh that would never happen." Josette drawls. "Morons. We already knew that humanity is basically stupid." The others nod and sigh. "I can't say it was all us vs. them, there were several hundred families that came with them to get away from the stupidity of their government. Many of whom were orphans themselves."

"Made families."

"Yep. Something the morons in the community didn't want to think about. Because if they had made their own families, they weren't better than they were."

The yearly and second crops start coming in and Josette heads off to harvest asteroids and meteors, delivering everything to the manufacturing satellite or the sorting planet before returning to Haven.

"You were right about the whining, the idiot tried suing demanding the money from the sale. No dice. Demanding that the business reopen. . .no dice. Oh it will reopen, after he pays for all new supplies . . .because the courts found what he did was illegal. Now he's pouting."

"Because everybody knows he's a manipulative asshole. What everybody already knew but now it's confirmed." Josette snorts.

"Yep, he's moaning about how his good name has been ruined." everybody in earshot snorts. "His wife kicked him out of her house, has filed for divorce, and he lost his cushy positions in her businesses so he's got to not only got to pay for everything he did, he's got to stay longer to make money to live on while he's working minimum wage flipping burgers."

"Do you have anything else coming in you need to be offplanet for?"

"No, this is it until the offworld harvests start coming in."

"Are you planting on the first planet?"

"I planted before we went to harvest stuff." She sends out new pictures of the building on the first planet, getting nods from everybody. "It's settling in well."

"Yep, I'll take the dome down when I harvest the ripe peppers, herbs, and tomatoes. How are we on seeds?"

"Pretty good, we've got full or nearly full jars of everything." Pat says. David nods.

"Good, then I don't need to bring out any."

"No, and we're beginning to harvest from the plants."

"So are we, I've got seed pods drying in the rooms. Once they're dry I'll pop them in the containers I've started." Josette brings out a set of knitting needles. "From the plant."

"Flexible."

"But tough, I bent one nearly in two working on something and it just popped back."

"No breaking one sitting on it when you're working on something and you lose a needle." Pat has seen more than one person bitching about having to buy a whole new set of needles on Earth.

"Part of that is not putting it in a bag when you stop working. Real crafters take care of their projects unless you have a room set up just for that." Pat nods. "Easier to pick one up off the floor if it's rolled away instead of dropping it on the couch and whining when it's damaged. If it's not more than a tote next to your seat you can drop it in for the night and pop the lid on."

"Students?"

"Another good size year. To start falling down after the cooking school teachers head home and no new students after the employees coming out in a couple years head home. Granda is getting supplies to redo the dorms here and there when they're empty and he brought some apartment complexes when the management company went belly-up, he's finishing them off and renting them out." Doc nods.

"Are they opening the school up for a spa when the last of the students go?"

"Yeah, they're going to be putting up a couple buildings for spa treatments. He's sure some of the old biddies will bitch, whine, and moan about sleeping in a twin bed and sharing a bathroom if they book the entire package but since those people wouldn't lower themselves to go anyway it's no skin off his ass."

Pat sniggers, remembering those type of people from the spa.

"Graduation?"

"Next weekend."