Josette looks over the new additions to the retreat building in satisfaction, walking through them with the builders and the women running the retreats before sending off the last payment. A truck comes up and supplies start coming off, being moved to various rooms. A furniture truck is pulling up as Josette heads off.

 

"So that's it." Josette says, slumping onto a couch in the mansion. "Renovations are done, the last payment was made, and supplies and now furniture was being moved into the new areas when I left." She looks over her shoulder at Doc. Who'd come out when the monitors at Headquarters had alerted him to a ship arriving.

 

"Is Calvin expanding the stores at his school?"

 

"Yeah, much to the annoyance of the school board in town. They've stopped suing trying to get him to stop, now they're just sulking because their school can't compete once students get old enough to choose. Not that many parents will want* to pay money for their children to attend his school this early."

 

"And most children would rather stay with the teachers they've known all this time."

 

"Yeah, I can't see Granda opening the school for one or two students. Even when we had students from the planets, we had at least eleven students in a classroom."

 

"And like the students here for a while, you had the same teachers the whole four years your school was open."

 

Meanwhile Calvin looks at the list of additions he'd planned on making to the school over the zero-population period and nods in satisfaction. Most of them have been accomplished while the rest will be ongoing projects over the next several years.

 

In town a meeting of the town council is happening.

 

"Why the hell was the emergency fund drained over the zero-population period? We knew we'd need it for extra money with so many deaths meaning less taxpayers."

 

"B. . .bu . . .buh I was sure that with the improvements it would bring more people to the area and the fund would quickly be filled again."

 

"And did it?" Somebody else asks dryly.

 

"Noooooooo." He wails.

 

"And now we need the money and don't have it."

 

"Can't we get the money from the other areas?"

 

"No dumbass, they're all bare bones now. . .that's why we needed the fund."

 

He grabs the budget trying to find money being wasted and whines deep in his throat.

 

"Emergency millage?"

 

"Would take years to refill the fund."

 

"Raising taxes?"

 

"Ditto. And so would raising prices on the services the city provides, we couldn't say it was for improvements. . .we're cutting services."

 

"Can we request money from the state?"

 

"No, because they'll want an accounting of what happened to our surplus."

 

"But I was so sure that people would flock to the area to live once they saw all the improvements."

 

"What improvements? There's not a damn new thing here that would make anybody come running to the area."

 

"Th . ..the. . .the credit union at the school?"

 

"The one nobody's a member of? The one sitting empty? The one every town around us is sniggering about? That credit union?"

 

"But . . .but . . .but the people who talked me into it swore we'd have plenty of interest in it."

 

"They lied . . .so they could get a fool like you to pay for it."

 

"Do we have any options?"

 

"Nothing that wouldn't lead to dumbass here being arrested for fraud since he didn't have the permission of the rest of the board to use that money."

 

"But it was going to bring people into the area." He wails again. . .because of course if he says it enough it will have to come true.

 

"You didn't clear it with the rest of the board because we'd have said no. You might bleat it was with the best of intentions but all you did was throw our money away."

 

"Is there anything we can sell?"

 

"Nothing that would bring in that much money."

 

"Can we borrow the money?"

 

"We don't have anything big enough for collateral. And where the hell would we find the money to pay the loan?"

 

"What about the land outside town?"

 

"We sold it. That money went into the emergency fund."

 

"So that's it." Calvin says a couple days later as Josette plans on heading back to Haven. "The town council is throwing up their hands and wailing about not having any money. They called in the state who is looking over all the budgets for the last decade or so. . .because emptying the emergency fund didn't happen overnight." Josette nods. "It's only the fact that he was trying to make improvements to bring in people that kept dumbass out of a jail cell."

 

"So the state's taking everything over? A step to hopefully keep the town council from declaring bankruptcy."

 

"Yes, did this happen in your dimension?"

 

"Not around us, though California's state budget was strained way back when I went to the school. . .California was more than happy to let me be Massachusetts problem. Josette said there was a few cities declaring bankruptcy in her dimension though, being put under emergency managers. One didn't turn out very well she said."

 

"And then there's normal cities trying to find money to handle all their necessities and failing."

 

"Yeah, even back in school you were hearing stories on the news of cities trying to cut pension funds."

 

"And the people who'd been working years depending on that instead of putting money away getting the rug yanked out from under them until the court told them they had to pay. They were also trying to change contributions to the funds."

 

"That's human nature. Nobody wants to put money in until they realize they might need it one day."

 

"Oh Christ. . .not again." Josette says when she's pulled back to Earth a few days after she's left. She returns to Haven an hour later cursing roundly. Calvin looks at her. "You'll know it when it happens." She says sourly.

 

"Fucking a-hole?" David asks dryly later that night.

 

"Yes, both of them. Dumbass wailing about losing the publishing house and how I'm taking advantage of him by making him work to try to buy back the business. I should give it and my books to him. . .for existing.' David rolls his eyes. "Yep, and dumbass is wailing about the changes I made to the retreat house. . .I have to give it back to him. It. . .it . . .it's not fair he can't live there on my money. The special interest groups that filed the lawsuits are being very quiet. . .they were stunned that old people could be crooks."

 

"Of course they were stunned. . .young people are always taking advantage of old people." Susan snorts. "They never want to talk about the parents that take advantage of their kids by running up bills in their names."

 

"They were allllllll . . .'running a publishing house is a lot of hard work, something. . .'"

 

"You'd never know the first thing about? Figures."

 

"Yeah, they finally saw all my books and art and realized that maybe, just *maybe* I might know the first thing about a little hard work."

 

"They're finding out how hard work really is. . .and don't like it."

 

"Nope, they want their cushy lives back. On my dime. . .and it's not going to happen. Dumbass is back in the medium-security dimension to pay off another judgment in my favor. . .wailing that his life is over. Because the court has had enough with them both and are refusing any cases brought on their behalf against me."

 

"Which they're wailing about?"

 

"Of course. . . the courts won't take any lawsuits from them. . . now they won't let them talk somebody else into suing me. It's not fair. Miserable old fools."

 

"How is dumbass coming on paying off his judgments?"

 

"He is so far in the damn hole he'll never pay them on his own, the medium security dimension is sending him to the work dimension to make more money to pay them off."

 

"Because god forbid the old fool stop causing trouble?"

 

"Amen." They're allowing him to make enough money for his fantastical funeral and to repay me everything I spent on his son. So he'll have the grand tombstone for him. Of course he can't have it there, he's going to have the casket exhumed so he can be reburied next to him."

 

"Because where he's buried now people have a long memory about what he did?"

 

"Yep. It's their fault his precious darling boy is dead. . . "

 

"And of course he's not doing the same for his estranged wife or daughter."

 

"Nope. He can't whine about injustices done to him about their deaths." Josette snorts. "They're buried in a nice cemetery that keeps up with all the plots, whether they have family or not. I sent money to a fund they have to help with the upkeep." David nods in satisfaction.

 

Josette looks at her PADD at the notice from the courts about the money coming in from her judgments.

 

"Only way you would have been paid for his stupidity."

 

"Yep. I'm sure the old fool was wailing about having to work* for everything he wanted. But the dumb fucker should be happy at getting more money in his account."

 

"Assuming he keeps out of trouble."

 

"Not going to happen. . .those type never learn from their mistakes." Susan snorts. "As Josette knows from how many times people sued to move to Haven, were turned down, and sued again."

 

"Yep."

 

"I'll know when it happens." Calvin says when Josette comes to the school to deliver socks and other stuff.

 

"Yep, at least dumbass can stop wailing about all his money going to other people in the medium-security dimension now."

 

"Did the other fool have to put more money in the account to pay down the judgment?"

 

"Nope, since the court knows he's never going to get off his ass and make a real effort to do it they stopped it. Of course he was crowing about it. . .until he realized he wasn't getting the business back or the money he'd been putting in the account and he is absolutely gutted about it now. . if . . .if . . if he knew the court was serious about him not getting the business back unless he paid the judgment he'd . . .he'd have made more of an effort." Josette mimes rubbing crocodile tears out of her eyes.

 

Jane snorts behind them.

 

"Yeah, the judge told him that he must think they're as stupid as he is if he thought they'd believe that crap. He was stunned nobody believed his bullshit."

 

"Old fool was the one in power too long, he could make people do what he wanted. Now he can't and he doesn't like it."

 

Calvin looks at Josette. "Are you keeping the business? With him gone?"

 

"Nope, I don't want it. We went to mediation, came up with a fair price for the business, and the family will be adding money to the account over the next couple decades. I'm still going to be getting a percentage of the profits. . .the great-nephew insisted. And that's not money going towards the price of the business. He insisted on that too." Calvin and Jane nod in satisfaction.

 

"Not their fault the man's a moron."

 

"Oh yes, dumbass is wailing again that his life is over. . .everybody's got to take care of him. Old fool doesn't realize he'll end up in a home for his own good if he keeps that nonsense up."

 

"Of course not, he expects everybody to pat him on the head and tell him what a shame it is everybody treats him so horribly." Calvin drawls. Josette sniggers and laughs. "Anything new?"

 

"Usual whining from people who think they're better than they are and we have to do what they want." Jane flips through the papers on her clipboard. "The fool who was trying to claim we didn't have the proper permits so we'd have to tear everything down got his ass kicked out of court when the inspectors proved we had the permits and we're not in the same damn county as him."

 

"Old fool was probably looking for a kickback."

 

"Probably. There's always going to be fools looking into what can you do for them instead of what they can do for you."

 

"Their job." Josette says dryly.

 

"Exactly."

 

"Okay, charities?"

 

"The ones that fund homeless shelters and soup kitchens are doing well, there's not that much demand for them now. Food banks are quiet, with so many people working one or two jobs there's more money for food. Humane societies are good, with the zero-population period a lot of animals found 'furr-ever' homes." Jane says, checking her list. "We're donating to local ones and national groups. Puppy mills are a thing of the past now, the fines and jail sentences wiped them out. Pet stores either closed, get their pets from reputable breeders, specialize in fish or other pets, or have signs telling them to adopt from the humane societies."

 

"Good."

 

Josette hits various drop-off centers before heading back to Haven, yawning as she flies back to the dorm.

 

"Are the sales at the spa slowing down with the zero-population period ending?" Abby asks when she comes into the building.

 

"Helllllll no." Josette snorts. "Not with all the classes and new stores. There's still whining about Granda trying to steal students but people are ignoring the idiots. People with some damn sense realize they're not going to open the school for one or two students and this early most parents aren't going to be wanting to pay money for their kids schooling."

 

"And they'd be leaving the teacher they had for so long, it'll be years before they need more than one classroom or teacher. No matter what the self-same morons want. . ." Susan's voice trails off as the doors across from them opens, Principal Madison standing there with a few familiar figures.

 

"Josette?" he says in a 'what did you do this time' voice that has everybody sniggering.

 

"Yes, we were grabbed and tossed in another dimension . . .again."

 

"When?"

 

"Just after I got the judgment from dumbass last year for suing me trying to claim I stole the business from him. Doc and Professor Xavier jointly run a huge school for mutants and magic users. . ."

 

"You went to it?" He asks, his lips twitching. The cackling from the other seven tells him there's more to the story than that.

 

"Nope, they got brains and children or in my case grandchildren have to attend other schools to make sure there's no hint of bias." Principal Madison snorts. "If there's bias it's not from family members. Real teachers can treat every child under them fairly."

 

"Exactly, but this gives everybody an even playing field. . .supposedly."

 

"Josette went to every other school." David chortles. Principal Madison just gives him a 'And? of course she did' look. The visitors snigger, the kids had told them that Principal Madison was Josette's all but official adoptive father and it's obviously the truth.

 

"Josette, the business?"

 

"I don't want it, we've already entered mediation and came up with a fair price for it. The family's going to be using the money dumbass put in the account as a starting point, adding to it over the next couple decades. The great-nephew in charge insisted on still giving me a percentage of the profits, and that's not counting towards the purchase price. Again, he insisted on it to make up for the stupidity of his great-uncle and his butt buddy. The old fool was over the moon that he didn't have keep making excuses not to pay off the judgment, but was horrified that stopping the judgment didn't mean he wasn't getting the business back or the money he'd been putting away to pay me off. If. . .if. . .if . . .if he'd known the court was serious about him paying the judgment, he'd have made more of an effort.”

 

"He knew the court was serious about paying off the judgment, the only effort he made was in whining about having to work."

 

"And trying to get other people to sue to get the business back, don't forget that. Because he was the victim. . .no, there was no reason for him to lose both the business and his job running it." Josette snorts as she walks over to the door of Headquarters, poking her head inside. "To quote an annoying song, oops I did it again."

 

Doc comes to the door and just looks at Josette when he sees the visitors. "Not it, and if I ever find out who's dragging me hither and yon I'm going to have a serious talk with them."

 

"This was a school?" Professor Xavier asks a few hours later.

 

"Yes, when the kids were in school we were only a high school, in the years after they graduated we added an education center that handled they other grades. When we moved to Haven we still only accepted high school students. It wasn't until we were in contact with Dad's dimension. . ." Calvin and the others had come out early for one reason or another, "That we officially started taking younger children."

 

"My school allows students to start boarding in the fifth grade, when James' school became an adjunct of mine we started allowing students to board here in the sixth grade. Most parents don't want their children that far away that young. . .though there's always some." Nods from everybody.

 

"Officially started taking in younger children?"

 

"Our school has opened and closed over the years after the students we had when we lost Earth graduated, how long it was open depended on how many children we had from the planets. But once we started getting in contact with other dimensions we accepted orphans. . .including teachers and support staff. With so many students we had to offer classes at the school, not just the education center."

 

"Did they return home after schooling?"

 

"No, officially it was 'you're joining an established colony in a first step of colonizing new worlds, unofficially it was 'there's the door, don't let it hit you in the ass on the way out, you're orphans. . .nobody's going to miss you'. The government sent over tons of supplies, paid their schooling. . .including college, their housing, and were offering jobs to get them settled. They stayed in the dorms through their university degrees then headed to apartments that were already set up for them."

 

"We'd learned after having so many former students in temporary housing until we could put up apartments for them."

 

"That allowed them to pay down their schooling though. . .and put money aside for their homes and furnishings once they found out they got places in the lottery. We learned a lot from the mistakes we made then."

 

"And all the planets wanted to put up a complex when they started growing commercially so we've got plenty of housing."

 

"Are you magical?" Headmaster Doc asks after dinner when he joins Josette's grandfather in Headquarters before a meeting of the others. Meanwhile Charles is talking with his other selves.

 

"Yes, but it's not my major focus."

 

"Father training us to fight evil didn't allow us to have the mindset for magic to come naturally. While that leads to less accidents than magic users who . . ."

 

"Go with the flow and end up having to be pulled out because they lost their footing and were nearly dragged under?"

 

"Exactly. They think it's all fun and games until a serious incident makes them settle down and take it seriously."

 

"While the by the book students need to loosen up a little."

 

"Usually. Some do need the help."

 

"How did you become a school principal? From the teasing Josette was getting, there's more than one school."

 

"There is. . .and it's a long story. Did you have a vampire council in your dimension?"

 

"Yes, they're based on the fourth planet."

 

"Are you . . .?" He taps his lip. Doc's smile is a little toothy.

 

"I am. . .so are Josette, Bruce, and David here. Josette inherited my vampire gene even though neither of her parents did, David received multiple vampiric blood transfusions, so did Bruce. Josette became a vampire naturally, David and Bruce were turned."

 

Headmaster Doc makes a decision and starts glowing softly, Doc smiles and does the same.

 

"I know that Wolverine feels very paternal towards Josette but . . ." Katrina looks at her husband in the bathroom mirror where they're getting ready for bed.

 

"He's Clarinda's father in their dimension."

 

"Ahhhh. that makes more sense."

 

"Okay, there's a story about how we met since I'm not your grandfather here. And the way the others lips were twitching. . ." Logan looks at Josette. She starts laughing as she looks between him and Professor Xavier.

 

"Is Remy LeBeau one of your group?"

 

"Yes."

 

"You, Mr. Lebeau, and Logan came to the school our freshman year. You were looking at shutting down the school after taking the students you wanted because our school was a school, a student might get some help with his mutation from a teacher or student who had a similar one but Principal Madison wanted the students to be students. . .not warriors." Professor Xavier sighs but nods. "Earlier we had to fight for our rights."

 

"As did we, it was only after something bad happened that Mutants got the same protections as others. We got a lot of students who had purely physical mutations and others that had been in problems with other schools. At that time our mental link was just beginning to form and my mutation was purely limited to knowledge absorption. You. . ." she looks at Professor Xavier, "told Principal Madison I'd have to go to a normal school once ours was shut down. He bluntly told you hell no. You went to the government that the students weren't being trained in their abilities but since you weren't going to take all the students. . .that was back when 40 to 50 students a year was a good class size. .. and since you weren't going to give all of us a proper education like Principal Madison was you were told no. The others said that even back then I was the queen bee on the school since I'd been the junior dorm monitor under Professor Druid for a couple years and that was my first year as the senior dorm monitor with the twins as juniors. You tried to get Logan to scare me off but . . ." Josette smirks. "It didn't turn out like you expected."

 

"You said back then 40 was a good sized year. . .how many students did you have?"

 

"A couple years after we graduated they started getting bigger and bigger when our school got more notice, when Alan and the twins younger brothers enrolled they were part of a 200 and 400 incoming student year, after that they just started getting bigger and bigger and *bigger*, when we lost Earth we had over 40,000 students in all four years and when the school closed after the last of Granda's students graduated our last year was 6,002 students. The year before that had been over 35,000 and that was just one year."

 

"Logan?"

 

"The first time we fought I was in my science class. . ." Clarinda snickers at Professor Druid's assertion that Josette did not need victory music as the others led her off. She's cackling when her father is turned purple but starts cussing when she finds out Remy had discovered her working in the school's laundry to help pay for her schooling."

 

"It was my first time working by myself, the student who had had the job before me was on his senior trip, when he came back he'd have his finals and be packing up his room to leave. It was only five hours twice a week then, the fall it moved to five hours four times a week when we had more students on the second floor of the dorms." Abby looks over and pulls out a scrapbook, showing the others what the dorms looked like then. "Our senior year it went to six hours four nights a week and an eight hour shift on Sundays. By then we had the first and second floor occupied and students on the third floor. The semester we graduated the school started work on the new girls dorm, five floors and twenty-four student rooms on each floor with a monitor on each floor instead of Anna, Abby, and I taking care of the entire girls dorm while David, Michael, and Alexander handled the boys dorm."

 

"Just the girls dorm?"

 

"They started construction on the boys dorm the following year. we were going to be full first. The girls moved to the new dorm that fall, starting with the girls on the top floor since they'd mostly been there the least amount of time."

 

"So they should have the least to move." Headmaster Doc says. "And give the others time to pack their rooms up."

 

"Yes, the weekend after the third floor girls moved the second floor girls went over, then finally the first floor girls."

 

"Why not all at once?"

 

"The floor monitors weren't in place yet and it gave them time to pack everything. Because some girls had a lot of stuff. . .tvs, radios, dvd players, pets. . ."

 

"Kennedy would have demanded everybody move her stuff."

 

"Kennedy was a grade A bitch."

 

"Kennedy?"

 

"A girl in our class, she was actually a year older than us but had failed all her classes the year before. The only reason she didn't get expelled was because her Daddy paid to have the dining hall renovated. A girl in our year. . .her older brother paid to have the health center renovated. Kennedy had a fit about having to share her bathroom with a new student and threw a punch, her mutation was strength and she nearly put her fist through a solid wood door. The other girl's mutation allowed her to get away from her and she was thrown in a 'time-out' room. She was given schoolwork and ripped it up, the school psychologist we had at the time kept trying to wipe her nose and ass . . .telling her it was everybody else's fault."

 

"Moron."

 

"Yes, he was fired and she went to a rehab facility for her attitude problems. Daddy was wich so she thought she could do whatever she wanted. She soon learned otherwise when Daddy wiped his hands of her and she had to work like other people."

 

"Was that all between you and Logan?" Professor Xavier asks dryly. Josette's twitching lips tell him of course not. The rest of the story is told and Clarinda has slid out of her chair she's laughing so hard at the story of her father 200 feet over the ground, cursing a blue streak and she can just imagine the look on his face when her daughter had calmly asked him to repeat what he'd just said so she could make sure she'd wrote it down right. Her 'I said please' makes her laugh even harder. "There was a power outage as we were lowering him and we had to take off to handle the dorms. . .during power outages the dorms are locked down and all the students are inside. If it happens during classes, teachers would be bringing their students to the dorms and we'd be checking off names to make sure everybody is there, just like we did nights when that damn fool student set off the smoke bombs in the boys dorms our sophomore year." Headmaster Doc looks at them and they tell them what happened. "Young adults need their sleep, having it interrupted isn't good for them.

 

"Lockdown?"

 

"During storms. . .times like that when there's a power outage, and when the somebody gets drunk and stupider and phones in a threat. During power outages you hoped the hell you had a way to get into your room since they had the locks like hotels."

 

"No generators?"

 

"Not while we were in school, the only buildings with them were the ones renovated by students families. They were added to the new dorms, we had one added to the dorm by David's godmother, and the other buildings either had the small ones that ran on gas or had bigger ones that ran on propane added as each building was renovated."

 

David cackles. "Which made some of the students pout because thanks to the generators and the tunnels that link all the buildings they still had classes." Both headmasters snicker despite themselves.

 

"Be damn glad the school had them as many times as we lost power." Josette snorts.

 

"All the times you lost power?"

 

"The first time was 'the storm of the century' in the media, those of us who lived through it called it something a lot worse. We had a storm just squat in the area and dump snow on us for weeks. The front of the dorms were buried." Abby finds pictures of the school and they shake their heads. "No use trying to dig out while it was still snowing, garbage was piling up and we shoved it into an empty room since we didn't have the replicator then. When maintenance was able to start digging out the garbage went outside the front of the dorm or in the tunnels if the doors were buried. The National Guard had been bringing in supplies for us. The head of the electric company refused to start working on the lines, saying that generators meant they couldn't do anything. The other power companies had no problems with generators, just that moron. After nearly a month without power and several days of the electric company getting fined for refusing to work on the lines the governor had him arrested. Some of the schools were out nearly two months as lines were worked on. We got our power back fairly quickly since we were on the list of people who needed it back first with all the boarding students. Otherwise without the generators we'd have had to shut down the school and send the students home."

 

"At least the schools didn't have to shut down and students start the year over again that time." Michael mutters as he comes out of the bathroom. The others look at them. "It was a few years later."

 

"It had been a bad winter of revolving power outages. We just got our power back from one when the power went out again. This time though something had gone up at the plant and it would be six weeks until the new parts arrived and they could fix everything. Anything that didn't have generators shut down completely, including some of the buildings that only had the small gasoline powered ones because it would be too much money continually refilling them."

 

Headmaster Doc nods. "They're meant for limited outages, not continual use. Not even larger generators are meant to be in use so long continually."

 

"Yep, so the six weeks are nearly up and we find out they'd never even ordered the parts. They hadn't thought the damage was so bad and had been trying to fix it in house. . .saying they didn't have the money to order the new parts. The man who'd been put in charge after the other dumbass was arrested lost his job and somebody new took over. But it would be a good six months between the time the power had went out and the time it came back on. It was January when the power went out and it was nearly July when the power came on permanently because when they started installing everything they found more damage then they first thought. The power would be on. . go off, come on again, go off. . .be on a few days. go off."

 

"Oh lord, students would still be making up the previous year when the new year started." Professor Xavier moans.

 

"Exactly, seniors were allowed to take their senior trips since they'd already paid for them and they were allowed to take their finals. If they passed they graduated, if not they started the year over again in September. The third time the power went out the schools were already closed."

 

"The nonsense with the Department of Education?"

 

"Yes. Anyway, we got power back three days later, the girls who couldn't get in their rooms had cleaned up the rooms they were using on the second and third floor and tossed their sheets and blankets down the laundry chute. Later that night you arrived at my back door, waving a handkerchief as a white flag. Seeing Mom's picture you realized who my family was. . .that was the first I'd heard that I even had family."

 

"James called me but since we were involved in something at that time it was a while before I found the call. And I thought it was a grandchild from one of my . .. adventures. It was the kids first semester of university when I was called to the school to apologize for the misconduct of the former board in denying Josette a scholarship for her last name. I knew Josette when we first met. .." Headmaster Doc nods. "and when we went to her room to find the pictures she'd taken of rocks she thought had writing on them and tried translating from Johnny's books."

 

"Monk." Headmaster Doc sighs.

 

"I saw Clarinda's photo, the three familiars, and remembered James's phone call. It took me several days to get hold of you, it was by accident that you, me, the kids, and Principal Madison were at the tv studio at the same time."

 

"And you were sneaky, Doc was waiting on the DNA test to come back. . .you wrote a letter telling me they were my grandparents. So we already knew by the time they came back out."

 

"How long were you working in the laundry?"

 

"Until the first semester that we had four dorms, by then Principal Madison had hired out the job. I was working with two women showing them the ropes, once he knew they were handling it okay he 'fired' me by paying me through the spring semester. By then I would have my library science bachelors and I took over running the library. The next year the sheets and towels went to the commercial laundry in Boston they worked for because we were adding four more dorms and we'd outgrown the eight commercial washers and row of dryers in the back room."

 

"That was also the time the job of putting together packages of laundry for the new dorms and putting together the first year books and supplies for the new students were taken over by temp workers."

 

"Sets of laundry?"

 

"Bottom sheet, top sheet, and pillowcase. Each student got two, they used one and tossed it down the laundry chute when they were told and opened the second set. The next day they'd go to the storeroom and get a new set. Towels were two hand towels, two bath towels, and two washcloths."

 

"And they got two sets of those too."

 

"Yep, before it was taken over by temp workers the four of us girls usually worked five or six hours a day running sheets and pillowcases through the folding machine and making sets. I can't complain about the money, while Josette was the only one officially getting a paycheck, the school counted how many hours she'd been punched in there and paid us the same amount."

 

"Only you girls?"

 

"Yes, the boys were usually busy with the construction. Once we were done with the stuff for the dorms. . .including extra for the older dorms to replace stuff that was getting worn out we started putting together packages of books and supplies for the incoming students. That usually took a month. The boys helped us when we worked at the bookstore when the students signed up for the new semester. They'd hand over their class list and we'd get their books, they just had to get their supplies so the lines kept moving pretty quickly."

 

"That's the way to do it, otherwise with as many students as you had the line would be out the door."

 

All of them nod. "We had a variation of it when we were replicating books for the students going for dual enrollment. One of us would run the class list and bags to Josette, she'd replicate everything and we'd bring them back to the student. Of course they were only allowed to take one class at a time, when they were done with one they went to the office and got the books for the next class."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The school is investigated over the next several days, the newly put together dorms getting head shakes from both men. "I can't imagine having that many students."

 

"I can't imagine having to shut down your school down because you won't have children for nearly three decades. Even those years we have small classes. . ."

 

"We still had children. Though that small of a class size will mean teachers being able to devote more time to their students."

 

"I do like that they're opening the school to the town." They can see people walking into the textiles building for a class.

 

"They've been doing it for years according to James. Calvin's school has just as much experience at it, they've recently built a textiles building and are offering classes to the public. There's a waiting list for those and the language classes the school offers also."

 

Josette looks at the message on her PADD, blinking and reading it again before grabbing Bronwen and Calvin.

 

They read the message, having a similar response to Josette.

 

"It . . .makes sense." Calvin says finally.

 

"Is there enough free land?"

 

"Yes, and the state is trying to unload it. That's how you were able to buy so much land, it was vacant from the last zero-population period."

 

"And it would cut out shipping prices." Josette sends a message to the people over the retreat, getting excited babble back a couple days later.

 

"Ohhhhh. .. " Professor Xavier says as he walks out onto Calvin's school grounds.

 

"Yes, each school has it's own charm." Calvin says, having come back a week ago his time though he'd just left after the Harvest Festival, Haven time.

 

"Stores?" They can see a building going up and one being worked on.

 

"A store that sells fabric, yarn, and jewelry making supplies for our classes. James's school doesn't have one since they've got both Sue and Agatha so close." Both had met the two women during the Harvest Festival. "We opened a national chain bookstore at the same time."

 

"The bank?"

 

"Open for years."

 

"Did your students have jobs?"

 

"Yes, having a branch of the bank here was very helpful. ..both for the scholarship students and the ones who had jobs."

 

"What was your percentage of boarding students?"

 

"Usually hovering somewhere between 90 and 95 percent, with the rest living nearby. While the school in town was whining about losing students to us over the last couple of years, they're not our major student body."

 

Josette comes back with Jane a few hours later.

 

"Land good?"

 

"Perfect, and you might be interested in this. It's nearby." Jane hands over a folder, Calvin looking it over and smiling. "Are they interested?"

 

"Once they found out who was going to be moving into the area and where I work. We've been thinking of being associated with a university for a while."

 

"Which will have the whiners up in arms in full force. . .until they realize that you're not going to be opening the school for one or two students." Maria rolls her eyes. "They've got a good reputation and are one of the schools that always use the zero-population periods to go over classes and update textbooks. Teachers have been there for years and they routinely mentor younger teachers who transfer to other schools."

 

"I think they were a little overwhelmed by the schools." Susan snickers after everybody heads home.

 

"I'm sure we felt the same way when the incoming classes started getting bigger and bigger and bigger." Josette says.

 

"Are we done with the offworld harvests?"

 

"Yep, today was the last of them." Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later. She heads off and comes back an hour later.

 

"God damn effing moron."

 

"Dumbass in the medium security dimension?"

 

"Other god damn effing moron. This one wailing in front of the publishing house that his life was over. . .he was going to kill himself if I don't give him back his job and the company. . . Oh. . .and my books too. Don't forget that. The police who were called to deal with the fool were not happy to hear about that. . .oh not at all."

 

"Christ, how goddamn stupid is he?"

 

"Oh I know. . .they walked off telling him to kill himself." Susan sniggers despite herself. "He howled about that and tried throwing himself at one of them. They threw his ass in a 72 hour hold at the hospital, but they've already said he's not mentally ill. . .just too fucking stupid to live. They're talking about putting him under conservatorship in a home if he doesn't stop pulling this shit." David rolls his eyes. "Yeah, I know. . . not going to happen on his own."

 

"Is dumbass settling down in the medium-security dimension?"

 

"Fuck no, now he's got the money to try to push his weight around. . .before that he couldn't. Not that he's getting anywhere, everybody hates him for his stupidity. He's still got to work. . .he wailed when his money didn't mean he could sit on his ass."

 

"Shouldn't that old fool have realized that by now?"

 

"Oh you're just saying that because I don't have any money. Now he's got money and is whining that people still aren't bowing, scraping, and kissing his ass. He's still looking for that magical number that will let him come home."

 

"Dumb fucker still doesn't realize he's never getting out of there."

 

"Ohhhh. .. .you're just saying that." Josette flaps her hand in a 'I know best' voice. "Dumbass still thinks he can just pick his life back up if he just makes enough money."

 

Josette howls with laughter during the next databurst. Doc takes the PADD she's holding over her shoulder and reads it.

 

"Wanna know?"

 

"Dumbass whining because the cemetery won't let him put up that magnificent monument to his stupid son and himself. He's got to put up a normal headstone."

 

"Fuck no I'm not putting up that monstrosity on my land." Josette snorts a few days later when she's called before a judge. "He wants people to whine, weep, and wail over it when he's gone, he can find some other place for it."

 

"Do you live in the house that was given to you in the judgment?" the judge sneers. Josette's look makes him silently gulp. This isn't a kid he can just run roughshod over. . .the deep part of his mind that actually has sense is silently slapping him stupid. . .or should that be stupider.

 

"No, I turned it into a retreat for textiles people since there's a university nearby. Right now there's fifty-eight students and three teachers working on lacemaking projects."

 

"Is that why you added onto the home?"

 

"Yes, we've nearly tripled the space we had.. . that's why we're offering more classes."

 

Dumbass wails and trying throwing himself at Josette, getting jumped on by the authorities.

 

"So that's it. . .if dumbass wants to make a memorial to him and his useless son he's got to find land to buy and put it up, plus have enough money in a fund for upkeep and taxes."

 

"I didn't think that he was allowed to sue you anymore." Principal Madison says.

 

"Probably the people who made the headstone sued him because he refused to pay for it and he dragged you into the mess." President Bartlett rumbles.

 

"Exactly. He was howling about me turning his house into a business. . . the judge was a sneering bastard about me not having the property zoned and how I'd be facing massive fines and have it shut down until dumbass had to admit he'd done that himself. Fucking fool. He got lectured about his nastiness by the other judges, fool man thought he would run roughshod over me."

 

"That fool won't stop causing problems until somebody shoots him for his stupidity."

 

"Nope, he's wailing that he's got another judgment to start paying off. The police took him past his old house and he was wailing about not seeing a dime of the money coming in. Not that he'd ever lower himself to do something like that. Ohhhh. . .and he'd have added onto the house more than I did." The others make ooo la la sounds. "Yeah, so he's headed back to the work dimension to pay for the monument he created and buy a spot of land to put the damn thing up on, along with a fund for maintenance and taxes."

 

"Did they move his son yet?"

 

"No, and since he can't have the damn monument where he wanted it to lord over everybody he's wailing about not moving him now."

 

"Why can't they be buried on their own land? There used to be . .."

 

"Old family cemeteries. Yes, but they were usually grandfathered in because they were old."

 

"Yep, and you'd generally have to get special permission to add new bodies. The land would have to be zoned specially for it. . .that's why most cemeteries were outside town." The others nod.

 

"Dumbass pay for the land and whatnot?" David asks when Josette's returned from her midterms.

 

"Yes, all the meanwhile wailing about how everybody is being so damn mean to him. He's gonna sue to make them overturn their rules on oversized headstones. . .they'll be sorry. Not that the old fool's got a leg to stand on. Neither does that old fool judge who was going to sue because he got sanctioned for acting like an asshole in court. He got told to grow the hell up and stop being a miserable bastard."

 

"Ohhhh, and I'm sure that went over well."

 

"Yep, he's wailing that this is all an attack against him because he's up for re-election and his poll numbers are tanking because everybody knows what a miserable old bastard he really is. . .this just proves it."

 

"How is the new land coming along?"

 

"Good, the state is happy to get that land cleared up and developed. . it's been sitting empty for years but nobody wanted that big a parcel and rezoning it would be too much of a hassle. The universities that specialize in textiles are happy. . .they'll be dealing with less shipping if they can't drive to the complex themselves. Morons are wailing about Granda going into business with a university but people are finally beginning to realize just just because a school offers more classes they're not out to steal their oh so precious students. It's going to be years before he opens the school to students unless it's on a case by case basis."

 

"Even then it wouldn't truly be open."

 

"No, it would be more like how I was tutored before I started high school."

 

Principal Madison nods from where he'd just walked in the pocket doors. "Josette, supplies?"

 

"Tomorrow. Do we have any more empty containers to take back?"

 

"No, you picked up the ones we had last week."

 

Josette slips into the library at the school since Jane and Maria are on the phones and the door to Calvin's office was closed.

 

"What's going on?" Josette asks Monica who's sorting through trade journals.

 

"A couple of different things. The state sticking its nose where it doesn't belong. That old fool judge trying to find problems because you're associated with the school and getting his ass handed to him for his stupidity. This is the last nail needed in his coffin. He's off sulking. . .how can people actually do everything legally?" Josette snorts. Monica nods. "The school in town might not be opening. . . "

 

Josette is shaking her head when she returns to the school. "Long story, I'll tell everybody at dinner so I don't have to repeat myself."

 

"Excuse me . . .dumbass judge did what?" Professor Druid splutters at dinner.

 

"Dropped a dime to the state trying to find fault with the school because I'm on the payroll here. And I wouldn't respect his authority. Old bastard is now looking at 180 days in jail for his stupidity and he lost his spot on the bench. Never mind the election. . .He's out on his worthless little ass. His name is off the ballot and his team is scrambling trying to find somebody to replace him with or lose their spot on the ballot. Granda's already filed the lawsuit to slap him stupider for this."

 

"180 days?" Professor Eppes looks at President Bartlett and Professor Ziegler. They both nod.

 

"The state was not happy about his stupidity. He had a raging fit when they didn't find a damn thing so got more time tacked onto his sentence. Seems using his position for personal gain is a no-no. And the federal judges do not have a sense of humor."

 

"Anything else?"

 

"Yep, the school in town looks like it might not be opening. . .the state's scrambling to find money for all the schools. ..the town council can't give them any money, they're barely skinning through on what they have now and can't afford it. They tried passing a millage to pay for the credit union and got laughed at, they're trying for an emergency millage to pay for it but I don't see it passing, it's only five years but it would raise everybody's taxes too much. They're hoping for money from the federal government. . .the federal government is looking into turning the school over to us as another adjunct school. Since they'd been so lucky with us."

 

Principal Madison buries his face in his hands. "Yeah, Granda is just giving them a 'you have to be kidding me look'. If he does take over running the school they're going to have to hammer out a lot of details. Details the people in town won't be happy about."

 

"More emphasis on education and less on sports, bringing back art and music. Languages and science."

 

"Bringing back home ec, making it mandatory, and making it a whole year."

 

"Making the school years match."

 

"Having to look at the texts the school uses and either replace them with their own or find other ones for the earlier years."

 

"You damn fool, what is your problem that you did that?"

 

"But she got me sanctioned." He whines.

 

"Your damn stupidity by repeatedly being nasty to people in your courtroom got you sanctioned. She just wouldn't put up with your bullshit."

 

"But I didn't know he'd already had the land zoned for a home business."

 

"You had no damn business calling her in, the case was against him not her."

 

"But she could have let him put that monument up on the property. She doesn't live there." He sneers. Then gulps at the look of sheer hatred in his former boss's face. "Leave.them.the.HELL.Alone." He says through gritted teeth. "Don't contact them, don't threaten them, don't do anything against them but apologize for your blatant stupidity at the civil trial and hope like hell they don't get too big a settlement."

 

"They wouldn't dare sue." He huffs.

 

"They've already filed the paperwork jackass."

 

"But that's not fair."

 

"Neither was you 'dropping a dime' and trying to cause problems for their school because you got your feewings hurt." His former boss says mockingly. "Get the hell over yourself. . .it's not that damn difficult."

 

Dumbass wails louder when he gets the judgment, he'd refused to behave in the courtroom and gotten an additional three days tacked onto his sentence and been removed from the courtroom.

 

Josette yawns as she slides into her seat in the testing center after finishing her finals.

 

"How is the school situation?"

 

"The state and federal government really want Granda to take it over. They're offering a lot of incentive, paying all the students costs until the fifth year, then allowing them to either switch over to the other school and pay half or continue on at the school in town while still paying half. Parents will know this and will be opening accounts at the credit union where they should be putting money away for their tuition. There will be a refilling fund for the teachers for classroom supplies. . .no having to buy stuff with their own money." Dr. Stark nods in satisfaction. "And the students will be getting supplies at the beginning of each semester. . .the school now going year-round."

 

"Books?"

 

"Granda's got a list of them to look over, more worksheets in the classes. Adding a bookstore to the store and enlarging the library. If the state and federal government really want him to take it over, they're going to have to do it on his terms."

 

 

 

 

Josette Grover pokes her head around the pocket doors. "Do you have extra room, I picked up some strays on the way here."

 

"Who'd you get?"

 

"We were in Sheriff Carter's dimension, when he found out where we were going he insisted on coming along. And Dr. Stark came with him. Jack and the Doctor there insisted on coming with us when they found out where we were going. So did General O'Neill and Colonel Sheppard when they found out you have the ships. They're currently whimpering on the bus because we detoured over them." Josette smirks. "Yeah. Anyway, we detoured to Jacar and Jonathon's worlds. The fourth doctor came visiting just before we left, and so did one of my fathers."

 

Josette thinks a second, another hallway appearing. "Yeah, we got plenty of room."

 

Sheriff Carter chuckles as he drags O'Neill and Sheppard into the dorm. "You can talk to her later. Hello everybody." David waves a hand from the wall where he's talking to Alfred. "Alex is in his workroom, they'll let him know when he comes up for air." Sheriff Carter looks at him. "Alex Wayne moved to Haven years ago, there was an . . .incident on his world."

 

"Good or bad incident?" Sheriff Carter and Jack O'Neill sigh.

 

"Bad, very bad. A 'religious' group set off chemical weapons to sterilize everybody that didn't believe their brand of hate so they could still breed and take over. It got everybody."

 

"Ori." O'Neill sighs. Sheppard nods. "Genii." "Everybody under five and over 50 in the immediate area died. There was about a hundred people off the planet on a satellite who weren't affected but it wasn't enough to rebuild their world. But after they lost a good chunk of their population I found a planet that was stupidly getting rid of their orphans because the others were sooooo much better than they were because they had families." Everybody in earshot rolls their eyes or sigh. "Anyway, I brought out the orphans. . .including their schools and several hundred families that weren't that fucking stupid to their world. Many of them had been orphans themselves and ended up making their own families."

 

"The planet falling to pieces because they did that?"

 

"Yep, they'd shoved the scut work onto them and had to do it themselves now. They lost a lot of technology, orphans generally went for the harder degrees. Those classes went with the orphans."

 

"Proof humanity is stupid everywhere." Jacar snorts. Jonathon nods. "Their world is on par with Becka's, we did a lot of clearing out empty countries and cities did a lot of urban renewal, tearing down buildings that should have been demolished years ago."

 

"Becka?"

 

"Tony is from her dimension, the coup morphed into a industrialist's pet scientists creating a machine that caused a massive EMP. . .on the scale of continents. It wasn't powerful enough to take out everything but it caused massive power failures that affected everything . . .as in not even batteries worked. Only the wind-up emergency radios with a light worked. Some of the time. They lost Europe and Australia to the machine and the rest of the world lost power multiple times before they finally took him out. He did it so he could make tons of money rebuilding."

 

"Sounds like big business. Lemme guess, the government swooped in and took the machine . ..not to destroy it oh no. To examine it."

 

"So they could use it on their enemies? Yep, the damn thing kept being turned on by every fucking fool who wanted things run their way. Finally some fool started tinkering with it because he thought he was so damn smart and fried it. Unfortunately he fried a lot of the remaining infrastructure with it. They lost a lot of the power grid, subways. airplanes, traffic signals and electronic signs on freeways, batteries. . .flashlights still didn't work unless they were the ones you shook or wound. They got solar panels back but otherwise. .. you name it, it fried thanks to that damn machine. And morons in big business went wailing because factories that were open were concentrating on stuff like water treatment and sewage plants, not stuff they wanted."

 

"Uh-huh, in other words they worked on stuff they needed, not stuff that would make them money." Jacar snorts.

 

"Yep." Josette drawls.

 

"What's their population?" Dr. Stark asks. "Losing two continents must have brought it down drastically."

 

"Hovering somewhere around a billion and a half. Our population was under a billion when the solar flares killed everybody left on Earth. And We lost nearly two billion people in the war."

 

"War?"

 

Josette sighs and waves everybody into seats, the story of the 'Friends' of humanity, the war, and the loss of earth being told by everybody. Alex and his Dad had come in by then and they talk about what had happened on their world over dinner and afterwards.

 

Becka and the others had arrived by then and that turns to the talk about what had happened in their dimension.

 

"This shows you how easily things can go to hell in a handbasket and instead of just affecting Eureka or Atlantis, it affects an entire world." Sheriff Carter says when they go upstairs to their rooms.

 

"Yep." General O'Neill sighs. "So how different was their world than ours?"

 

"No Stargate, Atlantis was in contact with the vampire council in their world. Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, and House were tv shows in their dimension like with Xander. Twilight is a series of popular books. Both their dimensions I should say. They're ahead of us by a good bit, what had happened in our world. . .Nathan coming back with Alexander had happened while they were in high school. And from what I can gather now, that was decades*] ago for them."

 

"Atlantis was in contact with the vampire council?"

 

"Yes, Josette says the ships had been in contact with each other even scattered around the galaxies. When Atlantis says she'd bonded with Josette the others picked up and moved to Haven to meet her."

 

"Bonded?" Colonel Sheppard asks.

 

"It's not like with you where you have to have the gene to operate the ship and you have to be in the chair. Josette doesn't have the gene and while she's in the chair, it morphs into a chamber for takeoffs and landings. It's not like with you were you're wiped after being in the chair, Josette's okay. It's more she's a bystander watching everything while the AIs are in charge, she'll handle a lot of the little stuff. The ships don't need her in the chair."

 

"Can she fly the ship herself if needed?"

 

"Yes. And yes, I'm sure she'll go on a trip around the solar system on one of them while we're here."

 

In a room 4th, 8th, and Eureka doctor are talking to the their other selves, the time lord doctor arriving a few seconds later.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Josette, I know you're a reader." Headmaster Doc says dryly. The others laugh and lead him to the door at the end of the hall he'd been eyeing.

 

"Oh my lord." Professor Xavier breathes.

 

"Each hallway has several rooms and there's more than one building. . . now. And this is just fiction."

 

"Plus movies, audio books, and cds."

 

"Non-fiction."

 

They're led to another room. "This is all our non-fiction beyond textbooks and reference books from our degrees. Those go in another library."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Josette?" Superhero Doc says in a too calm voice. David looks that way and sniggers. "Just find out how many degrees Josette took while she was out there?"

 

"Eighteen degrees in five years?"

 

"Eighteen degrees?" Headmaster Doc and Professor Xavier ask. David sniggers and leads them to the library, Doc moaning when he sees all the books and framed diplomass.

 

"First floor is our dimension, second floor is Clark's. Third floor is Calvin's while the fourth is theirs. Theirs is only one room so far since Josette's only taken classes at one school. Each hallway is a separate school, each room is an area. Yes, there's diplomas that seem to be the same, some are multiple degree sets while others are from different schools."

 

"Different schools came at it from different directions?"

 

"Yep."

 

"Good Lord!" Professor Xavier moans when they find Josette putting books, comics, and DVDS away.

 

"Sosh school that specializes in comics. One big part of it is when you are finished you will have mint copies . . .so you get two. One to read for classes and one to put away. I've graduated with 13 degrees and I've finished five more comic book degrees and a second degree on tv shows since then. I wanna get in two more comic book degrees and probably another tv degree before Granda starts giving me looks about graduating again."

 

"How do you handle graduations?"

 

"GD prints out diplomas every several years, Dr. Stark usually handing out the ones for the schools that didn't come up."

 

"How often do you finish a degree from this school?"

 

"Two years for a comic book degree, three for a tv degree since I have to watch the disks."

 

"That's. . ."

 

"Nine comic book classes a semester, a semester a semester for the tv. Because of all the disks. Yes, the others don't like me taking so many any more than you do." Professor Xavier chuckles. "The others get two or three classes in a semester."

 

"Your magical books?"

 

They head down a hallway to another area, Headmaster Doc nodding in satisfaction at a decent sized workroom and huge library. "I copied every magical text I could scan from my ship and found a *lot* of lost areas. I didn't bring all of them out."

 

"Are you the only one with copies?"

 

"No, I passed along a good bunch to Dr. Blake on the 8th planet. Doc can come in here to look at anything he wants, I know he's got his own library in Headquarters. We'll pass them along to the other magic users as needed."

 

"Josette, are the printers done with your fiction?" President Bartlett asks at dinner.

 

"Yes, I moved the last batch to the ship last week. The store's got two boxes of each book."

 

"I want to talk to you about a bookstore." Calvin calls from the backroom.

 

Professor Xavier looks at them. Susan chuckles. "Doc, Josette, David, President Bartlett, and Principal Madison are our planetary government. They meet a whole hour once a month. Any other time it's like this, somebody will come up to one of them and they'll talk, they'll pass it along to the others."

 

"An hour a month?"

 

"Different than staff meetings. And you couldn't even get people to come to a one hour meeting, let alone run a government. The meetings are longer if we're bringing something out." Principal Madison says.

 

"Josette, your comic degrees?"

 

"I just finished my second Tmely degree. I'm going to start the last National degree next year then finish the last Timely degree."

 

"Timely, National?"

 

"Pre Marvel and DC. These two degrees will finish a seven degree set from each school that brings me up to the comic code kerfuffle, that's twelve degrees but covers all the companies. . .a lot that closed thanks to that. Then there's the explosion of super-heroes."

 

"How is the new store coming?"

 

"Good, the yarn will start splitting off into it by the time Josette comes out for supplies. The existing store is nearly three times larger now."

 

"And they'll probably be even larger after Ellis opens his second location?"

 

"Yup. And I'll probably be enlarging the textiles building too. Or building a second one."

 

"How are the plans to work with the university coming along?"

 

"Good."

 

"Did you officially take over the school in town?"

 

"Yes, the final paperwork was signed before we came up. A crew is working on the interior of the school right now, they'll add onto the school as soon as they can."

 

"Is there room?"

 

"They're tearing down one whole wing, the elementary isn't up to code now. That area will become a three story addition and they'll be adding at least a second floor to the other sections."

 

"Which is why they moved the elementary to the other school in my dimension." Josette Grover says. "Didn't you say you had a school a lot like my old one?"

 

"Yeah, in Doc's dimension. The millage didn't pass there." Josette says, waving at superhero Doc.

 

"It did in my old dimension, which may be why the millage to get bus service in the county didn't." She snorts. "Of course these are the same morons who didn't wike kindergarteners having to ride a bus with the big kids."

 

"Ignoring the fact they'd be doing it anyway the next year? And going all day?" Josette drawls.

 

"Yeah, of course Michigan was the only state that didn't make students go to kindergarten, they could start school right in the first grade."

 

"Sounds familiar." Doc chuckles. Josette just laughs. "I skipped kindergarten, there's a difference."

 

"Those portable classrooms would be perfect for classes until you need more than one room for classes." Josette looks over at Calvin. Who nods. "I plan on leaving them there for just that reason for a few years, it will be at least that long for all the work to be done on the main building."

 

Josette looks over the plans when she comes out to the school after the Lights Festival.

 

"Three floors?"

 

"We're looking at five now. The school doesn't have any room to expand outwards, we have to go up."

 

"Yes, this is a piss-poor place to have a school. There's no room to grow."

 

"That's the school districts for you. If they have it outside town it means more people having to bus or parents taking them to school."

 

"And most private schools are out of the city limits."

 

"Where they can tell the city to blow it out their asses and have the room to grow."

 

"They really didn't think of future growth when they decided to put the school there."

 

"Let it be somebody else's problem. Now, why are you here?"

 

"That miserable old bastard judge sued trying to get his judgment overturned. The courts slapped him even stupider and he's off wailing to the minimum security dimension to pay off this one. He's still upset he got sanctioned because he's a miserable bastard and I wouldn't let him run roughshod all over me."

 

"Too many years of being the man, now he's no better than anybody else and he's pouting."

 

"All of them." Jane, Maria, and Calvin nod. Josette takes pictures of the construction going on for Ellis's new warehouse complex before heading to the publishing house, getting waved into Joanne's office since Jessica and Madison are off. She goes over all the contracts and a book tour. She also talks about expos and conventions, handing over paperwork on all of them. Josette nods, she'd talked to Calvin and the others about some of them.

 

"Are conventions, expos, and tours picking up or dropping off now that the zero-population period is ending?"

 

"No, much to the horror of the people who'd been proclaiming one way or other." Joanne snorts. "So I hear Calvin took over the school in town where he is?"

 

"Yep, they're going to be tearing down a wing that was built years ago and isn't code now and build a five floor addition on that end and add extra floors onto the rest of the school. The government is falling over themselves to make it into a showcase for what they want schools to be like instead of all the horror stories you saw about schools on the news before the zero-population period. They've got portable classrooms by the playground they're going to be using until they need more than one classroom."

 

Josette returns to Haven a few weeks later her time, sliding into her seat at the government building.

 

"Did you read the message from Sarah?" She asks David. He sniggers. The others look at them. "Sarah said she's not having any more birthdays, they make her old. In a couple years Jasmine and Sebastian will be older than she is. Jasmine hasn't started caring about her age yet."

 

"Did you talk to Dad about the school plans?"

 

"Yep." She sends them to the server, the others downloading them. "They're up to five floors now."

 

"Expos?"

 

"Got a list of them in various fields from Joanne." She sends that information to the others as well.

 

"Degrees? Josette?"

 

"I should be finishing at least three this year. Including the first one on the Titanic from the school computer."

 

"The others?" Principal Madison looks at David.

 

"All of us but Michael and Alexander are going to be three years into our degrees. They just started their degrees."

 

"How are you on your art?"

 

"Good, with no classes for a year the boys were able to get more stuff done."

 

"Shows?"

 

"Me Mom a couple weeks into the second semester, the boys Granda just before the Harvest Festival."

 

"Do you have stuff for an extra show?"

 

"Yes, I've been doing some stuff here and there on the ship when I go out."

 

"Books?"

 

"Twenty-two yet to debut. Thankfully the damn deluge of quilts didn't come with books this last two times. Maybe this means I won't be getting more." Josette sighs. "And I'm probably going to have to think about a new identity. Earth isn't Haven, people are going to notice I'm not aging like I should be. . .especially after the zero-population period."

 

"Talk to Dad, I think he's got a handle on it. I think you can pass it off as good living for a few more years. You're not continually in the limelight."

 

"Thank you god no, damn fools having to have their faces and tits in front of every camera they can." Josette shudders. "No matter how damn old they get."

 

Back at the dorm Josette picks a bag and starts looking over the notes, turning it into a proper pattern. She shivers and nods at the extra heat coming up through the vents, one of the others had tossed a fireball in the second furnace.

 

"Got a tour?"

 

"In a few months."

 

"How's the school coming along?" Susan asks at lunch.

 

"They're busy removing everything they can salvage from the school before they tear it down. Granda's got a replicator going for the debris they can't reuse. Once they get that one section that's not up to to code torn down they'll start tearing down the roof on the other section so they can start adding the other floors."

 

"Is anybody complaining?"

 

"Of course. . .the school should be declared a historical landmark. . ..nope. The school doesn't need the old section torn down. . .it should be grandfathered in because it's so old. It's quaint and should be saved."

 

"Morons."

 

"Oh yes. They walked off pouting when people just gave them 'get the fuck out of my face dumbass' looks."

 

"There's always people who hate change and think they're so damn better than everybody else so you should do what they want."

 

"Yep, meanwhile others who actually attended the school are very interested to see the new changes that's going to happen. Because they remember the old school. . .and not fondly." The others snigger in the back room. "Not just more classes than was offered in the old school, it's newer books, better facilities, and their kids getting them from the start. All the schools are making an effort now to add more classes and whatnot."

 

"Hopefully it will be centuries before schools get as bad as they used to."

 

"Amen." President Bartlett says from the front room.

 

Josette comes back from the book tour several weeks later, dropping onto the couch with a moan. Doc chuckles over her head as she waves everything out of subspace. "Damn effing morons."

 

"Dumbass in the medium security dimension or . .. "

 

"Other damn effing moron. He's wailing that his life is over. He's got to work and not lord it over everybody at the publishing house. He was so sure they'd come begging him to take the job back once his great-nephew ruined the business."

 

"And he hasn't?" Susan snorts. "Laundry?"

 

"Did it before I came back. And nope, in fact the business is showing a fifteen percent increase in sales. Because he's doing stuff the old man didn't want to do."

 

"Of course. . . .because he's not coasting along." David snorts. "Have they started tearing down the old school in town yet?"

 

"Yep." Josette lifts her head from the couch cushion, looking at the cat who was just about to jump on her head with a 'don't even think it' look that has everybody grinning. "The bag by Alexander's foot. No, the .. .yeah that one. Pictures and video footage on the hard drive with the red dot." The files go on the server, Principal Madison thanking them from his office as he looks everything over.

 

"Is this information available to the public?"

 

"Yep, we've got copies of everything in the area that won't be torn down, it will the be last area worked on and people can come in and look over the proposed changes."

 

It finally begins warming up as Josette puts the first batch of supplies for her last National comics degree up and everybody is opening windows. . .even if they do have to shut them a few minutes later when the furnace starts coming on. A few times a day helps with the 'lived-in' funk of the dorm.

 

"Are any schools open yet?" One of the cooks asks at breakfast.

 

"They figure next year for those schools that don't offer headstart."

 

"With the small class sizes it won't be needed for a while."

 

Everybody nods. The teachers will be able to give the students all the attention they need.

 

"Is Calvin's school ready to open?"

 

"Yep, they've got three students scheduled to start this fall, two girls and a boy. Their parents are the first non-employee members of the credit union."

 

Josette leans back in her chair at the government building after the planting. "Do we have anything to talk about?"

 

"Not that I can see." President Bartlett leafs through the PADD in front of him. "The school is going well, nobody has said anything in town or Albatross. Are you growing on the first planet?"

 

"Next year, we don't need the food." Doc nods as he walks into the room. "The greenhouses are in good repair and we routinely trade extra food among them." Principal Madison nods behind him. "No David?"

 

"He's off with Dad talking with Kara about either bringing out a home for her or building her own."

 

"How is the Kents dealing with fresh food in the winter?"

 

"Clark built growing areas on both farms. Right now they're just greenhouses but he wants to enlarge them over the next couple years to include hydroponics. Of course neither of them think they need them but. . ."

 

"You take care of family." President Bartlett says. The others nod. "Both the family you create and those you're born into."

 

Josette starts cussing when she and Doc return to the dorm, Doc chuckling as she creates multiple sketchpads and multiple duplicates and starts working on more quilt ideas. The others chuckle as they walk past her for lunch, Josette walking into the back room ten minutes after them.

 

"More quilts?"

 

"Yes, these time with books. And more books for the others. I've got three duplicates going through the other notebooks making lists." Josette looks up at the ceiling, swears, and splits off a duplicate that starts tapping out notes on her PADD.

 

"And there go the other books." Principal Madison says in the front room. Professor Fletcher nods at another table. "Yes, the bunnies attack in droves. I've had ideas for three books come at once. Josette gets hit more often because she writes in more genres."

 

The original Josette nods as she fills her tray and starts eating.

 

"Are the others on the 9th planet going for supplies?" Professor Ziegler asks.

 

Josette nods, her mouth full. She looks at Abby who rolls her eyes. "Josette says they're heading off in a couple days with eighteen ****huge**** ships for supplies for all of us. And that won't scratch the surface of what's on Earth."

 

"Of course not, Earth has always been a consumer planet." Mrs. Bartlett says. "Though I see they're cutting down on packaging and using more recycled content." Everybody nods.

 

"Josette, what are your plans for the afternoon?"

 

"I gotta get in books and supplies for this summer's classes."

 

"Are you finishing a tv degree?"

 

Josette nods. "And I should be finishing another when I finish the Timely degree."

 

"How many degrees will that be?"

 

"Four comics, three tv. I haven't heard anything about graduation yet. They should be having one soon, the comic school wasn't affected by the zero-population period and all the classes are at capacity."

 

"Comicon?"

 

"Yeah, they're hosting another one later this year. The week after the boys show and we'd be out there anyway." In the front room Principal Madison nods.

 

Josette and the others head off to Mom Clarinda's dimension a couple weeks later, dropping off the stuff for the show, the few special orders, and the books with Dexter before checking out a couple special exhibits at museums before dragging themselves to the rooms. A visitor is startled but James just waves at them as they take off their outer clothes, Josette floating as she hops around on one foot to take off her shoes.

 

The visitor looks at James. "Our kids from another dimension, they come up a couple times their year and we're out there as often. Three of them are artists, Josette has a show in a couple days."

 

The visitor whistles, stunned despite himself as he looks around the gallery. He hadn't known what to expect. . .too many parents using their influence to get their kids spots they don't deserve but the sheets and other stuff is flying off the shelves. He's looking through the special orders and making a list of what he wants.

 

Josette and Alan start delivering boxes when they return to Haven six weeks later their time. Michael and Alexander start going over their orders as Josette empties the boxes of wood, metal, and other supplies in their own areas. The boxes are moved to storage until they're needed again before they start working.

 

A couple months later Josette flips thumb drives on Joanne and Madison's desks. They nod since they're on the phones and Josette heads off to join the others at the mansion. They come back from checking out the work on the school.

 

"Looking good, are the library and bookstore going to be part of the new construction?"

 

"Yes, thanks to the credit union there's no room for separate buildings."

 

"Is the town still on the hook for paying for it?"

 

"Yep. Because it was already decided before the state and then federal government took over. They paid for it, working out a payment schedule with the town that won't make them have to try to pass a new millage or cut the budget even further. They're hoping that Granda taking over the school will bring new interest to the area."

 

"How close is Ellis to opening his new location?"

 

"Second month year after next, we've already got an invite for the special sale. I put the information on the server and they've got two years of offworld harvests to get the fund up to where they want it. This will handle the regular order." Calvin nods in satisfaction behind the others.

 

David chuckles as Josette slips out of her high heels under cover of the table where she's signing books, rubbing her feet together and wiggling her toes. If she could have wore tennis shoes with her outfit she would have.

 

"Was that the damn moron?" David is talking about the man who'd been staring at all the books being sold and wailing until he was asked to leave.

 

"Yeeeessssss, he was horrified that he can't take the money from my quilting books. So I'm sure the dumbass fool will try suing again. Emphasis on trying because everybody knows what kind of fool he is and won't accept the case."

 

True to Josette's words the fool man wails as he leaves the third law office that had refused his case trying to get her books. What is the matter with these people? Why won't they just let him steal her books? Gods, who ever heard of somebody being able to keep aaaaallll the money from their work? It. . .it. . .it's unAmerican.

 

"He'll find somebody else to try to steal from and they'll shoot the old fool." Alan snorts. The others nod. Marcus is busy talking with the boys about their show after he went over Josette's book sales and Josette looks at the time and heads off, arriving at the retreat buildings for a special party.

 

Joanne and Madison arrive the next day, giving Josette disgusted looks that make her cackle before talking over the new contracts with her.

 

"Quilting books?"

 

"Yeeeeeesssssss, I've got a few dozen in the chute but that won't be for a while. I got dumped on three separate times, this last time with books both for those quilts and the other ones." Madison snickers.

 

After the comicon the ship lifts off and returns to Haven, Josette moving stuff to various buildings. The others come out a couple hours after they return and the bus and Hall of War appear on the school grounds.

 

"Uncle Hiram?" The new head of the publishing company asks when he finds his great-uncle going through records.

 

"I went to Ms. Takahawa's show and saw the books flying off the table. I was so sure that we could get the same sales here but. . ." He waves a hand at the records of other craft books. The other man nods. "The only reason she gets the sales she does at the show is because of the shows. I've talked to the supplier that she allows to sell her books and it's not one percent of the sales."

 

His great-nephew leads him off, having somebody take him home. He has the sad idea that he won't be seeing the older man again, he's devastated by the knowledge that there was no way they could ever make that kind of money Josette makes from self-publishing her books.

 

Josette shakes her head as she reads the news of his death in a databurst after the Harvest Festival, saying a silent prayer before she looks around at the thud behind her. She'll never grow old and bitter with her family to keep her busy. . .trying not to hurt herself not laughing at them. Abby glares at the door that had just shut in her face as she floats supplies out of the closet.

 

"How are we on supplies?"

 

"We've got to start emptying the containers upstairs. Now. . .do you see a show in Doc's dimension?" Abby had seen Doc looking at their work until he'd seen the list of work they had ahead of them.

 

"Not this year, what with the special orders we picked up from Mom's world. Maybe next year. That gives us all time to have extra stuff put away."

 

"Books? New Dimension."

 

"Yeeeesssss, I've got to run out in a couple weeks for an appointment to meet my agent there. And hitting a couple expos."

 

Josette comes back several weeks later for her, moving boxes of stuff various places.

 

"Did you enjoy yourself?"

 

"Helllll no, some damn fool tried demanding I make changes to all my books to suit him and I nearly took his head off cussing his fool ass out without raising my voice. His boss clapped and told him to grow up. He didn't have a damn thing to do with my books, he was just wanting to push his weight around." Susan rolls her eyes while Professor Ziegler, President Bartlett, and Principal Madison sigh and nod.

 

"Expos?"

 

"Three. One with Pat, one with Doc, and one with one of his associates. She's the one who got Doc in touch with the publishing house there."

 

Josette looks at the shelves slowly emptying as she works on quilts and pulls her big girl pants on. Sue snickers as she walks into the store the next morning to find piles of fabric everywhere and Josette putting another nearly empty bolt on a pile.

 

"I'd wondered when you would be buying for more quilts. . .everybody knows you got hit earlier this year and this time it included book ideas." Sue starts measuring the leftover fabric on the bolts and putting them in the remnants bin, the now empty bolts going in another pile. Josette finishes cutting the fabric for her quilts and starts bringing out new bolts to replace the empty ones, adding to the list of what needs to be ordered or refilled. Josette sighs at the total as she runs the card she'd been putting everything on, the receipt filling ten pages. Sue wipes the card after she's gone, putting it back on the pile so it can be grabbed and used again by another customer. That cuts down on the time it takes to check out, especially with huge orders like Josette's.

 

After stopping at the bakery Josette walks into Agatha's store, getting an amused look from everybody who'd been expecting her. Fabrics and measurements are called off and they soon get the bags full. Josette gets a few more items and pays for everything.

 

"How are the books?" Agatha asks as Josette settles on a bar stool with a cup of coffee and a cookie.

 

"The ones already done? I've got twenty more books to debut. New ones? Nearly fifty that I've been making plans for but they're nowhere near ready. They can wait until I have the quilts done."

 

"Calvin's dimension?"

 

"Work on the school in town is going well, they'll have the old section that isn't up to code anymore torn down by Thanksgiving. Once that's done they'll start building next year. They figure construction will be done year after next."

 

"Students?"

 

"Two girls and a boy to start next year. They're setting them up in a portable until they need more than one room. By then they can move into the main building."

 

"Are they going to be buying their texts?"

 

"Starting the second or third grade when they start adding more classes. Kindergarten will be making sure they have the necessary skills to pass onto first grade, first grade will be all worksheets. By then they'll have students in more than one grade and the older students will be working on different assignments." Everybody in earshot nods.

 

"And starting in the fifth grade they'll either be moving to Calvin's school or staying there. Either way parents will be paying half their expenses."

 

"Yes, Granda says the families of the three students are already putting money in their accounts even before they start classes."

 

"That's the way to do it, this way they don't have the big hit to the wallet when tuition and books are due."

 

Josette puts the bags on the shelves in her workroom, the notepads going in the working on file cabinet before she joins the others at the dining hall.

 

"Get more quilt supplies?"

 

"Yeah, I've got enough for the next couple years. Even working on them constantly like I do."

 

"Book tour?" Madison and Joanne had been giving her looks when they were out before the Harvest Festival.

 

"They want me to go on another cruise after Thanksgiving."

 

Josette slumps into her usual seat in the testing center on Archimedes, thanking Vincent as he puts a plate in front of her.

 

"How is the school coming along?"

 

"Pretty good, they'll be done with all the deconstruction in a couple months and will start the new work next year. The portable building is ready for the first students and should be in use about five to ten years before they need to move to the main school building."

 

"Are they keeping the portables?"

 

"Yes, once they're in the main building they can use them for specialty classes."

 

"Used before for classes?"

 

"Yes, in Josette's original dimension they held the sixth grade since there wasn't enough room in the elementary school for all the grades. They were supposed to get rid of them by blocking off hallways for classrooms when the sixth grade became part of the middle school but Josette tells me they were back in use before the millage passed to move the elementary students to the newish middle school, tear down the old elementary section, move the middle school students back to the school that didn't have the room for them in the fucking first place. . .that's why they built the damn school in the first place, then build a new gym. The elementary school students never had their own cafeteria before. . .they always had to share."

 

"Oh god, this is the same nonsense as kindergarten students on the same bus as the big kids." Dr. Blake moans.

 

"Yep. I'm sure they'll start blubbering about that in a couple decades as schools start seeing students in all classes and they start having to bring in students who live outside town again. Which won't be for at least a decade after they open schools, they won't open a bus for one or two students. Their parents would take them in just like when some schools got rid of bussing to save money."

 

Josette leans between Principal Madison and Professor Druid, catching President Bartlett's eye. "Five." Both men laugh at her hangdog look. She just rolls her eyes and heads into the back room. Their wives look at them, the back room where the others are laughing at Josette, then back to them. "I asked Josette how many degrees she was going to be finishing this year. She said at least three. So what did you pick up?" Principal Madison raises his voice slightly.

 

"Pompeii and Ancient Rome from the history school, the second degree on famous plane wrecks from the Naval Academy, the first degree of three on the Titanic, and a second degree on characters DC picked up from the comic book school. I was a semester from the two from the history school, a year from the others. I didn't plan on finishing the other two but I didn't feel like starting new degrees either."

 

"And lord forfend you only take six classes a semester." Professor Ziegler says dryly. Josette mock-shudders in the back room, getting laughs from everybody.

 

"Pick up the other planets recycling?"

 

"Yep, everything's where it needs to go. Last of the crops in?"

 

"Not for another couple days."

 

Back at the dorm Josette puts the books she'd picked up that day with the others to take upstairs to the library, idly enlarging rooms and putting up more shelves.

 

"That didn't even put a dent in your closet." Pat says behind her, shaking her head at the now empty containers. "How many degrees are you still going for?"

 

"Thirteen I'm taking classes in, most of them that are multiple degree ones. Three that I finished one degree but haven't started taking classes in the next one."

 

"How many degrees do you have finished since your last graduation then?"

 

"Twenty-three, not counting the ones from Calvin's dimension. And most of those are multiple degree ones I'm not really counting."

 

Josette and the others head to Calvin's dimension after Thanksgiving, putting everything away in her cabin then signing in with the organizers and getting two thick manila envelopes.

 

"How was the cruise?" The others ask when she comes back. Since it had been so long a cruise she'd took a second ship down.

 

"Long, even with breaking up all the talks with stuff on the ship." Josette yawns. "It doesn't seem as long when you're attending a comicon or one of Ellis's cruises, but . . .god I could not stand one of those trips they were talking about on tv."

 

"Too much like being on the road trip again but on a ship?"

 

"Exactly."

 

"What are you bringing out?" They'd seen the limbo files being accessed.

 

"A setup to make clay, Warner is being tapped to open a pottery by the government. Becka copied one for Mars when she went to a demonstration at an expo and passed it along to me."

 

"And of course the government is doing this instead of working on stuff that actually needs the attention." Susan drawls.

 

"Of course. Becka was grumbling about some asshole at the phone company whining because she wouldn't get rid of their prepaid cell phones and come back to them. Becka told him if the company had fixed the damn problems with their line, they might still have a landline."

 

In the doorway Principal Madison moans but nods. "Anyway, they're putting up three buildings this year. . their time, two next year, and three the year after that with the pottery and claymaking buildings. They're also planning on adding onto the selling building."

 

"What did you get into the sockmaking information for?" he asks.

 

"Some dumbass in the government wanted to put up a building of sock machines, Becka asked for all the information. Dumbass went wailing that he hadn't meant for them to make a go of it. . .he'd wanted to make them look bad." Principal Madison snorts. "Lemme guess. . .so their butt buddies could swoop in and take over."

 

"Yep, they didn't wike how Warrick and Becka run the business. Their butt buddies. . ."

 

"would run it into the ground instead of keeping it a profitable venture." David snorts.

 

"Exactly."

 

The decorations for the Lights Festival start coming out and they're busy putting everything up when the others start arriving.

 

Becka smirks at Calvin. "The moron who wanted to start a colony dimension ran off whining after the third time the government told him the power facility wouldn't reach into another dimension. Building one would take decades and cost too much money, his people would be paying hundreds of dollars a month before they paid for the power. Moron had to be reminded there wouldn't be any money coming in with no jobs. He went to court the next time and they tossed him and a car through a portal to another dimension. He wailed it took him hours to wind the springs to drive the car back 500 feet to Earth. . .where the electric motor started right back up again. So he guesses he has to believe them when they say the power facility won't reach the other dimensions."

 

Calvin snorts but nods. "Yes, people were whining our colony dimension had to be for show, now we can build a real colony then went whining when they realized they couldn't have everything they wanted."

 

Becka looks at Josette. "The government wants the sock building now."

 

Josette lays her head on her arms and laughs. "Didn't the fool who wanted it in the first place go off whining because he didn't want you to actually make a profit on it?"

 

"Yeeeesssssss, but while he did it for the wrong reasons. . .he did have the right idea. We're going to be making socks for the moonbase and satellite, the city-ship when it's back, and possibly get in a stockpile for if and/or when we ever get a real colony. It will be a while before they can start making stuff like that. We're not only going to have socks but scarves, mittens, gloves, and hats. Sweaters too but they have to be special ordered. Selling some at Warner, some at the tables that were at the flea market, some for Stark and the Institute, and some sold directly to the government."

 

"Sock machines?" Two Docs ask at once. Josette laughs and shows them pictures of the building on the school grounds.

 

"Oh dear lord." Professor Xavier moans. There's tables as far as the eye can see and each has a number of machines on them.

 

"And there's another building with just as many machines in town. It started out like Becka, one machine and a couple boxes of yarn when Principal Madison asked me to make socks for the emergency supply. We'd had them when we were in school. . ." Josette smirks at Anna who waves a hand at her.

 

"The smoke bombs in the boys dorm?" Professor Xavier asks with a smirk.

 

"Yes. . .somebody got up a full head of steam and forgot to put on shoes or boots." Everybody looks at Anna who rolls her eyes. "The demand for the socks was good so I brought another machine and more yarn so we could sell them at the flea market in town. The demand kept growing and growing so we were buying more yarn and sock machines and then the government contacted me to see if I could supply them with socks for prison canteens and the foster care system, both kids and adults. It started with 750 machines and 2500 boxes of yarn twice a year and every time we turned around they wanted more. Each building has 9000 machines, in my studio I have 250 sock machines for Eureka and 528 for the school. We were getting nearly 20000 boxes of yarn yearly. Each pallet held 25 boxes of yarn and each box held 30 2 pound skeins of yarn. Making just tube socks so they were one size fit all we could get four pair of socks out of one skein, with some left over. We made hanks out of four of them to get two more pair of socks, what was left over after that went to Frances and Elaine for the tied quilts."

 

"Do you make the other items?"

 

"Now I do, I brought more knitting machines to sell stuff at the spa during the zero-population period." Josette looks at her Granda, "Are you going to be keeping the spa open once you start getting more students?"

 

"Yes, we can bring out a hotel for the spa customers and adult students when it's needed. Which won't be for years." Everybody nods.

 

"Are there any plans for a second round of settlers in the colony dimension?" President Bartlett asks from the other room.

 

"Yes, now that we're having more children. This is something we'll have to think about for future colonies."

 

"Yes, they'll want a good base of people so there's no inbreeding."

 

"Josette, are you growing new stuff on the first planet next year?" Principal Madison asks from the front room.

 

"Yes, I wanted to grow a new potato."

 

"A type that's not normally grown?" New Dimension Doc asks.

 

"Yep, we try to introduce new foods every few years, mostly potatoes. Sometimes peppers or heirloom tomatoes. Once in a while a grain like quinoa or farro."

 

"First planet?"

 

"I have several areas on the first planet, first it was huts that we used for vacations. Then we brought out a copy of one of the buildings on Mom's world. Around that time I put up raised beds for growing and put up a permanent home. I generally raise two crops in the raised beds every other year and have permanent crops out there. With it being a permanent tropics, I could plant year-round if I wanted. Some years I don't plant crops if we don't need the food, this year was one of those."

 

"Are you going to be green picking?" President Bartlett asks. Josette pulls out her PADD to see what they're running low on.

 

"Green picking?" Headmaster Professor Xavier asks.

 

"Thinning out plants by picking some while it's still green. Usually tomatoes and peppers." Headmaster Doc says. Everybody nods.

 

"Not this spring, Purple Krim and cayenne peppers again."

 

"What do you do with the green pick?"

 

"Sell it to the others, the rest goes in stasis until we need it. Most of the doctors buy the hot peppers for herbal remedies, they grow hotter on the first planet than we can get them here."

 

"Do you dry them?"

 

"Half the peppers we dry, I string the peppers on wreaths so they can pull one off as needed. The rest is fresh."

 

"We need to grow a special planting of peppers, herbs, onions, and garlic." One of the cooks announces from the kitchen. The others nod.

 

"We can do that. Powder or whole?"

 

"Both."

 

"Powder?"

 

"Every few years we grow extra, put them out to dry, then grind them into powder for cooking. Mostly onions and garlic. If we're running low on the other stuff, we'll grow it too."

 

"Just like you find on store shelves."

 

"Josette, do we need the smokehouse next year?"

 

David grabs his PADD since Josette's making a list on hers. "No, it looks like we're good for another year."

 

"We'll need to harvest the fish then too." Alan says. David looks up something else and nods.

 

"And see if the 9th planet is harvesting. We grow different fish and other seafood." David says at their looks.

 

Nods from the others.

 

"You smoke them?"

 

"And dry them. And the last couple of times we harvested we've experimented with salting."

 

"Have you made fish sauce?"

 

"We've talked about it but we have tons on the ships in stasis and can replicate it."

 

"Have you made pepper sauces?"

 

"Chiplote sauce, but like I said before we have it on the ships or can replicate others."

 

"Have you grown ghost peppers?"

 

"Yes, a couple years before Doc and the others came out." Alan nods at superhero Doc. "Josette, do you see a demand?"

 

"No, it's mostly used for herbal remedies and everybody still should have a good supply of it."

 

"Comic degrees?"

 

"Four finished, I'm halfway through my last National degree. I have one more Timely degree to go, then it will be the massive set of degrees on the national comic code."

 

"TV degrees?"

 

"Three, I'll have another one done when I finish the Timely degree."

 

"About then is when the school is planning their next graduation service."

 

The others look at them. "The school is a niche one, students don't take a full semester of classes at a time, so it takes longer to graduate. Every few years they have a massive graduation ceremony."

 

"Have you ever grown everything that. . ."

 

"Farro and yucca, for all that you can see farro on the store shelves as part of the Bob's Red Mill line. . .it's not something you usually eat except in salads." Nods from the others. "And it's easier to buy supplies of tapioca rather than grow the plants that make it."

 

"And neither of them we could introduce new recipes to use them." One of the cooks says. Everybody nods.

 

"Josette, are you growing mushrooms on the first planet again?" President Bartlett asks from the front room.

 

Josette flips through the records on her PADD. "Yes, it's been a few years."

 

"Mushrooms?"

 

"We have the mushroom growing building here and every few years or so Josette will grow on the first planet."

 

"I grow in wood on the first planet." Nods from everybody around them again.

 

"Can I ask how long?"

 

"We've been on Haven? We'll be starting our hundred and nineteenth year during the Lights Festival." Josette says calmly. "Thanks to the longer days and years our aging slowed about a decade after we arrived."

 

"You age depending on how long it takes your planet to travel around the sun?"

 

"Yes, you can tell the difference most readily with the fourth planet inhabitants, their year is the closest to Earth. When we were reopening the school for the children born on the planets, the fourth planet students were older. . .even if they had been born at the same time."

 

"Then you're all in your hundreds."

 

"Well the teachers we had when we attended school are closer to three hundred but yeah. . .nobody on Haven really cares about their ages. All the fresh fruit, vegetables, exercise and clean air keep us young." Susan says absently.

 

"Have you been keeping a history?"

 

"Oh yes, we had a big show for our hundredth anniversary of arriving on Haven. We've got the books and DVD in the dorm as well as photo albums showing all the work we've done on the dorm."

 

"Then it wasn't always a castle?" Headmaster Doc asks, his lips twitching.

 

"No, the dorm was three floors, twenty student rooms per floor with a bathroom between two rooms. With two dorm monitor rooms at the back of the dorm, basically the equivalent of a studio apartment."

 

"The second round of dorms were five floors with twenty-five rooms per floor. Twenty-four were dorm rooms with a bathroom between them with the last a floor monitor apartment. That way each floor had somebody there instead of having them cover an entire dorm."

 

"That would be better." Professor Xavier agrees.

 

"The next step was going from five twenty-four room floors to ten thirty room floors. Sixteen rooms on one side and fourteen on the other with two rooms being storerooms."

 

"The dorms really didn't change after that, they just kept getting bigger."

 

"Did the other dorms have storerooms?"

 

"Yes, we have them at the front of the dorm by the mailboxes. But as the dorms got bigger, they needed the extra room."

 

At the dorm they dig out all the photo albums, the others looking over the progress of the dorm. The books and DVD are brought out and they see how much the area has grown over the last hundred years. Josette's lips twitch. "And we still don't have the subway somebody on Earth wanted to dig."

 

"I'd ask if you were joking but yes, people are that stupid." Headmaster Professor Xavier sighs.

 

"Yes, they were stunned we didn't need or want one. It took a whole five minutes to walk from one end of town to the other back then, even now it only takes fifteen."

 

"Was there anything else people wanted on Earth you didn't need."

 

"Post office, cell phones. . .cars."

 

"That sounds about right."

 

Josette slides into her usual chair in the boardroom for the first meeting of the new year. "We need to grow a commercial crop of cucumbers for pickles. The store is getting low." President Bartlett looks at the file on the PADD and nods. "What about potatoes?"

 

"Two batches, one the regular potatoes we normally grow and a new to us variety." She looks up at the ceiling, sighs, and checks another file. "Make that two batches of our usual potatoes, the potato starch and flakes are getting low."

 

"That will last us for a few years." President Madison says. Doc nods. "Anything else? I saw you'd brought out the smoker and wood disks."

 

"I'm experimenting with pastrami bacon, I saw it on a cooking show in Granda's world."

 

"Did you make the bacon wrapped onion rings?" David snickers, having watched the same show. Josette just rolls her eyes "No, that's still a stupid idea. Either smoke bacon or smoke onions. . .don't try stuff like that. . .that's like deep-frying ice cream, twinkies, or whatever else you wanted to deep fry. Just because you can." President Bartlett chuckles but nods.

 

After the meeting Josette heads back to the dorm, putting the doughnuts from the bakery in her first floor room before checking on the smoker. She'll slice the bacon later that day and put it in the refrigerator for sandwiches.

 

It had turned colder after the first of the new year and Josette looks out the window at the snow falling in big fat flakes before heading upstairs. The others had chosen to start sorting through containers to make room. Not only did they have stuff from Granda's dimension, they had five ships on the planet full of stuff from the others on the 9th planet.

 

"We got 7A, 9C, 12D, and 23B empty and ready to move." Alexander says when she peeks into the room.

 

"Without killing yourself in the hallway?" Josette's lips twitch.

 

"Yes, without killing ourselves tripping on the cats." Susan snickers. The empty containers are moved and the others settle in place.

 

"Is that all?"

 

"For now, we're just getting started. It's going to be a couple weeks. We should be able to empty a good half of these."

 

At lunch Josette is waved to the front room, Frances saying something and Josette nodding. "Frances wanting to know when I was going to put in the order for the retro fabric in Becka's dimension." Grabbing her PADD she sends out the notice to the others and puts it back on her belt.

 

"How long until you order?"

 

"I'll put up a reminder 9th day and order next week. I already figure on ordering at least half again what everybody orders. Or double depending on how much we order. And I don't doubt we won't be putting in a second order." Frances and Elaine laugh and nod in the front room.

 

The next couple of weeks pass and Josette sends out the order, getting confirmation back from both Becka and the manufacturer.

 

"Shows?" Frances asks one day when they're in the fabric building. They're getting fabric for a project and Frances sends off the payment once everything's cut.

 

"The boys Mom, Me Granda. I go first this year."

 

"No tour?"

 

"Not this year. . .thankfully." Frances chuckles at the look on Josette's face.

 

"How many books do you have to debut?"

 

"Eighteen. That should be it for a while. People have to be wondering how the hell old I am. Especially if you add in my other books."

 

"Can't just say. . .'ehhh, Josette's a vampire. . .of course she doesn't look as old as she should'." Frances snickers as she puts the fabric in a bag and they shut the fabric building back up before walking back to town.

 

"I suppose I could do a Highlander and be my own grandkid." Principal Madison hears as the pair walks past him as they walk into the textiles building. He turns back around to look at them.

 

"Eighteen books left to debut, nine years making it nearly eighty years we've been going out there and damn near sixty we've been having shows. Sooner or later I'm going to have to drop out of sight."

 

Principal Madison snorts. "Isn't that what you've already done by living in another dimension?"

 

"Which is why Clark and Thomas moved here, they were already the 4th and junior and were looking at having to take time off and return as their sons."

 

"And while you've been having shows and debuting books for years in Calvin's dimension, you're just starting in two other dimensions."

 

"Yes." the others snigger at her hangdog look.

 

"No complaints about your Mom's dimension?"

 

"Nah, everybody seems to be older than they look there." Josette waves a hand.

 

"Josette, update at the comic book school. They added a degree on Fawcett comic books. Five degrees, one that deals with the lawsuit." Alan says as he comes down the stairs.

 

"Good, I was wondering when they were going to. It should have come before the comics code kerfuffle."

 

"Maybe it was because of them going out of business and the lawsuit from DC?"

 

"Possibly."

 

Josette is busy moving boxes into the hall a couple months later as she replicates everything for the second semester. classes. She disappears suddenly and Alan. . .who'd been coming to see how much longer she'd be sighs and continues moving everything to the hallway. Josette appears a few seconds later and roundly curses.

 

"Dumbass?"

 

"Yep. Moron tried claiming I had to have killed his darling butt buddy. Of course he'd get everything back in the lawsuit. Including the publishing house. Because of course the other old fool didn't die of natural causes. The boy was covering up the murder. . . for his own nefarious reasons."

 

"Thought he couldn't sue you or have anybody else sue you?"

 

"Yup, Bastard sent off so-called 'anonymous' letters to various outlets that of course led directly to him. Bastard is looking at more hours of work, more time in solitary, and losing all his privileges. . . again."

 

"Thought he'd already lost all his privileges. . .permanently." Principal Madison snorts from the hallway.

 

"Ohhh, some fool bleeding heart liberals group went whining to the courts and got them reinstated because we were being mean to his stupidness. They're now hiding because they're looking very stupid in the media." She disappears again and appears a few seconds later.

 

"Dumbass again?"

 

"Yeesss, left a rambling psychotic letter to be opened upon his death saying I killed the bastard. Moron tried grabbing a guard's gun during the transfer and got shot."

 

"Did the moron pay for his grand funeral?"

 

"Nope, he put enough money away for a regular one. Moron's probably wailing about nobody weeping, wailing, gnashing their teeth, and all that other shit he wanted at his lavish funeral." Josette rolls her eyes. "Damn fool."

 

"Josette?" Doc asks as she, Alan, and Principal Madison come up from the basement. He'd got the notice she'd went out off-schedule not once but twice.

 

"Dumbass from the other dimension. He sent out 'anonymous' letters saying that his dear friend didn't die of natural causes. . .his great nephew was covering up me murdering him. He'd get everything in the lawsuit. . .including the publishing house. Fucking bleeding heart liberal group got all his privileges restored. . .we were being mean to the stupid puke." Doc sighs while Pat rolls her eyes and David snorts. "Dumbass tried grabbing a guard's gun and left behind a rambling psychotic letter blaming me for everything. Dumb fucker's probably wailing in hell because I wasn't arrested like he wanted."

 

"What the Hell did you think you were doing getting us involved in that mess?" A man sighs as he reads the file and looks at the gulping man across the desk from him. "I . . .I thought he had to have been behaving by now and it wasn't right for him not to have any privileges. I . . .I . . .I didn't know he'd immediately start causing problems."

 

"You would have if you'd bothered to read the damn file."

 

"But he'd been there for decades, he should have started behaving by now."

 

"Morons like that old fool never behave. Gods, why the hell do you think he's been there for so long. If he'd been behaving he'd have been out of there by now."

 

"I . . .I . . . I never thought of that."

 

"Obviously."

 

Josette is quiet for the next couple of days, the others patting her shoulder. They know the old fool got on her last nerve but she didn't want him dead like that. It starts getting warmer and windows open as the machines in the dorm start their spring cleaning routines as the curtains start being taken down to be washed.

 

"Josette, have the u-pick farms been growing?" Doc asks at the next government meeting.

 

"Yeah, every year since people are buying more and more. So has Albatross's. I've been looking into areas to bring out new farms if they're needed." She puts up a file on the screen then cusses. "Wrong file, that's one I've been working on after watching a show for noise in Granda's dimension." The others look at her. "Putting a farm on one of the islands." Doc makes a trilling noise. "It was one of the animal shows where they went out to an island in Alaska. First they had to fly out to the island then they had to take a truck to an area then walk to the farm."

 

"With a flyer it would just be one trip." David says slowly as he looks everything over.

 

"Yeah, but we wouldn't need it for years. Even if we had somebody who wanted to live out there. But it wouldn't be hard for a flyer to go out once a week or so during the growing seasons." The others nod. "This is the same type of growing we'd been talking about in the tropics. . ."

 

"Before I started growing on the first planet? Yup. I put it aside for a while, watching that show made the muse howl."

 

"Have you planted on the first planet?"

 

"Yeah, I'm out there right now." A few hours later Josette walks into the cafe diem on the 9th planet. Vincent looks over and nearly squeals as she brings out bushels and bags.

 

"Purple Krim tomatoes, cayenne peppers, herbs, and wood-grown mushrooms." they settle down to haggle over everything.

 

"How much was sold?" David asks when Josette merges with her other self who'd been off-planet.

 

"Just over a third of everything. I've got a quarter of the remaining herbs and peppers dried, everything else is in stasis."

 

"Josette, do we have more of the ships?" Doc asks as he walks to the door to Headquarters.

 

"No, Archimedes has five too. The vampire and animal planet are splitting four with the first and second planets getting a share, the remaining four are split between the others. And yes, we're looking at more in the future." The others sigh or roll their eyes.

 

"Are these. . .?"

 

"Planned eventual colony ships? Yep. Or to set up stations on the other planets."

 

"They'd do good for it."

 

Josette yawns as she looks at the dark sky outside Calvin's office. Calvin pats her on the shoulder. "Dumbassery at its finest."

 

"The Supreme Court will kick his ass up around his ears and he'll walk off pouting. He's not really hardcore about this nonsense. .he's just trying to make a name for himself."

 

"Oh well, I'd been trying to come up with a way to get out of the spotlight anyway, we keep forgetting how long I've been writing. I'm going to be here eighty years and we've been having shows sixty when the last of my quilting books debut. It's not like Haven where somebody will just shrug and say 'so what? Everybody's older than they look."

 

"Yes, especially after a zero-population period. You don't need to be in the spotlight all the time."

 

Josette walks into the front room at dinner. "Heads up, some damn fool on Calvin's world is trying to take over that old fool's idea to get rid of fiction now that the zero-population period has ended."

 

Muttered swear words and oh dear lords can be heard in both the front and back room. "Yeah." Josette snorts. "But this is the opportunity needed to start getting out of the spotlight in Calvin's world. Joanne, Jessica, and Madison are finally retiring. . ." Josette shrugs.

 

"You've got the other dimensions for books and shows yet."

 

"Yeah. The Supreme Court will kick his ass up around his ears and he'll walk off pouting. He's not serious about this nonsense like the old fool was, he's just out to make a name for himself." More disgusted sounds and swearing. "So anyway, I'd been thinking of a way to get around the non-aging thing, this is as good as any."

 

The crops start going in on Haven, a special garden set up for the crops the kitchen had said they'd needed.

 

"How soon until the offworld harvests. . .?" Principal Madison asks after everything is planted.

 

"Probably year after next, the offworld harvests are due to start coming in in a few weeks."

 

"Has anybody started going through the ships?"

 

"Yeah, I have. These are just drones, they're meant to be taken in tractor beam and towed instead of having a control room for a crew." The others nod in satisfaction. "The ship with an actual control room is on the 9th planet."

 

"Has the demand to stop fiction been dealt with?"

 

"Yes, the court of public opinion called him a god-damn fool and he ran off wailing. The legal courts refused to pass injunctions barring fiction and the Supreme Court just laughed at him when he tried going to them."

 

Josette walks into the publishing house for Jessica, Joanne, and Madison's retirement party. They give her hugs and grin before the others start trickling into the room. Several hours later they walk out of the building.

 

"Ohhh, I'm tired. How the hell can a party be more tiring. . ."

 

"Than working all day? I feel the same way about my shows."

 

"Yours are worse since you've got your quilting books to sign too."

 

"Yep, and I've got one in a couple weeks."

 

"I do wish you'd chosen to continue with the house but I can see your point. Even the most dim person is going to realize you're not aging." Joanne says.

 

"Yeah, but I can turn it into something like the Nancy Drew books."

 

"Continuing the books supposedly as a ghostwriter? That would get you out of the spotlight but still allow you to write."

 

"And eventually come out as my granddaughter after a certain length of time for the others." Josette shrugs. "Maybe by then the damn muses will quiet down. . ." The others snigger at her.

 

"Yeah, that's what I figured."

 

"How is Haven?"

 

"We planted our first crops. The dining hall kitchen planted a special crop of peppers, herbs, onions, and garlic since they were running low. It's a double crop so we'll dry and grind part of the onions and garlic into powder."

 

The three women blink. "I'd never thought about that but that's how they produce the stuff in the stores."

 

"Yep." Josette says. "Everybody who has the extra room to grow more of a crop will put some of it aside to dry and grind into powder. If they don't they buy it from the store. That's from the commercial crops I grow offplanet. We've got a couple more this year, we're running low on cucumbers for pickles and we're growing a double crop of potatoes along with a 'new to us' crop."

 

Josette drops onto a couch in the dorm a few weeks later for her.

 

"Enjoy yourself?" David asks. He snickers at Josette's look. "How long were you out for?"

 

"A couple weeks after the show. I was in Vegas then."

 

"Ahhh, are you officially separated from the publishing house now?" Doc's voice asks behind her.

 

"Myeah." Josette makes a yes no maybe hand motion. "The four of us were talking about going on like the Nancy Drew books. I still write but officially it's ghostwriters."

 

"Hmmm, that gets around the publicity factor."

 

"Yep, and as more kids are born I can start hitting cons and whatnot. Once I'm not being interviewed nobody really recognizes me."

 

The others nod. Professor Fletcher and Principal Madison nod as she repeats her thoughts at lunch. Professor Druid and President Bartlett are doing the same. "The head of the publishing house will know the truth of course. . .I do own it." The others chuckle. "It's going to take decades to pay off the debt, I see more than one generation finding out that Josette Takahawa is Josette Takahawa, she just lives in another dimension."

 

"Are you going to have another agent?"

 

"When Madison, Joanne, and Jessica get tired of their retirements and come back under another identity. They can't very well come up as their kids or grandkids, but maybe in a few generations they'll introduce themselves back into their family."

 

"Ahhhh, they're immortal then?"

 

"Yep, they could actually own and run the house. . .pretending to be their kids or grandkids over the years but they don't want the headaches."

 

"Like the rest of us." President Bartlett rumbles. Everybody else laughs and nods.

 

Josette rolls her eyes as she listens to a databurst from Calvin's world. "Eff you moron, too bad you didn't die during the zero-population period. But most of the fools didn't manage to die during that time." Doc looks over at her muttering. "Some old fool wailing about how the five of us are dictators because we don't hold formal elections. The 'little people' have to be suffering because of us." David and Principal Madison snort as Doc sighs and everybody else roll their eyes.

 

"Of course it can't possibly be nobody wants the damn headaches."

 

"Or has their own lives or are happy with how the government is being run."

 

"Oh no, of course not. The governments have to rush in and take over Haven to free the citizens. But they have no way of getting here and Calvin and the others who have been here kicked the old fool's ass up around his ears. He ran off wailing that we can't possibly have people's best interests at heart. Not like him."

 

"No he doesn't." Pat snorts. "He just wants to be some damn bigshot."

 

"Yep, same with that damn fool who wanted to outlaw fiction. With the zero-population period ended they figure now it the time to make names for themselves. And end up shooting themselves in the foot then run off wailing because they just proved what everybody already knew, they're damn fools."

 

Blubbering apologies that he didn't know the citizens could get on the council any time they wanted but nobody wanted to run the world so they let the others do it are in the next databurst. So are muttered comments of serves the damn fool right. If he wants a say in how governments are run he might get off his ass and try voting once in a while.

 

Josette yawns as she drinks a large mug of coffee the day after her show, the others sniggering at her. She halfheartedly makes a rude gesture their direction.

 

"How many more books do you have?" Marcus asks once he's certain Josette is awake. . .even if she doesn't want to be.

 

"Eighteen more ready to debut and another fifty that's still in the 'notes on quilts' stage."

 

Marcus just moans. "Yes, you see the problem. Another nine years to debut the books will put us at sixty years having shows."

 

"You're going to have to start a new identity."

 

"Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I didn't continue on with the publishing house after Jessica, Joanne, and Madison retired. Now in a couple decades our 'grandkids' can continue the family hobby of art."

 

"And you have the other dimensions."

 

Josette moans as the others snigger and nod. A computer starts beeping and Josette grabs a gun.

 

"No, the damn laws about stealing people's land didn't magically disappear over the zero-population period." A judge snorts a couple days later as he glares at a blubbering man in front of him. "What the hell did you think you were doing trying to break onto their property."

 

"But they should have wanted to sell by now." he whines. "It . . .it's not fair they have all that land. We could turn it into so many homes and businesses."

 

"Moron, we have homes and apartments already sitting empty. We don't need more." His own lawyer snorts.

 

"But developing that land would make me rich." He wails as he's dragged back to his cell.

 

"Christ, people are goddamn stupid."

 

"Yes, everybody's back to the same stupid shit they were before the zero-population period. Just goes to show there's fools no matter how damn old they are."

 

"Josette, this is probably a dumb question but those commercials for Wiseman food?" Alan asks a couple days after they return home. There'd been days of 'the rules against stealing land are still in effect, dear gods people there's plenty of empty land if you want to fucking make a masterpiece to your magnificence, you don't need to start bothering people about selling to you for the few damn dollars you figure they'll sell it to you for' lectures over the air. More than one person snorted at the wails that having to pay what the land they wanted was worth was too much money.

 

"During a disaster you can feed your family? Yeah, we have tons on the ships and various places on the planets. Since it's shelf-stable it lasts forever. The government was getting stocks of it for the ice ages along with MREs. Not to mention I picked up more from the other planets we harvested. Atlantis figures we've got enough to feed a million people for a million years and not even make a dent in the supplies."

 

"Okay, I was wondering. We see the damn commercials. . . "

 

"Yeah, and laughed at them. Does that include water for 25 years?" Josette snorts.

 

"Or access to cooking fuel? The paper ads show you a cupboard but never mention what all is included."

 

"Or prices." Susan snorts. Doc chuckles behind them from the doorway of Headquarters. "Josette, can you or Alan come move supplies out of containers for us?"

 

"And move the containers if they're empty?" Josette splits off a couple duplicates and follows Doc into Headquarters. They return after the others have come back from lunch.

 

"Get everything moved for Doc?"

 

"And got a quarter of their containers empty and on the ships. of course now they have to find room for all that stuff they brought out. . . " The others snigger and nod.

 

Josette sighs as she puts everything away from the classes she'd taken at the comic book store, looking around at the empty tables. Susan sniggers from the hallway. "It will be full again soon enough."

 

"I know."

 

"Have you heard about graduation?"

 

"In a couple months. I'll be graduating with four comic book and two tv degrees. They're having the graduation ceremony before the comicon."

 

Susan sniggers.

 

The crops start coming in and once the second crops are planted the offworld harvests start. David opens the tesseract to allow the pickers to walk off the ship as Josette is busy delivering food to various places. John Watson smiles in the store when he sees containers being filled, including potatoes.

 

"I was wondering if the harvest was in."

 

"Yeah, Josette says she was going to pick it up on the way back." Susan says from the stairs. "Is there anything that she needs to bring up?"

 

"No, I was just filling the last of the barrels." He puts a cover on the barrel of cucumbers that will be pickles in a while and nods in satisfaction as he looks at everything.

 

"Ahh." Susan nods and turns around to head upstairs.

 

"Did she drop off the other potatoes?"

 

"Yeah, the sorting planet and manufacturing satellite should have at least some ready for us by the end of the year. Next year will have everything done."

 

Superhero and New Dimension Doc are both in the dorm when Josette returns and she blinks at them for a second. "Yes, we're early. We wanted to talk to Doc about Headquarters and the dorm but he's busy talking to Headmaster right now." Superhero Doc's lips twitch as Josette guffaws. They hate it when they slip into the shorthand Josette uses to identify who's who to somebody else.

 

"Oh good Josette, you're back. Toilet paper." Alan says as he walks past.

 

Josette grabs her PADD. "We'll be running low in a couple years. I'll harvest some scrub trees next year for the angel soft brand and harvest more and plant cotton the following year for the charmin brand." The others look at her. "We have a factory on the sorting planet and every several years or so they open to make toilet paper for all the planets." Josette looks at her PADD again and sends out a couple questions.

 

 

"Towels?"

 

"Yeah, and seeing if we need to reopen the laundry detergent factory. And maybe the soap factory."

 

"Paper towels and napkins."

 

"They'll work on them after the toilet paper. I'll harvest extra for them."

 

"And your personal products?"

 

"We order toilet paper, paper towels, and other stuff by the pallet." The others nod.

 

"Offworld harvest?"

 

"Yeah, they'll be finished by our second semester's midterms."

 

"How many?"

 

"Eighteen, three each for the inhabited planets except nine and ten, nine gets two and ten gets one. They don't need more yet." The others nod.

 

"Are we still looking at year after next to be a dual harvest year?" Susan asks as she walks past.

 

"Yeah."

 

"Dual harvest?" Headmaster asks from the door of Headquarters.

 

"With the years so different between the planets the harvests get earlier every year. Some years they start coming in our winter and I put the drying tables on the first planet until anything that is put outside dries instead of freezes. It usually takes about four harvests. Since the harvests are so skewed we could plant twice, those years we plant cover crops."

 

"Rye?"

 

"And barley. It gives all the planets a good supply beyond what we can grow ourselves."

 

"Have you looked into expanding the rice crops?"

 

"Last year, we don't need it yet. Anybody who wants to grow rice can and can make the crop bigger if they want. The sales have been steady." Josette looks over at Doc. "I checked it while I was on the first planet."

 

"We don't want to get too big."

 

"Yeah, that was the problem on Earth, they grew too much and left part of it in the fields. Charities could come in and pick it for food pantries but still a lot of it ended up wasted." The others nod.

 

"Are the cucumbers at the store?"

 

"Yeah, John was filling the last of the barrels for pickles while I was there." Susan says as she walks into the room.

 

"That just leaves the new to us potatoes?"

 

"Yeah, I'll plant them this fall."

 

Josette grins as she checks into the hotel for her graduation ceremony and the comicon, the signs are starting to go up and rooms are being opened. She returns a couple weeks later her time and sighs as Pat holds out a hand for the diplomas and other paperwork.

 

"Yes, we're going to do this every time you graduate. .. no matter what school it is." She says calmly. "Are you looking at more degrees from Hamberg?"

 

"Not until Doc and the others calm down." Superhero Doc nods as her loving mates snigger. Absently she flips them the bird.

 

Josette gets a call and heads off, returning an hour later and putting out a notice on the server and dropping off orders at various places. Doc looks at her when she returns to the dorm. "Picking up the order from the supplier in Becka's dimension. I got rooms of fabric on my ship, dropped off more various places, and expect to have just as big an order to go out in a couple weeks." Pat chuckles but nods behind Doc.

 

"Is their city-ship back from their trip around the sun?"

 

"Yeah, I got video of their landing. There was a nearly audible whoosh when the shield went down and fresh air started coming in. Even with all the plants the air had to be foul by the time they got back. And yes, I . . ." She looks at the beeping from the computer that's the databurst coming in. "Already got a thank you back from Calvin for sending him that footage." She sends it to the server at their looks and the footage immediately goes on the screen.

 

"Something they're going to have to think about for longer voyages."

 

"Yes, even with plants, air scrubbers, and air fresheners. . .which are sometimes worse than the bad air. . ." she says at the opening mouths around her. Principal Madison nods from his spot at the doorway. "they're going to have to come up with a way to really clean the air on longer trips if they're going to seriously start colonizing other planets or have a city-ship permanently on another planet."

 

"The others are looking into it for their own ships."

 

"Yeah, the 9th planet Earth can't just drop the shields with all that radiation for all that they're on Earth." David says. Nods from the others.

 

"We've passed along that information." Superhero Doc says calmly.

 

"Yep, but this is something humanity has to figure out for themselves as one of the steps they have to take to colonize planets. We've got the cleaners on the other ships too, but. . ." the others nod.

 

"Is this their first trip?"

 

"Second. The first trip was five years and they settled on the moon for that trip, this second trip was ten years and were orbiting the sun and receiving data from the probes they'd set orbiting around the other planets on the way. Calvin's dimension has their own ship that had a similar five year trip the first time, they're settled on Mars for a ten year mission. Their Mars is like ours. . .not habitable."

 

"While Becka and her family live on their Mars."

 

"Yes, their Earth already knows they have people living on Mars, the morons wanted them off so they could claim Mars. They were told if they wanted their own planet to find a planet and put together money for a colony. Oh no, they didn't want to live on another planet. . .they just wanted to say they had one so they could sell honorarium plots that nobody could even step on but they could say they owned land on another planet. They'd be rich. They're looking for the glory and not the hard work, Becka and her family live on Mars but they commute daily to Earth with the switching stations for work or school."

 

"They don't see having to grow and can your own food, they expect a colony to be just like Earth. . .but you know on another planet." Josette snickers and nods. "That was the problem with that old fool Becka was muttering about. .. the government should put up houses for his colony. And the power facility has to reach their new dimension. . .right? If they have to pay for their own facility people will be paying hundreds of dollars a month even before the electricity they use, moron didn't stop to think there'd be no way to make money in another dimension."

 

"Just like Mars." Doc sighs. New Dimension and Headmaster look at him and they tell the story. They shake their heads. "This wouldn't have been feasible for Mars.. ." New Dimension Doc looks from the list of supplies to the window.

 

"Yeah, we figure they just switched their sights from Haven to Mars."

 

"They tried to take Haven?"

 

"Oh yes, the president at the time and his butt buddies were arrested for treason for trying to take Haven from us because Susan and the twins were pregnant with the first citizens of Haven. If they delivered on the ship they could swoop in and steal our planet. . .this way they'd have a whole new planet to destroy. These were the same morons who kept suing to get our charter overturned from agricultural to industrial. If they had Haven they had a free supply of ore instead of having to buy it from us. . .not knowing we were just the middleman."

 

Josette snorts and waves a hand. "Please, these are the same fools who bleated to Congress that can't they just pick it up off the ground when they wanted their own colony. . .but they'd learned from Mars. This one had to have it's own atmosphere. Congress just gave them disgusted looks and said no, you can't just pick it up off the ground. You have to mine and refine the ore. Interestingly enough, the idea of their own colony didn't go anywhere."

 

Susan snorts. "These were the same morons who didn't think we work on Haven, we had to just be funning people when Vinnie's documentary showed life on Haven." The others look at them and Josette finds the footage on the server, then the reality shows after they come back from lunch.

 

"Are any people trying to establish colonies . . ."

 

"Or build private ships in Becka's dimension? Oh they're trying, but they're like that old fool who was whining about the power facility. .. they want Becka or the government to do everything for them. They think they're special and they'd be overjoyed to do it. . .then walk off wailing when they learn they won't. The more moronic try again. . .one young twerp didn't get no satisfaction from Becka and went to her grandfather figuring he'd get it that way."

 

"Do you see a serious colony in her dimension?"

 

"Not for years with all the deaths and power problems. We were at a billion people when we lost Earth, they're nearly that bad but they're having children." Josette looks over at David. "How are you on the degree about the space program."

 

"I'll be finishing it next year. You started the first degree yet?"

 

"No, but I dl'ed the books for the first degree." The visitors look at them. "David's taking classes in a degree on space travel. It's two degrees so far, the first degree deals with the moonbase while the second deals with the city-ship."

 

"And they're going to have third as the information from the five year trip is released to the public. Though with it on Mars they'll already talking a degree on that mission too."

 

"If it hadn't been so bad on Earth I could see a degree on Haven and the other planets."

 

"As opposed to the degrees and classes on the morons from Calvin's dimension."

 

The second semester draws to a close and soon the boys are getting dressed up for their show in Mom's dimension. Josette settles at a table a couple hours into the show and starts signing books for the people already lining up.

 

"How is Haven?"

 

"Quiet, we're nearly finished with the offworld harvests?" David looks at Josette.

 

"Are, today was the last one. I'm also harvesting the new to us potatoes."

 

"Did Doc and the others finish what they were working on?"

 

"Yeah, so we can move from the ranch back to the dorm."

 

"How are the students coming in Calvin's dimension?"

 

"They're in second grade, we've got two in first grade, and five in kindergarten. They figure they'll start splitting up the classes in a couple years when the portable is full. Some fool wailed about how we were destroying history when they found the main building had been changed and immediately tried suing. Since they have no bearing in the case it was immediately thrown out. People are trying the same sort of crap from before the zero-population period, wanting to make names for themselves before having more kids means they're forgotten." Snorts of disgust and rolled eyes from everybody in the rooms. "They don't realize this type of nonsense doesn't make you famous, it makes you a damn fool."

 

Josette joins with her other selves that had been on Haven while they were gone.

 

"Get everything taken care of?"

 

"Yeah, everything's on the ships until it needs to be delivered. The store's got a good supply of potatoes and Granda is looking for a spot to put up the bookstore he wants to bring out."

 

"Did we get new shipments?"

 

"Yeah for the library here and in town. I've been picking up stuff from the channel stores."

 

The Harvest Festival ends and Josette sighs as she settles in a steaming hot tub of water up to her neck. Pat taps on the door and looks at her. "Bad night?" She asks as she settles in the easy chair in the bathroom.

 

"Weird dreams. Mom was Wednesday from the Addams family." Pat snickers despite herself. "Yeah."

 

"And your father?"

 

"Eddie from the Munsters."

 

"Oh dear lord." Pat sighs.

 

"Yeah, I was like Marilyn. . .the normal member who kept trying to keep Mom from killing people. . .though some of them I wanted to fucking scream give me the damn sword so I could hurt the annoying assholes." Pat sniggers again. "And your father?"

 

"The third time he woke me up howling at the moon under my window I tossed water on him. . .followed by an old shoe. I hit him too. He just gave me a look. I told him to shut the fuck up, I had finals in the morning. He . . .you know the dance move where they shuffle off with a cane?" Pat nods. "Him, Fester, and Pugsley were doing that on the fence, I had it rigged so I hit a button and it flipped up from the bottom, sending them flying."

 

"Were Doc and I Lily and Hermann?"

 

"No, you were there but you were Grandmama Frump or whatever her name was on the Addams Family. Doc was Grandpa Munster." Pat slides to the floor and howls with laughter. "Yeah, Gomez and Morticia, Lily and Herman were all 'oh that poor child' until I finally had enough and started breaking bad. Then it was all. .. 'oh yes, it just took her a few years but she's doing the family proud'."

 

David leans around the side of the door. "Grandpa Nathan wants to know if you're finishing any more degrees."

 

"Two this year, the metallurgy from MIT and the last degree on the Spider from Montague. Is he looking at another graduation?" Josette turns her head to look at him as Pat gets back up in the chair.

 

"Next year, he's got a bunch of people finishing degrees this year at GD."

 

"And the rest of you?" Pat asks.

 

"Only Susan and I will be finishing a degree next year and they're from Calvin's dimension."

 

"Are you getting close to having taken every degree from Montague."

 

"Oh dear god, not even close. I'm looking at signing up for the Anne Rice degree in a couple years."

 

"Other degrees?"

 

"I'll be three years in another one but only a year or a single semester in the rest."

 

"How many degrees does this make?"

 

"Three hundred or so?" Josette does a quick mental count. "282 bachelors, 23 masters, and 19 doctorates. But most of the bachelors are in multiple degree sets so I'm not really counting them. . .though I know everybody else is." she says at Pat's look. She nods. "I'll be finishing two multiple degree sets from Montague when I graduate next year, one on the Green Hornet, and the other on the spider."

 

"How many degrees will you be graduating with?"

 

"Seven with the five I finished a couple years ago. I've been flipping through degrees and it takes a while to get to the fourth year. Of course when I get at a stage to finish the degrees I am flipping though it will be a good fifteen or so." Pat nods. "I've got five I've got one more degree in the set, two of them I'm taking classes in the next to last degree, the others are either single degrees or the megasets."

 

"Your comic book school?"

 

"I'm finishing a degree but it's not part of that count. . .it's the first one in the new count for that school. A couple years I'll have the last National, the last Timely, and a tv degree done. David?"

 

"Yeah?"

 

"Montague is starting a degree on Mystery Science Theater 3000."

 

"I'm in."

 

"It's part of the bad horror movies genre."

 

"Also part of the campy." He snorts from the doorway.

 

"Well yeah, that's why they riffed the movies on the show." Josette snorts. She leans back in the tub and sighs. Pat and David look at her. "Ahhh, I'm just feeling my age today. Six years and Thomas's group is going to be turning a hundred, nine years and it's the Quints. It's been 85 years since Clark, Thomas, and CJ came up to Haven, 74 years since we lost their Earth?"

 

"Over a hundred years since we lost our Earth."

 

"The quints were only babies when we . . .'misplaced' Sarah and Jason. The youngest are turning 40 next year."

 

"Five more years and we'll be married the big 150."

 

"Three hundred and eighteen."

 

Pat and David look at her. "How old I'd be if we'd kept Earth's calendar." She sniggers. "I showed Sarah that earlier today, she just moaned . . .it was so pretty." David laughs. "That's the perfect excuse not to be counting birthdays anymore."

 

"Some people. . ." she looks at David and Pat. "Won't let me ignore them." They pat her on the shoulder in a there, there gesture with suspiciously twitching lips. They can be heard laughing as the door shuts. Anna comes in and raises an eyebrow.

 

"I'd be 318 if we kept Earth's calendar, Sarah would really have a reason not to celebrate birthdays. . .but some people won't let me forget mine." Josette grumbles as she drains the tub. "I'm feeling my age, Thomas and the others will be turning 100 in six years, in nine years it will be the quints. It's been 85 years since Thomas, Clark, and CJ moved to Haven, it's been 74 years since we lost their Earth. It's been over a hundred years since we lost Earth, the quints were only babies when we 'misplaced' Sarah and Jason. The babies will be 40 next year."

 

"Ohhh yeah, you don't think of how many years it's been until the numbers hit you in the face." She sighs and helps Josette dry off. "Anything else?"

 

"Five more years and we've been married 150 years."

 

"Shit, that means Mom and Dad, Mom and Dad, Ma and Pa, Ma and Pa. . .some of them are going to be having two hundredth anniversaries coming up soon. If they haven't already."

 

"Yep. Not anything you would have seen on Earth but here on Haven and the other planets?"

 

"Yep, either they got together and stayed together or they had their children but never got together beyond that. Not that I miss the damn celebrity divorce dramas."

 

"Please, I think some of them just got married for the damn publicity .. .Kim Kardashian was just upfront about it." Susan snorts from the doorway. "Laundry? I'm going to do it in the morning. It's early but everything's stacking up."

 

"Yeah, I'll have everything down before I go to bed." Anna says. Josette nods. "I was going to say something tomorrow, we've all been busy with the offworld harvests or the Harvest Festival. Stuff like that just fell to the wayside." The others nod..

 

"We gotta wash windows and curtains." Alan says behind Susan.

 

"Susan and I can use the school laundry after breakfast while you use ours." The others nod.

 

Susan and Josette push two full to the brim carts to the laundry after breakfast, sorting them out and starting the machines. All the commercial washers are full and Josette pushes a cart down the hallway to the front room to fill the washers there. Principal Madison shakes his head as he walks in.

 

"Yeah, the wash was stacking up. Everybody was busy and let it go. Now that the offworld harvests are in and the festival is over. ..we're picking up everything we let slide the last few days."

 

"That happens, you're not like the school kids who were expecting Mommy and Daddy to magically appear to take care of everything."

 

"No, any of our parents would tell us to get off our asses and do it ourselves." Susan snorts. "The girls are washing curtains at the dorm while the boys are washing windows." Susan looks at Josette. "Are we expecting another early winter?"

 

"Yep, cold and snow. . .a lot of snow. They're already predicting that we're going to be doming everything before we can harvest. Snowing at least once but we'll have good weather for harvesting after that."

 

"Not the first time and not the last." Principal Madison sighs. "Sue and Agatha's?"

 

"Everybody's busy getting in more quilts. Even with the wood they'll want extra on their beds."

 

"Especially during the bitter cold snap. The replicators will be coming online soon."

 

"Yep, and people are already moving stuff so they can get in extra supplies of the fake wood."

 

Josette gets an emergency call from Calvin's dimension, splitting off a duplicate that heads off.

 

"Thank you Josette, this. . ." Hannah sighs as she looks at the rolls of fabric that are being moved to subspace and then Ulonda, "Well, it's all covered by insurance but it would be a mess to have to throw away."

 

"While I can toss everything through a cycle on the replicator and either clean it or remake it." They both smile. They walk through the other factories with the adjusters and Josette ends up taking more stuff that would just have to be thrown away.

 

Principal Madison is waiting for Josette when she returns to the dorm.

 

"There was a fire, a major manufacturer had a major supply of cloth, thread, lace. . .you name it, they made it. The fire wasn't there but everything reeked of smoke. Hannah called me because while insurance would cover everything. . ."

 

"it would fill a landfill if everything had to be tossed." Pat says from the door of Headquarters.

 

"Exactly, I spent the trip back working on everything. The stuff that was in the boxes I was mostly able to run through a cleaning cycle, but the fabric I had to turn into raw materials and remake." Josette shows off the rooms of new material. Pat moans. "Like I said, they were a major manufacturer. If the fire had happened a couple days later. . . the warehouses would have been empty."

 

"That's usually how it goes." Pat snorts.

 

Josette nods. "Anyway, the machinery is being torn apart, inspected, and cleaned before they start running again. Because we all know smoke gets everywhere." They nod as the Josette that had been off merges with the one who'd been home.

 

"Did you tell the others?"

 

"Yeah, before I flew back. They're. . .okay, better than being thrown away and we have it for the future. We don't need it right now." Pat and Doc both nod. Josette yawns and settles on the couch with a cat. "We're going to have rain by dinner."

 

"Yep."

 

Frances and Elaine moan at the pictures Josette sends them at dinner but agrees with the others that better remade on the ships than sitting in a landfill and they'll use it. . .eventually.

 

"Josette are you starting a quilting book run?"

 

"Couple years, I'm at the 'damn near finished' stage for a bunch of them."

 

"How many books?"

 

"Eighteen. Nine more years, our time. By then the boys and I will have to stop our shows for a couple decades and start new identities as our grandkids. Not that we're complaining." Alexander is cackling and Michael is nodding vigorously.

 

"That's one reason why you didn't go back to the publishing house."

 

"Yeah, but I got a note from them wanting me to allow them to start another printing run. Madison is looking through the contract but they're mostly using the ones that she made up for me." The others nod in satisfaction.

 

"Oh dear god. . .really?" Josette asks a few days later as she looks at the databurst.

 

"Fire not an accident?" Michael drawls as he walks past her to the buffet line.

 

"Yup, they were trying to put the other factories out of business so they could swoop in and get everything at rock-bottom prices, They wouldn't sell to them for the pennies they were offering."

 

"Oh dear lord." Principal Madison moans in the front room.

 

"Oh yes, they're now all been arrested and they're blubbering that with the zero-population period ending they should be allowed to do whatever they wanted. They were stunned that anybody would take the other businesses side. . .don't they know. . ."

 

"Who I am?" President Bartlett drawls. "Oh yes, big business is stupid. Not that I doubt the business would have made a success out of any of them."

 

"Nope, they were just seeing all the money coming in and whining because none of it was going to them." Josette drawls.

 

"Dreaming about all the profits but none of the hard work that made *them* successful."

 

"Yep. Just like any other young kid." Josette puts the PADD back on her belt and takes the tray Michael had brought over.

 

"Well hell, look at all the problems with other agents at Harvey's, wanting us to go to them because they didn't 'wike" Harvey having us for clients."

 

Anna snorts. "Look at all the trouble Josette had with the damn publishing house wanting her quilting books. Ignoring the fact that the only reason they sold so well is because they were offered at the shows."

 

"Like these guys they just saw all the profits and wanted it instead of the people actually doing the work." David snorts. Josette returns from the other dimension a couple days later, putting a video up on the screen in the dorm.

 

"Oh, that's beautiful land."

 

"Yep, and it's ours now. The state sold it to me because they want it protected."

 

"I can understand why." Alan says as he looks through all the information. Doc has his own copy of the file and he nods in satisfaction. "It's beautiful land."

 

"Yep, we're protecting it from the morons in big business who would raze it to the ground and build giant malls and other shit."

 

"None of which was needed even before the zero-population period started." David rumbles.

 

"Yep, they're pouting that the realtor dimension fell through because it needed all that infrastructure before anybody would buy their megamansions and whatnot. Yes, our places could easily fall in that category of housing but we built them to be used, not as a damn showcase for morons."

 

Everybody nods.

 

"Are they still whining about the laws making realtors pay what the land is actually worth still in effect?"

 

"Oh god yes, how can we do that to people?" Josette mock faints. "Idiots."

 

"Always going to be fools out there only in it to make a quick buck." James snorts as he walks out of the switching station. "Oh, that's gorgeous. Yours?"

 

"Yep, we just brought it from the state in Granda's dimension to keep it from being razed by developers."

 

"Thank god that's something we won't ever have to worry about again."

 

"Yeah, I just had a flash of the Grand Canyon's walls full of apartments, malls, hotels. . .all the way down to the river."

 

Everybody shudders, now they can see it too.

 

Josette shakes her head at the latest databurst from Superhero Doc's dimension. "Oh dear god." Doc is looking at all of them. "Some damn fool school trying to kick out of student who wears leg braces, saying it takes too much of the school's resources to. . .pander to her needs. They were stunned when the court showed she didn't need any special requirements." Doc sighs, they've all been with him long enough to see it. "They finally had to admit they wanted her and her friends gone because they'd dared complain about the way they were treated on a field trip. It had been a couple overnights at this place and a group of their 'real' students were all having sex in her and her friends rooms, they trashed them, stole their money, ruined their belongings. . ."

 

Pat snorts and calls the principal and whoever else had been trying to get rid of the group a miserable group of assholes.

 

"Oh yes, this has all blown up in their faces now. Now every person who was involved in the 'prank'. . .they'd just wanted the girls to loosen up. . ." David sneers. "Is now facing charges of theft, vandalism, malicious mischief, and destruction of property. Their darling parents were up in arms about their precious darlings being yelled at for 'high spirits' on the trip, now they're facing a helluva bigger backlash for this."

 

"Oh yes, you tried to get my darling child punished. How dare you." Susan drawls. "Assholes, the little shits got their attitude honestly."

 

"Oh yes, they're being punished in the court of public opinion. . .everybody's talking bad about them. They're going to be facing a lot of years in prison. . . not just a few hours overnight in jail for getting high and stupider." Josette snorts. "That girl's going to have a damn good judgment against the school and those miserable bastards."

 

"Yep." Susan smiles. "I'm sure the biggest, baddest lawyers are lining up to take her cases. They won't charge a cent, the publicity will pay for everything ten times over."

 

"Yep."

 

"Anything else?"

 

"Oh yes, the damn 'experts' are up in arms again. This time about coconut oil being bad for you. Because it's full of saturated fat, even more than lard and butter."

 

Pat rolls her eyes. "Nobody's eating the damn stuff by the spoonful. . .are they?"

 

"You never know."

 

"Ladies, the damn idiots trying to tell everybody how to run their damn lives instead of getting one of their own is up in arms again." Josette says, looking at the cooks when they walk to the dining hall. Principal Madison just looks at her. "Now coconut oil is supposed to be bad for you."

 

"Oh dear god, now why?"

 

"Ohhhh, it's full of saturated fats. Lard if 40 percent, butter is 60 percent, coconut oil is 81 percent."

 

"Well dear god, nobody's going to be using gallons of the stuff except in soapmaking." One of the cooks sighs. "It doesn't stop anybody from cooking with lard or butter does it?"

 

"Oh you know idiots like that, they gotta tell everybody else how to run their lives. Cholesterol is bad for you, no. . .some cholesterol is good for you. Eggs are bad for you, eggs are good for you." Professor Druid rolls her eyes. "They'll find something new to complain about soon enough."

 

"We're all living proof that the so-called experts are idiots." One of the cooks snorts. Everybody laughs and nods.

 

"Josette, are you making a trip out to Ellis's?" Frances asks.

 

"After Thanksgiving, I already put out the 'have a list ready if you don't want to go' message to the other planets. The manufacturer that I got their entire stock isn't one Ellis usually uses so he won't be bothered by the loss of the order. A lot of smaller places. . .well, they're hoping they don't run out of stuff before their orders can be remade."

 

"Agatha and the others?"

 

"Still have a good supply of stuff on hand, I figure year after next for a major trip."

 

After lunch Josette flies to the Albatross Nest, coming in for a landing and walking in the front door. "Ladies, is everybody still good on supplies from Ellis's?"

 

"Yes, we were just talking about another trip out in a couple years." Agatha says briskly. "You're going out?"

 

"After Thanksgiving. I put out the 'have a list ready if you're not going' message out to the other planets and Frances asked me at lunch when I was going out."

 

"Is the manufacturer. . ."

 

"Not one Ellis buys from, but a lot of smaller people are hoping their stocks hold out until the new orders are complete."

 

"Because they only buy what they can afford."

 

"Or don't have endless warehouses to keep the extra in."

 

"Or spaceships." Suzie sniggers.

 

"Yep." Josette drawls.

 

"How are you coming on your comic book degrees?"

 

"I'll be done with the last National degree end of the semester, then it's the last Timely degree. I'll have a new tv degree done when I have that one done."

 

"Timely, National."

 

"Pre Marvel and DC, the names changed when the comic book hero exploded."

 

"Yep, the next group is the brouhaha about the comic codes and parents up in arms about violence in comics. That's 12 degrees but it also includes a lot of companies that folded because of the controversy." Most of the others nod, there's a couple people who don't get it though. "think the labels on music." They nod they understand now. "After that I wanna start the Fawcett group, that's a few degrees even beyond the brouhaha of DC suing because 'oh my god, Captain Marvel is a ripoff of Superman." Everybody rolls their eyes. "Everything's a damn ripoff of something else."

 

"Yeah." Josette snorts.

 

"You're going out after Thanksgiving?"

 

"Yes, we'll have our crops in and the other planets will be at a time where they can head off for a day." The others nod.

 

"Are we going to have a second harvest next year?"

 

"Possibly, but I say more likely year after that. I'll have to see the sooner we get to the harvests." The others nod. "No use getting ahead of ourselves."

 

"No use counting chickens before they're hatched." The others nod. "Are you planting on the first planet again?"

 

"Not this year, I already harvested twice. Beyond the new to us potatoes." The others nod. "Not that hard to plant a new tomato or pepper in a pot." The others nod. "Hell or even more than one of us plant different varieties and trade the extras."

 

Josette lands at the dorm and walks inside.

 

"Talk to Agatha?" Susan asks, looking up from a box from the publishers that had come up in the last batch of supplies.

 

"Yeah, they'd already figured a couple years before they went to Ellis's." She grabs some of the magazines and settles down to read. "I don't miss the damn post office mangling magazines."

 

"Nope." She grabs her own armful of magazines and sits down to read.

 

"Have you heard anything from Jessy?"

 

"Yeah, her Rupert, their Stark, and their Banzai Institute are working together on a other dimension growing area like Becka has, while making plans for having to move if things keep getting bad. Their power grid is bad.. . they didn't have the problems like we did or Becka, theirs . . ."

 

"Is just old and never meant to last this long?" Pat asks from behind them.

 

"Exactly. They've had their second big multiple state outage and a good chunk of the country is using the boxes since they've got millions of miles of power line to replace."

 

"And with everything going to the new power grids. . .it will be years before the lines can be replaced." Doc says behind them.

 

"Exactly, and they've got to replace at least one power plant that fried all those lines." Josette snorts. "The owners of the plants and power companies will be up in arms, but I can see people keeping the boxes even after the power is restored."

 

The others nod.

 

Doc finds Josette up in the growing area a couple days later starting seeds. He looks at her. "They asked at the Albatross Nest if I was harvesting on the first planet again, I said no. they said it wouldn't be that damn difficult to plant a pepper or tomato in a pot. ..or even everybody grow different varieties. . ."

 

"And trade the extra. So you're starting stuff we don't normally plant." David says behind Doc.

 

"Yep."

 

"List?" Doc asks.

 

Josette jerks her head at the direction of the clipboard. He picks it up and starts writing. "We can do the same. And I'm sure the others will as well."

 

Over the next couple days everybody starts seeds.

 

Josette claps her hands over her head a couple days after her third testing week.

 

"Get your comic book degree finished?" Alan chuckles.

 

"Yep." she pushes away from the table, standing up and stretching. Putting everything away she starts loading the boxes on the cart and takes them to her building, putting them on the shelves and nodding in satisfaction. Alan snorts since that didn't clear off Josette's tables by a long shot.

 

"Ahhh, I thought Josette was nearly done with her comic book degree." Doc chuckles from the doorway.

 

"Yeah, she should be back any minute."

 

Josette walks in a couple minutes later.

 

"Josette, did the others send out seeds?"

 

"Yes, we've got the first batch on the ship and the others plan on sending more." Josette pulls her PADD off her belt and begins looking through the inventory. Finding the list she hands it over to Doc who nods. "We've got tons in storage yet from the other dimensions and save heirloom seeds." He nods. "The 'everybody grow some things we don't normally do' idea you had is making me double-check our seeds."

 

"Yep, I had the same idea and so did Richard and Hannah. Who are also looking at what they normally grow and adding a few 'new to us' plants."

 

"Are you growing blue corn again this year?"

 

"I've got a crop started on Vallejo."

 

"Trees for the paper?"

 

"Dropping them off when I go to pick up the recycling. That will give them all next year to work on everything. By then we'll be running low on most of it." Doc and Alan nod as they look at the time. Dinner Josette calls mentally, Doc heading back to Headquarters as they walk to the dining hall.

 

The domes are up a couple weeks later and Josette sighs.

 

"We knew it was coming." David says behind her as she looks out the window.

 

"Yes we did and the worse Haven winter can't compare to Earth."

 

The dome is down by the time everything is ripening and everybody is busy canning or drying the food and putting it up for the winter. Their part of the offworld harvests is passed out next and Josette shakes her head. "We'll have snow for Thanksgiving."

 

"Not the first time, not the last." President Bartlett hears David say as they walk into the dining hall.

 

"Snow?"

 

"Yup, it's already starting." Professor Parker says from the window. The others look that direction and nod as they see the flakes.

 

"Is all the offworld harvests passed out?" Principal Madison asks.

 

"Yes and the growing buildings planted early, everybody knew this would be a long winter and got in supplies over the last few months. The food was the last of it." The others nod.

 

"You okay?" David asks as Josette walks into the back room.

 

"I keep imagining what it would be like living on Earth in one of the domes during the ice age."

 

"It would be like living on one of the city-ships permanently but worse since you were on Earth and not in space." Alan says. "Probably what it's like on the 9th planet Earth since they're still in their nuclear winter."

 

Josette nods. "They limit the trips to Earth to six weeks, they have a list of experiments and go down. And they're working to get the experiments done in the six weeks so they don't have to stay a second longer than needed."

 

"I can imagine they'd have to." President Bartlett says in the other room. "Being surrounded by all that snow and radiation. . ." He shudders. "Even during the ice age, there's still some temperate areas on Earth to check on to get away from all the snow. And speaking of Earth?"

 

"We figured on going out next year to check on the probes. Dr. Stark was talking to me about it last night." Josette says at David's look. "He's making a list of people who really need the information. . .not just think they deserve the information." Everybody sniggers and nods.

 

"Ellis's?"

 

"Week after next, fourth day. I was going to send off the reminder after lunch." Josette does just that while Susan fills her tray again.

 

"Josette, did you only bring back the stuff from the manufacturer?" President Bartlett asks. "I'd looked at the other factories in the area. . ."

 

Josette guffaws. "I was wondering if anybody would ask. No, I brought back everything we could use. A lot of it I had to remake but . . ." Josette puts the rest of the file up on the server, the others looking over everything after wiping their hands.

 

"Oh yes, we'll have a use for this. , . eventually. How long until the bookstore is open?" Mrs. Bartlett says.

 

"Dad figures on the grand opening during next year's Harvest Festival." Principal Madison says absently. "It's going to be about three times bigger on the inside with multiple levels."

 

/So did you copy Powell's?/ David asks mentally. Josette's silent sniggering is his only response.

 

"Josette, paper ends?"

 

"I'm picking them up in all the dimensions and turning them to cardboard and paper that they can use, it gets them out of the way." The others nod in the front room. "Becka's dimension is the only one that really found a good way to get rid of them." The others look at her. "You didn't hear? They send out a call to have them sent to Warner. . , about three times a year in the beginning and now once a year and Becka and the boys use the guns on them since they don't have the big honking replicator I use for them. That clears the space up and gives them crystals full of raw material."

 

"I bet they had to do it multiple times a year in the beginning." Professor Parker snorts.

 

"Oh yes, they didn't have any lack of people sending it off. Recyclers can't use it, like the shredded paper it's a lot of work and not a lot to show for it."

 

Professor Fletcher looks at the back room.

 

"Shredded paper means the paper strands are small, it's good for crafters. . .Josette shreds the paper for her handmade paper but it's not worth it for the commercial paper makers." Professor Parker says from the front room. In the back room Josette is nodding.

 

"Just like the idiots in the glass industry were whining they couldn't make anything because they didn't have the materials but had tons of glass sitting around, smashing it to reuse was beneath them until the government got on their asses." Principal Madison snorts. "But that's big business, only in it for the quick buck and not the work an honest buck would bring."

 

The others nod.

 

"Josette, the glass?"

 

"Smashing it when I bring in the recycling."

 

"No use smashing it then filling the container again with the glass from the other planets."

 

The pails in the foundry begin filling and one of the workers smiles as she walks outside to find the container door cracked open and glass that had been piled outside disappearing. A few minutes later Josette comes outside. "There, everything's smashed, what didn't fit inside is in here."

 

"Thank you Josette, while we weren't low low. . ."

 

"You needed the glass." She can see it being shoveled into the blow furnace to melt down. "I figured better to wait until I got the recycling from the other planets."

 

"No use emptying it to refill it."

 

"Get the glass taken care of?" Principal Madison asks at dinner.

 

"Yes, both in Town and mine."

 

"Do you take the glass to the other dimension anymore?"

 

"Nope, ever since the rush for windows for the colony in Granda's dimension wore off I'd be bringing it back. Easier just to take care of it here." The others nod.

 

"As it is you're still bringing glass back?"

 

"Yep."

 

David opens the tesseract to the ship several days later, Josette settling in the chair as everybody talks about what's been going on on their planets, where they are in their growing system . . while Haven has finished their growing seasons and were hunkering down for a wet, cold winter the 9th planet was looking forward to their first plantings in a couple weeks. And the tenth planet was in the middle of their second growing season.

 

Josette splits off numerous duplicates when they return home to deliver everything that the others had purchased. Doc shakes his head when Pat returns to Headquarters. "Did you see everything Josette brought out?"

 

"Yes, and the list and pictures did not do any of it justice. Everybody was talking about the loss of all that material, the owners of the factory that had caused all this mess were sentenced to years in the maximum work facility to repay the other factories everything they lost not covered by insurance, the cost to clean everything, and the insurance companies every cent they had to pay out. Then they're going to prison for at least fifteen years."

 

"Lemme guess, kids who took over a successful business?" Dr. Stark snorts as he looks up from the plans he and Doc had been going over for work on both Headquarters and the dorm.

 

"Yep, and weren't making the profits they thought they deserved." Josette snorts as she walks through the door. Her eyes glaze over a second. "There you go Pat, everything's in your rooms."

 

"Thank you Josette."

 

The others start coming out after Thanksgiving and the kids trips out to the other dimensions, Hannah and Richard nodding in satisfaction at the plants in a room. Or rather the neat tags on each pot. "Are the others growing too?"

 

"Oh yes, and when Agatha and the others learned I'd taken an offhand remark and ran with it they sat down and made a list of plants they could grow in their own homes."

 

"What brought it on?"

 

"I was at the Albatross Nest to see if they wanted to come out on the trip to Ellis's for us and the other planets and got asked if I was going to be harvesting on the first planet again. . .beyond the new potatoes. I said I'd already had and that morphed into . . . not a problem to plant a tomato we don't normally grow in a pot, that morphed into we can all plant different stuff and trade the extra."

 

"And that morphed into this and the others."

 

"Yep."

 

Josette chuckles at the three pots in the Albatross Nest, one pepper and two tomatoes she sees from the tags. A window box of herbs has been started too.

 

"Yes, every building has at least one pot and many have several." Agatha says briskly. "The old cooking school, Assyrian, Edinborough. . .even beyond the food we regularly grow over the winter."

 

"Seeing green is an antidote to all the white outside." Marilyn says as she walks in.

 

"Oh yes, and we could be on Earth where we wouldn't be looking forward to spring in a few months.'

 

"Oh yes, and this type of growing would be all we'd be able to do." Suzie sighs. "Instead of walking to the big building and seeing what was just picked fresh on the other planets."

 

"Josette, quilts?"

 

"Working on them as usual and hope to have eight books ready to start printing year after next. The following year at the latest. And yes, I gotta get stuff for more of the quilts after the first of the year, right now I'm cleaning my workroom and doing inventory." The others sigh and nod.

 

"How many years?

 

"Nine more years will have all my current books out in Granda and Mom's dimension. We're going to have to take a break for a couple decades in Granda's dimension, it's going to be nearly eighty years we've been having shows."

 

"Can't just say . . .ahhh, she's a vampire of course she's not aging." Agatha smirks.

 

"Yep, I just had a flash of one of the kids looking over at me . .'no, that's not my daughter. . .that's my mother, grandmother. . .'." The others nod.

 

"Are you still writing?"

 

"Yeah, the others are looking into making it a 'syndicate name' so the books would still be printed and with the lessening of shows and whatnot I should be able to hit comic cons and other stuff out there. Some people in the know will know that yes, Josette Takahawa is Josette Takahawa, she just lives in another dimension. My comic book school case in point."

 

"Didn't you have a graduation ceremony there?"

 

"Yeah, earlier this summer before they had a comicon. I finished another degree from them a couple months ago."

 

The new kits and cookies are handed out after everybody's eaten and Josette takes a turn at the sink washing everything up. The leftovers are pushed on her and she puts everything in subspace before heading back to the dorm. Putting everything away she breaks down and finishes putting away everything she'd brought to Ellis's.

 

"One of these days I'm going to have to fly up to a second or third floor in this room." Josette mutters as she flattens the last box. Anna snickers but nods from the doorway. "Is that the last of it?"

 

"Yeah." She waves the boxes to the cardboard recycling bin and walks down to the first floor.

 

"Does Agatha still offer the kits?" Superhero dimension Alice asks, she'd seen some very familiar plastic bags in Josette's workroom.

 

"Oh yes, and we've added more over the years. I usually have a dozen or so quilts in the pool of kits to offer for the future and they've been slowly introducing the older stuff by designers we lost on Earth." the others nod. "We also have grab bags, hats mittens scarves quilt tops. . .just pick the size and you get what you get, this way we can weed out some of the older stuff that's sitting around." Alice nods in satisfaction. "How many kits do they make up?"

 

"Two dozen a month, after that you wait as the materials are cut. Since you're buying the back and the batting at the same time. . . " Josette shrugs. Alice nods. "Today was the party for everybody involved in the kits, we get the years kits except for the ones we designed, talk about our plans for the next year, exchange cookies. . ."

 

"Gab?" Alice chuckles.

 

"Yep, ask about when my new books are going to be printed, when I'm going to be coming out to fill the bags for more quilts. . ."

 

"Josette, did you sign the contract for this latest printing?" Hannah asks.

 

"Yes, and I sent it to Madison along with the latest batch of what I'd been working on. She moaned so purdy in the databurst." The others snigger.

 

"How many books quilting books are we looking at?" Frances asks at dinner.

 

"If I start the printers again year after next it will be at least eight, if I wait another year I'll have nearly twenty. I gotta go in after the first of the year and stock up on more quilts."

 

"Stock up on more quilts?" New Dimension Pat ask.

 

"You've seen the bags on the shelves? Every year or so Josette will go to the stores and stock up on everything for no less than twenty quilts." Susan says. "And from the last few megadoses of quilts it will be a while before she finishes everything she has sketched out."

 

"Yep." Josette says. "I've still got a good half-dozen sketch pads full of quilts. By the time I get those done, the muse will. .."

 

"Be slamming you again?"

 

"Yep. I figured fifty books with all the quilts made up but since I got an eighteen book backlog in Granda's dimension and even more books in the chute in the others. . ."

 

"These can wait."

 

"Yes, people have got to be getting tired of seeing all my books on the shelf by now."

 

The rude laughter in the other room makes her roll her eyes. "We're looking forward to seeing what you've been working on."

 

"So did you finally break down and make plans for a cabin like in Granda's colony dimension?" David snickers. the sigh tells everybody the answer is yes.

 

"Yes, thanks to catching a few minutes of 'alone in the wilderness' on PBS when I was out for graduation. I made some modifications though, instead of a fireplace the cookstove that would be heating everything is using fake wood not dried crap. The plastic logs fit together tight enough that they shouldn't need chinking but we have the spray if we need it. I'd have a couple lean-tos on it, one for a hand pump. . .he walked to the lake for his water even in winter and the other for the wood."

 

"That's something we didn't think about when we started using the wood, now everybody has it stacked wherever, there's not enough room for room just for the wood." Principal Madison sighs. The others give her 'give it over' looks and she sighs and puts everything up on the screen, showing everything off. "I'd have flooring, I know its usually bare ground but that would be damn cold in the winter. I watched the entire show, he says he was toasty warm . . .it was 40 degrees inside, barely above freezing. . .but that would have been warm compared to zero and thirty, forty below outside."

 

The others nod. The newcomers had been quickly told about the colony dimension and they pass along suggestions.

 

"Solar panels?"

 

"I'd have them in a second or even third expansion when I added onto the building. Separate sleeping rooms and a bathroom. I know they took baths in a washtub in the Little House books but damn. . ." The others nod.

 

"Are mental health authorities keeping an eye on the colonists?"

 

"Yes, like Haven for every ten thousand person who applied we accepted maybe a handful." Calvin says. "They didn't go right out to stay, they were there for several months to select their land and start getting supplies out then returned to either the town they'd put up or back to Earth, it was their second year before they stayed out on their land over the winter."

 

"Either in their cabins or pulling the covered wagon into the barn and trading the smell for the heat the animals bodies gave off."

 

"Even here on Haven you have to get out of your house once in a while. . ."

 

"Usually after a storm when you need some fresh air and to hear the sound of somebody else's voice. That's why solitary confinement is used as a punishment."

 

"And why in the Little House books the family moved to town for the winter, Pa going out to the homestead to take care of the animals."

 

"Yes, that's one good reason to be outside in the winter. Even with the cleaners in the dorm. . .the whole place has a 'lived in' smell by spring. Gotta be even worse living in a barn that doesn't have the amenities ours do." Everybody nods.

 

Josette is nabbed by Agatha at the Lights Festival.

 

"We need to make fat quarters."

 

"Yeah, it's been a few years. How's the inventory?"

 

"Good, we figure year after next we'll have to hit the warehouses again."

 

"Warehouses?"

 

"A lot of our supplies are in tesseracted warehouses. Every few years Agatha and Sue will do inventory and set me off with a list of stuff to get for them."

 

"Just basic supplies?"

 

"No, we have a lot of kits too, from the hobby stuff a kid might get all the way to high-end stuff. We stocked up on stuff like that to have on hand for the winter months. Then once we got settled we expanded on a lot of the stuff. . .we've got the looms set up for weaving, we have the potteries at the schools."

 

"If we want to tie-dye stuff we've got the schools and the dyeing building." David says as he walks past.

 

"Yep." Josette shows them the warehouse of kits and they nod in satisfaction.

 

"Hook latch kits?"

 

"Yep, a lot of us come up with designs that can be either be printed on them or lay out patterns like you would knitting and just cut the back. Bind the edges and you got something pretty to look at, that and the rugs are one of the reasons we brought out the rug yarn factory."

 

Nods from the others, they've all seen rugs in various stages on looms, from plain rugs to lay on a floor to fancy ones that would hang on a wall as art.

 

Josette slides into her seat at the first government meeting of the new year.

 

"Starting a new degree this year?"

 

"Second degree on the Titanic on the school computer. First one dealt with the building of the ships, this one will deal with the sinking of the Titanic and it's sister ship, the third one will be theories about what happened. The latest theory from Granda's dimension is there was a coal fire in one of the bunkers near where it was hit, the continued heat of the smoldering fire made the metal brittle and. . ." Josette makes a that's all she wrote noise and hand gesture. The others nod. "I'll be finishing a degree from the Naval Academy, subs in war. The other degrees I'm only one or two years into them."

 

"And they're all the multiple degree sets?"

 

"Yep."

 

"Metallurgy masters?"

 

"Probably." Josette yawns, looking out the window at the snow falling outside. "Everybody agrees I know more than the books from doing it for so many years. Becka's in the same boat since they've been harvesting asteroids for what they need beyond what she buys for her business." The others nod.

 

"Paper?"

 

"The factory started work on the paper towels, napkins, and toilet paper today. I'll harvest more scrub trees and offworld cotton for the charmin brand toilet paper." She covers her eyes and moans, David sniggering as he sees what the imp is doing. "The Empire State Building, filled with nothing but toilet paper."

 

"I'm sure that somebody on Earth would do it if they could." President Bartlett snorts. "What brought that on?"

 

"Okay, long story. Years before Becka and the others moved to Mars, she was talking with her uncles and Silas about being off the grid and people being up in arms over more deaths than 'normal' being reported. With her alternate power to take over the studio and whatnot her power bill went from over five hundred a month down to fifty and most of that was the damn fees." The others nod. "They were joking that Becka was nearly off the grid then that morphed into what people would need to live on another planet, including toilet paper. The next day she came back from Warner with a couple sheets of paper. . .how much toilet paper a family of four would need for a hundred years. A lab tech didn't have anything to do. . ."

 

"Always a bad combination." Dr. Stark drawls from the doorway. "And he went overboard?"

 

"Oh yes, he used the huge mega packages and had everybody going through a package a week." President Bartlett and Principal Madison sigh. "Earth and the supplies when the orphanages came up."

 

"Exactly. When Becka found out about the ships and that they were going to take over Mars she joked they might actually have a use for all that toilet paper. Fast forward ten years or so, Tony had just come back from the road trip and the coup he'd seen morphed into the power problem and he told Becka to start working on her version of the power building. They took him back to the manor to sleep off vision and they were talking about supplies. . .including the toilet paper. Pepper said toilet paper is a huge part of their budget, they have closets full of nothing but toilet paper. . .if they had a free floor they'd probably fill it with nothing but toilet paper."

 

"Which morphed into the Empire State Building full of toilet paper." Doc says dryly.

 

"Yes, they were also talking about supplies on the satellite and whatnot, if they could fill containers of toilet paper and shrink them somehow so you could have. . .ohhh, our big room full of shipping containers in a space the size of a drawer in a underbed compartment." The others nod.

 

"What would happen when the container was brought out and enlarged?" Dr. Stark asks.

 

"Yep. Because they'd still need to find a place for all that supplies unless you could bring it out, take something out, shrink it again, and put it back."

 

"This reminds me of years ago when we were talking about not having white paper and pure white soap anymore and people replicating rooms of it to lord over people."

 

"Yep." Josette sighs and yawns, idly waving a hand and a mug of coffee is poured at the maker and floats across the room to her. She turns to Dr. Stark, knowing he's here for a reason. He looks at them and David waves up a shield.

 

"Are we going to be able to keep the ships?"

 

"Yes, it's not common knowledge but the other dimension has 'something' that spurts out stuff. I don't know what it is, neither do any of the others. It's alien technology. . .but nothing the others recognize. I talked to the ships, they don't recognize it either. When more ships are needed. . .they'll be made. The government doesn't see it needed for several decades, they're not in the state that we were that sent us off planet or the 9th planet's Earth. Now. . .we might be shipping them back in a couple decades and getting them filled again. . ."

 

"Have they been keeping records? The colonies on 9th planet's Earth?"

 

"Oh yes, all ten colonies have been keeping histories from the beginning and I passed it along to Becka and Calvin's worlds so they have an idea of what a colony built from scratch on another world will entail. They had the ships and supplies and limited contact with the Justice League yes, but. . ." Dr. Stark and Doc give her looks and she holds up a hand, finding the files and sending them to their PADDs and then the others at their looks.

 

"They were on their own, not like Becka or us where 'I gotta get the hell out of here, the damn weather's driving me nuts', we can go to one of the other planets for a stress break. Before we break." The others nod.

 

"That's why the psychologists don't see. . ."

 

"The domed communities wouldn't have been able to survive on Earth. Oh yes, we were talking about that before Thanksgiving when we planted peppers, tomatoes, and herbs in pots. . .on Earth we wouldn't have been looking forward to spring in a few months and indoor planting would have been all we knew." Dr. Stark nods. "Sick is it to say, losing everybody to the EMP's radiation. . ."

 

"Was a mercy killing." Josette sighs. Doc and David wrap their arms around her while President Bartlett, Principal Madison, and Dr. Stark pat her hands or shoulders. "Now, shouldn't you be annoying Dr. Blake?" David cackles as his godfather honest to god pouts. "I wanted to talk to Clark after the meeting."

 

"We're just talking about stuff, hell. . .there wasn't any real reason for the meeting except we needed to get out of the houses for a while." The others nod.

 

"Fat quarters." David says as the meeting breaks up and they walk back to the school.

 

"We're going to be working on them next week, I'm going out tomorrow to get the supplies for more of my quilts."

 

"Thread?"

 

"We're making a trip out in a couple weeks. Nobody's low low but we want to keep ahead." David nods. Doc and Dr. Stark are talking quietly behind them as they walk into the dorm, shaking off their outer clothes and either taking off their boots to replace them with shoes or brushing off their boots before they walk inside.

 

"Awww. . .fuck, the boxes." David says suddenly as Doc opens the door of Headquarters.

 

"The toilet paper? Yes, you could probably get three or four dozen shipping containers in them but you'd still have the problem of where to put everything unless you took out what you needed and put it back in the box. And then you'd have the problem of what to do with the empty containers." Josette says as she heads up the stairs.

 

"Do I want to know?" Pat asks as she walks out of Headquarters. "Josette, fat quarters?"

 

"Next week, Agatha's putting out a reminder a couple days before we start working on them."

 

"Boxes?" Doc tells her of their conversation and she shudders. "Oh dear god, I can just imagine the whole output of the paper factory in toilet paper for a hundred years filling the building."

 

"More like a few dozen paper factories for a hundred years." Josette snorts.

 

"Josette, did you put in a second order for the retro fabric?"

 

"Yeah, after Thanksgiving. I figure it will be around the Harvest Festival when I go out to pick it up." Pat nods in satisfaction. "The next line will be announced the end of the year."

 

Josette walks into her workroom and grabs the sketch pads, counting off the quilts that she still needs to get supplies for and grabs a second one for the morning. She won't get all the way through it but she'll probably get halfway through it.

 

"Josette, shows?" Doc asks from the doorway a couple hours later. She's busy bringing out other supplies and putting them away. He nods at the case of manila envelopes being opened and put on a shelf.

 

"Me Granda's, the boys Mom. I go second this year but I also have a book tour since I got a couple books debuting as well as the reprint of the older book. I figure this will probably be my last hurrah except for the comic cons and expos for me."

 

"Book fair?"

 

"Yes, a big one this year in both Granda, Superhero, and New Dimension dimensions. I'll have to start the tours and whatnot in the last two dimensions." Doc's lips twitch at the put-upon look on his granddaughter's face.

 

"Yeah, yeah. I know. ..own damn fault for writing so many books." Josette sighs and waves a hand. "Damn psychotic muses."

 

The next morning Sue snickers as she walks into her store and finds Josette cutting fabric and scanning labels. There's a pile of bolts in the remnants bin and Josette plops two more on the pile before she stops.

 

"Is that everything?"

 

"For everything I'm buying here." She scans the last label and starts putting the bags in subspace as Sue measures the remnants and Josette brings out the new bolts, putting them on the shelves. Her card is scanned and Josette moans at the total, Sue sniggering. "going to have to dip into your bonuses from the offworld harvests."

 

After a stop at the bakery she walks into the Albatross Nest, Suzie sniggering as she brings out her bags and looks over the notes of what she needs and already has before the others start grabbing bolts of fabric.

 

"Fat quarters?"

 

"Third day next week, when's the Amish coming out?"

 

"Day after tomorrow."

 

"I'll be here to help cut fabric."

 

"Thanks Josette."

 

A couple days later Josette slides into her normal seat at dinner. "Amish trip out." she says at everybody's look. In the front and back room people nod and turn back to what they'd been doing. When the Amish come out it's all hands on deck to help them.

 

The next week Ma Hunkle and the others from the 9th and 10th planets walk into Sue's store and look at the bolts that are going to be turned into fat quarters. Josette waves a hand as she walks in, more bolts appearing next to the piles. "Oh god, that's even more garish than when you first got it." Frances snorts.

 

"I know. We can use it for accent pieces in quilts." The others nod.

 

"This isn't everything." Frances looks at the pile.

 

"Oh hell no, I've got rooms of this shit on the ship yet. I didn't want to overwhelm you guys. I'll make fat quarters of it on one of the trips." The others nod and start cutting the fabric, more than one layering fabrics with a quilt in mind. At the end of three days all the bolts are empty and put aside to reuse and more than one person leaves with a bag of fat quarters. Josette waves her fabric to the ship and puts her bag up in the dorm on the way to the dining hall.

 

"Get everything done?" Principal Madison asks as Frances walks into the front room.

 

"Yes. There's a reason why we don't make fat quarters all the time. Though a bunch of us were putting together fabrics with quilts in mind as we were cutting them. Josette brought out a few bolts of the 'hot new fabric' from Calvin's dimension that bombed horribly. It was even more garish now than it was when Josette picked everything up at a huge discount. Josette says there's rooms of it more on the ship, she'll make fat quarters out of it on one of the trips. . .she didn't want to overwhelm us."

 

"Yes. . .especially considering by the time I go out with the other next year the next big hot fabric should have horribly bombed and I'll be picking up more fabric at a huge discount." Frances and Elaine snicker but nod.

 

Josette snorts as she reads the latest databurst from Superhero Doc's dimension. "The attempt to get rid of that girl blow up in the school's face?"

 

"Yup, they're begging her to drop the lawsuit. . .they're 'sowwy' they tried to get rid of her. They were led by the nose by their now former principal and the parents of the kids. They were arrested and are out on very high bonds, the parents will be destroyed if the kids take off. They're whining that the courts are being mean to them."

 

"Boo hoo hoo." David mock sobs crocodile tears.

 

"Yes, the school is better off without him and the fucking brats he let run roughshod over the rest of the students."

 

"Just like Dumbassdork and the Slytherins."

 

"Yep. The girl's going to a better school for the rest of her high school years, along with her friends. One that is semi-attached to a major university. Her old school is going to be going through every complaint against the group that were 'oh. . .they're just high-spirited' that was ignored."

 

"Thank god the school never did that."

 

"Yes, and we never will. Any 'real' school would have kicked the students out years ago." Principal Madison says from the doorway.

 

"Oh please, if the kids were kicked out. . .the principal couldn't get their parents to do 'favors' for him." Josette snorts. The others nod. "Because this shit wouldn't have been tolerated at Granda's either." Josette copies the stories in the databurst and sends them off along with the knowledge this nonsense would not have been tolerated at either school. She gets a response back a couple days later. . .Josette sniggering at the rude turns of phrase that describes the other school and the possible ancestry of some of the people involved. Josette passes that along to Principal Madison who just laughs. Professor Druid gives him a look and he passes the response along, she nods in agreement.

 

Josette sighs as she slides into her usual seat at the dining hall. "I gotta hit the containers today, I just cleaned everything out of my closets and dressers."

 

Susan and the others think about their clothes and sigh. "Yeah, it's been a few years since we cleaned everything out. Unless it's something like the bottom sheet wearing out we don't normally think about it."

 

"Go up after lunch then?"

 

"Yeah, it will give us time to go through everything."

 

Josette shuts the window she'd opened to get some fresh air into the room after a few minutes, it's still too early to have the windows open for more than a couple minutes at a time. She's not the only person doing it, windows are being opened for a few minutes all over the dorm and in every building people spend any amount of time in. . .or else doors are held open for a few minutes.

 

Bags of extra peppers and tomatoes start to be traded, Josette putting everything in the stasis chambers.

 

"I know it's just tomatoes and peppers, we've got more growing upstairs but. . ."

 

"They're different because you decided to grow more than one variety." David says from the doorway. "It's not even that they're ripe, we have ripe tomatoes and peppers upstairs. It's because we made an effort to plant something we normally wouldn't." Principal Madison nods behind him. "we all knew this would be a long, cold, wet winter and this is helping us realize. . ." Josette vanishes and the others count the seconds off until she reappears. "That winter will eventually end." Principal Madison says when she returns.

 

Josette just gives him a look at waiting until she returned to finish his statement. David smirks as Principal Madison just gives them a smug look. "Anything important?"

 

"Nah, just some moron whining in Granda's dimension about how his life is over because the state sold the land to me because I wouldn't let it be developed. The court told him to grow the fuck up. Granda moaned when I told him the imp had shown me the Grand Canyon developed from top to bottom and he nodded that probably would have happened if people hadn't started protecting natural areas. Oh. ..there's talk about another industry dimension."

 

Principal Madison rolls his eyes as behind them Doc sighs. "Yeah, that was Jane's reaction to both that and the Grand Canyon being developed top to bottom. Always going to be idiots who only see huge ginormous profits and not all the hard work."

 

"As opposed to the people making all those ginormous profits because they actually did all the hard work." David snorts. "Anything else?"

 

"Nah, just whining. People thinking they're so much better than everybody else and everybody should bow, scrape, and kiss their asses until they're proved to be damn fools." Josette waves a hand. "Human nature."

 

"Always going to be somebody complaining."

 

"To quote Dr. Hazlitt. . .ayuh." Susan snorts as she walks by. She'd been off on a mental health break on the first planet.

 

Josette waves the bags of stuff she'd brought at the chain stores to her rooms.

 

A couple days later Josette heads off with one of the ships to the New Dimension to visit the book fair, bringing back boxes of books and other stuff from both the fair and what the others had been gathering for them.

 

"Your books out there?"

 

"Yeah and I got some recognition but not the 'omg' moments. Thank you god." The others snigger.

 

"Awwww. .. poo' fuckers are going to get their asses beaten." Josette coos. David looks over at her. "The stupid ass 'kids' from the superhero dimension are going to be in prison for at least five to twenty-five years. The judge was not happy about their blubbering that it was just a joke." The others snort in disgust. "Of course their lawyers tried getting them off but since they'd admitted to everything. . .there wasn't a damn thing he could do but tell the court they're stupid ass brats. She got a huge settlement from every single one of them. . .they're going to be working decades to pay them off since the parents can't pay them for them. Of course their parents are blubbering, their precious babies are going to prison."

 

Disgusted sounds from the others. "Everybody is talking bad about them. . ." More disgusted sounds.

 

"The school is wailing, she got millions of dollars in the civil trial. They're going to be cutting everything to make the payments to her the judge ordered. They tried passing a millage for the judgment and the judge told them hell no. . .it didn't even make it to the ballot. The principal who kissed their asses is gone, he's never going to be able to work at a school again and he's got his own judgment he's got to pay."

 

"Good, I hope the bastard is miserable for the rest of his life and the stupid ass kids get beaten ten times a day in prison."

 

"Oh yes, the cons won't put up with their 'pranks'." Principal Madison sneers. "Stupid little sacks of shit."

 

True to Principal Madison's words, the dumbass kids wail the first night in prison because everybody has been so mean to them.

 

"Ha!" Josette says when the next databurst comes in. "Dumbass kids cells were trashed by the other prisoners, when they went wailing to the guards they were told 'it's a prank, you need to loosen up' just like they told the girls. They ran off wailing that everybody's being mean to them."

 

"Boo hoo hoo. .. I hope the stupidity gets beat out of the stupid kids. . .but that will take a lot of beating." President Bartlett snorts. The other teachers in the front room nod.

 

"Josette, shoes?" Principal Madison asks.

 

"I checked the stocks and planned to bring up the topic of opening it next year at the next meeting. And reopening the clothing factory."

 

"We can talk about it, it's been a number of years."

 

"Since just after Alex and the others came out for the shoes, longer than that for the clothes."

 

"Knitting factory?"

 

"Yes, we'll have to look into that too. The stocks took a hit this winter since it was wet and cold."

 

Josette looks up from counting the socks with Jane. "Josette, did those fool kids get what they deserved in prison?"

 

"Oh yes, how could everybody be so mean to them? Some cons trashed their cells just like they'd trashed the kids room and they ran off wailing when the guard told them it was a prank, they needed to loosen up. Just what they'd told the kids." Jane and Maria snigger and Calvin nods in satisfaction.

 

"Are you staying long?"

 

"A couple weeks, I'm dropping off books for the classes and checking out a few places."

 

"Good, I need to talk to you about increasing the order of socks. . .both kinds."

 

Josette yawns when she returns to Haven, they're getting a warm rain that should knock down the last of the snow. She leans between Principal Madison and Professor Druid and looks over at President Bartlett. "Granda is working on a contract for more socks. . .both kinds."

 

"I was expecting it." Professor Druid says. The others nod. "Births are picking up and the prisons are full with people being made to take responsibility for their own stupidity. Finally."

 

"Yep, Granda asked if the morons from that school were getting their asses handed to them in prison. They were more than happy to hear they were."

 

"They're not the only ones." Elaine says. "Josette, did you pick up more yarn while you were out?"

 

"Yes, it's on the ship right now, let me know when you want some. I brought out a couple pallets for my own use." Josette looks over at President Bartlett. "Do we want to think of an offworld cotton harvest for yarn?"

 

"Hmmmm, something to think about. Right now we spin the cotton by hand then dye it. The towel factory. . .?"

 

"Dyes the cotton before they make it into towels. I can easily dye and spin it with the machinery I have from the supplier. The woolen mill could do it. Or the rug yarn manufacturer could spin it."

 

"Harvest cotton offworld next year and do it." Principal Madison says. "If there's enough interest we can do it every few years." Josette nods.

 

Josette walks into the Albatross Nest in Albatross the next day, being handed a bag of tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. "Thankee but not why I'm here. Okay everybody listen up, I'm going to be harvesting a cotton crop offworld next year for yarn, pass that along to the others so if they want yarn in a particular color to let me know and I'll leave part of it plain, otherwise it's going to be about five basic colors."

 

"Is this going to be permanent?" Agatha asks as everybody grabs their PADDS.

 

"Depending on what the demand is I could be harvesting for yarn every few years."

 

"Do we have the machinery?"

 

"My supplier complex, the woolen mill, or the rug yarn manufacturer." Everybody nods in satisfaction. "We brought that out with the thought of eventually using it for yarn in the future."

 

"Do you plan on doing the dyeing yourself?"

 

"I could. ..but it's just as easy for a bunch of us to use the dyeing building."

 

"If anybody wanted something different, they could even dye it then." Marilyn says. The others nod.

 

Josette detours to the cloth and yarn building, picking the fabric and yarn that had been ripe and puts it either on the shelves or puts them in subspace, bringing everything out when she comes back to the dorm.

 

"Okay, I passed it along to the Albatross Nest that I'll be harvesting cotton offworld for yarn next year, rather than me dyeing everything, we'll use the building in town. With all of us working it won't take long and if anybody wants a special color they can dye it then." Frances and Elaine nod in satisfaction, followed seconds later by President Bartlett and Principal Madison.

 

"Knowing everybody they'd help dye it." The others nod again.

 

Manure is spread on the fields and gardens, tilled under a few days later and the first crops of the year are planted. Bethany is looking through the list of books Josette had brought back from the New Dimension and copying a few for Headquarters.

 

"Josette, book fairs?"

 

"Next week for Granda's dimension, I'm going to be out a couple months with the book tour." Josette yawns. "The last one is just after the Harvest Festival and I'm going to be talking with my agents about the books." The others nod.

 

"Offworld harvests?"

 

"Two this week, three next, two the week after that. . .then two or three a week afterwards. And yes, the others are signing up for multiple trips this year and next to put money in the account for a trip to Ellis's next fall."

 

The others laugh and nod. "Ya know, if we were still on Earth we'd have people up in arms about people actually harvesting by hand."

 

Josette waves a hand. "Oh yeah, and the mental health people would be fussing about the effects of being out of time. That's one of the reasons I won't let people do back to back trips, they have to have a couple days off. With so many trips, there's more than enough times to go out and make all the money you want for the trip and other expenses."

 

"They'd complain that you go on every trip. . .then walk off going 'oh' when they realize it's your ship." David snorts. Everybody nods.

 

Josette slumps onto a couch next to Madison at the book fair, the other woman looking over and sniggering. Josette's wearing a ballcap pulled down.

 

"Hiding from your loyal fans?"

 

"Hiding from the squealing. And it's not the girls that are the loudest."

 

Madison snickers again.

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

"Ms. Sinclair. ..is this. . person bothering you?" A officious toady comes bustling over. Both women give him go away looks. "This is one of my former authors, we're talking." Madison says sourly. The officious twit tries grabbing Josette only to find himself on the floor with his arm twisted behind his back.

 

"Are you fucking stupid? Madison said that I was one of her former authors. What part of try to grab me did you think that meant?" Josette hisses.

 

"Anderson, you were told to quit bothering Ms. Sinclair and any person she might be talking to. You're not her damn social secretary, you don't get to say who she can and cannot talk with." His boss hustles over.

 

"But I don't believe she's an author. . .she has to be bothering Ms. Sinclair."

 

"Idiot." Josette takes off her ballcap. "I'm Josette Takahawa."

 

"Ohhhh, you are an author." He whines. He's seen her picture on a number of books.

 

"God damn moron, little toady's been bothering me all damn day. He figures he can use me as a stepping stone to a better job." Madison snorts as they settle back on the couch. "I'm here as a representative from the house, everybody else is busy and Duncan begged nicely." Josette sniggers. "Now, while I dearly wish you had stayed with the house after we retired I can understand why."

 

"Yes, seven more years and it's going on eighty years we've been having shows. Once these last books debut at the shows. . .we'll have to take a break. At least here. The others we just started showing and having my books published."

 

Josette returns to Haven three months later, Earth time. The others had been just about to come down for her show when she left.

 

"Get a lot?" David asks when she slumps onto a couch.

 

"Oh yes, I'll be sorting out books and information for years." Josette yawns. "Madison was covering the fair for the house because everybody else was busy. I had to take down some damn fool who was trying to control who could talk to her, his boss yanked him back after he tried grabbing me and I put him on the floor with his arm behind his back. I 'had' to be bothering Madison. .. he didn't believe I was really an author until I took my cap off."

 

"Idiots like that always think they're better than everybody else in the world and they're doing you a favor by trying to run your life." Pat snorts as she walks past. "Did you get the rest of the stuff from the manufacturers?"

 

"Yes, I've got a dozen duplicates delivering it now. I returned just before we would have come out for my show."

 

"Did we get shipments of books?"

 

"Yeah, they're on the ship too. I just got information and picked up books at the fairs." David looks up and opens the tesseract when the Josette who'd been off harvesting tells him they've landed, people walking off the ship into town as Josette starts delivering containers of food.

 

"Did the others come out?"

 

"Yes, the work on the bookstore is starting tomorrow."

 

"I know I asked this before but. . ."

 

"We're getting books from all the other dimensions? Yes, They want to expand the library eventually to have room for all the dimensions, some of the work on the bookstore is separating the books out by dimension so we know 'okay, this series is from superhero earth, we'll get the others there when they come out. Right now the books I'm getting at the book fairs are just for me." The others nod.

 

James checks the cameras at the rooms.

 

"The kids?" Professor Xavier chuckles.

 

"Yes, the boys have a show in a couple days. They must be busy delivering everything, it's just the twins, Alan, and David there right now."

 

"M'Lynn wanted to talk to Josette about her books." Jack Harkness says absently. "She had to 'retire' earlier this year in Calvin's dimension, in another seven years they'd have been having shows eighty years there."

 

Josette arrives back at the rooms a few hours later.

 

"Get everything handled?"

 

"Yep, M'Lynn loves the other books and like Calvin's dimension some of the earliest books are being reprinted."

 

"Are your books being printed everywhere now?"

 

"All but Headmaster's dimension. I expect they'll be offered there eventually." Josette yawns.

 

"Don't start," Alan says, poking her. "I've been yawning all damn day." Josette pokes him back and it devolves into a poking war that gets the others involved, the so-called adults in the room laughing at them.

 

Josette slips off her shoes behind the table as Dexter finishes putting the books on the tables. The doors open and people start flocking to the exhibits, a few scurrying over to the tables to get their books early.

 

"How long were you signing?" Black Jack asks the next morning.

 

"Hours, Dexter is still counting the books." Josette yawns. "The pile of flattened boxes was damn near as tall as I was before I sent them back off to the ship to reuse when we get home."

 

"With more books." Anna sniggers.

 

"Yeah, I'm going to start printing again next year, I've got seven books finished, I'll have three more done by the end of the year and more in the chute to be finished by the time these are printed."

 

"One or two shifts?"

 

"Probably two, it's only going to be a few years since I'm going to be breaking up printing on all the books, there's some I'm nowhere near completing."

 

"And by then you'll be hit again." David chortles.

 

"Ahhh, shaddap." she shoves his head lightly and everybody laughs. Mostly because it's the truth.

 

"How many sketchpads do you have to still buy for?"

 

"At least six, I gotta look when I get back home. That's counting the partial one I started when I brought for these last ones."

 

Josette settles on the couch when they return to the dorm six weeks later their time.

 

"Get everything done?"

 

"Yeah, the last of the offworld harvests is tomorrow. . .the yearly crops are on track." Josette looks up at the crack of thunder.

 

"Yes, we'll going to have a storm coming through."

 

"Means we won't have to water tomorrow."

 

"And less water we have to pump to fill the cisterns." Since it's David's turn to pump everybody laughs at him. Josette eeps and disappears, reappearing a few seconds later and flying off. She arrives back at the dorm an hour later.

 

"Welllllll, we won't have to worry about wool for yarn for decades. . .I found a planet that is mostly agricultural with herds of animals that have two or even three babies at a time. Even with the people using everything they could the fleeces were stacking up, I have tons of them to work on and I can pick up more whenever I want."

 

"Cleaned?"

 

"Yep, and put in huge bales." She passes along pictures to the others, Frances and Elaine arriving at the dorm a few minutes later along with Agatha and Sue. She tells them the story and they shake their heads.

 

"Normally this is passed along to other worlds. . .I'm just one of the latest to take a share. We can use it." The others nod.

 

"Is anybody working on plant based dyes?"

 

"Do you have some?"

 

"Oh yes, I've got tons of information on that too. Like Haven, they're agricultural by choice. They have all the machinery and whatnot they can use if needed." She passes along files, Doc and both GDs getting copies as well.

 

"Do we have the plants?"

 

"Yes, I plan on growing them on the ships or putting up another offworld plant growing area for them." The others nod.

 

"Gimme." Pat says as she walks out of Headquarters, Josette passing over a box of seeds and sending files to her PADD since she knows Pat has an area they can be grown separate from the others. "Once I get them growing, we'll start working with them." She tells the others. They nod in satisfaction and head off.

 

"How much extra. . ."

 

"We could pick up as many fleeces as we do every month for a million years." Josette says. "We have no need for that, I just got caught by a 'what are we supposed to do with all these' moment." The others nod as they look at the time and head to the dining hall for lunch.

 

"Okay, I know I asked this before. . .but the planet the orphans on Thomas's world?"

 

"Their government was overturned because with the loss of all the orphans and their schools the so-called good people had to do a lot of scut work." Josette snorts. "They're slowly trying to recover everything they lost. The people who actually ordered the orphans sent away are in prison now. Birth rates are low, people are working long hours and not having sex." The others nod.

 

"Hopefully this knocks some damn sense into people's heads." Principal Madison mutters from the front desk.

 

"What are you plans after lunch."

 

"Doc and I are going to be bringing stuff off the ships, mostly books, DVDS, music. . .stuff like that."

 

"Okay, this is probably a stupid question but when you decided. . ."

 

"What ships went where we checked the inventories so each planet got the same supplies so nobody was shorted." Everybody nods in satisfaction.

 

After lunch Josette gets in the flyer at Doc's look and they head off to the ships. The ship opens for them and they look around to get their bearings before heading up to the 'leisure activities' area on the map.

 

"I can't see the wall." Doc sighs as the door slides open.

 

"Neither can I." Josette sighs. "Grab boxes and put them in the wagon until it's full?"

 

"How many boxes?"

 

"We can get thirty these size in the flyer with the cover. Any other day I'd say pull the cover off and tie them down but with the rain we're going to be having when we get back. . ." Doc nods. "If we get more you can put them in subspace for the trip home."

 

Josette nods. "How many rooms do we have?"

 

"Ten." Doc looks at the map.

 

"I say bring five out of each room, mark them by room that way. . ."

 

"We can come back to that room if we get a partial series of books or DVDS." Doc nods. Josette starts bringing out boxes and marks them by room number before moving them to the wagon or putting them in subspace. The cover is brought up before they lift off, they can see the rain in the distance and they head back to Headquarters, flying into a large work building and the doors shutting behind them, the lights coming on overhead as they land and the cover on the flyer going down. Josette hops up and plugs the flyer in to charge after looking at the dials. Doc nods in satisfaction, Josette waving the boxes into subspace as he goes to pick one up. He just gives her a look and pulls her through the link into the main building.

 

Josette brings the boxes out of subspace and looks at them. "I think these are boxes like Mom's dimension."

 

"Yes, these aren't cardboard." The undo the straps on the box and Josette 'empties' it, stacks of smaller boxes are everywhere. These boxes are cardboard. Josette does a quick count and moans. "Eight hundred and sixty-four."

 

"Six dozen dozen."

 

The others shake their head when she walks through the link to the dorm for dinner.

 

"We'll ask when they come out for the Harvest Festival." David asks. The others nod.

 

"When are you heading off to pick up the last of the retro fabric?"

 

"Tomorrow, I just got the message from Becka's granddad that the rest of the order was in."

 

Silas grins as he sees the pallets of fabric that had been filling the warehouses are gone. Josette looks over her shoulder at him. "Is that everything?"

 

"Yes, thank you Josette."

 

"Thank you for letting me use your warehouses."

 

Agatha looks at her PADD when it beeps. "Josette's back with the second retro fabric order, are we still putting it in the cooking school?"

 

"Yeah, for the time being." Sue calls. Agatha sends off that message and Josette starts sending the fabric off before flying back to the dorm.

 

A couple days later they head off to Calvin's dimension for the show, Josette signing books for hours after the show ends and Marcus shows up a couple days later with the totals for the books. More had been taken out to Ellis's and the retreat house before they head back to Haven a couple weeks later Earth time.

 

The yearly crops are starting to come in before the second crops of the year are harvested and Josette nods in satisfaction as she sees Dad from Mom Clarinda's dimension sitting with Doc and Grandpa Charles talking about the boxes.

 

"Is everything in now Josette?"

 

"Yes and the third crops and garden planted. We're looking at a cold fall but a mild winter."

 

"Good, Susan wasn't the only one who needed to go to the first planet to get away from the cold and snow last winter." Abby shudders.

 

"Yes, we made multiple trips out with the others so they could enjoy some sunlight and warm weather too." Josette suddenly shakes her head. "Ohhh lord. . .I just realized how much fabric the rooms of fabric on the inventories must hold."

 

Grandpa Charles lips twitch. Dad openly laughs at her. She walks off muttering rude words. Heading into her room she strips off her clothes and gets a hot shower before dinner. She comes out to find three Pats looking through her dressers and closets.

 

"Everything's good?"

 

"Yes, I cleared damn near everything out last winter. Lord knows we don't have any lack of stuff in storage. And brought more when when we went out to the other dimensions." The others nod.

 

Josette nudges Doc on the walk to the dining hall for dinner. "You know. . .there's probably an Empire State Building's worth of toilet paper on the ship." He moans and Josette sniggers.

 

"Empire State Building worth of toilet paper?"

 

"Ahhhh, the hundred years of toilet paper spawned?" Becka laughs. Doc nods. The others look at her and between the three of them the story is told.

 

"I'm sure there were buildings of toilet paper on the city-ship." Calvin chuckles.

 

"Yep. ..because they and a colony would have to stock up on supplies. Anybody else it would be lording it over somebody unless it was something like . . .ohhh, the war and people were buying stuff to either have on hand or sell on the black market."

 

"We didn't have a war but thanks to the damn power problems there were a lot of empty spaces on shelves." Silas rumbles.

 

Danita guffaws suddenly, everybody turning to look at her. "A building just of stuff for that time of the month."

 

"Ohhh yeah, especially on a ten year trip. 'A package a month per person is good right. . .multiply the number going by twenty-five years'."

 

"The orphans?' Becka sighs.

 

"Yep." The others who hadn't heard about all the supplies that came up give them looks and the story is told. Everybody's moaning or sniggering as they walk into the dining hall. Josette is waved to the front room. Principal Madison just gives her a look.

 

"The boxes on the ships are similar to the boxes from Mom's dimension. They're bigger and hold a portion of ours. . .one of the boxes we brought out held six dozen dozen boxes of books." Josette chuckles. "I was teasing Doc about there's probably an Empire State Building worth of toilet paper on the ship." President Bartlett guffaws. "And there's probably a ton of fabric on the ship."

 

"Yes, I was moaning about how much fabric there probably was earlier today. The toilet paper morphed into the story about Becka and the hundred years of toilet paper." The story is told to the others who laugh. "That morphed into there probably was buildings of toilet paper on the city-ship."

 

"They'd actually use it all. . .especially on a ten year trip." Professor Druid snorts. "And a colony would be stocking up on supplies."

 

"Yes, then Danita saw a building full of supplies for that time of the year. That morphed into 'a package a month, right? We'll send off enough for twenty-five years' and the rest of the supplies." Everybody in the front room snickers.

 

"Speaking of a colony?"

 

"They'd have to have drone modules. . .either attached to the outside of the ship or big cargo bays like the ships that came to Pern. Or both."

 

"Yes, especially if it's a generation ship." The others nod. "Now, my ships could take the drones into tractor beam. . .I did it with the satellites when Earth was lost, but I don't think the city-ships have the tech."

 

"No." Calvin says. Silas nods. "It could be added easily though. They've been talking about that and a sort of pushing beam to move asteroids and whatnot out of the way."

 

Josette shakes her head. "Just keep the damn ship out of the way people. Hell, they did it on the trip to Mars. . .go around the asteroid belt, not through it. If you see it early enough, you shouldn't have to go through it."

 

A couple days later Josette sends a file to the server. "Damn psychotic shit would not leave me alone. A breakdown of the supplies that would be needed for a generation ship that took fifteen years to travel to their new planet. . .since that's the furthest you said you'd found habitable planets."

 

Silas nods. "By the time any further planets would be needed they'd have found them on their own and have a way to get there beyond the city-ships. What protocols did you use?"

 

"The information on the city-ships, going from Earth to Haven since it's about the same. Three city-ships per planet with about two thousand people per ship." The others nod. "With no need for shuttles, they'd be able to get in more supplies. By the time they landed they'd have had about forty children per ship. I didn't add animals. . they'd have been overwhelmed with them."

 

The others shake their heads but laugh as they read the file.

 

"Thank you Josette, this will be a good stepping stone for future colonies."

 

"Same here. We'll have to find a way to move faster before we start colonies with animals. . .as you said they'd be overwhelmed. . .they couldn't muck stalls for fifteen years, and the shorter lived animals would have been lost on the trip."

 

"Yes, that's something they'd have to think about. . .Pern's trip was fifteen years but the crews took five years shifts while the colonists and their animals slept in coldsleep. The ships would have to be either faster than light or they'd have to make the trip in coldstorage and hope the hell the computers woke them up in time."

 

"Which is why so many early colony ships were lost." Momma Clarinda says.

 

"What about when you brought up shelter pets and livestock for the others?"

 

"Stasis, it was like they went on the ship and woke up on their new worlds."

 

The bookstore opening is a big hit, everybody coming out with reusable bags of books.

 

"Okay, I won't complain about having turned 63 anymore." Becka says as she walks into the room where her grandparents are sitting after dinner. "Josette just said she'd be turning 324 if they'd kept Earth's calendar after moving to Haven."

 

"Oh yes, that beats turning 63 all hollow." Idina drawls. "Are we going out to the movie?"

 

"Yes." They grab blankets and folding chairs and join the others walking to the open area.

 

 

 

"Okay," Josette says as she slides into her usual seat at the government building for the first meeting after the Harvest Festival. "I don't have to ask about the sales at the bookstore." The others chuckle. "Knitting factory, clothes, and shoes."

 

"Yes, we have the time to talk about them now." The files are brought up on the screen and they talk about everything.

 

"Josette, the cotton?"

 

"I'm picking it up in a couple weeks and dropping it off with the scrub trees the end of the year when I pick up recycling and this year's order."

 

"No use making multiple trips." Doc says. "Your last book fair?"

 

"I'm going out next week."

 

"What's the latest on those fool kids?" Josette asks a couple weeks later, Earth time.

 

"Blubbering in prison that it was all a prank, everybody's being mean to them in prison. She shouldn't have been that upset. ..well yes, they did destroy her belongings. The hotel is falling all over themselves to apologize to the young woman for the damages to her room. . .they'd sued her after all but the case had been dismissed because of their age and the fact that they had been the victims of a 'prank'." Pat sneers. "Miserable bastards deserve everything they're getting in prison. They've got that judgment to pay off too. . .and looking at more time in prison."

 

"And their 'loving' families?"

 

"Wailing that their darling children are making them look bad."

 

"Well if they made the little brats behave. . ."

 

"Not going to happen, the fools don't want to be parents."

 

"Amen," A woman at a nearby table says at the expo they're attending. "They want to be their kids besties instead of being parents." Josette grins and goes to the buffet to fill her plates again, the others at the expo agreeing it's nice to see a young person who can actually behave. Pat silently snickers, if they only knew Josette was older than everybody here. But even when she'd been a teenager she'd never acted like one. . .she'd been forced to grow up too early thanks to her mother's death and having to work to help pay down the scholarship loan for her schooling.

 

"Are you talking to Vinetta?"

 

"Yeah, she's off for a couple days yet, her youngest fell and broke his ankle. She was going to call me when he's driving her to distraction. . .again."

 

Josette yawns as she settles in bed at the hotel, moaning as the fire alarm starts to go off. "Oh lord," Pat sighs.

 

"Ten bucks says it's some fool kid who doesn't 'wike' her room and if she can't get what she wants since the expo is being held here, nobody should be able to either." Josette snorts as she pulls on slippers and a robe, following Pat out the door to where hotel employees are ushering the guests. Bringing a knitting bag out of subspace she settles in a corner and starts working on a project for something to do as everybody else wanders around the large room.

 

A couple hours later a hotel employee walks in and immediately begins to apologize for the inconvenience. "Some fool called in a complaint that this wasn't an expo for textile mills and workers, it was a cover for gangs dealing in stolen property."

 

"Well, that's new." Josette snorts. "The other time it was some fool wanting the expo shut down because she didn't want any competition. It was in Las Vegas and she was afraid that people might see men going into certain rooms at all hours of the day. She called the police and said that it wasn't fabric and other stuff they were selling out of their rooms. It was drugs."

 

"Oh dear lord." One of the older women in the room moans.

 

"Yep, the police came in and didn't find anything in the rooms and they told her to grow the fuck up. She could have been arrested for filing a false report. The hotel told her to leave but she didn't go quietly. . . she called in a bomb threat. That would get rid of us. . .she didn't realize the entire hotel would be evacuated." Rolled eyes and sounds of disgust.

 

"And the other time."

 

Josette cackles. "Oh, it didn't seem so funny at the time. We were in Boston and police came in with sirens blaring and put everybody in a meeting room so they could examine the rooms. Somebody had heard hemp and put two and two together and got seventeen and a half and that we were selling drugs. By that time the expo had ended for the year but when we returned the next year. . .welllll, an officer with a clue realized it was a knitting expo and that our drug of choice was yarn. They apologized to everybody but still examined all the rooms. Everybody got about four hours sleep between the time they could go to their rooms and breakfast the next morning."

 

"Ohhhh, that's the night you spent on Sue's couch?" Pat asks, looking at her.

 

"Yes, I admit it. . .I'm cheap. I wasn't interested in spending two hundred dollars for a room I'd only be in a handful of hours since I'd planned on driving back home for the night because I lived close. Yes, I'd just spend nearly as much money just a couple weeks before for a quilt but that had been for a degree. If Sue hadn't been there, I'd have slept in the truck. . .it wouldn't have been the first time. . .that was that other expo when I came back from going out to eat and finding everybody milling around outside the hotel."

 

"What happened then?"

 

"Well, unless the rooms were open all night everybody would have lost a day of sales so the expo was canceled. Those of us who weren't vendors were allowed to go up to our rooms with a hotel employee to pack up. I signed up, got my stuff, and headed home."

 

The others nod as they're allowed to go back to their rooms for the remainder of the night.

 

They arrive back at the Tower, Pat shaking her head as she reads the blubbering from some little shit in the local government who was swearing up, down, and sideways that he hadn't meant to inconvenience so many people at the expo. . .he didn't know it had been a real expo, he'd thought it had been a cover for something or other. . .until he'd seen all the fabric in the rooms.

 

"Moron."

 

"Oh, always going to be somebody trying to make a name for themselves. . .it's just human nature." Pat snorts. "Then they whine forever they hadn't known this would happen. Vinetta?"

 

"I'm seeing her tomorrow."

 

Josette returns to the Tower the next morning. "Vinetta is a nudge, she actually looked over all the books I had in the pot and asked for more." Pat sniggers. "I reminded her it would take years to print everything she already had and she just waved a hand and said 'details'." Doc's lips twitch at the sour look on Josette's face as Pat laughs. "Yes I know, it takes a strong person to stand up to me."

 

 

"Ohhh bullshit." Josette snorts as she listens to a commercial for Dr. Phil. "It's not the first time a mother tried to get a grandchild for money. Vergie Arthur." The others look at her. "You don't have an absolute trainwreck of a celebrity called Anna Nicole Smith here?"

 

"Ohhh, that fool woman." Alice moans. "Yes. . .the woman who was slurring and throwing her arms out on tv the other night." The others who'd seen that clip with her moan.

 

"Yes, that sounds like the fool woman. In our world she had a baby girl and her son came out to see them, dying of a drug overdose in the hospital. Rumor is it was her drugs."

 

"Sounds like it, the woman always seemed half drugged out of her damn mind every time she was in front of a camera." Andrew snorts. "She end up killing herself? From the same drugs?"

 

"Yes, did she marry this real old guy and been trying to get. . ."

 

"His money for years?"

 

"Yes, anyway her momma Vergie Arthur. . .who she hadn't spoken to in years was one of the people trying to get custody of the baby. The baby's father. ..a photographer named Larry Birkhead finally got custody of her. But the baby didn't get the money Anna Nicole was fighting for. . ."

 

"and old Vergie dropped out of sight as soon as she found out she wouldn't be getting that money? Figures. Some families are just leeches.'

 

"Oh god yes, for every good set of parents out there. . .I don't know if Britney Spears. . ."

 

"Conservatorship after shaving her head, yes."

 

"Lindsay Lohan?"

 

"Oh god, the family that puts the fun in dysfunctional."

 

"Oh god yes, the little bitch tried putting out stories that I was cheating on my wife with her. Of course she didn't know Jakahawa was a woman, she just saw the name in the news because I'd recently had a show and 'of course they won't mind me dragging their name through the mud in the name of almighty publicity'. Because nobody was talking about her. And nobody minds publicity." Snorts from everybody around her. "Yeah, I sued her damn ass. . ." the whole story is told, including her family's antics and they sigh.

 

 

 

 

The information on the new line of retro fabric comes from Becka's dimension and she passes it along to the others along with the note the first order would be going out after Thanksgiving. The first orders start coming in and Josette doubles the orders for herself.

 

Josette binds off her latest pair of winter socks, putting them in the drawer with the others.

 

"Are those the plant yarn?" Pat asks behind her.

 

"Yes, I've been experimenting. They're not quite as warm as pure wool but close enough. But like wool you wash them by hand. The plant buildings didn't have washing machines as we know them. That's why they had the special soap and toilet paper. Liquid laundry detergent works okay on them."

 

"Have you been passing along the information to the others?"

 

"Yep. The others really like having colors in the winterweight and summerweight yarns beyond dyeing." Pat chuckles and nods. "Pat passed along the information on working with the heavy-weight fabric so we're all set."

 

"Have you made an outfit out of it yet?"

 

"No, just used some of it as batting for a cold-weather quilt." Looking at the time Josette closes the window in her bedroom and joins Pat walking downstairs. The furnace has already been running mornings so windows are shut at night now.

 

"Soon enough the windows will be shut permanently." Anna says when they walk downstairs.

 

"Yes, we're enjoying the fresh air while we can." Susan says.

 

"Aren't all quilts cold-weather?" Anna asks.

 

"No, they usually have thicker batting and are made of flannel or another thicker material." Josette brings two quilts out and they can feel the difference between Josette puts them back upstairs. They walk to the dining hall, the others shaking their heads when they see the windows there are shut too. Some windows in buildings that don't have people in them all the time have shut for the winter.

 

"Okay, am I nuts. . ." David says as he walks through the dining hall doors.

 

"You're nuts." Everybody choruses in unison.

 

"Ha, ha, ha. Okay, you just finished the degree on plane crashes from the history school. . .yet according to your degrees in the pipe, you've got another degree from the history school on plane crashes."

 

"Yes, this one was a little on the history of planes and basically why they crash. The other degree is on famous or infamous in the case of the Hindenburg air crashes. The second one is a multiple degree set. Yes, it sounds damn similar to the multiple degree set on plane crashes from the Naval Academy but. . ."

 

"they're focusing on military crashes." President Bartlett rumbles from the front room." Josette nods.

 

 

 

 

After Thanksgiving Josette pulls out a couple fleeces from the huge bales and starts spinning them, making up a sweater, hats, mittens, and a few pair of socks. Dyeing them a rich cranberry she puts them in her dresser before they head off to the other dimensions.

 

"Oh dear god, that's worse than the other stuff." Josette moans as she looks at samples of the hottest new fabric. "At least we can dye it."

 

"Then I should put out an announcement I'll take everything if it bombs?"

 

"Yes, I'll come pick it up next year my time when I come out with the others for their shopping and order. I'll let you know when we have a formal date."

 

"By that time they'll be giving the stuff away."

 

"Ehhh, like I said. . .I can dye it. Or remake it like I did the smoke-damaged stuff. But I do I'll make it into a nice neutral color."

 

"Have you been using the other?"

 

"Yeah, earlier my year we were putting together fat quarters and I brought some of it out. It was even more garish then but we can use it for accent on quilts. Is everybody caught up from the fire?"

 

"Yes, all the orders have been replaced and they're getting more orders from new customers thanks to the . . ."

 

"How 'dare' you try to put them out of business? Yeah. That's human nature though." Everybody in earshot nods.

 

"How many books?"

 

"Fourteen more yet to debut at shows, another eight that are finished that I haven't printed yet. I figure on doing it year after next, my time. . .everybody's going to be making clothes and shoes this next year."

 

"Yep, they come before books."

 

"The stocks took a hit, we're coming off a cold, wet winter. This winter's looking to be mild. . .but we had a colder than normal fall to make up for it."

 

 

 

Josette waves a hand at the Albatross Nest and brings out a handful of the quilts she's been working on, the others looking them over.

 

"Printers will start operating year after next, next year we're going to have the clothing, shoes, and knitting operations going. The stock on hand took a hit this year and last." The others nod. "The announcement is going out at the Lights Festival and be open at least two years."

 

"I hear you've been looking into a small cabin like Calvin's dimension."

 

"Yeah, but there's no way in hell I'd be able to stay out there for an entire winter like that guy did in Alone in the Wilderness. . .let alone 36 years even with the changes I made to it." She puts the file up on the screen and points out everything. The others nod.

 

"For all the times you gotta get out of the house because your family is on your very last nerve, you gotta get out of the house to actually see another human being." Marilyn snorts.

 

"Yes, that's how I felt in the library back on Earth for finals. I had the radio going, I could turn on the tv or put a DVD in the computer, I could turn on a screen and see everybody heading home. . .but for all that it was like I was the only person on Earth."

 

"Ohhhh, I know that feeling all too well working nights here on a project. Working at home was different because you could open a door and see your family."

 

"Exactly, Susan and later Alan complained the dorm was dead with nobody there. Susan that same last day of finals waiting for the rest of us to get home so we could take off. . .Alan when he was back from his residency at GD and the rest of us were either at GD taking our tests or at work."

 

The cookies are passed out and the leftovers given to Josette after she helps wash everything up, everything is put away when she returns home.

 

"Josette, thank you for clearing out all those old trees." Headmaster Doc says. Alexander looks at her. "An old quarry half full of trees they'd tried sending down the river. Most of them didn't make it. I cleared it out when I got out there. Some of the trees were huge and woodworkers were falling all over themselves to buy them. And yes, I brought back our share." He nods in satisfaction.

 

"Did you get the cotton and scrub trees delivered?"

 

"Yes, when I picked up the order and recycling."

 

"Did the sock orders get increased?"

 

"Yeah, I took out pallets of yarn at the buildings for when they reopen the first of the year and my room is stuffed with pallets for the machines." Josette stretches and yawns. "I also ordered more machines and added a building to the dorm for them. Well actually I added about three buildings and moved the sock machines to one of them."

 

"Both rooms?"

 

"Yeah."

 

Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later. Everybody knows the look on her face.

 

"Another lost Earth?"

 

"Yes, Some damn fool took over the world and had everybody working in factories to churn out shit nobody needed. But he wanted it. People were dying on the line until a group finally took him out. . .but he had a failsafe that took out everybody still alive."

 

The others shake their heads. Always going to be greedy assholes. . .he didn't need it but he wanted it. And he destroyed a world in the process."

 

Josette sends off a message, Doc doing the same. Soon the others are arriving and those who hadn't seen Josette splitting off duplicates eep as she absorbs energy and fifteen of her are standing there. The others join her on various ships, one of her other selves and Clark detouring to pick up their ships.

`

"Ohhh my fucking god." More than one person moans. There's boxes everywhere.

 

"Yep." Josette sighs. "He didn't care what they were making as long as they were making it for him."

 

"How the hell did he keep people from revolting and taking him out before now?"

 

"He had to have some sort of control over them."

 

"Subliminal commands, by the time people were immune to them they were trapped in the factories under the command of the robots. Until they were disabled. Of course I can't say it was all robots. . .there's always greedy sumbitches who will throw their towel in with a madman. . ." Nods from the others.

 

"Robots?"

 

"Shut down with the large switch handle in his compound like you'd find in a mad scientist movie." The ships split off and start beaming up the boxes everywhere outside covered with waterproof tarps when buildings became full.

 

"Can this planet recover?" Headmaster asks a few months later.

 

"I think so, the weather probes say it's normal. . .empty areas. . .not that there's many left. . .are all going back to nature."

 

"We've seen it before."

 

"Yep. A few decades of rest instead of being over cultivated yearly will see Africa returning back to the dark continent of legend."

 

Centuries later the ships either settle back into orbit around their planets or land on the water after everybody but Josette is delivered back to town by the loading and unloading beams. Josette arrives back in town about ten minutes later via tesseract David opens.

 

"Have you been keeping track of what we picked up?"

 

"Yes, while I haven't been opening everything I've been grouping it by similar items." Josette yawns. "Goddamn fool, I'm sure he's blubbering he needed all that in whatever damn afterlife he ended up in."

 

"Yes, just like any megalomaniac." Headmaster Professor Xavier scowls. He'll be passing along information on what happened to the others when he returns, hopefully this will make some people think about what they are doing.

 

"We will not need raw materials for centuries. Even with breaking down the bad shipping containers into raw materials I have thousands on the ships." Josette tells Principal Madison and President Bartlett later that night after dinner. "I'm going to be moving a lot of this into boxes over the next few months to clear a lot of it out. Ohhhh. . .noooo." Josette shakes her head and quickly heads off after bellowing for David to open a tesseract to the ships.

 

"Fuck, fuck, fuckity, fuck, fuck." Josette mumbles on one of the ships. Looking behind her she finds Clark and Superhero Doc coming in for a landing. She figured somebody would be coming soon after David opened the tesseract for her. These two were able to travel the fastest.

 

"They're boxes." She holds up an item the size of a matchbox car.

 

"Oh dear lord." Clark sighs. There must be thousands in the boxes around her.

 

"How would you keep from losing them?"

 

"More importantly, are they full?"

 

"In answer. . ." Josette puts the box in front of her. "Grow." It resumes normal size. "Empty." She yelps and jumps back as things shoot out of the box.

 

"Shit, they hold even more than the others." She says after everything is out.

 

"Fill." It all disappears again.

 

"How did you know?" Superhero asks after Josette climbs off of the boxes she'd jumped onto in a nearby room.

 

"I found the schematics in the files I was looking through. . .but I didn't realize what they were until I was telling Principal Madison and President Bartlett I'd be putting some of this. . ." she waves a hand at the hall of rooms full of boxes. "Stuff in boxes. Then my tired brain kicked my ass and I realized what I'd been reading about. And went looking."

 

"I'll tell the others and we'll keep looking to see if we find any more, Josette." Ulonda says. "Though they can't have had many of them, they. . ."

 

"wouldn't have boxes stacked everywhere otherwise." Josette sighs. Superhero picks her up and flies her to the dorm with Clark. the others are waiting when she returns.

 

"I found boxes. . .thousands of them. All full. . .shrunk to the size of a matchbox toy." Josette says as she gets to her feet.

 

"Oh dear god." Principal Madison moans.

 

"And they hold even more than the ones we have now." She find the schematics and sends them to PADDS. "I was looking at this on the trip home but I was so tired from . . ." She waves a hand and the others nod. "I didn't even realize what I was reading until I said I'd start putting stuff in boxes. The ships are going to see if they can find any more but they must not have been able to make more otherwise. . ."

 

"they wouldn't have had stuff sitting everywhere." Doc says.

 

"Exactly, probably the person who knew how to make them died from working extremely long hours on the line."

 

Marilyn moans. "Well, that would handle taking care of supplies on a ship."

 

"Yes, you could have hundreds in an underbed drawer but it would be a bitch trying to remember which one held what. Let alone dealing with the packaging. . .including shipping containers and pallets if they were put in like that." Josette drawls, settling down on the couch and getting a lapful of cats. If Josette is quieter than normal during the Lights Festival everybody knows why and they pat her on the shoulder, hug her, or otherwise try to comfort her. She sends off pictures of the latest 'hot fabric' and snickers when she can almost hear the complaints.

 

"That is awful." Agatha says at the picture when she finds her at a table.

 

"Yes, I told Ellis at least it could be dyed. Or I can even toss it in a replicator and remake it in a more neutral color."

 

"That's the only thing that could be done with that monstrosity." Frances shudders. Pat looks over at them and they show her the picture.

 

"Oh dear god. . .I thought our fabric was bad."

 

"Yeah, depending on how thick the fabric is. . ."

 

"Backing for quilts. Yes, I had the same idea. Lighter stuff can be shirts and whatnot."

 

Josette slides into her usual seat the first meeting of the next year. She's the last one in.

 

"Sorry I'm late, I got a message from Vinetta about a book tour as I was getting ready to leave."

 

"You've been expecting it."

 

"Yes."

 

"Did the information on the other boxes get sent back to the other dimension?"

 

"Yes, and we got a bubbling thank you. They didn't know they could be made smaller and hold more stuff. This will really revolutionize shipping."

 

"As long as the damn boxes don't get lost shrunk that small." David mutters. The others nod. "Four more years, 150 years married." David looks over at Josette and smirks.

 

"Yep, and sometimes I still wonder why." She smirks back. "Oh. . .expect some rolling eyes and muttering about idiots from Granda in a couple databursts. Some asshole in the government is complaining."

 

"Because we didn't build government buildings, it's beneath him to have government business in a board room at a law office?"

 

"Nope, we didn't keep exacting records in the beginning. . .example I'm turning 166 but I was only 38 when we came up and it's only year 121 by our records. Oh yeah, and our hundredth anniversary was in year 94 by our calendar." Rolled eyes from Principal Madison and President Bartlett. "Oh, he's one of those old fools who has to have everything written down in triplicate every day and exacting records must be kept."

 

"Well, we were a little busy starting our colony to keep records on our colony." President Bartlett drawls.

 

"Well, that was no excuse." Josette mock-huffs. "Yes, even his own people told him to go blow it out his ass. . .we'd had better things to do. He's one of those miserable people who nitpick everything and that will bring up something that annoyed him ten years ago to complain about. Of course the idea that we have more than one planet and more than one calendar is giving him conniption fits."

 

"Good riddance to him then." President Bartlett snorts. "Is everything open now?"

 

"Yes, I was bringing out supplies before the Lights Festival and Pat says we're good for at least a year at the clothes factory. I figure that will be open at least two years to get stocks in on everything again." Nods from the others. "The knitting facility and the shoes will close as soon as we get everything in. Probably the end of the year but if it goes into next year nothing will go to waste."

 

"Printers?"

 

"I figured on next year with everybody busy with the other factories." Nods from the three older men. "I've got ten books finished. ..two of them are in the editing stage though. Another year will put me at around sixteen. I figure it will be four years to get this batch of books printed, some of the others are nowhere near done. of course by that time the damn bunny will drop more books on me." Everybody sniggers.

 

 

"Are the books going to be available here?"

 

"Yes, and I'll stockpile them for when we're not showing on Granda's world. The other worlds are we haven't had enough shows or 'yeah, you're older than you look. . .isn't everybody' on Mom's world and here." Nods from the others. "Do we have anything else we need to talk about?"

 

"How do you know what's going to be happening in the databursts?" Doc asks dryly.

 

"I got a call last night to deliver some stuff to the moonbase and talk to experts about a real colony trip to another planet since I mocked up those generation ship plans. I'm . . .actually out there for another three weeks."

 

"I wouldn't think they were talking colonies yet after the zero-population period ending."

 

"They're not but they're making plans for the future. . .including another city-ship mission. They're not looking at other planets yet, but they want to expand on what they learned from being on Mars. They're talking twenty or twenty five years but that would be way too long in a city-ship."

 

"Yes, but it would be a perfect example of what a trip to another planet would be like."

 

Josette nods. "But it would be a long time away from their families. And families are what would be traveling to another planet."

 

"They'd also have to have a set of laws already in place."

 

Josette takes a doughnut out of the bag she'd picked up after the meeting and puts it in her mouth before putting the bag away. A pot of beans is cooking on the fire hearth and she gives it a stir before adding the last of the spices.

 

"Smells good." Susan says from the door.

 

"Yeah, it will be done in a couple hours."

 

"Is that a brisket?"

 

"Yeah, it will be done the same time as the beans."

 

"David says the government wanted to talk to you?"

 

"Yeah, about the generation ship plans I made last year. They're looking at a longer trip on the city-ship. ..twenty to twenty-five years."

 

"Dear god, that would be a long trip. Which a colony would be."

 

"Yes, but I don't see it happening for a very long time. One. ..with the recent zero-population period there's no need for a colony and the government is running the city-ship as almost a military operation. A colony would be families and civilians. . ."

 

"The civilians on the city-ships would be because they have important jobs. . .and definitely no families." Alan says behind Susan. The two women nod. "We brought up the school. ..they'd have to think about that."

 

"GD handled the medical needs, including delivering the babies."

 

"Jobs would be needed. . .on a generation ship I can see the kids learning their parents duties unless they had a talent for something else. And the teachers would have to recognize that."

 

"Having people to take over important duties when a woman has to go on maternity leave. If they even had important duties."

 

"Yes, I can see women being pushed aside because 'oh, you'll be out having the babies and raising them'. Ignoring the fact that everybody would be needed to start the colony at first, there wouldn't be any children for a few years."

 

After lunch Josette starts wandering the dorm, looking in on the others who are either working on quilts, working on the books, or taking classes before going up to the growing area and starting seed trays. Alan comes up a few minutes later, nods, and walks over to hydroponics to remove the plants that are done and have gone to seed to dry.

 

"I miss having the tomatoes, peppers, and herbs everywhere." He complains.

 

Josette nods. "The others do to, we're going to start them again this fall."

 

"Are you planting on the first planet again?"

 

"I gotta look over the lists but probably." Finishing the seed trays she looks through the lists and the pokes her head through the door to Headquarters. 10th planet Doc looks over at her along with Doc. "Planting on the first planet?"

 

"Are the stocks really low?"

 

"No, I thought I'd put out a message asking if there was anything in particular that everybody wanted grown after growing so many different tomatoes and peppers. . .otherwise I'm not growing."

 

Both men nod and Josette leans between Professor Druid and Principal Madison, looking over at President Bartlett. "Something we didn't talk about this morning. . first planet growing. Nothing is low low, so I thought I'd send out a message that if there was anything that people wanted grown after we all grew different tomatoes, peppers, and herbs last winter."

 

Everybody in earshot nods. "Okay, I'll put up the message then and everybody can start listing them. . .adding a vote if what they wanted is already listed. Whatever gets the most votes gets planted."

 

That message is sent out after dinner and the list is already growing when she checks her PADD the next morning. She walks to the front room at breakfast.

 

"Okay, two things. One, towels?"

 

"It's been a while since we had the factory going but we've got a good reserve. I was going to say something later this year." President Bartlett says. Josette nods. "And two, a garden for tomatoes, peppers, and herbs. . .here, in Town, and Albatross. A large garden that can grow all the different types."

 

"Hmmm, not a community garden but extra." Professor Druid taps a knife on the table. "That was my thought. Not grown every season. ..hell not even every year."

 

"Put out a message and see if there'd be any interest. We've got plenty of manure and compost for it. . .not that it should be needed the first year."

 

"Yep, and the plants could go in the compost piles with the others."

 

"Josette, how is Pat doing with the plant dyes?" Elaine asks.

 

"Good, once the plants go to seed they can be dried, ground into powder, and used in dyeing projects." Josette heads to the back room and fills her tray with her first breakfast.

 

"Plans?"

 

"After breakfast Doc and I are going out to the 9th planet with 10th Doc and some of his crew to help with bringing out stuff from the ships they share with the 9th planet. They don't need much, this is more a 'go explore the ships' trip."

 

"Are we going to be able to make the boxes?"

 

"Yes, the ships are busy making them because they want all those damn boxes out of their rooms too. Boxes of boxes take up a helluva lot less room. I'll go out in a few weeks when they all have massive batches done and start filling them. This way I can start an inventory. We tried to keep one but it was a matter of. . .okay, we found these here, they went there. . ." the others nod.

 

"Recycling?"

 

"There? Only what was done when they were running low on raw materials for what he wanted. And of course it had to happen after they'd already put in a full day's work."

 

"Moron."

 

"Yes, I'm sure everybody who died thanks to his greed and stupidity are taking their pound of flesh in the afterlife. Because if he hadn't tried controlling the world. . ."

 

"He could have had what he wanted? Figures."

 

"Exactly."

 

Josette joins Doc at the switching station, taking a breath of the late fall air on the 9th planet as the others from the 10th planet arrive. There's wagons attached to the flyers and Josette sighs and takes them off. "I'll put everything in subspace, no use filling the wagons multiple times and then emptying them multiple times at the switching station. The others nod and they fly out to the ships. "Damn, if you laid the building from the first planet on it's side. .." Beau whistles.

 

"It wouldn't make a dent. Yes, I had the same thought and as big as my and Clark's ships, they wouldn't make a dent in them either." The flyers land and Josette moves to hop over the side, both Docs giving her looks so she walks out through the door. The others are stifling laughter.

 

"Okay, am I nuts. . ."

 

"Yes, the ships are floating, it's an anti-gravity field. The ships weigh tons upon tons upon tons, they'd kill the ground underneath thanks to all the pressure."

 

They open the door to the one that have been set aside for the tenth planet and walk inside. Beau whistles and the sound echoes.

 

"How big are the rooms?"

 

"Easily as big enough as one of the floors in the dining hall and I couldn't see the other wall." Josette says absently. "Okay, where are we starting first?"

 

Josette returns to the dorm later that night and Doc joins her for dinner at the dining hall.

 

"Get a lot of stuff out of the ships?"

 

"Yeah, hundreds of boxes in different areas. I split off a couple dozen duplicates to carry it all, otherwise they'd have filling and emptying the wagons multiple times, let alone getting everything from the 9th to the 10th planets. And did anybody see a wall in any of the rooms?" Josette looks at Doc.

 

"No, I suspect they're tesseracts."

 

"How big are the rooms."

 

"A floor of the dining hall. At least as far as we could see."

 

"Damn."

 

Josette bites the bullet the next morning and flies to the ship, walking into the one she'd been in with Doc and looking in one of the rooms marked fabric. Bringing out one of the boxes she silently 'opens' it and moans. Dozens of rolls of fabric are inside. If each box holds just as much. . .Putting everything back inside she looks at the other rooms, making notes on the map that updates the other copies. Putting the boxes she brought out into subspace she puts them in the room that had held Eureka's sock machines when she arrives back at the dorm.

 

Pat looks behind her. "Fabric?"

 

"Fabric, yarn, thread. . . Tell Doc I counted back a hundred rows of boxes and I was still nowhere near the wall. . .the rooms are definitely tesseracts. From what I could see, each room held a different type of fabric. . .one of these is cotton, one is wool, one denim. I found rooms that were full of patterns. . . machines. . ."

 

"Oh lord." Pat moans.

 

"Though I did find an area where we can put the empty boxes."

 

"That will be needed." Doc says behind them. "Do I want to know how . . ."

 

Josette walks over and unlatches a box. "Empty." she says quietly. Rolls of fabric shoot out into a nice pile beside her.

 

"Oh dear god." Pat moans. Josette opens a box of the others to show them everything then puts everything away. "Oh Doc, I counted back a hundred rows of boxes and. .."

 

"Still didn't see the wall. Yes, that's why I came up."

 

"Machines?"

 

"Sewing machines, knitting machines, long arm quilters. . .everything we'd need to make stuff." Josette passes along a message to Pat on the 10th planet with pictures of the boxes and the contents out, getting a moaning back from her and Doc.

 

"Everything that would be needed for the planets."

 

"Yep. We won't need anything for decades. Unless it's for the orders from Granda's world." Her grandparents nod. "I know Calvin has been wanting to slowly send out more sock knitting machines, yours are ancient."

 

"But working perfectly since I took a page out of Greta's book and 'whomped' them up a few degrees." She holds up a hand. "Though I did not put a thing on the yarn warehouses that instantly replaces a pallet of yarn once it's brought out. . .that was the others." Doc nods as Pat blinks then moans. "Yes, they got your storerooms too. And mine. . .and the businesses. . .and the warehouses. Anything new that comes in is instantly replicated."

 

"Oh dear lord." Pat moans again as Doc trills. "Did they bring out the big mackdaddy replicator to Headquarters they were talking about? Not the smaller ones we have, a larger one that will make everything we currently don't make because we'd need the factories? Food or otherwise?"

 

"Not that I know. . ."

 

/It's here./ David whistles mentally. /They put it in the area with your factories. They plan installing larger ones than we currently have later this year. You should be getting the stuff in your next batch of supplies./

 

"Never mind, David just said they brought it out here instead, it's by my factories. And they're going to be installing larger ones here and at Headquarters later this year?" On the first floor David is nodding. The others look at him and he repeats what he'd just told Josette.

 

"We don't need them."

 

"No, just like we don't need the ships. . .but the others wanted us to have them." Nods from Doc and Pat. Josette gets the location of the new replicator and takes them to see it."

 

"This is huge."

 

"Yes, this would be the size to handle a city-ship or starbase."

 

"The others?" Doc says.

 

"The compound has one. ..so does CJ's fortress. The 9th planet has one of course. . .and it can be used by the 10th planet. The others? They'll get them in the future as needed." Doc nods.

 

Josette looks at the time and Doc and Pat join the others walking to the dining hall for dinner. Pat is waved up to the front room and she talks with Frances and Elaine for a few minutes.

 

"Asking about the plants?"

 

"Yes. You can remove a leaf and dry it but the color wouldn't be as vibrant as a plant that's gone to seed." Pat says as she sits down with a tray. "Do you have examples?"

 

"Tons, both the immature plant dye and the mature version. We don't have anything to dye right now or I'd be bringing them out to show everybody."

 

"Cotton?"

 

"The machines started the crop, I'll pick it up when I get the second batch of offworld harvests."

 

"First planet?"

 

"I'm giving the poll another couple weeks before I go out. This year is a double harvest so I'm going to be out there a few times."

 

Josette pulls out her PADD and sends a file to Frances and Elaine. "Since you're going to ask. Cotton, the first is the immature leaf. . .notice how the color is almost transparent?" The file goes up to the screen and the others nod. "The second is the gone to seed leaf. You can see the difference."

 

"Yes, the first one is almost translucent, let alone transparent. Companies would have killed for that effect on Earth." Frances says. Elaine nods vigorously. "Is the color stable?"

 

"Yes. Both from one dye to the next and in terms of laundering." Josette brings up another file. "Some yarn that had been dyed with both leaves. . .notice the sheen to it? In the right light it would almost sparkle."

 

A couple weeks later Josette makes a list of what she's going to grow and heads off to the first planet, soaking up the sunlight for a few days before she plants.

 

"How many did you plant?" Doc asks when she comes back and makes an announcement of when everything would be available at the flea market building.

 

"A dozen plants each of the top five, that will give everybody a good variety and I've got some left over."

 

"The plans to have a garden for tomatoes, herbs, and peppers is a go." Professor Druid says.

 

"Here?"

 

"Here, Town, and Albatross. The others are talking similar plans on their own planets."

 

The bushel baskets are full when the building opens and people start trooping in to fill bags. Agatha corrals Josette as she puts a full bag over her arm. They finalize a date for the trip to Ellis's and Agatha heads off.

 

Josette comes into the Albatross Nest and passes over two pair of socks.

 

"These are the plant winter weight yarn." she pats one pair.

 

"Hmm." The socks are passed around the room. "Hand wash?"

 

"Yes, the buildings don't have a washing machine as we know it, cubicles that you could put the dirty clothes in to wash. The plant buildings have their own soap and toilet paper but liquid laundry detergent works just as well. Now these are from a batch of fleeces I picked up on another planet." The second pair of sock is passed around.

 

"How do the plant socks wear?"

 

"They're not as warm as pure wool but still warm. In a pair of winter boots, your feet would be toasty warm." Nods from the others as Josette puts the socks back in her pocket. "Not as convenient as woolease but since everybody's used to handwashing the socks. . ."

 

"It's not bothering anybody. If they were bothered they wouldn't be wearing wool socks anyway." Sue says briskly. Nods from the others. "Thankfully we don't have to deal with those whining fools anymore."

 

"Speaking of whining fools, the kids in the other dimension?"

 

"whining about how everybody's being mean to them in prison. . .it was just supposed to be a prank. They don't want to take responsibility for their own bullshit and are miserable. The school is blubbering about all the bad publicity they're getting, but it they'd yanked the leashes of those miserable brats years ago. . ."

 

"Own damn fault then." Suzie says briskly.

 

"Yep. The girl who was targeted is now in a better school with her friends and due to graduate the end of the year. She's already got a full scholarship to the university that's associated with the school, so do all her friends."

 

"She'll go far, they'll die in prison."

 

"Yep. Their parents are wailing everybody's talking bad about them but if they'd yanked the damn brat's leashes years ago."

 

"But that would mean being a parent. . .not your kids bestie." Suzie drawls, looking at her mother then pretending to cower. Everybody laughs at them.

 

"And everybody knows they can't have that." Sue drawls. "But the kids came by their stupidity honestly."

 

"Yes, and I'm sure the bloody morons will be bleating to celebrities to get somebody to take their side and get them out so they can screw around again. Because no way in hell has any of them turned over a new leaf or wants to take responsibility for their own actions."

 

"Yep. They just want out of prison. . .because it's hard. . . everybody's being mean to them."

 

"Offworld harvests."

 

"Five more weeks, at least three trips I'll have to take the drying tables to the first world." The others nod.

 

"Quilts?"

 

"I've got ten books done and should have another six by the end of the year. I figure the printers will be in operation four years. .. a good chunk of the books are nowhere near done." Nods from the others.

 

Sooner than anybody could have thought humanly possible people are gathering in town for the first offworld harvest.

 

A few hours every night Josette has a dozen other selves doing an inventory as she fills some of the boxes that the ships had been making.

 

"How was the trip?" David asks later that night when Josette's delivered the food to people waiting and the trays had gone to the first planet.

 

"Good, every night for a few hours I was busy taking inventory and filling boxes. I cleared out a few areas that we just 'picked it up and moved it'."

 

"Some of it I'm just going to end up tossing for raw materials if the other dimensions don't want it. I found thousands of cases for cell phones. . ." Doc sighs and Principal Madison moans. "Hundreds of thousands of cell phones and the latest apple crap. Again. . .raw materials if it's not wanted. There's enough tvs that I could fill the walls of the dorm rooms and not made a dent in them. Right now they're in the containers with the other. . .stuff."

 

Josette sends off a message to the other dimensions about what she found. "Okay, if I don't get a 'we'd like some of this. . .which I doubt like hell I'll get. . ." the others nod. "I'll start chucking it in the replicator."

 

"Have you found anything we could use so far?"

 

"Tons of DVDS and books. Literally. A lot of stuff we recycled while we were there, so no paper ends or stuff like that. Tons of toilet paper I've been shoving in boxes by the pallet. I guess even he had to admit that it would be needed."

 

"How magnanimous of him." David drawls. Josette snorts. "I've found tons of bath stuff and perfume. . .but it's all scents that females usually like. . .I guess he was trying to use it as bribes for 'female friends'." Snorts from the others. "It's all shoved in boxes until. . ." She gets responses back from the other dimensions. "Nope, they don't need any of that shit. . I'll shove it into the replicator when I get back out."

 

"No need for you to do it all yourself, I can open a tesseract and we can either drop them in the replicator or shoot them with a gun." David says. The others nod.

 

"Kids?" Ulonda asks the next morning after breakfast when the tesseract opens on one of her piers.

 

"Josette sent out a message last night asking if any of the other dimensions wanted the cell phones, cases, and apple crap you've found so far."

 

"Ahhhh, and none of them jumped at it?" She drawls.

 

"Nope, we said we'd toss it in the replicators or shoot the boxes with guns instead of little miss stubborn doing it all herself. She's going over some of that stuff she got off the ships with Doc."

 

"Okay kids, it's all this way. We left it out of the boxes since we figured it would end up being tossed in the replicator in the end."

 

Three days of work has everything turned into raw materials. The ship that had gone out earlier to harvest lands and David opens a linked tesseract that moves everybody to town.

 

"Get everything done?"

 

"Yeah, you've got a lot more to sort through."

 

"Oh I know, this was even worse than a normal Earth's consumerism. . .this was all. . .'me, me, me, I want you to make everything for me'." Dr. Samson and Peter who'd been on this trip with her snort. They'd seen all the boxes and just moaned until Josette had told them what happened. They'd helped fill boxes and do inventory after that.

 

"Am I nuts. . .don't say it please." David holds up a hand at Peter's smirk. "Have we not found. . ."

 

"Boxes of one component for something? No, if they couldn't make an entire product they made as much as they could then were shut down and their workers sent elsewhere. He wanted finished products until the factories making his playtoys had to shut down for the lack of parts. Then he opened the others back up and 'allowed' them to make the parts needed to make more. . .shit."

 

"That man should have been in counseling years ago."

 

"He had the power to do whatever he wanted. And screw anybody who told him no. Just like a pureblood from Harry Potter."

 

"Dumbledore."

 

"Yep." They split up, Dr. Samson and Peter going to get a hot meal at the communal kitchen as Josette's duplicates deliver food. The food that had been dried on the first planet had been put in containers and the tables filled on the ship to take out tomorrow.

 

"Are you getting stuff sorted and moved?" Principal Madison asks when she comes up to the front room.

 

"Yes, the others said they're done with the stuff I'd set aside on Ulonda to see if any of the others wanted some." David nods in the back room. "I was working nights on Vallejo, first me and a dozen duplicates, then Dr. Sampson and Peter Venkman when they found all the boxes. I got a 'really Josette, isn't this a little much' look until I explained where it had all came from. They helped me with inventory and moving stuff into the boxes after that."

 

"Have you made anything with the fleeces?" Elaine asks. Josette had brought out a couple for her and Agatha.

 

"A sweater, hats, gloves, and socks. I thought about a scarf but I never wear them."

 

"Did you short anybody taking all those fleeces?" President Bartlett looks at her.

 

"Hellllll nooooooo, I could take that much daily for a million years and not short anybody. The animals grow like weeds and are shorn four or five times a year. They were bred to be heavy wool producers. Which is needed for all of their damn scientific advances they don't seem to be able to heat their buildings comfortably during the winter. Which isn't a problem on the agricultural planet, just the others."

 

"About like that guy on Alone in the Wilderness?"

 

"Yes, but instead of a small cabin it's. . .ohhhh, a place like the dorms in the forties in the middle of winter. A lot of fireplaces for extra heat. . .though they were something like gas and not wood. All the buildings are ancient. . .hundreds of years old and medieval looking. For all that spaceflight is common."

 

The others shake their heads.

 

"Yeah, the weavers and spinners have pretty much a year round business making yarn and cloth. I'm in the rotation to get shipments of the fleeces now and next time I wanna experiment with making cloth."

 

"Drying tables?"

 

"The stuff from the first harvest is in containers, the drying tables were filled on the ship and I'll take them out tomorrow. Another week should have everything drying and not freezing here." Professor Druid nods as she heads into the back room.

 

The next morning Josette is on the first planet, laying out the tables and moving the food to containers when it's dry. Josette gets everything dry and in the containers before returning to Haven.

 

"How long?"

 

"About three weeks, we've been drying more stuff over the years." The others nod. Pat comes out of Headquarters and takes Josette upstairs, obviously having been waiting for her. The others snicker.

 

"More clothes?"

 

"No, Pat wanted to see if there were any kits on the ships like we have in the warehouse and if so. . ."

 

"Are they all the same?"

 

"Yes, and in the case of the looms that made potholders if they had the loops. I'll go out after lunch."

 

"We'll go out after lunch." Pat says calmly. "I've seen pictures of the ships and you've told me about the rooms. . ."

 

"But it's different seeing in in person." Everybody nods. Josette puts out a call and three flyers with attached wagons head out after lunch. Besides Pat, Agatha, Frances, Elaine, and Professor Druid are in the flyers.

 

"Oh my god." Professor Druid says as she first sees the ships.

 

"Yeah, and we've about ten miles out yet." Josette says over the radio. "The ships are huge."

 

The others look around as they walk inside and Josette checks the map.

 

"Okay, I know that you put the stuff that the other dimensions didn't want. . ."

 

"In the replicator, and yes, we scanned some of the boxes so we could have them if we ever need them in the future." The others nod in satisfaction. The first room is come to and they whimper at the room.

 

"I know you said they were big. . ."

 

"But you thought I was joking. No, you don't realize how big it is until you see it firsthand."

 

"I can see how you counted a hundred rows back and still didn't see the wall." Pat sighs as she pulls boxes out of each room. Josette waves them to their wagon for the trip back as they go to the next section. The wagons and flyers land by the Albatross Nest, the textiles building at school, and Headquarters and everything is moved inside. Josette had picked up some stuff of her own and that's waved to the dorm as Josette, Frances, Elaine, and Professor Druid head to the dining hall for dinner.

 

"Josette wasn't kidding about the rooms being big." Professor Druid says at her husband and President Bartlett's looks. "We brought out enough boxes to fill the wagons and strap stuff down in addition to what Josette brought out in subspace herself and it didn't scratch the surface, let alone make a dent in the rooms. Josette, I'll let you know when you can take the empty boxes back to the ship." Josette nods in the back room as she fills her tray.

 

The ground is bare enough for manure to be spread a couple days later and Josette walks into the dorm to find Grandpa Charles and a man she doesn't know looking over the three different 'sizes' of boxes in the living room. Charles hugs her, checking her and grinning when he finds just a general tiredness from spreading manure all morning.

 

"Yeah, it's a bit of work but it's needed. Where are the others?"

 

"The boys said something about emptying the containers?"

 

"Chicken manure, the barn sweepers sweeps it into containers over the winter and we let it age a few years before it's bagged. It's been a few years so that's what they're doing."

 

"Yep, we've got eighteen 40 pound bags filled and three pails." Alexander says as he walks through from the ranch. "Ahhhhh, I needed the damn fresh air."

 

"Yes, you don't have to work on the art all the time."

 

"Damn thing was howling in my ear. . ."

 

Josette snorts. "that's why I have so many books in the pipe waiting to be printed. Both the fiction and the quilting books." Looking at the time she heads into her first floor bedroom and comes out a few minutes later in different clothes. Ones that don't smell of eau de barnyard.

 

"Do you have any of the big boxes here?" Charles asks.

 

"Yeah, we've been bringing out different boxes from the ships." Josette leads the way upstairs. The man nods at the boxes then sighs as she brings out smaller boxes and much more than their boxes could have held come out of their boxes before they're refilled.

 

"That . . .is disturbing." Charles says as he looks at the small box on the palm of Josette's hand.

 

"Yes, while it would be easier to transport. ..hell this could handle everything on one of our trips to the warehouse store and other places. .. and we fill twenty carts at the stores easy. . .I'd have a clip on the handle to attach it to my belt."

 

"As would I, while it's easy to slip it into a pocket. . ."

 

"It's easy for the damn thing to slip out of the pocket if you're sitting. . .that's why so many cell phones slide out of pockets. And women have bigger pockets in their pants then men." Both of them nod. "Maybe a beeper so if it got a few feet from the person. . ."

 

"Say the box and a watch? Now if it was in a suitcase or shoulder bag and the person left it in their seat or the rack on a train while they went to the bathroom or got something to eat. . .it would get damn annoying. I'd say a braided cord attaching it to a belt would be better, this way if the box slides out, it's still swinging from your belt."

 

"And if you're a courier. . .you'd have to have a way to make sure the right box went to the right place beyond opening everything."

 

"Yes, I can see . . .'okay, the one with the two rubber bands on one end goes here, the one with rubber bands on either end goes there, the one with the rubber bands longway goes somewhere else." David drawls from the doorway. "Josette, Calvin sent off a message, the new knitting machines and yarn are ready to pick up."

 

"Yeah, I figured it would be pretty soon. The boys have finished making the new tables for the machines here and both buildings."

 

"Buildings?"

 

The whole story is told and Josette shows them the sock and other knitting machines that had been in the rooms they were standing in before.

 

"How many sock machines?" The man whimpers. He'd deny it, but he's whimpering.

 

"9000 machines in each building, before we lost our Earth they kept wanting more and more socks. . .especially when they realized the ice age was coming and they'd need to get in sock .. .err stockpiles of them." Both men snicker. "Right now they're used to make socks either for the planets or to send to Calvin's dimension, they announced last year they wanted to increase the orders. They sent out more machines since ours are old but well cared for."

 

"I know the others asked about this, but glass?"

 

"Not taking it out anymore since I'd be bringing it back anyway. The couple cents I'd get per bottle. . .Granda just passes that along in the money for everything." David nods.

 

"Do you see the glass. . ."

 

"recycling ever being used? Not unless the government forces people to use recycled before they use raw materials. Or the colony dimension expands and they have the need for more windows. People are lazy and don't want to take the time to break up the glass and melt it before using it in new stuff." The man with Grandpa Charles laughs but nods.

 

He heads back to the other dimension's Earth a week later his time. "Ohhh, that was nice."

 

"The planets?"

 

"Nice and quiet, the planet that had the other boxes is starting their spring and was planting their first crops when I was out there. I saw the boxes, they're smaller and hold more. The young woman had concerns about the box that can shrink to the size of a matchbox car being lost. . .she said she's want something that attached the handle to her belt to keep it from slipping out of a pocket."

 

"We'd want the same thing." A voice rumbles. "Have they been using the gifts?"

 

"Yes sir, I saw containers in a room and they were planting some of the seeds in pots indoors while I was there."

 

"We are pleased then. The smaller boxes can be introduced in the next few years."

 

Josette slumps into a seat in the dining hall after getting a call from Calvin's dimension, everybody looking at her. "I was stuck in meetings for days." In the front room President Bartlett and Principal Madison laugh and nod. Professor Ziegler's just laughing.

 

"Why?"

 

"Oh my god, you'll take the students from the school in town. Ohhhh, you do run the school in town. Never mind. You. . you. . you have a whole building for your school library, how can . . .ohhh, the school in town has a building for a library too. You make the students buy their own books. . .ohhhh yeah, they do it there too. Y. . .yo. . .your school runs year-round. . .oh yeah, the one in town does too." Principal Madison is cackling by now. "They didn't like the school using different books than 'mainstream' schools but couldn't complain since the classes the school offers are better. Same old, same old. They complained that Granda's school doesn't have a credit union but realized the bank does a ton more business thanks to the businesses out there. . .You name it, they complained."

 

"How many students in the school?" Mrs. Bartlett asks as she nudges her husband to get up off the floor, it wasn't that damn funny. Even if the look on Josette's face is making her want to laugh too.

 

"Fifteen in the fourth grade though kindergarten, the fourth graders are looking at electives they might be taking at Granda's when their families have to start paying part of their tuition and the morons in government are up in arms about it. Oh god, we're traumatizing the students by having classes all the in same room. . .oh yeah, multiple years in the same room will be the norm for a while still." Nods from the teachers up front. "The damn local governments want to replace the schools that were either torn down or turned into businesses over the years but the courts told them hell no, they're not needed."

 

"No, but they want them." Professor Eppes drawls, everybody nodding around him. "So in other words things are back to normal after the zero-population period except that less babies are being born everyday."

 

"Yup." Josette yawns. "Sorry, I was busy most of the trip back sorting out stuff into the boxes Macchu Picchu has been making. We're slowly weeding the shit out."

 

"The other ships?"

 

"Busy making their own boxes and taking inventory. The ships talk all the time so they all know what can be tossed in the replicators." The others nod.

 

"Shows?"

 

"Me Mom and I go first. ..that's in six weeks. The boys Granda after the Harvest Festival."

 

"Twelve more books?"

 

"After this year. Gods, when I think about how long it's been since I started. .."

 

"Yep."

 

"Did you go to the comic book school?"

 

"Yes, they're going to be holding more talks with movers and shakers in the industry when we're out for my show. I'll be both places."

 

"And probably a dozen other places while you're out there. . .at the same time." Principal Madison says dryly.

 

"To quote Dr. Hazlitt. . ayuh." Susan drawls. Everybody laughs in the front room, Dr. Hazlitt laughing the hardest.

 

"Okay, is anybody finishing a degree this year?" The others look at each other and shake their heads.

 

"Josette?"

 

"Nope, I finished one last year but that was the only one even close to being done."

 

"Comic book school?" Principal Madison asks dryly.

 

"You got me there, two. The last Timely degree and a tv degree."

 

"Fawcett or the comic code?"

 

"Hmmm, I'll decide when I sign up for the degree." Josette stretches and yawns. "I need a nap, my brain hurts from all the whining." she says in a pouting tone as the others sniggers.

 

Josette does get her nap. . .she's not surprised when it's raining when she wakes up and they take the tunnels to the dining hall instead of messing with their rain gear. Everybody else must have done the same thing by the lack of raincoats or umbrellas dripping in containers.

 

"So I noticed you got into the file on the cabin?" President Bartlett asks as he waves her to the front room.

 

"Yes, the damn bunny is howling. There's no way in Hell I could last an entire year on my own. .. but I might be able to last a winter if I was around other people. Anyway Dr. Stark wants to see if he can use the cabin in an experiment."

 

David snorts. "Some of those lab geeks would not have a bit of trouble living in one of those over a winter. . .hell, they'd be like that guy on Alone in the wilderness and be out there years on their own." James laughs and nods from the steps, obviously he'd used the tunnel too when he saw the rain. "After dinner Nathan wants to see you and Josette about that."

 

Dr. Stark smirks at David's assertion and Josette knows he's using this as a way to get rid of some of his problem employees. The others in the room agree with her from their knowing smirks. After the cabin they talk about other topics.

 

Josette looks out the window at the sleeting rain when they come back from Archimedes, it's early but she's ready for bed. The lights are off in the others rooms so she's not the only one. David snickers. "Good sleeping weather."

 

"Yep."

 

Josette has an evil grin on her face the next morning. "Okay, what happened?"

 

"Weird dreams. . .I dreamt Willow from Buffy was bellyaching about Xander until I knocked the stupidity out of her. When Smuffy complained I ran after her with a chain saw. Giles was going oh dear lord while Cordy was laughing and eating a bowl of popcorn."

 

"Dr. Covington says, cut back on the fanfiction before bed." Alan smirks. "Though I would have loved to have seen it."

 

"Oh yes, I'm sure Doc would have been giving me a 'look' but Pat would have been beating sense into both of them . . .with a 2x4 upside the head applied as often as necessary." Doc and Pat look at her from the door of Headquarters and she repeats her dream, Pat nodding vigorously. "You got a double dose of not taking any shit from anybody, from me and your mother."

 

"Yes, it's called being a damn grownup." Principal Madison hears Josette saying as she walks backwards through the door, He looks over . . . ahhh, Clark and Patricia are with the group. Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later.

 

"Goddamn retarded whore."

 

Everybody looks at her. "Some fool woman trying to claim that we'd stole the land from her during the zero-population period. Since I could prove we've owned the land for years and the fool woman is involved with that fool who tried getting on the property saying 'they should want to sell by now. . .I can build malls, houses, apartments. . .'."

 

"Idiots."

 

"Yep, now they're going to be facing fraud charges and won't like it. I expect she'll be turning on him and he'll be blubbering that he didn't know they'd be facing real charges. 'WWWWWwwwwwwhhhhhhhhhhhhhyyyyyyyyyyyy won't they sell the land to me?'" Rolled eyes and snorts of disgust.

 

"Because that's their home you goddamn retarded little sack of shit." Dumbass's own lawyer snorts a few days after Josette left in Calvin's dimension. "They don't have to sell to you for the damn piddling amount you could offer them."

 

"But it's not fair they have all that land. They don't cut down their trees, they grow crops. . ."

 

"Yes, like I said. . that's their home."

 

"But don't we need more houses and apartments?"

 

"Gods no fool, we've got tons of houses and apartments sitting empty. We don't need them and we don't want them. We also don't need any damn malls, movie theaters, pizza parlors, nightclubs. . .or anything else you want to build. You were told this once, didn't you listen?" the judge says in disgust.

 

"But if my girlfriend could have got the land away from them . .."

 

"He's too damn stupid to live, toss him in a jail cell for a few decades." his own lawyer snorts.

 

He turns to stare at him with wide eyes. "You mean I'm not getting out of here?"

 

"Hell no you little twit. You're going to prison for trying to steal their land." He's drug wailing back to his jail cell.

 

"God damn useless idiot." Josette snorts as she reads the latest databurst.

 

"Oh you know those type, they think they're gods gift to humanity and who are we to tell them no." David snorts as he reads the databurst over her shoulder. "A few people getting their asses handed to them for their stupidity will make everybody realize what a stupid idea it is to try to bother people for their land. Now, changing the subject. . . machines?"

 

"I put them in the stockrooms so they could be hit with the replicating charm before bringing them out and putting them up. The new jobs were on the board for a whole hour before they were picked up." David leans on the back of the couch and snickers. "I was thinking. .." Josette starts typing on her PADD as she clears the databurst. "If we get as many sock machines as Granda thinks we're going to be getting, put up a building in Albatross?" She looks over her shoulder and he blinks then nods.

 

"Doc, Josette has an idea." David leans against the door to Headquarters and two Clarks look at him. Since the second is Godly Clark it's killing two birds with one stone. "If we get the knitting machines Calvin thinks we'll be getting, put up another building in Albatross." Both men blink then slowly nod. "Did Josette bring everything out?"

 

"Yes, and she says the jobs were on the board for an hour."

 

"Okay, Godly is in Headquarters talking to Doc, they both nodded." David says when he comes back to the dorm.

 

"Okay, something I was thinking of earlier today." Josette looks over at Principal Madison and President Bartlett in the front room when they walk in for lunch. "If we get as many sock machines as Granda thinks we'll be getting. . .putting up a building in Albatross."

 

The two men blink at her then slowly nod. "If they want it. . .it's not that hard to commute with the link between the Albatross Nests."

 

"I'll ask after lunch."

 

"Ladies, a couple things." Josette brings out a box from subspace. "Some of the seeds we brought out when we were in the ship." Agatha nods as everybody looks through them and takes some. "Second, Calvin thinks we're going to be getting more sock machines in the future. . . this little operation is going just beyond the US. . ., if we get as many as everybody thinks we'll be getting, would you be interested in a building here? I know it's just as easy to commute to the buildings now with the link and hell. . .I think most of us are at the school now for classes anyway." Agatha chuckles and nods. "Let us talk about it hon. You can always put one up in the future, right?"

 

"Yep."

 

"Okay, you said you added three buildings to the dorm and you put the school's and Eureka's sock machines in one. . ." David says at dinner.

 

"I'm putting the machines for the spa and the school in the second one, both because those orders will be increasing over the years and I was planning on adding more machines in the future. The third building is for the stuff from the ship." The others nod.

 

"Josette, do you see those orders . . ." President Bartlett asks in the front room.

 

"Becoming jobs. . .not for a while, they're still small enough I can check on them a couple times a day. Moving it from a room to a building is the first step." Josette says, everybody nods.

 

Josette looks through the boxes in her studio, opening the machine boxes and bringing some out. Setting them up she makes a mental note to have the boys make more tables and starts them running.

 

"Is that a loom?" David asks, pointing at a box.

 

"Yes, it's got to be put together. Easier to pack this way."

 

"Do you have any of the bigger machines?"

 

"Yes, they're still in the boxes." She waves a hand. "Did Professor Druid bring out her new greenhouses and hydroponics setups?"

 

"No. They had them?"

 

"Oh yes." Josette brings out the information they'd found and David moans. "We don't need it yet, even if the evil bunny is trying to get me to put one up in the ranch."

 

"No, the growing areas here handle all our needs." David rolls his eyes. "Add one to the first planet. We're out there long enough often enough."

 

Josette grins. "Yes, that would work just fine, the others have been wanting to update the house there." David shakes his head. She adds that note to the list of what they'd wanted to update and David helps her unpack and put together the loom.

 

A few weeks later they head off to Mom's dimension, Josette rolling her eyes as everybody sniggers at her having to get a new outfit for the show. A fool man huffs over and tries nagging but the looks the others give him make him scurry off.

 

"Always going to be an idiot. He thinks you can't possibly afford this outfit."

 

The moron moans when the picture he took from the video surveillance doesn't show a con artist but instead of successful artist who's having a show in a couple nights.

 

Josette slumps into her usual seat the afternoon after the show.

 

"Talk to M'Lynn?" Clarinda knows it's not worth trying to get Josette to sleep after a show, especially one where she was busy signing books afterwards.

 

Josette nods around a mouthful of coffee.

 

"Didn't you have a book tour in New Dimension?"

 

"Going out tomorrow."

 

"How many books?"

 

"About 6000 each. Not as bad as Granda's. ..they're hearing rumors that the shows are going to stop in several years and they might miss a chance to be seen as there by having a signed book. I've been averaging over ten thousand books a show. For each book." Clarinda snorts but she can't say anything about it since that's pretty much the same reason Josette's books are sold and signed here.

 

"Has anybody misplaced a shrunken box yet?"

 

"Yes, and the morons who were ranting up, down, and sideways that hooking it to a belt wouldn't be necessary very quietly slunk off. Now they have them in bags hooked to their belt and using identifying marks to make sure each is delivered to the right place."

 

"Well yah, that would only make sense. And the people bitching the loudest have the least amount." Anna snorts. The others snigger but nod.

 

Josette heads off the next morning after breakfast, returning back to Haven several weeks later her time.

 

"How was the tour?"

 

"Long." She moans, facedown on the couch. She waves a hand and boxes and bags appear from subspace. "I spent the trip back filling boxes and doing inventory like we did yesterday." The others nod. "Since we don't have a place there yet I dumped all the pens in the ship's replicator to refill. Doc was giving me a look at collecting the empty pens until I told him why." Nods from the others. Most pens are cheap and made to be thrown away when they're empty or you can slide a new ink cartridge in them.

 

"Are we done now?"

 

"Until we go out for the boys show and the comic con." Josette drawls. "I read the databurst before coming back so I already saw that moron's whining and I sent off a nasty e-mail to him and his lawyer. And put in a complaint. They've both going to be whining, the old fool for not being able to live off his asshole son the rest of his useless life and his lawyer for the fine he'll be getting for filing a frivolous lawsuit.

 

"Serves the little bastards right." Is the common opinion of everybody over the next couple weeks on Calvin's world when they get the stupidity slapped out of them. The father runs off wailing he's going to kill himself. . .his former lawyer telling him he can after he pays the fine he got, he got him to sue. . .he can pay the fine.

 

"The bastard's going to make a fuss."

 

"And an even bigger one when he realizes people are ignoring him."

 

Josette comes out for the comic con and talks at the school from the bigwigs in the comics community. Buying a set of DVDS from the talks she wanders the floors. Josette returns to Haven to find the dorm shimmering.

 

"They putting in the replicators?" She asks David who's sitting in the living room reading a book.

 

"Yeah, how's everything coming on the ship?"

 

"Getting there, we've got buildings empty and are slowly sorting through boxes in the rooms and containers we haven't gotten to yet. We still gotta check the boxes that were already full but that can happen later when I'm off picking up the offworld harvests later this year."

 

Calvin looks out the door. "Josette. . .? Oh, you're not the one who went to the ship with Clark and Clark."

 

"Nope, I'm the one who was at the comicon." She snickers. "I'm on the ship?"

 

"Yes, Clark wanted to see what you'd been talking about and you wanted to pick up more stuff for the new building. We could almost hear the 'oh dear lord' from here. And I do like how you set up the new buildings. But you need tables in the third building."

 

"And more plugs. And more lights." Josette pulls up a file with those plans on her PADD and Calvin nods in satisfaction.

 

A few hours later the flyer lands with the wagon loaded with boxes. Josette knows more is in subspace and stuff is waved to the studio before the Josette who'd been on Haven merges with the Josette who'd been in Calvin's dimension.

 

"Okay, this is going to make Calvin splutter when it happens his time." Josette says. "So nothing until the Lights Festival." Josette says the next morning after breakfast when she grabbed President Bartlett and Principal Madison. "There's fools in Granda's dimension that want another city-ship and a colony. ..so they can show off their importance."

 

"Oh dear lord." President Bartlett moans. "Yes, the whining was just starting when I was out. It should be in full swing in a couple databursts."

 

"So the whining that Becka's dimension went through."

 

"Yes, people thinking they're all that and running off wailing when they find out how much money the city-ship will be, how much money they'd need for supplies, having to learn to make stuff when they run out. . ."

 

"Wailing that the government won't supply them forever and they'd have to make their own homes, plant their own crops. . ."

 

"No heat at the turn of a dial, they'll have to dig their own outhouses, cook their own meals, wash their clothes by hand."

 

"They're expecting people to come flocking to them basking in their magnificence and it's not going to happen." Josette snorts. "Okay, I'm heading offplanet to pick up some of the offworld harvests like the cotton, the coffee, and so on." They nod.

 

Josette returns an hour later. "Okay, the two coffee harvests are in. so is the cacao. I took part of the espresso beans and cacao to Benton. The cotton is at the rug yarn complex being worked on. The rest I'll pick up after the Harvest Festival."

 

"Wheat?"

 

"Wheat, rice, soybeans. . ." Josette grabs her PADD and gets in a file. "Sugarcane next year?"

 

President Bartlett looks at his PADD and nods. "Did you tap trees?"

 

"Yes, it was warm enough during the day for the sap to run. Last year wasn't."

 

Josette walks into the dorm, picking the ripe peppers and tomatoes in the pots before making a sandwich. Adding some of the fried green tomatoes she'd made earlier to the plate she sits down to eat.

 

"Get everything taken care of?" Alan asks as he walks into the room.

 

"Everything that was ready. Benton has some of the espresso and cacao, more are in stasis. I'll get the rest after the Harvest Festival, dropping off wheat to the flour factory then."

 

"Cotton?"

 

"At the rug yarn manufacturer. The yarn should be ready for us to dye after Thanksgiving." The door to Headquarters opens and Pat, Frances, and Elaine walk out. "Experimenting with the plant dyes?"

 

"Yep." Pat looks their direction and grins when she sees Josette at the table eating. "Cotton?"

 

"Rug yarn manufacturer, the yarn should be ready for dyeing after Thanksgiving."

 

"When is the trip to Ellis's?"

 

"Just before Thanksgiving, this way the harvests are all in." All three women nod, even if Frances and Elaine just have to deal with the school gardens. "Josette, you back?" Susan pokes her head around the pocket doors and looks down the hallway.

 

"Yeah."

 

"Gimme a hand, the cheesemakers called us to pick up our shipment and I don't know where Alan is."

 

"He's here with me." Alan comes out and put the big wheels and other cheeses in subspace so Susan can unhook the wagon and put it and the flyer away.

 

"That means ours will be arriving soon." Frances says. Elaine nods.

 

Josette comes into the dorm a couple days later and waves boxes of soap into her workroom.

 

"Goats milk." She says at Hannah's look.

 

"Ahhh." While people might not feel comfortable drinking goats milk or eating cheese made from it, they'll be more than happy to use it in soap.

 

"Yeah, some of the goats milk is kinda . . .funky, it's an acquired taste." The others nod.

 

Josette takes the boxes of DVDS and books to the tv building, putting everything away now that the degree is finished.

 

The Harvest Festival is a couple days later and they see more boxes of soap on the soapmakers table and while nobody gets as much as Josette. . .she'd said absently that she helped out a lot there and that was her share, the soap sells well.

 

Josette slumps onto a couch a couple weeks after the Harvest Festival.

 

"Is this all the offworld harvests now?"

 

"Yep." Josette closes her eyes for a twenty minute power nap. The others chuckle and head off different directions. Abby and David are working on the third building, adding the items Josette had planned on incorporating into the building.

 

"How's the databursts?" Principal Madison asks at dinner.

 

"Full of whining morons who can't believe the government won't spend oodles and gobs of money on a city-ship for them. If they have their own city-ship, they can lord it over the 'leetle' people. ..they'll be bowing at their feet for the privilege of serving them."

 

"Idiots are idiots in any dimension, they didn't do this when the city-ship made it's first or second trip or the moonbase came up."

 

"No, they're looking at the possibility of colonies and you know. . .it will be just like Earth, but on another planet." Susan snorts. "Even listening to the stories of the long hours on the missions won't stop them. . .they're just saying it to keep space travel to themselves."

 

"Oh please," Hannah says as she walks through the room behind them. "these are the same people who kept bleating the colony dimension had to be for show. The government will stick them in VR and they'll see what a real trip to a colony world is like. .. not on a city-ship but on a regular ship with shuttles and you'll be building your own home."

 

"Hell even on the city-ship you'd be stuck in one room for years on end and then when you finally get to your planet you'd have to build your home, plant your crops, dig an outhouse. . ."

 

"Yep, the VR specialists are going to have a field day."

 

"Superhero?" David asks later that night after they've returned from the show.

 

Josette makes a pfft sound and waves a hand. "They've had spaceflight and settlements on the Moon and Mars for years."

 

"Like the 9th planet."

 

"Exactly, their Mars is almost identical to the 9th planets except for life never evolved there. There's still only the strip along the equator that will grow food right now, they've got labs in the desert areas. From what I understand they're trying to figure out what caused Mars to . . ."

 

"Be like that?"

 

"Pretty much. They've got ships in orbit around Jupiter and Saturn to examine the planets. . .I passed that information along to Silas and Calvin since their instruments are more advanced than the city-ships."

 

The others nod before they head to their rooms. James arrives the next morning and sniggers at the signs on the wall by the gates.

 

/No, you DON'T own the land, we do. And no, it's not for sale. Don't even bother trying your 'magnificent' cunning plan to take the land from us, you'll just look like an idiot and spend the rest of your life in prison. . .because yes, the laws about trying to steal a person's land are still in effect./

 

is by one gate while

 

/Okay, if you're that damn stupid, go right ahead. Just don't come complaining when our security system hurts you so bad you'll wish you were dead. And yes, it's legal./

 

is by the other.

 

"Kids." He says as he walks into the mansion. Everybody points at Josette who's sniggering.

 

"Anybody who comes near the gates who isn't on the list gets a nice special effects show of the gates glowing and electricity flickering off them, the humming getting louder and louder as they realize they can't move since they're caught in the field. The electrical sparks will get worse and worse until. . .blooie." Josette claps her hands together. "They'll be waking up either in a hospital or in a jail, the lingering shocks to their system will make them twitch for days. Of course everybody's biocodes is in the system and if somebody comes accompanied by one of us, just click the controls three times to shut it down after the light show starts."

 

"If anybody tries forcing their way through in a vehicle?"

 

"They'll be caught in the field and the 'hidden' sub-machine guns will come out of the top stones and make a very loud cocking sound right before a 'bang' and the jolt will make people think they were shot."

 

"And if anybody complains?"

 

"Lights and mirrors, everything is legal. . .they were trespassing. If they continue to be stupid and try to get somebody in government to take the land. . .they'll see a grand fire destroying everything as the land is put behind a protective shield. Hopefully it will never come to that but we all know there's assholes everywhere who believe their own press. If they go that far. .. the kid gloves are off and I'll be destroying them at the molecular level in the media. And they'll be wishing I'd destroyed them to the molecular level literally since the damn shame of everybody knowing how fucking stupid they are will destroy them."

 

James laughs and nods vigorously. "I'm sure some of the idiots whining the loudest about not getting a city-ship of their own for a colony that will be just like Earth, but you know . . .on another planet where everybody will be kissing their ass will be wishing the same thing as people with two brain cells to rub together talk bbbbbaaaaaaaddddd about them. Not even VR will stop them from wanting the ships because. . .ohhh, you're just giving us horror stories. ..you're not telling us the truth."

 

"Hell, do you even have planets located that could serve as colony worlds?"

 

"No, so they're in for a world of misery if their precious city-ship had to travel for years to find a planet, explore it, come back, gather supplies and people to colonize their new world, then make the trip back."

 

"Put that scenario in VR."

 

"Fuck, put together enough for a home, supplies to plant a garden, and shove them in another dimension, telling them this is what living on another planet would be like. Check in on them in a few weeks and they'll be begging to come back to Earth. Because god forbid they have to live without running water and heat at the turn of a dial."

 

"Oooohhh." Susan hops in her chair. "I'm sure you had video from the first and second trips, incorporate that into VR and make them see what a real trip in a city-ship is like, If not the trips to the moon and Mars, the second trip in Becka's dimension where they went to the sun."

 

James grins and writes those scenarios down on a message he sends to the others. "Like you said, they're expecting it to be just like Earth. . .except another planet."

 

"These are the morons who'd be horrified at Haven. Hell, they'd be horrified at Eureka. Here." Everybody sniggers and nods.

 

"Speaking of Eureka?"

 

"You need socks. I'd been expecting it when I heard rumors your supplier was going out."

 

"Yes, we've packed everything up and since you already moved the sock machines. . ."

 

"I'll pick everything up before we leave. I know you've got good stocks on hand."

 

"Yes, they made sure they made extra before they went out. . .and it's early spring here."

 

"You've been busy making socks for Archimedes." David looks over at her later that day. "Both Eureka and the other sock machines."

 

"Yeah, they're predicting a winter like we had a couple years ago, cold and wet."

 

"And they'll be changing socks three or four times a day so they'll need extras." Everybody had a bag of socks in their wash every week that year. The box in the front of the dorm had been emptied multiple times and they'd had to break out their extra socks. And they weren't the only ones. Once they knew what kind of winter they'd be having they'd ordered extra socks made and handed out.

 

Back on Haven Josette brings out the new sock machines and yarn in a new building. One that hadn't been there a few days ago.

 

"Josette.Kiriko.Takahawa." Pat says in what she thinks is a calm voice. Since everybody had been waiting for her reaction and they're sniggering, she knows it's not very calm.

 

"Eureka."

 

"Ahhhh, the people went out there too."

 

"Nobody to take over the business. The orders while good sized for them. . ."

 

"Isn't enough to have another business take them over? Figures." Pat snorts. "So you got everything lock, stock, and barrel."

 

"Yep."

 

"Our Eureka?" Like the others she'd seen the extra socks being made and had seen the boxes set aside for Archimedes at the knitting buildings.

 

"They're expecting a winter like ours year before last."

 

"Ahhh bags of socks in the wash unless you don't go outdoors. And you don't wanna be inside all the damn time." Everybody nods. "Our box was empty about three times a week and I don't even wanna know how many times we tossed all the socks on the line in a basket and washed them. Because not only did they get wet. . .they stunk. You didn't get it during the rest of the year with the windows open but. . ."

 

"Pure wool would have stunk worse."

 

"And you had to dig into the extras?"

 

"Yep."

 

"Are these all the same socks?"

 

"No, and they must have planned on me making them, there's a new storage area and it's already been 'fixed'."

 

"Are you expecting more sock and other knitting machines from Calvin's dimension? Beyond. . .?" She waves a hand at everything that's being set up.

 

"Ohhh yes." Josette sighs. "I got the message while we were out there. First of the year I'm to pick up more sock machines and yarn, putting the machines in the buildings first so they're replicated. And probably adding them here too."

 

"Yes, I'd gotten a few. . .'aren't these out here already' doubletakes." Pat chuckles. "The other buildings?"

 

"Will get hit as needed." the others who hadn't realized what had been done moan. "Yep."

 

The crops start coming in a couple months later and everybody is busy canning, drying, or other preserving everything. The shelves are straining to hold everything after the offworld harvests are doled out and David opens the tesseract to the ship for everybody going to the other dimension.

 

"Oh god, it's worse in real life." Agatha moans at the pallets of fabric that were still being brought out that day.

 

"Yep." Josette sighs. "Definitely remaking it into a more neutral color." Josette talks to Ellis and they stop moving the pallets, Josette putting it in subspace and moving the contents of a shipping container all at one time.

 

A couple weeks later their time David opens the tesseract to Town, everybody walking through. "I'll move everything over the next couple of day."

 

"No hurry Josette, we need to make sure we have the room for everything. . .beyond putting them in boxes." Everybody nods and either heads into the Albatross Nest to head home or head directly home. Josette brings out her purchases over the next couple hours once she's decided where she wants everything.

 

"Did the others get in their orders?" Pat asks, she'd had her own order Josette had put in for her.

 

"Yes, and. .." she brings out a box filled with pallets of the hot new fabric in various weights.

 

"Oh dear god, that's even worse in person." Pat moans.

 

"Yup, I'm going to be experimenting with replicating into more neutral colors and dyeing it. Ellis wants pictures in case the manufacturer decides they want to print it again, Ellis can show them pictures of what people might actually buy." Pat nods vigorously as Josette puts everything back in the box. "How much?"

 

"Tons, they had shipping containers full of it, enough to fill three buildings. I saw how much they still had after we were done shopping and moved everything by subspace. Ellis was very happy to get them all off his land.

 

"Anything new coming out?"

 

"Yeah, I got tons of information." Josette tilts her head and a bag full of brochures and other information appears in front of Pat. "I got a lot of sample packs too. We all got something different and were replicating them on the trip back."

 

Josette tips her head again and a large bag is in front of Pat, similar bags in front of Josette. "I'll take stuff out to the other planets tomorrow." Pat nods in satisfaction.

 

"Thank you Josette," is said on both the 9th and 10th planets. They settle down to look over everything and Josette returns to Haven.

 

"Get everything delivered?"

 

"Hell no, I haven't even started yet." Josette snorts. "The others are making sure they got the room before I move anything and even my rooms I gotta make space. I could bring everything out in boxes but then . .."

 

"You still gotta have the room when you open the boxes."

 

"'xactly."

 

"Are you working on the new fabric?"

 

"Yes, I've got a couple dozen bolts of each type fabric out and making notes to see what colors I can either dye it or. . ."

 

"Pass some along to us, we've had our own ideas and with the programs we can see what it will look like before we do anything.' Frances says from the front room. Elaine nods. "Yarn?'

 

"Just got an update saying everything will be ready to pick up before the Lights Festival. I'll put up a message when we can get together in the dyeing room after the first of the year and work on stuff. It's going to be weeks of work so this is just the first batch." Elaine nods again. "And put up a list of colors we plan on dyeing them. If somebody else wants something special they can write it down." Nods from everybody in the front room.

 

After lunch Josette delivers some of the fabric to the textiles building on her way to the knitting buildings to bring out yarn. Professor Druid moans as she looks at the fabric.

 

"Different colors for the designs. . . different colors for the backgrounds."

 

"Or both."

 

They each scan a section of the fabric and start working on the programs, putting their results in a file on the server.

 

Thanksgiving is hopping at the school, everybody belching as they sit at tables in both rooms as they talk.

 

Josette takes Professor Druid with her when she goes to pick up the yarn a couple days later, the other woman moaning at all the containers.

 

"Yes, there's a difference between an offworld crop of yarn turned into towels and the same cotton turned into skeins of yarn." Josette grins as she puts everything in subspace and walks through the facility as they talk about what they'll be working on next. Josette flies to the ship next, bringing out more boxes that go various places.

 

 

"Did you finally decide what comic book degree you're picking up next year?"

 

"The comic code, then the other publishers that should have come before them, then Harvey, and then Fawcett and then the big superhero explosion, that's a good twenty degrees and covers both DC and Marvel. Then I'll start on the individual characters."

 

"TV?"

 

"Movies and tv shows based on comic book characters, it's a seven degree set." Josette yawns as she slumps into the couch. It had started snowing on the trip home and both women had known this would be sticking. The others follow her gaze and nod. "Did the socks get sent off the Archimedes?"

 

"Yes, I either dropped them off when I picked up their recycling or just dropped them off to GD and in Eureka."

 

"Other socks?"

 

"Working on them, it's both more socks and different styles so I'm getting so see more in case we want to make them ourselves. Fuck it, I'm taking a nap."

 

"Yeah, nothing we need to do for a while. Tomorrow's good enough to start bringing out the decorations." Everybody nods as they head to their rooms.

 

Susan is up on the roof cleaning off the solar panels the next day when Josette and Alan bring out the holiday decorations. Josette takes the first batch of lights and starts popping them into the clips on the walls as the girls start putting up the trees and other decorations inside.

 

"What a difference a year makes." Principal Madison says as he walks over. They're not the only ones decorating their homes for the Lights Festival.

 

"Yep."

 

"How are you getting on sorting all that shit and putting it in boxes?"

 

"Good, it's going to be a while but we're slowly getting it moved. After we get that done it will be 'okay, lets start bringing out boxes of boxes and see what's all in there."

 

"Have you planted in the growing area yet?"

 

"Granda's wanting to work on it, incorporate some of what we brought out, I'm going to the ship tomorrow to plant for the winter and we've got crops started on the other ships." Principal Madison nods and pulls Josette's hood up before he walks off, the others sniggering.

 

Alan blinks then looks up the map of the ships.

 

"The only one actually set up for hydroponics is the one on the 9th planet that would carry a crew." Josette says, hovering upside down as she attaches a new set of lights. Looking down she finds David opening the next box of lights. "Thankee. I already thought about that and so did the others." Alan snickers and puts his PADD away. Grabbing a different area of lights he starts setting them up with Alexander's help.

 

The next day Josette goes to the ship, helping clear multiple rooms while she's growing in botany, talking hours with the ships while she should be sleeping. An hour later on Haven she returns with bags and bushels of fruit that goes in stasis.

 

"Getting everything cleared up."

 

"Yes, another few months and we'll have the rooms cleared as well as the shipping containers."

 

"Ahhh, I wondered if you'd got those yet."

 

"First things I took care of, no use them sitting everywhere on the piers or in any building that will hold them." Josette sighs. "Okay, got a question. Pasta? Do we need to make megabatches?"

 

"We . . .should." David says. "It's been a few years."

 

The others begin coming out to find lines being loaded with drying pasta. Headmaster Doc looks stunned for a moment, then looking at the kids. "Everybody likes pasta but not the same type so we make these mega batches, when they're dry they'll be broke up and put in containers. We have a room just as large that will be filled with stuff like dumplings and dim sum. Anything that we can't dry on lines."

 

"This gives us something beyond what the pasta factory makes."

 

"And it's something to do when we can't get out of the dorm thanks to winter storms, we'll get back to it after the first of the year."

 

Hannah chuckles and pats Headmaster on the shoulder. "When they say the rooms will be filled. . .the rooms will be filled. Have you thought about making phyllo?"

 

"The bakery makes it every once in a while. . .they plan on introducing baklava samples at the Lights Festival."

 

"So, did anybody complain about the signs?"

 

"Oh yes, who are you to tell me what I can and cannot do? I don't care if this is a private driveway and private property. . .I wanna scream and shout until you shoot my useless ass. Some stupid bitch was whining why won't we sell her the house and land, it would be perfect for her reality show. A group came to protest us not allowing a certain group to live in the community. . .who cares if it's all private property. They were quickly arrested and blubbered they'd been hired by that stupid bitch for publicity for her new show. The protest would be 'leaked' to the news and of course everybody would watch the show. The morons actually tried suing me to get me to pay them what that dumbass had promised them and I told the organizer to blow it out her useless ass, she was trespassing on private property and damn lucky I wasn't asking the prosecutor for prison sentences, just demanding that they pay for the damages to the grounds. Meanwhile bitch was whining because the court wouldn't make me sell the land to her, wouldn't make me allow her to 'rent' the house to film the episodes, and wouldn't press charges against me for having a perfectly legal security system."

 

Snorts of disgust from everybody but Becka who rolls her eyes and tells her own story about an idiot producer wanting to 'use' her land for his masterpiece and destroy everything because it didn't fit his vision. And to what lengths the fool went to when she told him no.

 

Serves the little bastard right had been the general consensus.

 

 

 

 

 

Josette is looking at factories on her PADD as she waits for the others the first government meeting of Haven year 122.

 

"Josette, did you sign up for your degrees?" Doc asks.

 

"Yeah, I'm at the administration building getting everything right now." There had been a large update when Josette and the others would have been signing up for their degrees from Calvin's dimension so they were doing it today.

 

"What are you looking at?" David asks as he slides into a seat.

 

"A larger pasta factory, in case we ever need it in the future."

 

"No, we don't need to add one to the dorm." David snorts.

 

"Please, if I thought we needed one I'd already have one." Josette snorts. "I just had a flash of some morons on Earth wailing about making pasta by hand."

 

Principal Madison sighs but nods that this would definitely happen. "And whine that our bulk packages actually are filled by the amount of food we buy, not half again bigger so you think you're getting more than you do until you open the damn package and see half of it is air. Because some 'settling' may occur."

 

"Yup then the same morons who want a colony whining that they'd have to make it by hand themselves after their supplies ran out." President Bartlett rumbles.

 

Josette arrives back at the dorm, the Josette who'd been at the replicator shoving bags on David. He nods thanks and heads upstairs to the library to start his classes. Josette goes upstairs to check on the pasta being made, nodding in satisfaction at the filling lines in one room and the filling containers in the other.

 

She suddenly disappears and reappears a few minutes later, shaking her head and muttering some very rude phrases. Doc looks at her.

 

"Damn fool woman wanting a city-ship to start her own planet, wailing because the government wouldn't kiss her ass, They put her in VR showing her what it would be like to go to a colony in a ship that couldn't land, in a city-ship where again it would take the same length of time, then having her see what the trips were like on the city-ship. She wailed like a siren at not having everything she wanted, I got called out as a representative from Haven and she wailed louder when she found out we cook and grow our own food, make our own clothes, make quilts to keep us warm at night. We worry about getting in the crops before they freeze and we lose the harvest. Somebody on the vampire planet where they only grow once would have been a better one to talk about that though. Stupid bitch pouted at having to grow our own food, can't you just buy it at the grocery store?" Pat had come up behind Doc and calls her a number of names. "How can we live without cars, malls, cell phones, manis, pedis. . . There's no grocery stores? You don't have heat at the turn of a dial? You work? The leetle people don't do everything for you for the privilege of being part of your colony? I've said it before and I'll say it again, the people who demand the loudest to be able. . ."

 

"To go to another planet are the last ones who should go since they'd never be able to handle it." Pat snorts. "Amen. Anything else?"

 

"Oh some stupid college was having a fit about a student taking a class independent study, they put her in a class but the teacher was an asswipe and didn't want her there, had the students try to pull pranks on her but the head of the school saw them and yanked his ass. . .hard. He got fired and his butt buddy students got expelled since they'd been pulling this on other students. He tried saying she'd never be anything, moron didn't know the woman was a self-made millionaire and her net worth was just going up. Unlike the morons who are all 'ohhh, lets build new stuff' she was renovating existing structures. Hers was selling, theirs weren't. In fact the building the school was in was one of her buildings."

 

"Always going to be a miserable bastard." David says as he walks past them in the hallway.

 

"Yup, they were very quickly backtracking their 'oh, we don't want you in the school anymore, you're causing problems' some asshole buddy of that miserable teacher tried pulling. He was wailing he didn't know she owned the building and land when he said it."

 

"Of course not, he could suck up to her and drop that miserable old bastard. Because there's always going to be people like that too." David snorts. "Are you done with working on the buildings?"

 

"Yeah, all except for the new tables the boys are going to make for the other sock machines."

 

"Speaking of which. . .?" Pat asks.

 

"In the shipments I'm picking up in a couple weeks. The first of many I'm afraid." Josette yawns. "Gods, dealing with whiners always makes me sleepy."

 

The others chuckle and push her towards her second floor room.

 

A couple weeks later Pat nods in satisfaction at the filled rooms of drying pasta as Josette heads off to Calvin's dimension. Chuckling Doc shows her the plans Josette had been looking at.

 

"Not for decades." She says. "Yes, David says not to add one to the dorm, Josette said. . ."

 

"If it was needed she'd have already added it?" He nods. "That sounds like Josette, she's always five steps ahead of everybody else when it comes to things we need. Or will need." Pat looks at the list of socks the others are asking for and shakes her head. "Yeah, Josette's made some examples and James and Calvin jumped at them. So have the others."

 

"They'll sell well."

 

Josette opens the door of the dyeing building, the others coming in behind her and bringing out boxes of supplies as they set up everything. Those who hadn't had a chance to look at the new yarn yet finger the skeins and nod in satisfaction.

 

"Any chance of using the plant dye?" Frances asks.

 

"I'd been thinking of growing another batch of cotton in a few years and using them." Frances nods in satisfaction. The others look at them and Josette explains about the plant dyes, showing examples and getting emphatic nods from everybody as they start to work.

 

"Are you done?" Principal Madison asks Frances a few days later.

 

"With this first color." Elaine's got a mouthful of food and just nods. "We figure on making another dyeing party in a couple of weeks, it will give us something to do besides complain about the weather." It had turned bitter ass cold a few days before and everybody was bundled up for the trips they had to make outdoors. Because sometimes they just had to have some fresh air.

 

"We're lucky, we can take the tunnels."

 

"And we're not having to deal with fighting students who are as damn tired of the cold as we are." Professor Eppes snorts. "The furnace in Josette's house hasn't malfunctioned, and nobody's coming down with the flu."

 

"Oh yes, that was a miserable time." Principal Madison sighs. The teachers who hadn't come up from Earth look at them and the whole story is told. "And that was before the friends of humanity."

 

"Yes, we'd had a few bad winters before that. . .that year when we had the cold snap that seemed to last forever and another year when a storm came in and just dumped snow on us for weeks. By the time it finally moved out of the system we had ten feet of snow in some areas and the first floor of the dorms were nearly buried."

 

The second dyeing party is a couple weeks later and Josette brings out more boxes of yarn. Everybody settles down to work and talk about the plans for spring.

 

"Josette, did you get more sock machines? For yourself, not the orders." Agatha says at Josette's opening mouth.

 

"Yes, because everybody saw the socks being made for Granda's Eureka and the list of what they want is ten feet long." The others snigger at her hangdog look. "I'm also getting more yarn and sock machines for the school and spa, they saw examples of the socks and want them too." The others snigger again.

 

"Did you get the pasta made?"

 

"Yeah." Josette brings up her PADD and puts pictures of both rooms on the split screen, passing it around. The others shake their heads or sigh. "Yes, we have the pasta factory but sometimes we just want something different."

 

Frances nods. "What the factory makes is what is brought most often. We've got enough pasta machines to make batches of what we want for ourselves. No matter what. . ." Josette is bent over cackling. "Do we wanna know?"

 

"Oh some damn fool on Calvin's Earth learned of our offworld harvests and was having a fit about everybody not being allowed to harvest as often as they wanted, I told the fool that people can sign up for as many harvests as they want, they just can't do it back to back. He huffed that my name is on every trip, then went 'oooohhhhh' when he found out. . .welllll yah. . ."

 

"It's your ship. Moron."

 

"Then he was. . .you're out of time at least six months, you have eighteen harvests a year. . .oh god, that's an extra nine years you live every year."

 

"Yes, that's one damn reason you have us off for a few days. That and harvesting all the time would be tiring." Josette's PADD makes it's way back to Josette and is put on her belt. "Because I know you get damn tired by the end of the offworld harvests."

 

"Any news on the order?"

 

"Ellis sent out an update in the last databurst. It's just under halfway filled, I figure it will all be ready after we've planted our first crops." Everybody nods. "That will give everybody time to actually deal with it." More nods from everybody.

 

Josette returns to the dorm with her and Pat's share of the yarn they've dyed, putting Pat's in Headquarters before she heads upstairs to the building set aside for the spa and school's orders and walking around, making plans on where she's going to be putting the new machines and tables. The work that had been done on the third building was repeated on the other two and the first building had partial walls separating the three sets of sock machines. Pat finds Josette drawing up plans and nods as she looks everything over."

 

"Okay, I know the comic book and tv degrees are time consuming. . ." Pat looks at her. Josette snickers. "No, I'm taking classes from other schools on the system too." Pat nods in satisfaction. "As soon as I finish one of the other degrees, I'm starting the space degrees David took, by that time they should have a fourth one planned from the second trip. And yes, there's a number of sosh degrees on the city-ships and the colony dimension and the abject stupidity of people who were whining about not going on the first trip or not getting their own colonies and ships now. There's a textbook expo later this year I'm attending, I'm sure I'll be making multiple copies of what I bring out." Doc had come in behind Pat and nods. Then sighs as Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later.

 

"Oh dear god." Josette moans. "That retarded fool who was stunned I wouldn't let her use the house and land for her damn reality show. Now her damn reality show is going to be about her fight for justice. . .because I'm a miserable human being by not letting her run roughshod all over me." Everybody around her snorts in disgust. "Stupid bitch is wailing because all the feedback is bad, people are telling her to grow the fuck up and get the hell over it already. Quit trying to live your life through your grandkids, great-grandkids, and great-great-grandkids like you lived your life through their parents. The authorities will throw her ass in jail for ninety days if she's found on my land again, I've got a permanent protective order against the bitch. She goes back again after that it will six months in jail, and if she pulls her shit a third time it will be five years in prison. The authorities already told her that and told her that again in their reply to her threat to sue. Dumbass is wailing because everybody is telling her it serves her right."

 

"People like that deserve what they get. I'd say the family is well rid of her but her stupidity probably bred down through the lines."

 

"Not according to Granda, with the zero-population period a lot of these 'gonna act up and misbehave' shows got canceled and without living in the damn spotlight some of the younger kids might actually become human beings instead of media whores. Emphasis on might."

 

"Yep." David drawls. "Now, I understand Doc wants to go back out to the ship?"

 

"Yeah, he wants to explore it some more. Whoever filled it made sure it was all stuff we could . .." Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later. "That goddamn retarded whore, she tried suing claiming we stole the land from her. Ohhhh, fucking hell no. Now she's wailing in front of every damn camera she can find that she's the damn victim and nobody's believing her. She got slapped with a huge fine for filing a frivolous lawsuit and is wailing that having to pay it would destroy her financially."

 

"Which is why she wanted the damn reality show." Alan snorts. "Yeah, the retarded whore took a swing at me and I damn near knocked her head off. She went wailing to the court but since she started it she got 90 days in jail for it. She's wailing that now she can't pay for the kids education if she's gotta pay her fine and will be tossed into the work dimension to make enough money for the kids education. ..not that she probably meant to pay it before."

 

"No, that was an excuse not to pay the fines." Principal Madison snorts from the doorway. "Ready?"

 

"Yep." The others look at them. "I think it's time I saw the ships myself."

 

"Hell, we'll all do it. Nothing else to keep us here." David says. A few minutes later they're all gathered and David opens the tesseract onto the ship, the maps quickly updating to show all of them there. Several hours later, they'd all devoured the snacks brought back from the dining hall they walk back out to the dorm, Josette bringing everything out of subspace before they go to the dining hall for dinner. Professor Druid looks at her husband.

 

"Clark wanted to go to the ships again and I thought it was time I got to look at them in person. While I was there Josette got called back to Dad's Earth because that stupid fool who wanted to use the mansion for a reality show is claiming they stole it from her. After she claimed the new show would be about her seeking justice for not being able to film on Josette's land." Snorts of disgust and rolled eyes from the others. "Oh yes, everybody's calling her a damn fool so she was pouting and tried saying the land was stole from her. She got fined for filing a frivolous lawsuit and went wailing this would ruin her financially. . ."

 

"Which is why she wanted the damn reality show." Professor Druid snorts.

 

"Oh yes, she tried hitting Josette and our little brat. . ."

 

"Kicked her ass up around her ears?"

 

"Yes, she went wailing to the court again but since she started the fight she got 90 days in jail. She's wailing that if she has to pay the judgment she won't be able to pay the kids schooling, not. . ."

 

"That the bitch would have paid it in the first place." Frances snorts. "Get sent to the work dimension to make enough money to pay the kids education? And no doubt wailing about that?"

 

"Yep." Josette snorts from the back room.

 

"Bring out anything new?"

 

"Yes, Josette brought out some boxes from the cheesemaking room, she brought out boxes from more of the 'hobby' areas. We brought out more seeds and hydroponics." Principal Madison raises a hand. "From what I understand they're supposed to be able to grow about half again one the same size would, I know the others set up an area in the dorm to see." In the back room Josette nods. "We got into some of the ready made clothes rooms."

 

"A colony would need that as well as fabric." Professor Fletcher says.

 

"Josette brought out boxes of DVDS and music. We've made sure to mark which rooms on the map in case they're not complete. Josette brought out boxes of magazines and books on knitting and quilting. . .stuff we'll have time to look through. Ohhh, are the shoes done?"

 

"No, they'll be done by spring planting. The orders were bigger this year."

 

"A lot of people picking up multiple pairs?" Professor Eppes asks. Josette nods. "Now the knitting factory is finished, Bronwen wanted to look at it this summer."

 

"The printers?"

 

"Started the first of the year and will be operating four years. Agatha's already making plans for the party for the first two." The others snicker.

 

The snow is melting and Josette spreads manure on the fields and garden, it will be tilled under in a few days. The shoe factory had closed and everybody was busy either picking up their orders or having them sent to the other planets. Josette had took the remaining supplies back to the containers and the building had been cleaned up until it was needed again. Josette had also took out more fabric for this next batch of clothes to the sewing factory and taken the boxes of scraps to Sue's where they were quickly scooped up to be added to quilts.

 

The file on the server for suggestions for the fabric is growing and Josette takes a day to remake samples of everything and drop them off at the Albatross Nest, Headquarters, or the textiles building.

 

"Lady, are you fucking stupid?" A lawyer snorts in Calvin's dimension. "No, my client isn't going to drop her lawsuit against you. You were told repeatedly to leave her alone and you haven't. You are interfering with the peaceful enjoyment of her home with your stupidity about a damn reality show. You're not that damn special bitch, nobody's going to want to turn on tv to see your ugly face and listen to your stupidity." He tears her apart and she runs out of the office building wailing. "Damn fool. Maybe this kick in the ass will make you grow the fuck up."

 

"She's whining because she's going to lose her fantastic home." His secretary snorts. "Rumor has it she's got it so far in hock. . ."

 

"Sounds about right." He snorts.

 

"Josette, was there any shoes in the stuff from the other planet?"

 

"Yes, and some of them were useless on Haven so I tossed them. I kept copies of some of them though, and saved the ones that were works of art in their own rights. Same with handbags."

 

"Like that 5000 dollar pineapple clutch?" Susan says about something they'd seen on a news show on Earth.

 

"Exactly."

 

"Yeah, it's cute. . .but Christ, that's something a kid would have. . .not a grown woman."

 

"Exactly. I wouldn't pay fifty cents for that. . .let alone five thousand dollars. But then some people are goddamn stupid. . .that fucking bitch I'm suing in Granda's dimension case in point. The stupid bitch will not leave me the hell alone."

 

"Knitting machines?"

 

"On the ship right now. The buildings are big enough but the boys are busy making tables for them."

 

"Are you goddamn stupid? Trying to hire somebody to kill that woman because she won't bow down and kiss your useless ass? Enjoy this cell you goddamn bitch, you'll be in it for the rest of your natural life 23 hours a day." Her own lawyer snorts.

 

"You gotta get me off."

 

"Fuck you bitch, you were told to get the Hell over the idea of a damn reality show and to LEAVE.HER.ALONE!"

 

"But I thought she'd change her mind and let me film." She whines in the courtroom after a judge quickly looks over her history with trying to get on Josette's land and sentences her to the rest of her life behind bars.

 

"You were told repeatedly there would be no damn reality show but you would not listen."

 

"But that house and land is perfect for a reality show."

 

"Too damn bad. . .get over it."

 

"But why won't they let me film there." She pounds her fists on the table in front of her.

 

"Because that's their home you retarded bitch." Her own lawyer snorts. "Grow the hell up you goddamn miserable excuse for a human being."

 

"But I would film in my house." She wails.

 

"That's because you're a damn media whore, they're not."

 

Her 'loving' family turn their backs on her when she's sentenced to prison, the banks taking her house since it's been mortgaged so much. She wails as she gets the judgments against her and not only has to pay Josette but the other banks too.

 

"But why?"

 

"Because you borrowed the money from all of them and only one of them could take the house. Dear gods woman, how fucking stupid are you?" Her own lawyer snorts.

 

"Make her pay them. . .it's her fault I couldn't pay the mortgages because she wouldn't let me film on her land." She huffs.

 

"Fuck you bitch, no she's not going to pay off your mortgages. You're the goddamn fool who took them out. . not her."

 

"But if I could have filmed on her land I could have paid them off." She wails before a judge. Who slaps her with yet another judgment to pay off.

 

The new machines and yarn is put in the storage areas at various rooms and the boys bring out the tables they made for the machines in the second building. The new machines had been registered in the other dimension and the patterns are selected as the yarn starts moving.

 

"Look this over, will you?" Josette hands David a set of plans later that night. "Ideas on expanding the shields over the land so they can't get on it at all unless their codes are already in the system."

 

"If there's more than one person in the vehicle they're stopped at the gate?"

 

"Yep."

 

"Is that the last of the yarn?" David asks a few weeks later when Josette comes back with a box.

 

"Yep, we were dyeing the special orders, that's why it took so much longer this time. Everybody's been taking their share and the rest is in the yarn store for sale. We're looking at possibly growing again in a couple years and use the plant dyes." The others nod.

 

"So did you break down and start the metallurgy masters?"

 

"Yes, I took two classes in it this semester since it's such an intensive degree. At least in the bookcourses." David nods, a lot of degrees are like that. At least at the higher levels when you're supposed to know what you're doing."

 

"Offworld harvests?"

 

"Coming in hot and heavy third semester, We're looking at three a week for six weeks, last of them coming in just before we have to harvest the last crops."

 

A few days after the first crops are in and the second planted they head off to Calvin's dimension for both Josette's show and the textbook expo. Josette slumps into a seat in Ellis's office and gladly accepts the mug of hot cocoa. "Okay, there's twelve more books after this, We're currently printing the first two of twenty-four planned."

 

"Thank you Josette, and thank you for passing along the 'alterations' you and the others have done to that fabric. Now all but one part of your order is ready to go, that's been delayed two weeks."

 

Josette waves a hand, "I can wait that long, I've got the show, hitting a few expos, including a textbook one with Granda, and a comicon. We planned on being down at least six weeks."

 

"How is Calvin's school doing?"

 

"Good, they're offering electives twice a week, four hour blocks. People are pouting but since they don't have a damn thing to do with anything, they've been told to go sit in a corner."

 

"Sounds about right."

 

Six weeks later for them Josette and the others arrive back on Haven. Leaning in the door of Headquarters Josette waves a hand. "Your copies of the newest textbooks in the areas I thought you'd be interested in, I'll have copies of everything. . .I scanned multiple college and university bookstores while I was out there to have a 'lot' of books to refer to. Dad's going to have copies of everything too." She sends Doc two files. "First file is the other books sorted by specialty. The second list is what I copied from university bookstores and libraries. Sorted by universities, if they're part of degrees or just on the shelf. Yes, I had way, way, way too much time on my hands. I took the ship out one day while I was there to mine asteroids for raw materials for Granda and the others, got all that sorted. . .and got everything put away on Hanover. Much to her gratitude. What was multiple buildings full of boxes and piers full of shipping containers is now ONE building half full of boxes. I'm working on the others right now."

 

"Get some sleep." Doc shakes his head.

 

"Slept a good ten hours on the way back." Josette chuckles. She walks into the administration building and waves a hand. "Three rooms of boxes, everything I got at the expo." She passes them a different list than the one she sent Doc. "What's in each container sorted by specialty. I copied university and college bookstores and libraries while I was there if you need another book."

 

"Thank you Josette." Joyce says as she starts looking through the files.

 

Josette walks into the Albatross Nest after lunch the next day. "The order from Ellis's is in. Tell me what goes where and I'll deliver it over the next couple days."

 

"Thank you Josette, we'll let you know where everything goes. Talk to Edinborough and Assyrian?"

 

"I'm there too. I've got the easy job, I'm just moving even if it is a lot of stuff, you're the ones who have to put everything away." The others laugh but nod.

 

Over the next week Josette delivers everything and takes the first larger batch of stuff to the school. The spa is full and Josette just marks down what she's delivering on a piece of paper that goes on the desk. The receptionist nods at her and she walks to the administration building, looking over at the construction going up nearby.

 

"Hotel?" She remembers Calvin saying something about putting one up in the future.

 

"Yeah." Jane says. "This way the old biddies who don't wanna share dorm rooms can book rooms for several days at a time. We're planning on hosting a special event to kick off the hotel before opening it to reservations."

 

"Not just the old biddies at the spa, classes."

 

Jane and Maria nod. "Ohhh yes, these are going to sell very well." Jane says as she puts the new socks in containers.

 

Josette brings back the second batch of sock machines and yarn, putting them in the storage area until the rest of the tables can be made.

 

"How are we coming along?" President Bartlett asks at the meeting that afternoon.

 

"The clothes will be closing just before the Harvest Festival, the supplies we'll have in should last us several years." Josette looks over the latest information Pat had sent her. "They want to get in three more items before they close."

 

"Socks?"

 

"The orders are due to start getting larger with next first month's delivery. The boys will have the tables in the buildings in another two weeks and we'll announce the new positions then. I just got back from delivering the new socks and other stuff to the school and spa, they're building a hotel on the school grounds."

 

"Dad did say something about that. That the old biddies wouldn't want to sleep in a twin bed and share a bathroom."

 

"Yes, now they can have all the fancy bedding they want. . .I think if they do they'll take a hint from casino store and have everything available for sale." Nods from the others. "They're planning on having a special event to kick off the hotel. And they can use the rooms for people taking classes." Nods from the others.

 

"Is the 'we need a city-ship to start our own colony on another planet' hoopla dying off?"

 

"Yes, once they realized there's not millions of planets out there they can just pick up and move to, it would take a trip out to find the planets. . .we lucked out in that the planets had already been found for us and terraformed so by the time we had to leave we could. . ." the others nod. "If I remember right Becka said it took sixty years on the ships to find fifteen planets within fifteen light-years that could be colonized. . .any trip that went out to find colonizable worlds would be at least even longer since they'd have to travel, inspect the worlds with probes, go over all the information, and then travel back. There'd be no way to send the information back to Earth, it would almost have to be a generation ship of it's own."

 

"Josette, we brought out the hydroponics setup from the ship."

 

"Have you found a place to set it up. Granda wants to put another one in the house on the first planet for emergencies and since we're there all the time."

 

"Yes, it's going in the administration building but I swear. . ."

 

"Yes, there was an aquaponics area. . .like ours meant to be used in conjunction with a fish farm. Once we see what the differences is between our units, we'll look into bringing one out. Okay, is there a need to grow avocados beyond what we grow now. Sticking in them in stasis would mean ripe ones year-round."

 

"Something to think about in the future. Party for your first two books?"

 

"Tomorrow." Everybody chuckles at her hangdog look. "Be nice," Doc chuckles. "The others have been waiting years to get a glimpse of what you've been working on."

 

"And the parties here are a lot better than the shows."

 

"True."

 

Josette chuckles as at the crack of eleven the next day everybody starts flowing into the building either through the door or the link to Town.

 

"Josette, do you see getting as many sock machines in the future as you have now?"

 

"God I hope not, we have eighteen thousand now. I think this is more. . .you've got to be joking about how many sock machines they have. Send them extra so we can make sure they'll be able to handle the orders." The others nod. "They didn't have the need for them our Earth did."

 

"Do we need help with the orders?"

 

"I have enough set aside for the full increased order on the ships right now. That's before the new sock machines and extra jobs. If it goes the way Granda thinks, I'll put the new machines in both buildings." Nods from everybody.

 

"Is Calvin's school reopened?"

 

Josette makes a yesnomaybe hand waggle and holds up a finger, chewing and swallowing. "Yes and no, in that they're offering elective classes twice a week for four hours at a time. But so far the kids are all taking their classes at the school in town." Everybody nods in satisfaction. "They're building a hotel by the school, I'm sure the old biddies who. . ."

 

"Would be horrified at sleeping in a twin bed and sharing a bathroom will be flocking to it." Agatha snickers. The others nod.

 

"Yep, they're going to be holding a special event to open it, from the way the others weren't quite laughing I'm sure it's probably some sort of book event and I'll be a damn guest. . ." the others cackle but nod. Nobody knows how to torture you like family. "They're going to have the good linens and what and I think they're going to have a store in the hotel where you can buy it."

 

"Sometimes you gotta pamper yourselves. And Calvin can offer a package for charity concerns."

 

Josette nods. "The hotel will also be used for people taking classes."

 

"Do we wanna know?" David sniggers as Josette walks into the dorm.

 

"About seven hundred of each sold, I left about three hundred more signed books with Agatha. Whatever was left of the thousand each I brought out." Everybody nods. "Are we bringing the books out to the bookstore?"

 

"No, the knitting books will be at the yarn store, the other books at Agatha's. . .we decided that long before the need for a bookstore. Now, we've enlarged that area in all the stores. . .now they're rooms nearly as large as the main building and there will be plenty of room. Yes, even for my books." Josette rolls her eyes at David's knowing smirk. "Has anybody been keeping an eye on that thunderstorm?"

 

"Yes, everything that could be was brought in, all the crops were domed, the livestock is in, it's just a case of waiting it out."

 

Josette sits at the window that light after dinner watching the lightning flicker and before she knows it she's sketching out plans for a fashion quilt top. Putting the drawing in the top drawer of her nightstand she draws the curtains and goes to bed.

 

"When is the boys show?" Frances asks the next morning as windows are reopened in all the buildings. All the water in the air makes it seem even wetter than it already is outside.

"Just after the Harvest Festival."

 

"Oh dear god." Pat says as she sees what Josette's working on when nobody's seen her for hours a couple weeks later.

 

"Yeah, I got the idea during that storm we had earlier, I was sitting at my window and watching the lightning flash in the distance."

 

"This isn't going to be put on a bed."

 

"No, this is an art quilt like the view from the cliff over the ocean from Black Jack's house and the cats." Josette straightens up and laces together her fingers, stretching first backwards, then forwards, and finally side to side. The evil imp in her makes her look over to see Pat's out of the way and she floats upwards, doing a loop de loop. Pat just chuckles when she lands on the floor. "I don't know why all this finicky fiddling stuff makes me more tired than working in the garden harvesting all day."

 

"You're absorbing sunlight constantly and always moving, not stuck in the same position for hours on end." Pat says in a good imitation of Doc, Professor Xavier, and Dr. Essex. Josette snickers. "That's why everybody needs some time outside in fresh air and sunshine. Especially since in several months it will be asshole to elbow bringing in the offworld harvests."

 

"And then our own crops will be coming in." Josette sighs. "Oh well, we knew it was going to happen and thank god it's not happening while we're trying to harvest our own last crops."

 

"How long?"

 

"Estimates are three years between midterms and our own crops coming in." Pat shakes her head. "Yes, this is going to be like back when we were first planting offworld."

 

"Clark told me about that old fool wailing because we didn't keep exacting records when we came to Haven and didn't start the calendar right at day one, year zero. Is he still wailing?"

 

"Oh yes, the moron didn't realize we're agricultural and complained about . ..why is all they're talking about crops? Where is the angst, the drama, the heartbreak at being on another planet. . ." Pat rolls her eyes. "There should have been more angst at the loss of your Earth, all those poor children being orphaned. . ." A snort this time. "H. . .ho. . .how can you just write, 'brought up a factory today, will work on it over the year and open it for shifts next'. Where's the howls of glee at bringing back a little bit of the civilized world?"

 

"He doesn't want to be a historian, he wants to be a damn fiction writer." Pat snorts. "Haven is civilized, we don't need factories everywhere."

 

"Yes, but nobody would ever read his work, moron would probably write down how many pieces of toast were eaten at breakfast, how many steps it was from the dorm to the dining hall, how many squares of toilet paper was used when we took a shit. . ." Pat rolls her eyes but nods. Then she smirks. "Or how many pair of socks somebody made every day?"

 

Josette roars with laughter. "Oh yeah."

 

"Speaking of socks, still only one machine?"

 

"In my room, the others are up in the third building, a mixture of ones I picked up in Calvin's dimension and what was brought off the ship." Pat nods in satisfaction as they walk down the stairs. There's a nice breeze through the open windows and doors and Pat and Josette both sigh. "So nice to be able to keep the windows open for a few more months yet. But winter coming gives the ground time to rest."

 

"Yes, that's why even if I lived on the first planet year-round I wouldn't be planting all the time. Because it's not just the ground that needs time to rest."

 

"Oh god, somebody would whine about you having windows open all year and not having air-conditioning." David snorts as he walks past. Josette shudders. "Oh god yes, because the morons can't live without it. That's what they made windows for moron, to air buildings out.

 

"Josette, how are we on raw materials?"

 

"Enough for centuries, do we need anything in particular?"

 

"No, it was just about time we looked into it at a meeting."

 

"We've got a shit-ton. Something else that old fool would be whining about. . .you've got have precise measurements of everything. . .just saying a shit-ton is not good enough." David snickers as he walks off. President Bartlett is coming their direction and he snickers as he repeats what Josette had just said, the older man nodding. "When Josette says enough for centuries, she means enough for *centuries."

 

Josette snorts as she walks past. "Granda's dimension, the government got on the asses of glass makers and they have to start using at least 50 percent recycled glass in anything they make now."

 

"Good, it won't be piling up everywhere anymore."

 

"Yep, some moron was whining about having to break up the glass before it's melted to be used and the senator just 'looked' at him and snorted tough." David cackles and even President Bartlett chuckles. "I don't see them using it yet."

 

"No, not until they get hit with fines. Because I know somebody will go whining to the courts to complain. Meanwhile the companies that already use recycled glass are going on business as usual. Meanwhile the glass will keep piling up and I'll be bringing it back with me."

 

"Glass factories?"

 

Josette looks at her PADD. "We should open them both back up in a few years." President Bartlett and David look over her shoulders and nod. "Do we have enough glass and sand?"

 

"Yes, I have . . ." Josette's lips twitch.

 

"Shit-tons of both on the ships?" Doc asks dryly behind her.

 

"Exactly. Since we haven't been running either factory I haven't had to bring larger amounts out."

 

"And unlike the fools on Earth, we have no problems using recycled glass." Principal Madison says as he comes over. "Josette, can you move some containers for maintenance?"

 

"Yeah, I figured they'd need moving pretty soon." Josette says and follows him to where they are, emptying three more and moving them to the ship.

 

"So, is everything from the other planet is in boxes now?"

 

"Yes, Each box is marked with what building it came from and each box has a number on it so we can find something relatively quickly. Of course there's still a bit of work to do in the future, I gotta go through the shipping containers and what was in the boxes already filled. . .but nothing's overflowing out of a room now."

 

"That's the way to do it. Eat the elephant one bite at a time." President Bartlett chuckles. "Do you have any containers about ready to fall apart from the other planet?"

 

"Nope, we recycled those while we were there, along with the paper ends and other stuff that was either on it's last legs or what we couldn't use in that form."

 

Nobody's surprised the next day when the domes are up and the sky looks like it's going to pour any second. This rain will be needed as plants start to ripen and it means less time filling the cisterns. Calvin and the others came out that day and look at the shuttered dorm in question until a crash of thunder makes them nod.

 

"Can't expect good weather all the time, means less we have to water. And all this water will help everything ripening."

 

"Did you move the hydroponics unit to one of the ships?"

 

"Yep." David opens a tesseract right to the control room and they lift off. They return a few months later for them and arrive back at the dorm.

 

"Get everything set up?"

 

"Yep, thankfully it's for emergencies and not because we need it."

 

"Amen."

 

Josette is called back to Calvin's dimension a few days later.

 

"Fuck you moron. No, there's no goddamn reason in Hell I'd allow this useless twat to 'take a trip' on my ship to see what space travel is like. Go to Hell, go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect two hundred dollars." The woman throws herself at her ready to scratch and claw and Josette lets her run right into a wall.

 

"Grow up you miserable bitch." She hisses in her ear. "You just want people to bow, scrape, and kiss your ass and think thousands of people on a colony would do that. they'd kill your useless ass first thing. This ain't Downton Abbey and you're not the lord of the manor. Everybody works on my planet, sometimes they have two or three jobs. Including Me." She runs off wailing. "Useless asshole."

 

Josette returns to Haven. "Wanna know?" David asks.

 

"Some old fool wanting a trip on my ship to see what space travel is really like. It can't possibly be as bad as VR is making it look to be. I told her No and the dumbass bitch ran into a wall after trying to run at me with her damn claws out."

 

Calvin rolls his eyes and Simone sighs. "I told the dumbass bitch her 'beloved' colonists would kill her ass first thing when she started lording it over them. This ain't Downton Abbey, she's not the lord of the manor, and everybody on Haven works, usually two or three jobs. She ran off wailing."

 

The yearly crops are starting to come in and everybody's busy over the next couple of weeks. Wheedling attempts to get her to change her mind are met with derisive laughter. Attempts on her part to sue for not taking her into space are met with coverage on all the networks of what she'd done and the fool woman is soundly booed everywhere she goes. The horror of everybody knowing what kind of miserable old fool she is sends her to her 'deathbed' but she soon gets up when nobody comes begging her to live and huffs off.

 

Fucking idiot is the general consensus on both Earth and Haven. The second crops will start coming in in a couple weeks so they're enjoying the break.

 

"Second book party?"

 

"A week after the Harvest Festival?"

 

"Is the cotton yarn selling well?"

 

"Yes, while some will just buy socks. . ." Josette checks the supply on her PADD. "A lot of the knitters are buying the yarn. Or just continuing to spin their own. There's still lots of baggies that can be spun and turned into yarn."

 

Nods from the others. Josette can be seen many a night with a drop spindle working on yarn.

 

Josette leans next to President Bartlett that night at dinner. "Okay, do we need me to bring out supplies of socks, underwear, and bras in a few years?"

 

"No, we've got plenty of stock on hand." Principal Madison says, holding up a hand to the person he's talking with. "I was looking at the stocks the other day with Dad." Josette nods and goes in the back room.

 

David looks at her. "Asking if I needed to bring out socks, underwear, and bras from the ships. I got tons in various sizes from the other worlds. Dad says he and Granda were looking over the supply." Nods from the others.

 

"When are we going to have to take back empty containers?"

 

"Next year, we're slowly winnowing them down and Earth doesn't need them yet. Granda asked me a couple days ago."

 

"The new tables are nearly done, you're still planning on bringing out the sock machines and yarn after the Harvest Festival?"

 

"Yeah, I'll have a third shipment of yarn and machines the end of the year. This will be the first of two for next year. . ." The 'oh god' look on Principal Madison's face is replaced by a 'okay, that's better' look. "This next two batches are going in the building here at the school. After that we'll be looking at the output before we get more sock machines and yarn beyond personal use." Josette looks over at Elaine. "There's going to be a special thing after Thanksgiving at Ellis's to introduce a new yarn line, interested?" Elaine nods vigorously. "Okay there's about ten of us going then. You, me, Pat, three people representing the suppliers here and the other planets, Suzie, somebody from Edinborough, and two from the 9th and 10th planets, other than the four of us they haven't decided who yet." Nods from the front room.

 

"Josette, this is a stupid question but yarn?"

 

"And fabric on the lost worlds? Tons, right now everything's in boxes. Not so much from the last world because he mostly made what he wanted or what he thought he could use to bribe ladyfriends." Nods and snorts from the others. "We won't need acrylic for centuries. I'm sure there's probably planets out there that are nothing more than huge factories to make cloth and yarn. And dammit, I just jinxed myself. . .didn't I?" Everybody in both rooms snigger and nod.

 

Josette walks out into the garden after lunch, coming in with a basket of early ripe stuff. David looks at it and nods. "I thought we'd be getting some stuff in early."

 

"Anybody made plans for the growing area?"

 

"I'm working on it now." Susan calls. She puts what she's working on up on the screen and they talk everything over.

 

"More rain?" Alan asks when he sees the girls looking at the weather probe reports.

 

"Yep, this will be the last oomph needed to start everything ripening."

 

"At least it's not like Becka's dimension where it rained solid for a month, everything still in the fields was harvested early or rotted."

 

"And no crops lost to an early frost like you saw in the Little House books."

 

"Little House books hell, Ma and Pa can tell you about storms that took out crops." Everybody nods.

 

The crops start coming in hot and heavy in a couple weeks and everybody is busy canning, drying, or otherwise storing everything they haven't already eaten. Josette had brought out boxes from the food preserving and storage area and found boxes of canning jars, boxes of lids, boxes of books on how to can and recipes. They make mental notes to try some of the new to them recipes in the future and plant the third round of crops.

 

After the Harvest Festival everybody heads out for the boys show in Mom's dimension, returning six weeks later for them. A couple days later Josette comes into the Albatross Nest and pushes a bunch of books in Agatha's direction. "Cookbooks from the ship." She smiles and starts passing them along to the others as Josette heads back off again, dropping another pile in Sue's store and getting similar results.

 

"Get the books took out?" Principal Madison asks when she comes back.

 

"Yep, they were already reading them when I left."

 

"Your party?"

 

"Next week."

 

Susan is laughing when she comes out of the dorm. "They're already whining about having to break up the glass and melt it in Calvin's dimension."

 

"Of course they are." Principal Madison snorts. "God forbid bottles and jars not just pile up until they're as tall as the Empire State Building. . .because 'we' don't. . ." Josette eeps and disappears, coming back a second later and splitting off a half-dozen other selves that fly off. "Not a lost world?"

 

"No, prospering worlds that need extra taken away because they produce too much. It would just go to waste otherwise." Doc and Principal Madison both nod.

 

"Where was I?"

 

"Businesses don't want to be bothered to break up and melt the recycled glass bottles and jars." David snorts.

 

Josette returns an hour later, showing buildings of stuff in stasis.

 

"Are you sure you didn't take too much?" Doc asks.

 

Josette shakes her head.

 

/Like Earth where the big commercial farms would leave stuff in the fields. While some groups would go in and take stuff for food banks, a lot was left to rot. I was in a second round of gleaners./ She says mentally since her mouth is full with a sandwich she'd just made. /Others were taking whatever they could too. The planets grow it with the idea of sharing it. The whole grow an extra row movement./ Doc nods in satisfaction as he sees before and after pictures and sees there's still some left.

 

"Grow an extra field is more like it." He says as he looks through the pictures. Josette pops the last bite of her sandwich in her mouth, nodding as she chews and swallows. "Starship crews will come in and gather up the rest, they'll be glad of the fresh fruit and veggies after replicated." Doc nods. While you can grow some food on starships, most of their supplies would be coming from replicators.

 

"Soooo, was there planets making nothing but fabric and yarn?" David drawls. Josette sighs and nods. "Not as bad as the damn planets that are nothing but malls but close. At least they didn't have to ship their food in."

 

"So, found a plant yet that grows books, DVDS, or music?" David snickers.

 

"No, but I'm sure some mad scientist is trying somewhere." Josette snorts. "Have a plant in your cabin on a long trip for entertainment."

 

"You mean you want the crew members to relax?" David mock-yelps. "If they do that they might not work themselves to death for us. But yeah, that's something they'll have to think about on a twenty or twenty-five year trip. . .won't be able to pick up tv."

 

Nods from the others.

 

"First of all, they're going to have to find a way to go ftl."

 

"Can the current city-ships do it?"

 

"N. . ." Josette tips her head sideways a second. "Welllll, yes and no. Not without some modifications. They'd be better off either taking the ships into tractor beam or building new ships if they make ftl engines."

 

"Warp factor four Mr. Sulu." Michael orders imperiously.

 

"Aye aye Captain." Alexander pretends to move slider controls and pushes his hand out, palm forward while making a whooshing sound.

 

Principal Madison snickers behind them. "They'd need plans for a real colony before then, not. . ."

 

"A damn pipe dream from somebody who thinks they're all that. Yeah, and I don't see that for several decades. They've got a good start of a space program but it needs to be better. And that will take a lot of work. Which. . ."

 

"a lot of people on Earth aren't interested in. They want the glitz and glamour, a quick fix and not the hard work associated with it." Nods from everybody. "It took us years to get where we are now. Yes, we were able to bring up our homes and can bring out other buildings but we had to work on all of them. We grow our own food and muck out stalls. While we don't have to dig outhouses we have to check the septic units and the dry stuff goes on the gardens."

 

"We have power but we need to watch the solar panels or batteries so we don't drain them. We don't have heat at the turn of a dial, we have the ceramic heaters we can run a couple hours and the wood. Even the homes with furnaces have to be careful not to drain the batteries during a storm."

 

"They're expecting everything to be the same. . .Eureka is the largest town on Archimedes and the 9th planet, it's a tossup between Town and Albatross here. On the vampire planet it's Smallville. On Earth all of those would be. . . " Josette snickers. "Yeah, I was telling Dad on Earth that the old fools who wanted the colonies and city-ship would be horrified at Eureka. . .theirs." Nods from everybody. "The dorms and Empire State Building wouldn't be the exception, they'd be the norm on their planets."

 

The following week Josette is in the Albatross Nest, Agatha looking over everything in satisfaction before the clock strikes eleven and everybody starts coming in either through the link to the other store or the front door.

 

"Thank you for the cookbooks Josette, have you tried any of the recipes yet?"

 

"No, but we've got a list of additional stuff to grow in the dorm over the winter with them in mind." The others laugh and nod. After everybody's eaten their fill the books are all grabbed and Josette starts signing them.

 

"Another around seven hundred for each book?" David asks when Josette returns to the dorm.

 

"Yep." Josette sighs as she drops into a seat. "I took out a thousand of each and quickly signed the rest after the party. Took a whole five minutes since I didn't want to rip the pages. . .or set them on fire." The others snigger. If Josette had wanted to do it the easy way she'd have just handwaved it. A crash of thunder has Josette sighing. "At least it held off until after the party."

 

"Yep." The rain starts a few minutes later and it's still raining when they go to dinner a couple hours later.

 

Josette eeps and disappears, reappearing a few seconds later. "Damn fool idiot who tried suing to get a trip on the ship. Now she petitioned the government, because I had to be funning her about working, right?" Snorts of laughter from the others in both rooms. "Dumbass ran off wailing when I told her all I do on Haven. From plowing the fields and planting the crops to harvesting them, canning the majority of it for the winter. Making soap and candles, quilting, spinning yarn for socks, hats, and mittens. Doing the laundry and hanging it outside to dry when it's good weather. Having to use candles at night to keep from draining the battery unless you have solar panels. No heat at the turn of a dial so you have to burn limited wood to keep your home halfway warm."

 

By now everybody is nodding and sniggering. Everything Josette is saying the truth but making it seem so much harder. "Dumbass ran off wailing because she . . ."

 

"Figured a colony would be just like on Earth . ..except you know, on another planet." Everybody choruses.

 

"What happened to that stupid twit who wanted to film her reality show?"

 

"Ohhhh, she's wailing that it's not fair I won't bow, scrape, and kiss her useless ass daily in prison. The other prisoners are laughing at her. She wanted better accommodations, a five star chef planning her meals. . .moron is working twelve hours a day at two jobs and going to be there for the rest of her life most likely. I'm sure the bitch will probably start planning a real life Orange is the new Black."

 

The next several weeks pass quickly and soon it's the first offworld harvest. David leans over Josette's shoulder as they wait for everybody in Town and sniggers. "And what's going on through the twisted mind of yours?"

 

"Oh, just realizing how miserable that fool woman would be at one of our offworld harvests. But. . .Why are you canning all this food? Can't you just buy everything at the store?" The story of the fool woman going to the government whining that Josette had to be lying about having to work on Haven had had tongues wagging for a while.

 

"And where does she think the stuff in the store comes from?" One of the women from Edinborough sighs.

 

"She doesn't think." Josette snorts. The last person comes over and taps PADDS and David opens the tesseract for them. Hanover lifts off once everybody's in their rooms.

 

"But I thought she was funning me about having to grow their own food." Dumbass wails in Calvin's dimension as she looks at pictures of Haven that show gardens everywhere. "Where are the cars, where are the trucks delivering everything?"

 

"Moron, this is another fucking planet. Unless they make it themselves, they do without it. There are no trucks delivering stuff."

 

"But doesn't the government supply everything?"

 

"She is part of the government you goddamn idiot."

 

"But you mean you wouldn't be shipping us stuff all the time?"

 

"No moron, you're limited to what you can take with you."

 

"Even a city-ship?"

 

"Yes Moron, even on the city-ship. They filled up with supplies and lifted off for both missions, if they ran out they were out."

 

Dumbass runs off wailing, she'd been so sure Earth would be delivering supplies to her whenever she asked.

 

"Goddamn moronic twit."

 

"Well, always going to be one you want to beat to death with a shoe because they're too damn stupid to live. She's one of them. Because no matter how many times you tell her something's not going to happen, she won't listen."

 

The next several weeks pass slowly on Haven and Josette slumps into a seat one night.

 

"Is that everything?"

 

"Yes, the last of the crops are in, the plants are tilled under. The cisterns are empty and the filters cleaned." David says. "Did you pick up the recycling?" Josette nods. "And dropped off the other food, either to be stored until needed or handed out." Josette looks at the clock and sighs. "Fuck it, I'm taking a power nap. Wake me in twenty."

 

"Is everything in now?" Pat asks ten minutes later as she looks around the door to Headquarters and finds Josette leaning back against the couch.

 

"Yes, she'll be up in. . ." David looks at the clock. "Another ten minutes."

 

True to his words Josette's eyes snap open ten minutes later.

 

"You going to live?" Pat chuckles as Josette stretches and yawns.

 

"Yes, it's just everything coming in bing bang boom. A good night's sleep will do wonders. That and knowing I don't have to go through all this again when I wake up tomorrow morning." The others laugh and nod.

 

 

It's storming again when they go to the dining hall for breakfast the next morning.

 

"Well, at least this shit held off until the crops were in. Am I nuts or. . .?" Professor Parker asks.

 

"No, we've been getting more storms than normal this year. If this was Earth it might be a magick user meddling but I can feel it's been a normal if bad for storms year and so can Ms. Munroe." Josette says from the back room. "It's just been a bad couple of years." The others nod. "The forecast?"

 

"Days of this and it will be turning to snow." David says, looking at his PADD. The others sigh but nod.

 

A week later a group of nine people arrive at the dorm and David opens the tesseract to one of the ships. They return an hour later Haven time but several days later for them. They've got samples and information that Josette had duplicated on the trip back and shake off their rain gear when they go back to where the others are waiting.

 

"With some work .. .we passed on a few suggestions and got some nods so the manufacturers had been thinking the same thing. Nothing truly garish and they're going to be offering basic white with the thought of dyeing your own colors. We put in larger orders for each color and quadrupled that for the white. . .each."

 

The others look over the copied information and nod in thanks.

 

Thanksgiving is bustling at the school, there's a number of topics being discussed in the front and back rooms between mouthfuls of food. Josette had passed along the cookbooks to the kitchen staff and they'd rapidly been replicated and new dishes had started entering the menu.

 

"Have you planted?" Professor Druid asks Josette.

 

"Yes, and we've already started making notes for the others.

 

Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later.

 

"Some asshole complaining about us blocking the land. We can't possibly be the only landowners there. . .that's a public road. . .isn't it? When he was told no, we do own all the land and it's a private road he broke down wailing. How. . .how. . .how can we do that to him?" everybody in earshot rolls their eyes. "Yes, the moron was drug off wailing about how it's not fair. He'd brought an action before the local board trying to say that was a right of way that would take him to another road. He could get to the same road in twenty minutes by staying on the main road and turning onto that road. . .which goes the damn opposite direction from the way he wanted to go. . .something the fool couldn't explain when somebody at the board meeting asked him that."

 

"Course not, he wasn't expecting people with some damn sense to be in charge and ask questions, he was expecting everybody to rubber stamp what he wanted." David snorts. "Idiots who think they're all that are the only people who try to control other's lives." Nods in both rooms.

 

Josette settles in her usual spot at the Albatross Nest with a plate on her knees and a bottle of Haven Dew next to her. They talk about the yarn, the order that was slowly getting put away, how damn wet that fall had been . .which morphs into other years of foul weather both on Haven and back on Earth, the sale of the grab bags at the Harvest Festival, and other stuff. The kits and cookies are passed out later and Josette is elbow deep in a sink of hot soapy water as the dishes and other stuff is washed. Everything is sorted out and she heads back to the dorm.

 

The others had started arriving the night before and she finds Pat and Pat in her book room.

 

"Yeah, you can see the difference when the books have been released in Mom and Granda's dimension."

 

"How many printings have you had?"

 

"The first couple sets are on their second printing except for the first book. . .that's on it's fourth printing. The rest. . .still the first printing."

 

"How many more books?"

 

"Eighteen books, three more years. That will put me at nearly all the books that I can finish finished and printed. The others can wait."

 

Josette eeps, disappears, then reappears cussing a few seconds later.

 

"Goddamn asshole. Fucker tried going to the board trying to claim the road on our land had to be public and got his ass handed to him. Now he's 'disabled' mentally and we're keeping him from his home. Bastard had a fit when I proved that the only people that live on the land are the eight of us. If his sister had been able to steal our land their brother could have cut down all the trees he wanted. Now he actually has to pay people what the trees are worth. He can't go in, clearcut everything, take what he wants and leave the land owners to deal with everything else. It's not fair." Josette mock sobs crodile tears as both Pats roll their eyes. "Yep, asswipe not only did not get what he wanted, he's facing serious charges now for continuing to harass us and steal the land. And his brother is getting looked at. . .especially if what he said about his business practices is the truth."

 

"Whole family is crooked." Dr. Hazlitt murmurs in the front room at dinner when Josette tells the story.

 

Everybody nods nearly in unison.

 

"Enjoy prison you damn fool, it's what you deserve."

 

"But they own all that land. . .it's not fair. We could turn it into a whole community. . ." he wails as the door slams behind him. "But they could have sold for what he was offering. . ."

 

"The others are going to beat him to death for his stupidity." one guard says to the other.

 

"Yep, same with his idiot sister and her boyfriend. And his brother if he did what the moron claimed. If the cons don't beat him, his brother will for getting the authorities on him." Nods from the other guards as they continue their patrols.

 

 

 

Josette slides into her usual seat the first 'government' meeting of the year. "Oh, that old fool is back to his complaining." Doc looks at her. "Now we don't read the minutes from previous meetings."

 

"Oh dear god." President Bartlett moans. "We're all here, we don't need the damn minutes read. . .or taken. If by any chance one of us misses a meeting, the others will tell them if something important was talked about. That old fool just wants to complain."

 

"Yep. Okay, the first of the new tables are up in the sock building on campus, the new employees are setting them up and starting them running." Everybody nods in satisfaction. "I'm taking out the first larger order tomorrow. The hotel is 'unofficially' open, there's going to be a special event while I'm out there. Yes, it's a book party and yes, I'm one of the featured authors." The others chuckle at her hangdog look. "The morons who complained about the school having stores, a spa, and now a hotel were told to go blow in the wind and they walked off sulking. The fool who wanted a trip on my ship was told to get the hell over herself or find herself in a home, her family wasn't putting up with her shit anymore. The old fool who wanted to film her damn reality show on my land is now wailing that 'why can't I have a colony. . .that would be the ultimate in reality shows? Ummm, because you're in prison? Moron.'" Everybody shakes their heads or sighs.

 

"Always going to be those type of personalities."

 

"How's the sales on the cotton yarn?"

 

"Good." Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later, splitting off a duplicate that settles in the seat as Josette flies off. "Another pickup of the fleeces. It's been a very good year. If the pickup is as massive as I think it is, I'm going to look into turning it into yarn and cloth." Doc nods.

 

"Okay, your degrees?"

 

"Going to be finishing the second degree on the Titanic this year. David's going to be starting the second semester for the third degree on space travel?" David nods. "Are they still planning a fourth on the second trip?" He nods again. "As soon as I finish one of my other degrees on the system, I'll start the same set of degrees. The experts in Calvin's dimension has the information from the trip to the sun from Becka's dimension. . .I could almost see a degree about that."

 

"That would be another set of degrees, probably on each planet." President Bartlett says. Principal Madison nods. "Especially if they took another trip and put probes around the other planets."

 

Josette waves a hand. "Her grandparents did that ages ago. The information comes to their ships and is relayed to NASA."

 

"Josette, supplies for the laundries?"

 

"Won't need to open the factories for years. I was looking through everything last week." The others nod.

 

Josette comes back an hour later and drops into a seat on the couch, leaning back and looking at Doc, David, and her other self that had just come back from town. "Got the fleeces and stopped at another planet and picked up massive amounts of fabric and whatnot. They were glad to have it actually used instead of being recycled. It had all been ordered by some absolute fool who had plans to overthrow the government of her world. . .because they weren't doing things the way she wanted. They were treating everybody the same and she's 'spe-shul'. . ." Doc sighs as David rolls her eyes. "So anyway, the nitwit is in prison for the rest of her life and the order was just sitting there, I got it before the order to start recycling it went out."

 

"Oh please. . ." Josette snorts a week later as she reads the databurst. "Even if you got a damn colony you'd be whining to come home within a week because you have to do everything yourself. . . it's hard." A guffaw from behind her makes her grin at Monk. "If they had any brains they'd settle on the planet a month or so before the were due to start planting so they could get settled before planting crops. Then they'd really see hard."

 

"They cannot get it through their heads that a colony is not just like Earth. . .you know, just on another world. Or that nobody's going to be kissing their ass for existing." Ham says as he walks through. "Is Susan here, there's a meeting in Eureka for. . ."

 

Josette points at a powder room door just as the toilet flushes. "She ran in just before you two came out. And if the people who wanted the colonies weren't so damn stupid, I'd suggest bringing some out to Haven like we did the others, show them what real life would be on a colony world. . .but they wouldn't last a week."

 

Doc nods as he comes out the door of Headquarters. "Meeting?"

 

"Already got one out there. I'm at the book party for the Albatross Nest."

 

"Ahhhhh, I thought it was soon."

 

Josette comes back from the party and joins with her duplicate that had been on the couch reading the latest databurst. She sits down and starts checking the list of what she'll need to grow on the first planet that year.

 

Josette is upstairs in the buildings taking care of everything when the others come back from Archimedes, putting the socks and other stuff away in the containers before joining the others in the living room.

 

"Anything important?"

 

"Not really, just some nonsense." Josette snorts. The others sigh but nod.

 

"You are a fucking idiot." Calvin says, scowling at the man in front of him who'd demanded a meeting about Haven. "The colony has been in operation for over a hundred years. Do you really think that they haven't considered the need to switch jobs by now? Most people on the planet have multiple degrees and work in multiple areas, just like they do here at my school."

 

He runs off wailing and Calvin sighs. "Is it just me or are people getting stupider?"

 

"It's not you. That's why there's so many people whining about Josette keeping her land." Jane snorts as she walks into the office.

 

"How are reservations at the hotel?"

 

"Good, the hotel was booked nearly solid for the book thing. .." Jane sniggers as she remembers Josette's disgusted look. "We're getting some walk-ins but a good two-thirds of our reservations is spa related. Which is getting more business now that the old biddies have a place to stay that's 'suitable'." She rolls her eyes. "Oh well, can't complain. We're soaking them for their stays, that lets us offer rooms for the classes at half-price. The meeting rooms and banquet halls get a lot of business, as does the restaurant."

 

"Have we had requests yet about offering a package as a charity donation?"

 

"Not yet." Jane flips a page on her clipboard. "Libraries?"

 

"We've got shipments coming for both in a couple months." Calvin says. Jane makes a note. "Anything on the orders?"

 

"They're very satisfied Josette and the others can handle them but still want to send out more machines as part of the supplies to make sure." Jane looks at the notes from her calls. "I expect the orders to increase over the next five years." Calvin nods.

 

Josette yawns as she walks into the dining hall, holding up a hand. "Damn bunnies howled and I was up most of the night working on outlines for more fiction. Don't ask me to do anything too hard today. . .like think." the others snicker. "It's good sleeping weather anyway." The others nod. The snow falling outside is making everybody want to doze off and there's nothing anybody has to do. Josette eeps and disappears, reappearing wide awake a few seconds later.

 

"Goddamn idiots still trying to take the land, now they're trying to claim we have a mortgage and hadn't paid so we need to be evicted and the land foreclosed on. But there was no proof and they misspelled my name three times. They're wailing in prison that it should have worked. . .we don't deserve that land. There's more 'damn you morons, the fucking laws are still in effect. . .leave them ALONE' statements in the media and a law was just passed, trying to take any land is now a capital offense and will see you in prison for the rest of your damn life. Not even the bleeding heart groups that try to get prisoners off will touch them now. Too many people realize just how easily it could have been them. The damn sad thing is, there's tons of vacant land for sale and tons of empty houses and apartments. And half full or completely empty malls. Hotels. . .except for Granda's have a lot of empty rooms. But rather than deal with already existing businesses or homes, they'd rather try for all new stuff that would sit empty because nobody fucking needs it. But everybody should come flocking to it because it was built by them." Josette drawls. Everybody sighs but nods.

 

"Do you see this stopping it?"

 

"Hell no, the morons are up in arms at being told they can't snap their fingers and get whatever they want. They'll show us. . .the realtor dimension is back on."

 

Hoots of laughter and snorts of derision meet that declaration. "Idiots are going to find it's a lot of work."

 

"Well yeah, but they're the fools who see instant massive profits with people falling at their feet in thanks. Because there could be a thousand malls, but we need a thousand and one." President Bartlett snorts but nods.

 

"Bu. . .buh. . .but waddaya mean there's no electricity in the other dimension?" One of the cooks snorts as Josette fills her tray. "I thought all the buildings without power lines in the colony had the lines underground. You mean electricity isn't magic and you have to create it? And you need a power plant for that? That's how many millions of dollars?" She mock-wails and everybody laughs and nods.

 

Josette stretches and yawns when she walks into the dorm, the others laugh but agree this is a good day to do nothing but relax.

 

Pat chuckles as she finds all of them in various stages of sleep when she opens the door to Headquarters an hour later. The story of what had happened is already all over Haven and will be on the other planets by that night. Josette looks over at her and decides she's lolligagged long enough, getting up and following her inside where she tells the others what happened.

 

"Dear lord."

 

"Well they believe their own damn press and think that they can do anything they want." Josette waves a hand, "Always going to be some absolute idiot who believes his own damn press and thinks he can get away with anything. Because it's for the 'Greater Good', the world needs more malls and whatnot rather than standing forests of trees, farms, and of course we don't need our home." Josette snorts. "The judge asked if I wanted their homes as part of the judgment against them, you should have heard them howl until the judge asked them what they thought they were doing to me. You could have heard a pin drop then."

 

"Figures, they never thought about how this might happen to them." Pat snorts. "Are you awake enough to help me with a few things?"

 

"Yeah the fight with the morons wanting the land woke me up from the damn muses howling in my ear most of the night. It's just the weather making everybody sleepy. Since we don't need to get out and do something, we're being lazy."

 

"At least one saving grace, no families are being ruined by this." Ham murmurs.

 

"Nope, the morons would have waited until they were filthy rich and then women would have been flocking to them. They'd be able to have their pick of them. It wouldn't have been a real marriage."

 

"No, it would have been a marriage of convenience. . .for both of them. And the children . ..if there were any, would be sent off to the 'right' boarding schools in the old days." Pat says as they walk to the containers and she starts calling items off, Josette bringing stuff out then rearranging the contents so she can move containers to her ship when she asks Pat if she wants it done.

 

Hugging her when she's done and thanking god that their extended family will never be like the fools she has to deal with all too often in Calvin's dimension she heads back into the dorm, finding David talking with his Dad. David looks at her. "Told the others what happened and Pat asked me to move some stuff, I was able to empty six containers for her and move them to the ship."

 

"Yeah, we should probably start looking through our containers." Alexander stretches and yawns as he walks to the nearest bathroom.

 

Over the next few days they consolidate containers and Josette walks into the office. "Dropped off nearly a hundred empty containers, anything I need to handle?" She asks Maria.

 

"No Josette, what we'd be sending you isn't in yet." She grins. "Congrats on yanking the wind out of the morons sails. Now that they realize 'yes, you will be punished for this shit, we done fucking told you that repeatedly the realtors are keeping their heads down as they vainly try to find a way to turn their dimension into whatever they want. And failing miserably."

 

"Well yah, that's why the damn thing didn't go through before." Josette snorts. "But then they're sssssssoooooooo much better than everybody else." Maria nods frantically. "Anyway, I passed along outlines to Madison for books and she demanded I get my ass out to talk to her or she'd track me down and lecture me severely." Maria's cackling as Josette heads off. Madison looks at the camera and pulls Josette into her house.

 

"Damn, I think I left my shadow out there." Josette straightens up. "I am here as ordered, oh mistress."

 

"Yeah, right." Madison snorts. "As if I could really order you to do something you didn't want. So?" She knows she didn't make a trip out just for her.

 

"Dropping off empty shipping containers. ..ours, Pat's, the school's, and what I picked up from the others order from Ellis. We don't need them sitting around somewhere." Madison nods and sits her down to talk.

 

Doc is waiting when she returns to Haven. "Dropping off empty containers, working on the recycling, and talking to Madison about the new books." He nods in satisfaction. "I heard rumors they're expanding the moonbase?"

 

"Yes, they've been talking about it for a while. In the beginning it was meant to be temporary. Have you heard anything about the city-ship?"

 

"They're still talking about what the next step is going to be, where they're going and how long the trip will be. Despite the morons wanting a colony and city-ship of their own, there's no damn need for them to find new planets to colonize. Becka's dimension the planets were found but with all the damn deaths thanks to that fucking machine they won't be needed for centuries. Personally, I see future expansion of the colony dimension with a second or third round of settlers more than I see a space colony."

 

Doc nods in agreement.

 

"Are you goddamn retarded? No, you can't sue the woman whose land you tried stealing for wrongful imprisonment. You created false mortgage papers to try to steal her land. . .that's fraud and attempted theft." one of the jailhouse lawyers sneers a the man across from him. "Now get the fuck out of my face."

 

"But she's still got the land, isn't it no harm, no foul?" he whines. "She's walking around free and I've been in here for weeks."

 

"Get used to it, you're going to be in here for years you damn fool." He runs off wailing. "Damn idiot." Another man snorts. "Yes, the little fool firmly believes that since she was able to keep her land he shouldn't have been punished for trying to steal it."

 

David finds Josette up in the growing area, taking video of both hydroponics sections.

 

"I thought the others would start demanding video by now."

 

"Yep, unlike Professor Druid who . .." is walking in the door right now. David and Josette snigger.

 

"Ahhh yes, I can already see the difference."

 

"Yes, the plants are sturdier. I don't know if it will carry over to increased yield but. . ."

 

"We'll see. . .though how the different formulations can work in fish water. . .?"

 

"I don't have any of the manuals. . .but it would have to be in the seed trays." Professor Druid nods. "Have we looked at the additive to make sure it's not harmful?"

 

"Yes, it's stuff that has been used before in other areas but not in this combination before. Doc's sprinkling some into the soil as he plants in Headquarters." Josette sends off the video off to the others and comes downstairs.

 

"Another year after this one of back to back offworld harvests and our final harvests?"

 

"This year for sure. . .next year might find us harvesting both places at once."

 

"Oh dear god, that's going to be bad. But I can understand, the drifting doesn't follow the same schedule every time."

 

"Nope." Josette sighs. "That's why we harvested early one year after a dual harvest and why some cycles were longer." Josette's eyes glaze over a second. "Storm, bad one. Coming in tomorrow night, wet heavy shit that will just dump on us."

 

"How long?" David asks, starting the message.

 

"Five weeks, three of wet heavy snow that you can get out in but you won't want to because you'll be wallering through snow up to your ass the entire time. Two weeks to blow out." David sends off the message and then the second to stick to the tunnels. In Town people grab their PADDS at the alert and the large scale replicator is turned on, people running in over the next day to pick up extra wood. ..even the people in apartments and homes with furnaces.

 

The candles are also hit and extra boxes they held back for emergencies are brought out and quickly emptied. The batteries won't last long in this type of storm and charging it with the exercise bike will be for heat, not lights.

 

"Thank god this isn't Earth where a storm like this would probably mean more than one death when the power failed. At least before things started getting so bad." One of the cooks says to the others as they put the leftovers away in one of the walk in coolers and otherwise get everything ready for the next day.

 

"Yep."

 

Three long weeks later Josette pushes open the doors for the dogs and breathes in the cool but fresh air before flying up to uncover the solar panels at the school and splitting off duplicates to handle those on the other continent if they're not taking care of them themselves. The others are beginning to get up and the doors are shut a few minutes later. After breakfast maintenance can be heard with the snowblowers as the boys bring out theirs to clear around the dorm and waller out to the barn to crack open the door for fresh air for a while.

 

Josette comes back from planting on the first planet and leans back against the couch. David walks past and chuckles. "Spend the entire time out there?"

 

"Yes, and sold what I could. Everything is either now dried or put in stasis." Josette yawns. "Are we producing upstairs?"

 

"Getting there, a lot of tiny little tomatoes, peppers, and other stuff. Including baby corn." Josette snorts, there'd been a hoopla in the last databurst from some moron trying to get baby corn outlawed because they had to be genetically modified so you could eat the cob. . .they'd huffed off when they realized baby corn was just corn that hadn't got big yet. Same with baby potatoes. Unlike baby carrots which were just cut down regular carrots.

 

"Idiots. There's been modified food for years, farmers have been breeding crops for increased yields for years before genetically modified became a 'baaaaddddd' thing." Professor Druid had drawled.

 

"Did GD have another plant they wanted you to grow on the first planet?" She'd got a request to come out the night before.

 

"They're working on something, but it will be a couple years yet. No, they wanted to see if I was growing seaweed again. Either edible or to be used as raw fiber for . . .any of a hundred things." She waves a hand. David nods. "I've been thinking about it, but we don't have a need for it right now." David nods again. Looking at the time Josette floats up in midair and lands on her feet, heading to the bathroom. Professor Druid would be coming to the dorm in a bit.

 

"They did that on Pern, gathered up seaweed and other natural plant material in the beginning to see if it was edible or they could make something with it." Professor Druid hears David saying to the shut powder room door as she walks in.

 

"Josette?" He waves at the door. "GD called last night, wanting to know if she was growing seaweed again." Professor Druid nods.

 

"It was used in sushi much like corn tortillas for Mexican food. Real Mexican food and not our version." Josette says through the door. "If I did, I'd grow it in an enclosed area. Either something like Nori in small batches. . .though I think it's on the new replicator, or another of the edible seaweeds that could be dried, powdered, and added to fish stocks. Or chowders." Professor Druid nods. "Or growing it in an aquaponics unit."

 

"That's a thought." Josette makes a note on her PADD and they head upstairs. "We don't need the additional fiber of growing a non-edible version but I'm sure GD would have a lab experimenting with it." David nods. "Didn't want to duplicate your work if you were already growing it." Nods from both women.

 

"Oh yes, this is good, you can already see that there's more blossoms on these tomato plants. And the peppers too. I know Doc will have been taking notes on his plants." Josette nods. "it's slower because they're not in the formula all the time, more like adding chicken manure as the plants need it." Professor Druid nods in agreement. "Between the formula in the beginning and the fish water if that's how it's handled.. . I gotta call GD and see if either of them got into that section yet." Professor Druid nods. "If neither of them have gotten into it yet I'll break down and start looking."

 

"Unless they just add the additives to the fish water." David says slowly.

 

"Could, have to look and see." Josette yawns and walks downstairs, the others following them to the dining hall for lunch.

 

Josette gets hold of both GDs and the group from the other dimension a couple days later, getting blank looks and shaking heads at how the additive would work in a fish farm setting. So, pulling on her big girl underwear she flies out to the ships and starts looking through the boxes, thankfully everything had been sorted into individual areas so she's not having to search through everything for what she needs. Floating in midair she reads through the manuals and nods, putting everything away before flying home.

 

"You were right, it goes right in the fish water." She says as she slides into her usual seat in the dining hall. In the front room Professor Druid is nodding. Everybody looks at them. "We were wondering how the additive worked in an aquaponics setting. We thought it might be used on the seed trays." Nods of understanding from the others. "Is the difference noticeable?"

 

"Yeah, the second unit's plants have a lot more blossoms. Have to see if the fruit itself if bigger when it comes time to pick."

 

Josette snorts as she reads the databurst a few days later in the dining hall. "People are up in arms about an ag dimension. They need it for future food production. They don't need it, too many people garden as it is. Oh my god. . .you mean we'd have to plant the crops ourselves. . .they wouldn't be there waiting for us?" Rolled eyes and snorts of disgust from everybody around her. "The lumber people wailed like sirens when they realized if they'd want to be harvesting trees in their own dimension. . .they'd have to plant those self-same trees and it would take decades for them to grow to the size they wanted." More rolled eyes and snorts of disgust. "The realtors are still wailing because there's no power in the other dimension, they'll have to rely on solar power and that would mean nothing is open 24/7. H. . .ho. . .how can their precious malls function on limited power? The government had to build a power plant, then whined when they were told no and that the power plants had to have a way to create the power, that means they'd need their own fuel." More rolled eyes but President Bartlett and Professor Ziegler are nodding.

 

"They'd be horrified at how we survive on limited power." Principal Madison snorts.

 

"They'd be horrified at Town anyway, we don't have McMansions, ten malls in one city, a hotel, everything that they swear they can't live without." Josette snorts. The others nod. "All our stores are full. . .we don't have strip malls with at least one empty store."

 

Susan cackles. "The morons who look down their noses at plain food would be horrified. . .the only person who eats an eight course dinner is Josette. . .who eats eight dinners as a matter of course." Everybody sniggers.

 

Josette pretends to faint. "Oh my god. . .you walk everywhere? H. . .ho. . how can you do that me? My two thousand dollar shoes aren't made for walking, they're made to be seen in. Because I can afford them. . .and you. ..you can afford them? But you won't buy them because you don't waste your money on stupid stuff. . .but that's not fair." More snickering from everybody in the rooms. "Some morons never grow up."

 

Josette pokes Principal Madison on the shoulder a few weeks later as she walks into the meeting room for their government meeting. "Cherries."

 

"Yes, we were talking about adding more trees." President Bartlett smiles. "It's been several years since the farm was last expanded. Do we have more trees?"

 

"Yes, I've been growing them on one of the ships, if we don't plant them here I'll plant them on the first planet."

 

"Tart, sweet?"

 

"A mix of both."

 

"Are you going to make cherry wine again?"

 

"Planned on it in a couple years. . .'course, that was a couple years ago." Josette checks her PADD to see what she's got in storage as the three older men chuckle. David comes into the meeting room, they'd been running a little late as the others came out to look at the two hydroponics units in person.

 

David opens a window in his room when he gets home, the dorm is hitting that 'lived in' stage and everybody is opening windows for a few minutes until the furnace kicks on. The ionizer had been brought out and it was helping, but windows open for even a few minutes is more a mental relief than helping the air quality.

 

"Is the rug yarn people working on the fleeces?" Principal Madison asks at dinner later that night.

 

"Yes, we should be getting the first batch of yarn in a few months." Josette says. "The thread complex is working on the other half and should have some thread ready for weaving in about the same time." Principal Madison nods in satisfaction.

 

"Has there been any interest in the treadle machines in Calvin's dimension?"

 

"Yes, there's three sewing machines in a building for seamstresses to take orders for clothes. They built a building with solar panels, but so far it's the only one and it only runs the radio to connect the colony to Earth." Nods from the others. "They're planning on getting in the panels with wire connectors to put up inside cabins in the future and generators that are crank powered but that's going to be long in the future. Mostly because there's nothing there that needs electricity."

 

"Lights would mean winding the generator constantly."

 

"Yes, and a small ceramic heater like we have wouldn't put out that much heat. A refrigerator would have to be brought in by wagon, if they have sense they've already dug into the earth to make cold areas."

 

"Not that there's much that needs refrigeration out there."

 

"Butter and milk if they have cows, eggs if they have chickens. They'd need a blender to make their own mustard and mayo if they grew mustard seed. Not that it would be needed, they don't have the lunch meat and stuff we have. Now if it were Eureka it would be coffeemakers. . ." Snickering but nods from everybody. "But then they'd have to have a coffee plantation, it's not something you can just have a single plant for your own use."

 

"Those and solar panels would be part of a second wave of settlers though."

 

Josette sighs as she shuts the window, it's warming up but still not warm enough to have the windows and doors open for more than a few minutes without the furnace coming on. A thud in the twins room tells her they had their door open for a few minutes to get some fresh air too. Her plant is blooming and she picks the fabric, the rolls growing on her and she puts them up in her studio. That reminds her she probably should check the building.

 

"Oh thank you Josette, there's about five blossoms that need to be picked but I'm the only one here." Frances says when Josette walks in, once again marveling at how the plant's furnaces can keep the large building warm. She picks them and puts them up, bringing out some rolls and cutting fabric for herself. "I'll put out a note for us to come out and cut fabric a couple days."

 

Frances nods, "We've got enough empty bolts." Frances finishes bagging her fabric and other supplies and they head back to the school.

 

Agatha nods as she gets the message and picture, the others doing the same. They settle on a time to go out, three flyers landing by the building a couple days later. Three days work has bolts filled and everybody nods in satisfaction.

 

Of course not all the fabric had made it on the bolts, some was going out the door in the bags everybody had brought along with the yarn that had been made into skeins. Josette flips bags to the dorm and the door shuts behind them.

 

"Okay, is there a place. . ." Pat asks as everybody gets in the flyers or in Josette's case settles in midair.

 

"If a person wanted to sleep out there? Yes, in one of the other areas there's a small room with a bed, shower unit, and a bathroom beyond the one we use out there. I started a couple food plants but. . ."

 

"the building's too big and too far away for anybody to want to stay out there even if that would be some of ours dreams." Agatha says briskly. "Surrounded by all that crafting supplies and being able to work out there to your heart's content."

 

"Just like I dream of being surrounded by books and being able to sit down in a comfy chair and read as long as I want." Josette smirks. Then she facepalms. "Oh yeah, I can." Pat chuckles and pushes her granddaughter's head as the flyer lifts off and Josette follows it to town.

 

Pat and Josette walk into the dorm and go to their workrooms, putting what they'd brought from the building away.

 

"Are you done?" Doc asks, looking into her workroom.

 

"Yes, we've got enough bolts of fabric made up for a few months from all the rolls." Pat says, looking over her shoulder at him. The window of her workroom is cracked open an inch for air as she puts everything away in containers on the shelves. "How is the socks going?" she knew he was going out to the buildings after breakfast.

 

"Good, another Josette had been moving the full pallets of socks so they weren't getting too crowded in the buildings." Pat guffaws at his bland tone. She remembers the year they'd come back from England for Josette's Oxford graduation and Josette had said she'd moved stacks of sock pallets as well as empty pallets the yarn had been on before they'd left. And that was a helluva lot less sock machines and orders back then. Doc nods in agreement. Of course now the buildings were a lot bigger and they had more space for the socks. "I believe she intends to take them out in a few weeks."

 

Over the next few days the snow begins to melt and windows are opened for longer amounts of time before the furnace kicks on. When the ground is cleared Josette and the other farmers start spreading manure on the fields and gardens, tilling everything under a few days later then planting crops.

 

Josette nudges David as she comes into the dorm. "Are we growing rhubarb again this year?"

 

David looks at his PADD. "Yeah, we should the stock is getting low. And we can always pass it along to the others." Susan nods. "I'll grow it this fall then. Along with pumpkins, squash, and a second variety of corn."

 

"Did you ever decide where you're planting the cherry trees?"

 

"Yeah, I'll plant them in a couple weeks and start more for the first planet."

 

"Grapes?"

 

"We've expanded both areas over the years. Between stasis and wine they don't go to waste, that's one of the reasons we've expanded them over the years."

 

"And we can always turn extra in raisins." Doc says from the door of Headquarters. Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later.

 

"That old fool who didn't like how we ran the colony, he was demanding to come and show us everything we were doing wrong. I told the fucking bastard to go to hell, our colony ran just fine without his input. Any colony he ran would have every damn second of the day allocated if he got his way." The others snort and nod. "Bastard wailed like a siren when he tried telling me I had to obey my elders and I told the fool I was twice his age. Even older than that if we'd kept Earth's calendar. He then tried the whole 'obey your betters' argument and his own lawyer called him an effing fool. He wasn't better than anybody else. No matter how much he bellyached."

 

Principal Madison sighs and President Bartlett snorts as Josette tells them what had happened at lunch. "You're right, any damn colony he'd be associated with would run like a damn clockwork mechanism. . .if they didn't kill him for his stupidity. Because people have their own minds."

 

"Yep."

 

Josette and Professor Druid go over what they plan on growing later that year after lunch, nodding at the explanations for each crop.

 

"Fleeces?"

 

"I'm picking up the thread and yarn in a couple days and everybody's chomping at the bits to start working."

 

"Is all the fabric going to be made in the loom building?"

 

"While they'd like to, I'm only dropping off a portion of the thread there. More will be going to the schools, I'm taking some. . .all these will be for special projects since you can only do a few inches of fabric on a loom in one sitting." Professor Druid nods. "I'll turn the rest into fabric in my building. Now I'm just going to leave the fabric plain for that cloth, I know some of the others want to dye the thread for plaids and other designs." She nods again. "Won't be any damn problem to scan some of the thread into the replicator and have extra." Josette nods this time. "We could have the yarn dyed at the rug yarn manufacturer but. . ."

 

"This is something we did."

 

"'Xactly." Josette leans back against the chair. "and yes, I could have just put the fleeces in the replicator and turned it into thread or yarn but. . ."

 

"We want people involved in the process from beginning to end. That was one of the problems with Earth, nobody had to work for what they wanted. They didn't have to worry about growing their own food, heat, power. . .we're all happier here." Josette nods. "I could bring out a power building like Becka's but if we put it to the vote. . ."

 

"They'd chose the way we're already living." Principal Madison nods from the doorway. "That's why none of the houses without solar panels have added them over the years. They prefer candles after dark and during winter storms the batteries wouldn't be charging anyway."

 

"'Xactly." Josette says again. "they might buy an extra battery and charge it for bad weather but otherwise it's life as normal."

 

Anna brings down the last curtain she'll wash in this load, dropping it in the cart as Alan, Alexander, and Michael come up behind her and start washing the windows. This and being able to keep the windows open for more than ten minutes is one of the true signs that spring has arrived. Anna goes down to the second laundry and fills the commercial washers, starting them running as she brings the other curtains out of the dryers and takes them back upstairs, Susan and Abby hanging them up and spritzing them with spray starch to hold their shape.

 

David comes in from the garage.

 

"Got the snowblowers looked over?"

 

"Yep, everything is officially put away until next fall." This late if they do get snow it will melt in a couple days. Grabbing a squeegee and spray bottle he goes to another window and starts cleaning. Josette has a half-dozen duplicates washing the outside of the windows and they make faces at the others inside when they meet at a window. Doc chuckles at his granddaughter's antics. The door opens and Josette sends a file to his PADD. "What the school is growing beyond the gardens and what we're planning." He nods, no use duplicating crops beyond something like wheat everybody grows and the gardens.

 

A couple weeks later Josette walks into the office of Calvin's school. "Okay, the first order of socks is ready to be picked up, I dropped off the spa's orders, here's the other socks. . ." Josette waves a hand. "Sorry, I gotta run. I got back to back to back to back . . .well, you get the idea. . .meetings. Between the assholes whining because they can't steal the land, some asshole in the government who doesn't like how we protect our land. . ." Calvin rolls his eyes from the door of his office. "To the whiny asshole who's wailing that I won't take him to Haven so he can show us how to run the colony the 'right' way to that fool bitch who is trying to get her conviction for hiring somebody to kill us for not allowing her to film on our land overturned I'm about ready to kill somebody. Expect huffing complaints from assholes who think they're all that about how I won't kiss their asses for existing."

 

Josette slumps into a chair in Calvin's office the next morning. "The morons huffed and puffed but since the laws were firmly on my side they were told to grow the fuck up and leave me the hell alone. The land is mine and it's staying mine. The fool who wanted the colony to run like a damn clock with every second of every day being allocated to something or other was told if he bothered me again I could fucking shoot him." Calvin snickers. "The bitch whining about being in prison for trying to hire somebody to kill me for not letting her film on my land is being sent to the maximum security dimension until she pays off a huge judgment. . .if not longer. She's got a list of infractions as long as my arm and the prison is debating just dumping her ass there permanently."

 

"Serves the stupid bitch right then." Jane murmurs as she points at the containers, Josette waves them into subspace. "Okay, now I recognize the looks. . .what else beyond the socks do you want me to start making for you? I'm already going to Ellis's for more machines, Eureka not only wants more socks they want hats, mittens, scarves. . .which I suspect you do too." Everybody laughs but nods. They talk over everything and Josette arrives at Ellis's the next day. The orders of new yarn is waiting for her and she moves everything to the ship. Walking through the buildings she orders more machines beyond what she buys that day. As well as putting in a semi-permanent yarn order.

 

She looks over at Michael and Alexander when she walks into the dining hall. "You're on tap for more tables, not only does Granda's Eureka want more stuff, so does Granda." Alexander pushes his tray aside and lays his head on the table to cackle. He's not the only one.

 

"Not gonna be the only ones."

 

"Yes, I fully expect Archimedes and the 9th planet to be requesting the same things when they realize I'm making more than socks." Josette yawns. "Yarn orders were in, I'll bring everything out over the next few days. I put in a semi-permanent order for the yarn when I ordered more machines." Elaine nods in the front room. Principal Madison starts to open his mouth and Josette raises a hand. "Yes, we have enough room for the other machines in the buildings and in a while we can offer the other stuff to the other planets." Professor Druid snorfles as Principal Madison honest to god pouts. "Oh don't start Dad, I had a whole day of dealing with assholes who thought they were all that while I was on Earth. . .though I did get permission to shoot that old fool who wants to come to Haven to show us how to run a 'proper' colony if he bothers us again, miserable bastard probably would have it figured in when and how long somebody could take a shit and if they took three seconds longer than that he'd complain." President Bartlett sighs but nods, he'd dealt with plenty of fools like that in DC. Professor Ziegler is snickering but nodding.

 

"I got a huge judgment against that dumbass bitch who wanted to film her reality show on the land, she's being sent to the maximum security dimension to at least pay off the judgment. . .possibly permanently depending on whether the prison wants to bring her back. The moron's got a list of infractions as long as my arm already."

 

"Well of course, don't the prison know she's special?" Professor Druid drawls.

 

"The moron who tried stealing the land from us is pouting in prison, since he didn't get the land he shouldn't be in that horrible cell. Isn't it no harm. . .no foul? Now his brother is mad at his business practices being looked at." Cackles from both rooms.

 

"Okay," Josette yawns as she leans between her parents and looks over at President Bartlett. "These are the machines I brought out. . .the second list is the ones I ordered. I'll probably end up doubling or even tripling the numbers depending on the demand from the other planets." Josette yawns again. "Damn it, I don't know why I'm so fucking tired."

 

"The morons in the meetings drained your strength." Professor Druid snorts. "The damn meeting with parents who thought they were all that and we should ignore the rules for their darling child wiped our asses out. Toby and Jed can tell you political meetings were ten times worse."

 

"At least." President Bartlett rumbles. He looks at the lists and nods.

 

Josette leans against the counter in the Albatross Nest. "Okay, the yarn orders are in. Let me know where you want them and I'll start delivering it. I've got a semi-permanent order in since both Granda and Granda's Eureka want more stuff." Agatha snickers at her hangdog look. "I've got a bunch of new machines for them and got more on order, I'll probably end up tripling that number and offering them up for the other planets."

 

Josette snorts a few days later as she reads the databurst. "Another attempt at a colony, some fool is trying to drum up support so people can buy any land they want. . .no 'no you can't steal this land from the rightful owner' nonsense for them."

 

"Ooo la la." David snorts. "That won't fare any better than any of the others."

 

"Yep." Josette drawls. "I don't care how damn special you think you are, there's no way you can afford trillions of dollars for a colony just so you can get any piece of land you want. . .probably think they're the damn lord of the manor and the 'serfs' are going to be happy living on her land and working for her."

 

"Yep. And the 'serfs' would tell them to shove it up her ass." Michael snorts. "This ain't Downton Abbey and you're not Lord Granville, this ain't Pern and you're not a Lord Holder. . ."

 

"Morons just see people working for them, they don't see them having to take care of their servants and holders."

 

"Yep. Ain't no little people going to sign up for your oh so precious colony if everything they own can be taken from them because you think you're so damn special."

 

The talk about the colony soon crashes and burns as people call the woman wanting it a damn fool. She runs off wailing as everybody mocks her stupidity on social media. 'I never thought people wouldn't give me money if they thought their land could be taken from them' she wails.

 

"You didn't think period." is the nicest thing about the stupid fool over the next few days.

 

"Oh, she just wanted to own land as far as the eye can see while the 'little' people took care of everything." Somebody snorts. "Now that large plot of land she's complaining about . . .it's got farms on it. The land isn't just sitting there, it's being used. Just not the way she wants it to be used. Making her look good."

 

"Figures."

 

David shakes his head as Alexander and Michael put the tables in the storage areas until they're duplicated then bring them out for the machines Josette's setting up as another Josette brings out yarn that is also just been duplicated. "Might as well use it since they put it on there." Josette shrugs. Selecting the patterns the machines are started and they move to the other building where they repeat the process.

 

"Is this everything?"

 

"Until the rest of the machines are delivered to Ellis. Should be picking them up when we go out for the boys show."

 

"I can't believe another five years and we'll be 'retiring'. There's days I feel like chucking it now." Alexander snorts.

 

"We've all had days like that." Susan snorts as she walks past the doors. "Did Doc say anything about a show?"

 

"Yeah, just before Thanksgiving. I'll take out the books I've already debuted there and a half-dozen more. I'd take more out this year to the other shows but I don't want to be signing for days and they already know the shows are going to be ending soon so even more books will be sold in Granda's dimension." Nods from the others as they walk out of the building and down the hall to the steps.

 

"As it is you're already signing over ten thousand books. ..each book."

 

Josette slumps into a seat in Calvin's office, he looks at her. "Ahhh, don't mind me. . .I'm just tired of morons who think living an agrarian lifestyle makes you a damn fool who doesn't have any technology." she snorts. The man who'd been talking with Calvin rolls his eyes. "You have flush toilets and running water? Yes. You have electric lights? Yes, though most people would rather just light a candle even if you have solar panels that can power the lights. Especially during the winter when the batteries might not start charging again the next morning. You. . .you have farm machinery? Yes, they all run on battery packs. We can charge the battery packs with solar panels or ride an exercise bike and charge them that way. You .. .you have tvs? Yes, we have tvs, we also have tv stations, radios, radio stations, DVDS, movie theaters, and books. But you don't have cars? No, we don't have cars, we walk everywhere. But you drive a car here! Yes, I drive a car here because they have cars here, they also have trains, busses, and airplanes. But you don't have them on your planet! No, because we don't want or need them. Bu. . .bu. . but how can you live without cars?" Calvin and the other man are sniggering. "Oh my god. ..you speak English! Yes, I speak a dozen languages. ..how many do you speak? That's when the person usually slinks off. Much to the amusement of the others who'd been waiting for them to fall on their faces."

 

Josette is shaking her head when she returns to Haven. "We might be chucking it early, some fool in Calvin's world had a fit about not getting the gallery for her oh so precious show that night and the owner dropped your show like a hot potato. Calvin and Marcus are letting the damn gallery sink in its own shit by sending out notices that the show was canceled thanks to them. They're blubbering that we can have another night. . ."

 

"We don't want another night." Michael snorts. "For that matter. . .they could have had another night."

 

"Exactly. . .the dumbass is wailing because now they're seeing how much money they could have been making from the show that's gone now. That stupid bitch won't sell a thing."

 

"No, the ones who wail the loudest they deserve* a night that had been booked by somebody else never do. If they have any damn sense they realize what miserable people they are and slink off, the others wail it's got to be somebody else's fault. . .can't possibly be theirs. Everybody's out to get them."

 

"Are you fucking stupid?" Marcus sneers. "No, you can't fucking make them take a different night. You violated the damn contract by giving our night away, not us." The fool had sued trying to demand they accept a different night when he realized he was getting a lot of bad publicity from taking away their night. Marcus had countersued demanding the judge enforce the cancellation clause in the contract.

 

"He is correct, your own actions invalidated the contract and the termination penalties are on you. . .not them. Pay the man." The judge bangs the gavel.

 

"But they can take another night. . .why won't you make them take another night?" He wails in the courtroom.

 

"Because they chose that night specifically. You should have made that other person take another night. And if you act out like this again, you'll be facing contempt of court charges."

 

He runs off wailing. Marcus snorts. "Little fool, trying to 'turn the gallery around, bring in new artists'."

 

"Instead of sticking with the established artists who are making them money." The judge snorts. "My clerk will have the order making them pay your damages in a few minutes. Your clients?"

 

"Don't need the money from the show but they're talking with a friend of theirs to use one of their buildings for the show."

 

"But why won't you. . ." the fool tries screaming at Marcus outside the courtroom before he lays him on the ground with one punch. "Because they had already arranged the publicity for that night you goddamn little fool. Now you're sulking because instead of being a big hero in the media, you're being treated like the goddamn fool you really are. Now grow the fuck up, my clients have no intention of taking another night from you. You would have made thousands of dollars in profits from the boys sale, I hope you don't see a damn dime from theirs." Marcus walks away from the fool as security comes over to toss his ass out.

 

"But they promised me a couple thousand for that night. . .there's no proof that the other show would bring in more than that." The man who'd given away the boys night wails as his grandfather scowls at him. The show had happened the night before and the few people who'd came walked away after looking at her oh so special stuff in disgust.

 

"Really. . .if you'd googled the damn names you'd have seen they were big names in the business. She's never had a show. . .gods, the woman should stick with selling at the damn flea market." His mother snorts. "And what are your plans to fix this mess?"

 

"Can we get them to take another night?" He whines. If he asks enough they'll have to change their minds. . .won't they?

 

"They don't want another damn night and we're the damn laughing stock of the community now. I was at their last show, the gallery took in nearly half a million in profits." Her son whimpers. "So was your damn two thousand dollars for stealing that night worth it?"

 

"No." he ducks his head.

 

"Good, you might make a damn good businessman after all." His grandfather says. "Now pull your damn head out of your ass and apologize to the artists whose night you hijacked. . .otherwise we might as well shut the doors because we won't ever be able to get any artists to come to the gallery."

 

"But they could have taken another night." He wails. His mother throws her glass of water in his face.

 

"They didn't want another damn night fool, they'd already sent out all the notices about the show being at our gallery that night." She hisses as he chokes and splutters. "Needless to say, you're no longer in charge of the gallery. I'd suggest you trot down to the unemployment office and find another job."

 

"Shut up you fucking bitch!" his grandfather bellows at the stupid woman who'd burst in whining about her show flopping. He cusses her out long and loud and she runs off wailing. "And go back to selling your shit at a flea market. You're not a damn hotshot artist. you're a goddamn moron who should have got her ass beaten to death before she cost this gallery nearly half a million dollars in profit from the show we should have had last night." He yells at her retreating back. She fumbles in the back of her car and turns with a tire iron, finding a gun in her face. The police take her away from the security guards and she wails at all the bad publicity. Her family flatly refuses to bail her out, telling she she's a goddamn idiot and is finally getting what she deserved. Not everything she thought she deserved.

 

"Always going to be idiots." Josette sighs. Marcus and Calvin had hurriedly arranged for the show to go on in the complex the school had built during the zero-population period. A lot of other artists had been invited to show their work and the media was all over it, raving about how the artists had overcome the loss of their original venue . . .and hissing at what a worthless person the other person was who'd stolen their night when they weren't on camera.

 

Everybody had sold something and Josette had spent hours signing the sold books. One old biddy who'd come just to complain starts to sniff until she sees everybody gathering up to have the books signed. Including some people that she feels are just as important as her.

 

Josette slumps into a seat. "Was that moron wailing until he ran off the fool who took the night from us?"

 

"Yes." Marcus says in disgust. "Idiot couldn't believe that we wouldn't take another date. Now he saw what kind of business he could have had if he'd left the damn night alone. Not only didn't we give the fool another chance, we came out on top. We're in the gravy and he's looking like a damn fool. His family's not at all happy about him and they're losing a lot of artists, they're afraid he'll do the same thing to them he did to us and they won't be able to recover the way we did."

 

"And that stupid bitch that was the cause of all this?"

 

"Still in jail, her family refused to bail her out. She's wailing that everybody's being mean to her. Because everybody who knows her is calling her a damn fool who's finally getting what she deserves and the jail won't put up with her shit."

 

His grandfather slams the paper down in front of his grandson. "Did you see what they did? This is how a damn show is really ran, they found another venue and they brought in local artists to give them much-needed publicity and backing. Not only are we out all those profits, all the publicity is bad."

 

"But I would have given them another night." He wails.

 

"They didn't want another goddamn night, you should have told her to either take the other night or find another gallery. Gods man, didn't they teach you anything in that fancy university? Hell just common sense would tell you not to toss away the artist you already had for somebody else."

 

"But she said she'd have a lot of people talking about her show."

 

"Well, at least that was the truth. People are talking about her show. . .but it's nothing good." His grandfather snorts. "Grow the fuck up you stupid little fool. You messed up. . .now you have to live with the consequences."

 

"Five more years." Josette sighs as she settles on the arm of the couch after delivering supplies here and there to the dorm and other buildings. "and we won't have to put up with uppity morons who think they're all that and fools who will turn their back on one artist to try to please another. Though one good thing did come out of this mess, the new artists got much needed publicity and money coming in." Nods from the others.

 

"Crops?"

 

"Should start seeing the early ripening stuff in another week. Another week after that it will be picking baskets every day until the plants are done."

 

"Canning supplies?"

 

"Washed up and either put away until the gardens start coming in or sent back to be reused for the offworld harvests. We've got plenty. we could double the harvests every year for a decade before we needed more. And yes, that includes the offworld harvests. I was looking at the supplies on hand to see if we needed to open the glass factories." David says as he pushes himself to his feet and heads to the powder room. Josette stretches backwards and to the sides before straightening up.

 

"How many books did you sell?"

 

"Over thirty thousand thanks to all the publicity." Josette yawns. "Granda and Dad both suggested I bring double out of what I normally would bring. That doesn't include what I would have normally took out to Ellis." Looking at the time she straightens up. "Lemme start bringing out the other machines before lunch. Did anybody check the septic units?"

 

"Yesterday, they're cleaned and the dry waste put out by the garden." Alexander says. "Come on slug, we gotta put away our supplies." Michael sighs but nods as he opens his eyes and gets up from the chair he'd been lounging in. "At least we can move around the studio. . .for a few months anyway until it's time for the dual show." Josette splits off a duplicate that follows them. "Lemme move everything else to the ship."

 

"Thank you Josette." Everybody knows they don't really need the room but the good-natured bitching is relaxing everybody. Doc's lips twitch from the doorway of Headquarters, they do this every time they come back from a show,

 

The crops start coming in and baskets of food fill every counter, table, and a good part of the floor as they're being worked on. A good chunk of it goes right into the containers in the root cellar and soon everything is finally put away, either canned or put in stasis. The cookbooks had gotten a good workout over the last few months and more than one person is putting up a supply of a new food to have on hand for later.

 

"How are the nut trees? Do we need to plant more?" Principal Madison asks at lunch after the new crops and gardens are in and everybody has a chance to breathe.

 

"Ours are producing good, the other planets orchards are producing just as good, I fully expect to see bushels of nuts to start appearing in the building in the future."

 

The others nod.

 

"Soy?"

 

"First batch is being made into milk right now. When the second batch comes in we'll start making cheese. Which would have people up in arms. . .the damn vegans would be disgusted at us not only eating cheese made from real milk. . .we drink that selfsame real milk."

 

"Those damn fools need a foot up their ass." Dr. Hazlitt murmurs. "You shoving your opinion down other people's throats just pisses people off." Everybody in the room nods. "They do it to make themselves look better."

 

"Yes, and most of the vegan crap is just that, crap. . .I'll eat real chocolate thank you very much. Even soy milk chocolate is better than that commercial crap."

 

David goes out to the fish farm to check on the plants growing out there with Doc.

 

"I don't think we need to add another aquaponics unit." David says, looking at Doc.

 

"No, you grow a good amount of food here, we won't need to add a unit for several years with the population staying stable for the foreseeable future." Doc says as they transfer the seed trays to the water and bring out plants that have gone to seed to save for the seeds. Josette had already taken care of the plants drying from earlier and David smiles at the containers of seeds that have been added to. "But we will need to harvest the fish."

 

Doc nods. It's been a few years and they're big enough to harvest. "We can do that this fall and put out the announcement." Beyond Haven the other planets will buy some. Just like they buy from the 8th planet when they harvest their fish. David opens the tesseract back to the dorm and they arrive as Josette comes back from delivering the last of the yarn. Another of her selves is in the dyeing building with the others, dyeing both the thread for the looms and the yarn.

 

"You goddamn retarded idiot." An editor bellows as he looks at the attack story that's 'somehow' made its way into his paper and is now getting it sued. "How fucking stupid are you?"

 

"You mean none of this is true?" She whines.

 

"No asshole, none of this is true. Which you'd have known if you'd been a damn real reporter. That land has been owned by the same family for over fifty years. . .it wasn't stolen from anybody. These morons are the ones trying to steal it from the rightful owners because they want to tear down all the trees, rip out the farms, and build more goddamn malls and houses. . .none of which we need. Now, we're going to be printing a retraction to this goddamn shit along with a full apology and hope to hell they don't ruin us in the courts."

 

"You mean they'd actually sue?" She wails.

 

"Of course they'd sue asshole. And they'd win. . .this ain't a fucking tabloid. . .this is a serious newspaper. Now I want the names of your sources so I can turn them over to their lawyers and let them rip them to shreds. . ."

 

"Ummmm. . .the sources asked not to be disclosed."

 

"I don't give a shit about how they asked not to be disclosed, give me all the damn interviews now. This ain't a case of a person in fear for their life, this is pure greed and another attempt to steal their land."

 

"Another attempt? You mean they've done this before?"

 

"Dear gods woman, yes. Dozens of times. . .do some damn researching." He sends her out so he can start drafting a formal apology and a wail in the outer office an hour later has him sighing. "Now she does it." Ten minutes later a shamefaced reporter comes in and puts a box of notebooks, cds from taped interviews, and DVDs on his desk. "I wasn't given proper introductions. . .they just ask me to call them Misters X, Y, and Q."

 

"Q? Not Z?" Her boss snickers despite himself.

 

"He didn't want to be seen as being the last. . .you'll hear the argument in the DVD that's the entire interview. . .not the edited one. I did a little searching and was able to make positive identifications of them though. They played me like a fool."

 

"Yes, but we can turn this around in our favor. Here. .. read this. . .you too Morgan." He says as a furious man comes into the office. He takes the release and nods. "I'll send it out now and print it formally in the paper tomorrow."

 

"We'll release it formally on the news programs."

 

"But we didn't try to take the land from her. .." One of the morons wails in front of the judge.

 

"Gentlemen, going around our orders and trying to force them to give up the land by bad press is still trying to steal the land." The judge sighs. Why do idiots like them keep causing trouble by thinking they're sooooo much more clever than everybody else in the world? He orders him back to his jail cell to await his trial and takes the bottle of aspirin his bailiff hands him.

 

The yearly crops are starting to ripen and the u-pick farms are busy sunup to sundown either with people coming out to pick or them picking and sending it off. Josette nods as the root cellars in the dorm and ranch are getting full.

 

"Are you harvesting on the first planet?"

 

"Yeah, after the Harvest Festival and my show when I go out to plant again." Josette cackles. "If the morons think Haven is boring. . ."

 

"The first, second, and third planets would put them in a coma?" David smirks. "Too bad some more of the idiot genes didn't die out thanks to the zero-population period."

 

Calvin and the others had started coming out and he holds up a hand when he hears the conversation.

 

"Oh please," Josette snorts, waving a hand. "The morons are like cockroaches, not even a damn nuclear bomb dropped in their laps could get rid of them."

 

The man who'd come up with them guffaws despite himself and David and Josette look over at him and grin. They both recognize him, Josette from that day in Calvin's office where she was complaining about idiots and David from tv appearances. Unlike most of the tv talk show psychologists he's a serious doctor and not in it just for the publicity. His wife is grinning and nodding.

 

"What were you muttering about the other day? Cage free?"

 

"Ohhhh, you know the damn catch phrases, cage free eggs. ..free range chicken, grass fed cattle. . .no antibiotic added. . ." Josette waves her hand in a and so on, and so on, and so on motion.

 

David rolls his eyes. "All of which real farmers have been doing for years? Because they eat what they raise."

 

"Yeah, some damn fool was whining about why do we raise chickens for our own eggs? Can't you just buy them at the store?"

 

"And where does she think the stores get their eggs? Big farms." Their female guest snorts.

 

"Oh please," Josette snorts. "Half the people complaining about stuff are just doing it to complain." Her husband sniggers but nods. "Of the other half a good chunk of them believe stuff magically appears at the factories or the store shelves. ..you mean people actually grow the tomatoes that are put in these cans? A good chunk are greedy stupid and dreaming of great big honking profits and not realizing you gotta work for the same great big honking profits. Of the rest a good portion really believe what they're talking about and the rest . . ." Josette shrugs. "In it to make themselves look better to others."

 

"Or lord it over others." Becka mutters. "That old fool dropping off her 'recycling' case in point."

 

"Yep." Her grandmother sighs. The others look at them and the story is told, everybody nodding and rolling their eyes. "Always going to be some fool trying to make themselves look good."

 

"Do you only make. . ." She asks, looking around the loom building.

 

"No, we use them for special projects, we've got the machinery to make cloth."

 

"This gives us a few hours away from the house. . .especially in the middle of winter." Agatha snorts.

 

"This is Agatha, she owns one of the fabric stores here in town. Sue Dixon owns the other one." She points to a woman who's walking down the street pulling a wagon. "There she is, must be taking in her garbage and recycling."

 

"You recycle then?"

 

"Oh yes, everybody recycles. . .and composts. What we can't reuse is tossed in the replicator and turned into energy. Or raw materials for new items."

 

"Patchwork quilts?" She asks when she finds a group of women removing zippers and buttons from old clothes in Sue's store.

 

"Yes, a bag is five dollars and with your own scraps is enough for a quilt." Sue waves a hand at the wall of containers. "Most of us don't have the room in our homes for this so they keep them here and buy time on the machines."

 

"You have money then." Her husband smiles.

 

"Everything's electronic, you just scan your card and choose which function. . .credit or debit."

 

"You have credit cards?"

 

"From the beginning but you're not charged any interest." They both smile. "The only interest charged is on mortgages and that's a flat rate added right to the top. . .no paying thirty years on a mortgage and it's only paying interest twenty of those years, every dime you pay goes right to the balance. We don't have monthly payments, a lot of us paid off chunks of our mortgages with the offworld harvests."

 

"And the interest goes into an account for planetary use. Mostly for stuff we need. Including new buildings when we need them."

 

"Offworld harvests."

 

The stories are told and the pictures shown. "If we're not putting away part of the bonus from the harvests for our homes or something major we need, we're putting it in a fund to pay for offworld purchases. . in our case fabric and other supplies."

 

"Ellis's new cruise. . ." Josette says as she walks past. "I just got a 'we're going to have another one in a couple years' message in the databurst."

 

"Cruise?" He asks.

 

"Ellis. . .wait. . .you mean Ellis Manchester? The textiles supplier?"

 

"Yes, we've been buying from him for years."

 

"Cruises? You mean like the gambling cruises?"

 

"Yes, he'll get together with representatives from various manufacturers and offer classes and other stuff during the cruise. . .think of it as a longer expo. Josette usually ends up bringing back whatever wasn't sold after one of these cruises so nobody has to take it back with them."

 

"They'll probably be clearancing a lot of stuff too. . .and by the time the cruise is over the next big hit will turn out to be the next big miss." She's leaning on her husband cackling, he's grinning broadly. While they don't have wardrobe on his show like do others they do have friends in the industry and have moaned at the fabrics.

 

"More fabric for you to either cut into fat quarters for quilts or for us to experiment with to make it into something less . . .hideous." Suzie snickers.

 

"And this fabric?" She picks up a shirt that's seen better days.

 

"Also have everything removed and be torn into strips for braided rag rugs. And clothes worse than this goes in the replicator to be remade into new fabric."

 

"Ahhhh, the ultimate in reuse, reduce, and recycle."

 

"Yep."

 

"Do you make. . ." He asks at the glassblowers.

 

"No, we have two factories on the seventh planet we open as needed. One makes bottles and jars and the other makes huge sheets of glass. . .including colored glass and specialty items for the glassworkers. I've got tons of glass on the ships yet to use when needed. .. unlike most factories we don't have any problems breaking and melting glass." he snickers, remembering the wailing that had been all over the news as manufacturers tried and failed to get the laws making them use at least 50 percent recycled glass overturned. Whiny fools had been the majority of the comments when they'd took their pleas to the people. . .hoping there'd be enough complaints the government would have to change their minds.

 

"How long have you been together?" Their female guest smiles as she sees the love between the eight young people and the teachers when they look at them.

 

"Our first year of high school, Josette had been here for a couple years already. . .Principal Madison had brought her to the school when she became a ward of the state."

 

Josette nods. "I finished the sixth grade at the school in town on Earth but the school felt they couldn't engage me after my mother had . . .died. The teachers tutored me for the next two years and I started ninth grade with the others. I'm a year younger than everybody but Alan, I got early admittance to school since I was already reading and writing at a first grade level even though my birthday was past the cutoff and I skipped kindergarten."

 

The pair look at Alan.

 

"My birthday was past the cutoff and the school the three of us. . ." he nods at his sisters, "Attended didn't offer the classes needed to start here right off. So I took a year off and studied, the twins studied with me and we took the tests to all start at the same time. We met over the first couple days of school and . . .well, we've been together ever since."

 

"What do all of you do?"

 

"Josette's the head librarian here at the school and in Town, she also works shifts at various stores in town as needed. The twins are teachers and work shifts in town when needed, Alan's a doctor who covers shifts at the medical center here at the school, the medical unit in town, and at GD's infirmary on the 8th planet. Susan is a lawyer who works in town and GD and has other positions. Michael and Alexander are artists, and David is a lazy bum who's gainfully unemployed." David blows Principal Madison a raspberry and the couple laughs, they can see the affection between all of them. "We've all had multiple degrees over the years to handle whatever is needed."

 

"Did all the planets come out at the same time?"

 

"No, Eureka came out to the eighth planet first, our school came up a year later. The fourth planet was settled a couple years before we lost Earth, settlements coming out to the various planets over the years. The 9th and 10th planets were settled after we lost Earth."

 

Josette sighs and slumps back in the chair she'd just disappeared from a few seconds ago a couple weeks after the Harvest Festival.

 

"Another lost world?"

 

"Yes and no, like the 9th planet people had left before it got too bad. Damn Dumbledore and his second chances and 'oh they mustn't be punished for their actions, they must be led back to the light. . .it's for the greater good'. Senile old fool. They fucking left him by the droves and went to another dimension. . .purebloods on the light side, half-bloods, muggles and muggleborns, squibs. . .even house elves and other sentients. They also took libraries, schools. . .anything they'd need for the future as they recreated their world. Back on Earth the death eaters took over and dumbass was wailing about how they must stop what they were doing because it wasn't bringing them back to the light side." Snorts of disgust. "Yeah, old fool finally realized that he should have took them out with extreme prejudice but by then it was too late. . .they had killed all the remaining muggles and then fell to fighting amongst themselves. The last of them just died in a 'I'm taking you out with me' move." President Bartlett sighs. "Yep, the others can't come back . .whatever asswipe did poisoned everything. Nothing will grow on the planet again." After breakfast the others arrive and they head off.

 

"Were you in contact with the others?"

 

"Yes, and passed along everything they could use, their settlement is a mixture of magical and electric. . .no matter what the old fools said about electricity not working around magic. Other countries had fixed that years ago, but. . ."

 

"The European wizarding world was still stuck in the 1600s technology wise."

 

"Yup. And meanwhile muggleborn students left the wizarding world in droves because there was nothing there for them. They were treated like second-class citizens and only there to bring in much needed fresh blood to the community. And even then they weren't really 'wanted'."

 

"Nope, nor the kids who were born." Principal Madison sighs. "At least a good chunk of what was left we were able to send on to the others."

 

"Yes, and they were already writing the histories of why they'd moved. . .this will be another chapter in the 'this will never happen again' book." Nods from the others. "All children are equal. . .just some of you can do things the others can't, doesn't mean you're better than them or they're better than you. If we find anybody tormenting another person with their gifts, you'll get punished. No excuses. If you're protecting yourself or someone else. . .they'll be dealt with, we will no longer tolerate bullying. . .no boys will be boys."

 

"Something Dumbassdork is no doubt wailing about in Hell. . . trying to proclaim everything he did was for the greater good." Nods and snorts from the others.

 

"Unfortunately his version of the greater good and reality weren't on speaking terms. Old fool should have been put out to pasture decades ago."

 

"Yes, if somebody with some damn brains had been in charge the damn war never would have happened. Riddle would have put somewhere else and got the help he needed or would have been taken out early in the war. . .long before he could have done all the stuff he did." Nods from the others. "In war you can't always 'show them the error of their ways and bring them back to the light'."

 

"It wasn't a war. . it was a goddamn game of chess with people's lives." Professor Parker snorts. The others nod. "Sacrificing his pawns to get the other side where he wanted them."

 

"Grindelwald was at least honest about being a dark lord." President Bartlett snorts. "Dumbledore reminded me too damn much of so-called 'presidents' who were little more than dictators dressed up nice."

 

"Luthor."

 

"Yep, and the moron from the other dimension."

 

"Josette, when are you going out to the first planet?"

 

"Week after next, I'll be out there the whole time."

 

"Have you figured out for sure if the last of the offworld harvests will be coming in the same time as we're harvesting next year?" David asks. Everybody in the front room moans.

 

"No, we'll have to wait and see. . .not the first year some planets ran long and not gonna be the last." Josette sighs. "Every planet is different. . .every year is different."

 

"Have you started your thesis?"

 

"Yeah, I'll be halfway through the degree this semester." Josette sighs again. "Work on it while I'm on the ships when I'm not clearing stuff, my advisors will want to see what I'm working on. And if somebody tries talking me into a metallurgy doctorate. . .I'm going to be very, very upset." Everybody sniggers at her. "And of course I could be doing this on Earth and getting 'you have no idea what you're doing, run along little girl' crap from somebody."

 

"Here it's a matter of 'read and rubberstamp, she's been doing this for decades'." Principal Madison says. "David, the degree on the Mars trip?"

 

"I'm going to be a year into it. . .Grammy's making me take four classes a semester." The others in the front room smirk at him.

 

Josette disappears and reappears a few seconds later. "Be back in an hour." The others look at each other. "Another dimension?"

 

"No, a group of dumbasses wailing in Granda's dimension about not having their own colony. They want me to find them a spot and take them out. Granda just gave me a look when I asked if I could leave them there. One of the others said don't tempt him."

 

She returns an hour later. "Okay, that was an exercise in stupidity. The government had enough and gave them enough basic supplies to sink or swim on their own. . .they had tents and could put up cabins like in the colony dimension. Had to kick their stupid asses off the ship, they were wailing because 'oh my god, there's nothing here'." Sniggering from the front room and guffaws from the back. "I told them that yeah, we had to build our colony, they had to build theirs. Morons didn't make it a week . . .life was hard. . .their manicures were ruined. And that was one of the guys." Guffaws from the front room this time.

 

"Always going to be some people you can tell something a million times but until they live it."

 

"Oh yes. . .morons spent days wailing because everything we told them couldn't possibly have been the truth. There was no grocery stores, no malls, no neat little rows of houses waiting for them. When they asked where their homes were I pointed to the stacks of logs and told them to start putting them together. When they asked about bathrooms I handed them a shovel and told them to start digging, the kits for the outhouses were in the piles. They whined they couldn't find the microwaves in the supplies. I asked them where they thought they'd be able to plug it in and pointed to the kettle and said clear a spot to build a fire and make a pot of soup or stew. They wailed they didn't think they'd actually have to cook."

 

"They didn't think period." President Bartlett murmurs in the front room. "Did they have a source of clean water?"

 

"A nearby river a mile away. Oh, and they'd better start trying to find a spot for a well unless they want to carry water from the river everyday. And in the winter they'd have to make a hole in the ice for the water. Oh dear god, you'd think I told them that they were going to have to walk a million miles barefoot in the middle of winter when I told them they'd better start laying out the gardens. The food they'd brought out wasn't going to last forever and they'd be pretty damn hungry come winter. Their homes had wind-up generators and small ceramic heaters so they wouldn't freeze to death. . .if they got the cabins weather tight."

 

"Oh god, I can imagine the looks of horror at that." Professor Druid is cackling. "No heat at the turn of a dial?"

 

"Nope, and when they asked about lights after dark I handed them a box of candles and a couple flints." Snickering from the others. "The ship taped everything, they all tagged out after a few days and I brought everything back to Earth. The tapes are all over the news. . .you should be getting copies of everything in the next few databursts. People with brains are laughing at them and the morons who wanted the colonies are all . ..'everything they said was true? How can it be true?'"

 

Professor Parker is snickering. "If they do have a colony now, they'll have to make real plans."

 

Calvin is sighing and shaking his head. "Always going to be idiots who make fools of themselves doing something because what we tell them can't possibly be the truth." Jane snorts. "They will weep, wail, whine, wring their hands. . .damn it, I can't come up with another thing that starts with W. . ."

 

"Walk the floor." Maria says from the front office.

 

"Thank you. . .walk the floor until something new happens to get them out of the spotlight. Unfortunately for them. . .even out of the spotlight their stupidity will live on forever."

 

"Yep, this is proof that colonies won't be just like Earth. . .just you know on another world." Calvin sighs. "I'm sure Josette had a bowl of popcorn and was laughing her ass off over them whining."

 

"Yah." Josette says, leaning in the doorway. "I'm here picking up the orders from Ellis and dropping off the second batch of stuff." She sends off the inventory and he nods.

 

"Socks? For us?" Jane asks, putting up her clipboard.

 

"Yep." Between the three of them they count everything.

 

"Have you started offering these yet to the other planets?"

 

"Not beyond Archimedes and 9th planet Eureka, we figure on the others year after next. . .our time." Josette yawns and looks out the window. "Yes, we're expecting one last rainstorm and then it will start turning to snow. Haven?"

 

"We're about three months from having to shut windows. Another month and I'll be offworld three times a week for the offworld harvests. Then we'll be bringing in our own harvests."

 

"Are you staying long?"

 

"At least three weeks, Ellis told me about an expo for rug latch hook people and I'm stocking up on kits. I'm taking books out to Ellis and the retreat house and Madison is not happy with the last few outlines I sent her." Jane cackles at her hangdog look. "Yeah, I know, own damn fault for writing so much. It's the only way the psychotic muses shut up."

 

Josette looks behind her as Madison yanks her into her home. "Damn, not only did I leave my shadow behind. . .I think I left my socks, shoes, and underwear too." Joanne snickers. "Did you get paid for taking out the twits?"

 

"Betcher ass, both for finding the planet. . .which is now registered in my name and hazard pay for dealing with the whining fools. Damn fools. . .wailing 'where is everything' when we arrive. Well duh people. . .you have to build the damn colony. . .just like we did."

 

"Well these were the fools who kept thinking that life on a colony would be just like Earth. . .just you know on another planet." Jessica drawls as she walks out of the kitchen. "We all laughed our asses off at their sheer stupidity. They never got to their cabins, did they have heat?"

 

"Ceramic heaters like we have run by wind-up generators when the solar panels weren't producing. . .it wouldn't keep them as warm as a furnace but warmer than being without heat. Since they never planned on the morons staying out there, there wasn't a cookstove that would have served as additional source of heat. But the morons would have just. . .'what do we do with these, where's the knobs. . .where's the burners. . ."

 

The other three women nod. "Are you staying out long?"

 

"About three weeks, Ellis found me an expo for latch hook people and I'm going to stock up on kits. . .either the ones they're selling there or ordering them. I'm taking out books to the retreat house and Ellis."

 

"How many books . . .?"

 

"Ten books out of the last set, I've got another ten from this batch, two that are being printed right now, and another twelve yet to print before the printers shut down."

 

"How's Haven?"

 

"Good. . .which means everybody is waiting for the shoe to drop, a few years ago we had a cold, wet winter. The following year we had a mild winter but a cool fall, last year we had a lot more thunderstorms than normal . . ."

 

"So you're waiting to see what this year will be."

 

"Yup, it doesn't help that all the offworld harvests are so late this year that no sooner than we get done with one, we're working on the other." The others sigh, they have small gardens and it's asshole to elbow when everything is coming in. . .they can't imagine what it would be like for gardens those size.

 

Jessica suddenly moans. The other three women look at her. "Survivor. . . on another planet."

 

Josette makes throttling a bunny gestures and grabs her PADD, making notes.

 

 

Josette returns to Haven three weeks later for her. It's sprinkling and looking at the sky she knows it's going to pour any second and she flies to the dorm, Abby holding the door open for her. "How was Earth?"

 

"Quiet. The morons who were on the planet are sobbing brokenheartedly since everybody is talking bad about them. I'm sure some other damn fool will take their place as high king of the morons mountain." Principal Madison snickers from the couch. "Orders?"

 

"Dropped them off and we're looking at the orders increasing next year." He nods in satisfaction. "Picked up the last shipment of machines and put them in the buildings before I came off the ship."

 

"Drop off the books for Ellis?"

 

"Yup, and the retreat house." Josette yawns. She looks through the sliding glass door at the darkening sky. "Fuck it, I can nap this afternoon." The others snicker but nod. "Did you take back the empty containers?"

 

"Yep." Josette sighs as she kicks off her shoes and wiggles her toes. "We've got enough damn containers as it is. . .we don't need more."

 

"Do we have any bad ones left. . ."

 

"Nope, we empty them as we find them on the other planets and recycle them right then and there." Everybody nods in satisfaction. "And they're getting rid of them on the other planets. Even if it takes a little work to cut them apart."

 

A month later David opens the tesseract and people start walking through to the ship for the first offworld harvest. Agatha stands by Josette as they settle in orbit around the planet and send down probes.

 

"Anybody saving for something special beyond the cruise?"

 

"Maxie wants to buy a couple containers and turn them into a studio like on the 9th planet." Agatha says. "Ahhhh, a she shed as it would be called on Earth."

 

"She shed, man cave. . .a place to get the hell away from your mate." Suzie snorts as she walks past. "We've got the room but sometimes. . ."

 

"You just gotta have your own." Everybody nods. "At least at the school there's no lack of empty buildings you can walk into for some peace and quiet." Frances nods from the doorway.

 

"And places with other people when you need the noise."

 

Boxes and other containers of food starts arriving in town and people start grabbing them and heading to various buildings. David gets the alert and opens the tesseract, everybody walking through and heading various directions. The last of the food is offloaded by Josette and she flies to the school.

 

Two long months later the last of the food is in and the plants tilled under for the winter. Josette has passed out the food to the other planets and picked up the recycling.

 

"Is that. . .it?" Susan asks.

 

"Yes, thank you god." Josette yawns. She mumbles something then yawns again. "I'm getting too old for this." Everybody sniggers. "Ohhhh. . ." she makes a semi-rude gesture.

 

"Going to have to actually sleep tonight." David sniggers. Another semi-rude gesture.

 

"It's the weather, we're going to have rain by bed." Josette says. In the front room everybody nods.

 

"Did you finish the Titanic degree?"

 

"Yes, and I picked up the books from GD while I was there. Talked to my advisors. Talked to Grandpa Charles on the 9th planet, he wants me to go back with him for a special . ..thing or other." She waves a hand.

 

"Josette, not to ask you to do more but the vat-raised meat?" Alan asks.

 

"Decanted, sliced in the case of the lunch meat, and put away in the stasis unit. So is all the dried pasta." Everybody nods in satisfaction. "Are we making bread this weekend?"

 

"Next weekend, we weren't in ten different places like you are but we're bushed too." Alexander says. Josette nods. "We can do that after we come back from the show? Is everything on the ship?"

 

"I'll pick up the last of it tomorrow."

 

Josette snorts and waves a hand in Superhero Doc's dimension. "The offworld crops coming in then our crops. . .add in rain for three days off and on that's been mixed with snow. Everybody's ass has been dragging on Haven but it's done and we'll have the entire winter to relax."

 

The entire family snorts at that outrageous comment. "Ohhh, we didn't tell you." The story about the 'colony' has everybody either sighing. . .Richard and Kent, lips twitching. . .Doc, or outright howling with laughter. . .the others.

 

"That's the only way anybody's going to finally get it through their heads that if they want a colony they're going to have to work for it." Pat says. "Which since they already have a colony dimension you'd. . ."

 

"Think they'd already know that. But there's always going to be fools who think everything is for show. . . it can't possibly be the truth. A colony would be just like Earth. . but you know, on another planet."

 

"If it would be just like Earth, why would you leave Earth?" Richard asks dryly. "You leave Earth because of climate change, massive overcrowding, or other reasons."

 

"Exactly."

 

The show is a few nights later, the books selling well. They return to Haven two months later their time.

 

"How was it?" Principal Madison asks when they return.

 

"Not bad. . .not good because. . ."

 

"Nobody would be there if it was a good show." Everybody says in unison.

 

"It's the damn truth." Josette snorts. "Sales of the books was good for a show where we're not big names. . . I get more recognition for the fiction. About two or three times what I sell here." The others nod.

 

Thanksgiving is a few days later and they make the trips to the other dimensions, Josette shaking her head when she comes down loaded from Granda's dimension with the new boxes full of stuff. Courtney snickers, she's been treated to the same thing by Sylvester who flatly announced he was now her godfather. Pat. . .both of them had just shook their heads and turned their attention back to what they'd been working on.

 

The others are planting in the growing area when the others start coming out for the Lights Festival.

 

"Josette?"

 

"Albatross Nest in Albatross for the kits and cookies party."

 

Josette sits down in her usual spot at the Albatross Nest with a plate and a bottle of Haven Dew. The talk ranges from what they plan on growing next year, what they grew this year, new recipes they made up. . .

 

"Josette, what happened to the cabins?"

 

"Going to be part of the supplies for a second wave of settlement in the colony dimension. That's what they were meant for anyway. . .everybody knew the damn 'colony' would not last." Nods from the others. "They'll be more expensive because of the generator and solar panels but will still have the cookstove for the majority of the heat. And be able to bake."

 

Agatha cackles. "Fools will have to learn to cook and cookbooks won't help. . .you can't set a cook stove to a certain temperature and letting it sit there for however long it takes to cook."

 

"Yep, you gotta actually check your food. Something all of us have been doing for years." Nods from the others. Josette waves a hand. "Quilts not in these books. . .in the next batch but it will years before I have enough books finished to print them. I might end up running the printers for three years then another three years to finish them." Nods from the others as the quilts are looked over. "And this one isn't going to be in a book, this is my first quilt made with the second fabric, I did a lot of stamping to make it less. . ."

 

"Fucking ugly. the first batch was at least gaudy. . .this was just ugly." Agatha says. The quilt is quickly turned over. "Oh yes, this is much better. Did you send pictures to Ellis?"

 

"And got a 'this is what the fabric should have looked like back. . .both from him and the manufacturer as an attachment to his letter."

 

The kits are passed out along with the cookies and Josette wipes her arms after helping wash the dishes. The leftovers are shoved on her and she puts everything in subspace before flying back home. Putting everything away she looks at the time and then the shelves that are getting empty. There's enough quilts for another couple years though so she shuts the door of the workroom and goes downstairs. Clark, Doc,and Superhero Doc are doing something somewhere. . .the noise of work is coming though the registers.

 

David jumps at a loud thud and shakes his head. "I hope we'll have heat."

 

"Yeah, the registers are just picking up the sounds and sending it through like a megaphone." Josette yawns and looks out the window. "This will turn to snow by morning and stay snow."

 

"We've been expecting it." Alexander comes through with new boots for the farm, taking the waterproofing tin David slides down the table and starting to use it. "Yours?"

 

"Already waterproofed both pair."

 

The three men chuckle when they come up a couple hours later to find the three younger people sleeping in chairs and couches. "Good day for it, just wet enough that nobody wants to be out unless they have to be."

 

"This will be turning to all snow soon." Doc looks out the sliding glass door.

 

"Josette said by morning." Abby comes out of the closet floating stuff in front of her. She chucks a package of toilet paper at Josette, waking her. "Madison sent a message in the databurst, she wants you to come to the publishing house." Josette sighs but heads off. The others look at her. "The fools on the 'colony' trip were blubbering about how the book is making fun of them. . .they're gonna sue."

 

"Oh dear lord people, you're just making yourself look like complete idiots. . .again." Calvin sighs. "And the truth is always a defense."

 

"Yep, and this will mean lots of publicity for the book which will lead to increased sales. Just like when people whined 'they're making fun of me' when the bimbo colony books came out."

 

Josette returns an hour later and hands out advance copies of the book. "Morons ran off wailing when nobody took their side. The courts refused to hear the lawsuit, they're wailing they're out their court costs and they were told they could have been slapped with fines for filing frivolous lawsuits. They couldn't believe nobody would take their side. . .they're the victims. Everybody snorted that they're not the victims. . .except of their own stupidity."

 

"Amen."

 

"But everybody's talking bad about us." Susan mock-wails. "Morons should be used to it by now." She snorts in her normal voice. Over the next few databursts 'somebody' had leaked the attempt to sue about the book and they wail louder about everybody being mean to them. Morons is the nicest thing said about them. . .especially when they threaten to write their own story. . .one that would be the truth. Their own lawyers had knocked them upside the head and said this was fucking fiction and the things they were complaining about the loudest were the absolute truth. . .backed up by video and their 'true story' would be nothing more than a pack of slanderous lies that would get them sued the second the book was released. They ran off wailing louder and sulked with bonbons when nobody came around to kiss their foreheads and tell them how sorry they were everybody was being so mean to them.

 

The advance copies were quickly replicated and the book is read by everybody before the Lights Festival. . .fucking fool is the nicest thing said about them. Josette is summarily summoned back to Earth and spends a good fifteen minutes railing on that old fool who doesn't like how Haven is run, telling the miserable old fool to grow the fuck up before somebody shot him. He wails when she walks out of the room. . .looking at the people he'd talked into this meeting so they can see how horribly treated he was and seeing nothing more than looks of pure disgust on their faces. . .and they're looking at him.

 

"Why won't you make them do what I want?" he wails.

 

"Because you're a goddamn miserable fool who can't or won't understand that people don't live regimented lives. You want everything run the way you want and the rest of humanity won't put up with it. Now leave her the fuck alone and forget about running a damn colony like a fucking clock."

 

"He doesn't want to run a colony," one of them says as he runs off wailing. "he wants to run a damn prison world. With him in control of everybody's lives." The others nod.

 

Josette slumps into her usual seat for the first meeting of the government in Haven year 124, she snorts inwardly. "Okay, now that that fucking fool was told to sit in a corner what's up?"

 

"Nothing much, you've got two years left at the printers. . .that's the only thing going right now." President Bartlett looks at his notes. "You've already said the increased orders for 8th and 9th Eurekas would be happening this year and you'd be opening it to the other planets next year."

 

"Yup, I'm moving out some of the new machines right now, I'll have them in both buildings and the new jobs opened by the end of the year. Because not only will we be having the orders from the other planets, I expect the orders from Calvin's dimension to be increasing too." Nods from the others. Josette and Principal Madison disappear, Josette is laughing when they return. Doc just looks at her since James is muttering sourly. "Dumbass who wanted to come to Haven to show us what we're doing wrong. . .he got tired of talking to me and demanded to talk to somebody else but didn't get any satisfaction from Principal Madison either. The government finally had enough of him and put the old fool in a home before somebody shoots him." Principal Madison sighs but nods. "Old fool would not get over the idea that Haven and the other planets can run just fine without him."

 

"He sees himself as Dumbledork and Haven as his little fiefdom." Josette snorts. "I don't need no moron telling me how many times I can go to the bathroom or how many sheets of toilet paper I can use."

 

"Did you start working on the wool fabric?"

 

"Yes, it's done and we're going to be cutting it into bolts and dyeing it later this year." Josette says, looking at her PADD. "The sales of the cotton yarn was good and I'm planning an offworld harvest next year and dyeing it with the plants the year after that." Nods from the others. Josette sends off a message to various places, Doc looking at her when she puts her PADD up. "Asking Elaine, Agatha, Sue, and the other schools if we wanted to keep the cotton crop the same size or double it. Personally I'd grow two years so it's double but I'm either erring on the side of we don't need this much or making more than we need." Doc nods. "If you make more than we need it won't go to waste."

 

"No, it means an extra year or two of not having to make it."

 

Josette suddenly collapses cackling on the floor, David sighing. "the so-called colony, their reaction at having to cook over dried crap."

 

The others shake their heads or laugh. "There still was places on Earth that squared off cow dropping and put them up to dry for the winter as their main source of fuel." President Bartlett sighs.

 

"Yup, they're drying the 'fuel' in the colony dimension for newcomers until they can start. . .or rather their animals, can start producing their own. Both as fuel and aged as manure for the fields." Josette chuckles. "Poo' babies would never get that smell out of their hair. . .or their fancy clothes. Which they'd howl at having to leave behind since they'd be useless. . .and oh my god, they'd have to wash their clothes in one of those old washers you crank to move or metal washtubs, wring everything out, and hang it up to dry. And you'd have to heat your own water for that and baths."

 

"Idiots."

 

Josette cackles again as she gets up from the floor. "Their manicures would really be ruined." Her PADD beeps. Looking at it she nods. "Okay, everybody says double so I'll plant two years." Doc looks at the messages and nods.

 

Josette walks into the dorm and into her first floor bedroom, popping a doughnut in her mouth and putting the bag in her refrigerator.

 

"Did you ever sort through the stuff you brought back from Charles dimension and what you got from the expo?"

 

"Yeah," Josette covers her mouth and belches. "Ewww, what the hell did I eat that tasted that bad coming back up?" David laughs. "Do we have lists of all the new stuff we're making?"

 

"Yes, I sent everything out already." The Josette who'd been working at the buildings says. They've got copies of the hard drives so they can select different patterns if they want them too." Josette and David nods as she heads upstairs to bring out new machines in two of the buildings upstairs and supplies of yarn in all three.

 

Susan walks up to the growing area after dinner, checking on the seed trays and transferring the larger ones to the hydroponics tanks. Alan nods as he comes up behind her, grabbing more trays and starting in the other tank.

 

"Our fish?"

 

"Not this year, maybe next?"

 

"Sounds about right."

 

Josette comes back from the ships where she'd been planting samples of various seaweeds for GD and the cooks. She disappears and reappears a few seconds later.

 

"Goddamn miserable old fool. Bastard tried 'escaping from captivity' because he didn't like being told what to do." Josette drawls. "The guards there damn near beat him to death when he tried grabbing a weapon, he's going to be sent to a facility where he's locked away for at least twenty-three hours a day."

 

"Ha, bastard won't like that at all. Anything else?"

 

"Morons who tried whining about being made to look bad in the book tried suing and were told to shove it up their useless asses. They're on their 'deathbeds'." Snorts from her mates while Doc sighs and Principal Madison shakes his head. "Yeah, everybody's laughing at them. . .at them." Josette says the last words in a 'oh god, the horror' tone of voice.

 

"Goddamn morons." Pat says.

 

"Exactly, their own families have told them to grow the fuck up and get over themselves. They're frantically looking for somebody to pat their heads and tell them how horrible everybody is treating them but everybody's tired of their whining."

 

"Is anybody working on a real colony? Beyond the colony dimension?"

 

"No, they're working on the colony dimension first. The scientific dimension is going well, as is the ag dimension. There's no need for a space colony for centuries." The others nod vigorously. "Hopefully they won't ever need a reason for a space colony beyond what they're already doing on the moon."

 

"Or setting up on another planet like they did Mars."

 

"A semi-permanent settlement. . .people moving in and out as needed."

 

The others nod. "A real starbase, you can't dock with the city-ship."

 

"Yep, something they'll have to think about for the future."

 

"A permanent satellite like in Becka's dimension."

 

"Yep, that's one of the reasons why the government is sacking away extra tax money and whatnot in a special fund. Both for future colony needs and space exploration."

 

"Did you get the seaweed planted?"

 

"Yeah, nori which was used in sushi wraps, another edible seaweed, and one that can be used for raw fibers or whatnot." Josette shrugs as they walk to the dining hall.

 

"Book party?"

 

"Tomorrow."

 

Josette grins as the doors almost blow in as the clock ticks on eleven. Agatha chuckles as the others spread out, eating, talking, and comparing what they're working on. After everybody's eaten and wiped their hands the books are picked up and they start lining up. Agatha chuckles at the half-dozen Josette's sitting at the tables signing books.

 

"Look this over?" Another Josette asks, sending her a file. Agatha looks it over and chuckles. "For the colony?"

 

"Yeah, this is what they would have had to use if they didn't have a metal washtub. . .one that could be used for washing clothes, dishes, and yourself."

 

"And and a tin washboard."

 

"Yup. . .and they'd have to learn how to make soap." Josette makes a mental note.

 

"People in the colony who make soap for both clothes and humans?"

 

"Yep."

 

"Ha. . .stupid bitch." Josette says a few days later reading the databurst. "One of the stupid bitches wailing about how the book made her look bad, she had an absolute fit on a plane and is now sulking when she tried to attack people because 'oh my god, they were reading. They might be reading something bad about me'. The headshrinkers all agree, she's just a stupid selfish brat. Her own family turned their backs on her for this latest stunt. No rehab for you to ad lib the soup nazi, just the same four walls until you're shipped off to the medium security dimension. . . probably for the rest of your life."

 

"Stupid cow, she deserves to be sent off for the rest of her damn life then." Susan snorts. The others sigh but nod. "Whole damn bunch needs a foot up their ass until their brains are kicked into gear." David mumbles.

 

"But why won't anybody take my side?" She wails in her cell.

 

"Because you're a goddamn retarded dumbass sack of shit." Another convict yells back. "Now shut the fuck up about how the book is making you look bad, it's the goddamn truth. You're a goddamn moron."

 

Josette comes back from the ship. Doc looks at everything she brought out.

 

"Candles. . .books on candlemaking. Soap, books on making soap. . .both the old fashioned stuff for clothes and for humans. Books on making cheese, cheesemaking supplies."

 

"What brought this on?"

 

"Talking to Agatha about what kind of laundry . . .thing would be needed in a colony. Either an old fashioned wringer washer that could be cranked by hand or an old fashioned washtub that would wash clothes, dishes, or humans." Doc nods. "That made me wonder what they had."

 

Josette looks through the books and nods, Doc looks over the same books and nods. "It should work, either hand washing in a washtub or being used in the crank wringer washer.

 

Josette nods again.

 

Pat looks at Doc when he walks back into Headquarters. "Josette brought out some books on soap and candle making from the ship after talking to Agatha about how the colony would do their laundry."

 

"Either a hand-cranked wringer washer like they have on the first planet or a old fashioned washtub." Pat nods. "And she found recipes for soap that could be used there? Could be made there?"

 

Doc nods. "It's something we won't need unless we have a major technology failure that includes all the planets and all the ships but you know Josette. . .she wants to have backups in case stuff something happens. Which isn't a bad thing. . ."

 

"She wants to be prepared. If she's prepared. . ."

 

"Nothing bad happens."

 

Josette guffaws as she reads the next databurst. "The realtor dimension is a bust. . .again. Nobody's rushing to buy lots in their planned communities. . . they blame it on Earth not allowing them power. They're funning us about there being no electricity . . .right? How can they live on solar panels?" She says at lunch. Mock hisses and boos. "Morons won't take responsibility for their own actions."

 

"Yep. They expected people to come flocking to them once they have something glitzy and glamorous, ignoring the fact that there's not need for more houses, malls, and all that other crap. And there won't be for decades."

 

"Yep. For every new home they want to build there's five sitting empty, for every apartment building they want to build there's a dozen only half-full. And don't get me started on the malls and stores. And they're pouting because now they can't turn around and try to get people to sell them their land on Earth for the pennies they want, they gave up that right when they took over the realtor dimension. They figured they'd be rich beyond their wildest dreams and it would be theirs. . .all theirs."

 

"And this would keep the people who had some damn sense from jumping on the bandwagon?" President Bartlett drawls. "Oh. . .sorry, this would keep the losers who hadn't had their vision of trying to get the dimension away from them. Because they would have."

 

"Yep, you have Earth and we'll have our own dimension. Now they're sulking because everybody knows what they already know, that they're greedy fools who need a good swift kick upside the head."

 

Josette snorts at the next databurst. "Oh, they're already whining that all the paperwork they signed that is keeping them from 'acquiring' the land on Earth they want. They didn't mean for it to affect them. . .it was just to keep the losers on Earth from stealing their land, not keep them from stealing others land."

 

"Of course not." Principal Madison drawls. "Damn fool idiots, just looking for the glory and not the hard work."

 

"Amen."

 

"No, you're not getting the papers you signed overturned. I don't care if you don't like it, you agreed to that."

 

"But we thought you were funning us about there no being any electricity in the other dimensions." The moron suing to get the agreement overturned wails. "It. . we didn't mean for the paperwork to affect us. . .just the losers on Earth who didn't see our vision and wanted to take it from us." He continues to wail about how it's not fair they won't overturn the decision. . .they didn't get what they wanted so it's no harm, no foul . . .right? The look of disgust the judge gives him makes him run off wailing to the court of public opinion but he doesn't get any damn sympathy there either.

 

"The colony world. . .Haven?" He blusters as he is shown in Calvin's office.

 

"Yes, what about it?"

 

"Their realtors, would they allow us to come up and build there?"

 

"No."

 

"But they've got electricity there. . .right?"

 

"They have solar panels. And the government deals with all the selling and buying of homes and property, there is no independent realtors."

 

Dumbass runs off wailing. How can they do that to him?

 

"Well if the damn fools didn't dream of fantastic profits, they wouldn't be running around crying that they're going to go out of business." More than one person drawls during 'man on the street' interviews. Along with telling the fools to grow the hell up.

 

"Moron." is the nicest thing said about him on Haven. . .especially after Calvin had passed along him wanting to build on Haven.

 

"Josette, is that one of the soap recipes from the books?" Pat asks when she finds her in the ranch house laundry room using the old crank machine one day. She points at a jug half full of something.

 

"Yes, I wanted to see how clean it would get the clothes. These old dirty clothes we wear for the barn chores, it won't matter." Pat nods as she starts draining the soapy water into the utility sink. Drawing pails of water she sets it rinsing and puts it through the wringer.

 

"Not bad." Pat says, holding them up to look over. Josette nods and tosses everything in the dryer. "Is the soap hard to make?"

 

"Nope, just gotta remember to give the kettle a good scrub after you make it or keep separate stuff just like you'd do with other soap." Pat nods. "They have a recipe for turning it into a bar soap, just scraping off what you need and adding it to the water, just as easy to pour it into a jug and use as needed here." Pat nods.

 

Josette walks into the Albatross nest and smiles. "Ha, killing two birds with one stone." She brings out books. "Stuff on soapmaking I got from the ship, I went looking when we were talking about. . ."

 

"What kind of laundry facilities they'd have on the colony planet or dimension." Suzie says as she looks over the books that Josette put on the table. "I know you have a couple old wringer washers you can run by hand."

 

"Yes, one on the ranch and one on the first planet. I was washing some old barn clothes with one of the soap recipes since. . ."

 

"It's nothing that would be harmed if it didn't work." One of the Edinborough teachers who's a historian says. Everybody nods.

 

"I used the liquid recipe since I could put it in an old jug, they'd probably use the bar soap recipe, scraping off what was needed into the water as they did the laundry.

 

Agatha nods. "Easier for it to travel that way. And probably safer considering how much lye was in the old recipes."

 

"Not these. . .not a hint of lye or even wood ash, they're all vegetable based."

 

"That would make the moron vegans happy." Marilyn snorts as she grabs a book and starts looking through it. "Huh. . .I swear I remember my grandma making something like this. But they wouldn't be able to make this in a cabin."

 

"No, people would have to learn to make soap. I'd suggest people living in town make the soap and sell it as people come in and sell their crops." The others nod. "Because we've all done shifts at the soapmaking building. . .but how many of us beyond Josette could make it at their homes?" The others nod.

 

Josette walks into the soapmaking building and brings out the books. "Soapmaking books from the ship." the women grin and immediately start reading.

 

"Okay, am I. . ."

 

"No, you're not missing it. There is no lye involved in the recipes. I already made the liquid one on page 72. It's easy enough to just pour it into a jug. It won't last as long as the commercial stuff, but. . ."

 

"They won't need to last that long. Did you use the batch you made?"

 

"Yep, on barn clothes so if something happened. . ."

 

"Nothing good would be damaged. You didn't wash them by hand?"

 

"Nope, I could have used a regular washing machine but I've got one of those old hand-crank operated wringer washers. I poured water in, cranked it for twenty-five minutes then let it drain into the tub before adding rinse water."

 

"Okay, why?"

 

"Agatha and I were talking about laundry in the colony dimension, not as hard as scrubbing it by hand in an old washtub that would do for humans, dishes, and laundry."

 

They nod.

 

"Can you help out a few shifts?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"Okay, I passed these along to Edinborough, Assyrian, the Albatross Nest, and the soapmaking building." Josette says as she hands books over to Frances, Elaine, and the soapmaking teacher at dinner. "These are books on soapmaking from the ships, I've been experimenting with the recipes. . . they're all vegetable based, no lye used."

 

The soapmaker teacher immediately starts opening the book. "I used the liquid recipe on page 72, it's easy enough to keep it in a jug. Anywhere else would probably use the recipe to make it into a hard bar that you can scrape enough off enough for what you need."

 

"What did you wash?"

 

"Old barn clothes, nothing that would be harmed if it didn't work. I used the old hand-cranked wringer washer I have. . .not as bad as scrubbing it by hand in a metal washtub that would work for humans, dishes, or laundry but not as easy as just tossing it in a washing machine."

 

"You had to do some work for it." President Bartlett says in satisfaction. "What bro. . .ahh, the colonies."

 

"Yep, they'd either have to wash everything by hand in the washtub and scrub board or have a machine like mine. Even then it wouldn't be as often as ours."

 

"Day of the week towels."

 

"Yep, and unlike us who hang outside when the weather's good they'd be hanging outside year-round."

 

"In the winter it would be freezing solid."

 

"In the winter I doubt they'd be doing laundry all that often." Nods from the others.

 

Josette heads to Calvin's dimension, getting in the face of the fool demanding to be allowed do come to Haven to build his dream and calling him a miserable little fool who needs to grow the hell up. "In case you didn't understand that little boy, that's NO. We don't need your damn planned communities and we don't want them. We have enough homes for all our citizens and enough left over for at least several decades. We neither need or want McMansions, planned communities, or anything else you want." She turns around to walk away and he screams, rushing towards her. She grabs him arm, tossing him to the floor, and crouching on his back as she cusses him out.

 

His own lawyer sighs as he packs up his briefcase. "You are a goddamn fool." He tells the other man as he drags him off by the ear. "What the hell did you think you were doing trying to attack her?"

 

"But she didn't even look at my plans." He whines.

 

"Because your plans are a piece of crap. They have planned communities, they plan them out when the communities are needed. They're not putting them up just anywhere and expecting people to come flocking to them."

 

"But they could put them up." He whines.

 

"I could hop up and down on one foot, doesn't mean I'm going to. Little twit." He tells his family what they did when they toss the fool through the front door of his house, getting yelled at by his family. "Maybe the little fool will finally realize he's not all that and a block of cheese."

 

"But they could have. . ." he starts whine.

 

"They don't WANT to stroke your damn ego by putting up the damn buildings moron." His sister bellows in his face. "Get the hell over yourself.. .it's not that damn hard. You thought the damn realtor dimension would make you rich beyond your wildest dream. . .when that didn't happen you tried turning your attention to their planet. Dear god you fucking fool, they don't need your damn communities."

 

"But wouldn't people come flocking to their planet to live?"

 

"No moron, no more than they came flocking to your damn realtor dimension." his mother snorts. "Get the hell over yourself you stupid little sack of shit." his entire family cusses him out for most of that night. He sobs brokenheartedly in his room until his family tells him to quit the damn blubbering and get over himself. If he wants to make money, get off his ass and go to the work dimension.

 

"Okay, is it just me or are people really fucking stupid after the zero-population period?" She asks Maria as she leans against the desk.

 

"It's not just you." She sighs. "People got used to being the center of attention and now that babies are being born they can't deal with it. They try to make names for themselves but they're going at it the wrong way."

 

Josette returns to Haven a few days later for her and drops onto a couch. Doc and Principal Madison are waiting on her. "Dumbass from the realtor dimension. . .he couldn't believe that we wouldn't allow him to come up and build his fucking masterpiece." Josette snorts as she settles into the couch with a cat on her lap.

 

"Who would come to another planet for nothing any more than they would the realtor dimension?" Principal Madison snorts.

 

"Nobody, he was stunned when I told him that we had solar panels. . .our planet has to have electricity by now, unlimited power at the flip of a switch. . .not just solar panels. How can his dream come true if people have to 'ration' the power and don't have heat at the turn of a dial?"

 

"Idiot." Principal Madison snorts.

 

"Yeah, I asked Maria if it was just me or if people were really stupid after a zero-population period, she says they're used to being the center of attention and with babies being born, they're trying to . . ."

 

"make a name for themselves and going about it the wrong way." Doc says. Josette nods. "Anyway, the little bastard tried charging me when I wouldn't even look at his damn drawings, I grabbed his arm, put him on the floor, and was cussing him out. From the rumors his attorney dragged him to his parents and they cussed him out.

 

Josette looks around. "Bad weather?"

 

"Yes, we're expecting colder weather and sleet by morning. The girls are charging extra batteries while the boys are taking care of the stock. They're getting in extra supplies now in town."

 

"Clark, Clark, Kara, or I will be melting ice on the solar panels then." The others nod.

 

"Little fool's no doubt wailing people are being mean to him." President Bartlett rumbles at dinner. Everybody nods. Josette puts a plan up on the screen and they wince. "Dear god, he must have put a damn house on every square foot of land. I don't think you could get the houses any closer together unless they were sharing walls."

 

"Well yeah, nobody needs room, do they? That's why they have parks. Not that I doubt the parks would last long. And megaskyscrapers. . .hundreds of floors." everybody shudders. "I've read books like that and I don't want to live it."

 

"Amen, the buildings are bad enough. . .they make damn sure they protect their green space on Mom's world."

 

Josette pulls on an extra sweater the next morning, not at all surprised to feel extra heat coming through the registers from a fireball thrown in the second furnace. In the Kent farmhouse Ma looks out the window at the ice that's rapidly coating the window.

 

"I do like the automatic feeders, no need to get out in this weather." Pa says as he walks up behind her.

 

"Yes, this weather on Earth would have seen hundreds of car accidents. Here it's. . .we don't need to clear the shelves out of bread, milk, and toilet paper so we'll stay inside until it's over. Clark would have been out in this. . .I know he and Kara don't really feel the cold but. . ."

 

"No need for them to be out rescuing people." Pa says. He wraps his arms around his wife of two hundred years. "Can you imagine back then where we'd be now. . .that night?" The night they'd found a baby from the stars that became their beloved son.

 

"Nope, Not having left Earth to live on another planet. Family farms were disappearing on Earth but here. . ."

 

Farming is a fine profession here and everybody grows their own food. Most everybody quilts and Ma had made fine friends along with Jonathan. Not least of all their other selves from this dimension. So much of their lives had been the same but so much was different. After breakfast she heads up to her workroom, with the weather foul but a steady supply of power thanks to the boxes she should be able to get that new quilt finished. While she's not the quilter that Josette and the others are she's got a nice hand.

 

"Martha?" Jonathan asks when he sees her reading some books on the computer a couple days later.

 

"Copies of some books from the 9th planet ships. Soapmaking, cheesemaking, candlemaking. . .the soapmaking is all natural. . .no lye. . .not even wood ashes. There's a note that Josette made one of the recipes and used it on barn clothes so if it didn't work nothing would be damaged." Pa nods. "They have the recipes for the cake soap that grandma would have used."

 

"I hope she didn't wash them with a metal scrub board." Josette does go a little overboard on experimenting with things that will help people on Haven, bless her heart.

 

"No, she's got an old wringer washer but it's hand cranked. She used that. . .thinking about what would be used in the colony dimension in Calvin's dimension." Jonathan shudders. "Yes, they'd either have had one of those or an old metal washtub that washed clothes, people, and dishes."

 

It begins warming up a few days later and a flash is followed by the batteries starting to charge as the ice that had covered the solar panels and house melts. A few minutes later Kara walks in the front door.

 

"Morning Ma."

 

"Morning dear, how was GD?" Kara had been on the 9th planet to talk to GD and the others from the other dimension about their scientific achievements. As well as working with the others on the other Krypton. . .though Argo had never been colonized in their dimension and the closest she had to another self was the oldest daughter of Clark's father's younger brother and his wife. . .who had both immediately adopted her into their family as Jor-El had Clarinda and Josette. Clark and Kara had been building fortresses similar to Josette and CJ's on the twelfth planet. In their fortresses they were taking the same classes that Clarinda and Josette had taken to learn about Krypton and it's technology since Clark had been a baby when he had been sent away and Kara had grown up on a world that had lost it's technology in Krypton's explosion that had shifted Argo's orbit.

 

"Good Ma, there were the usual . . .incidents while I was there." Kara's lips twitch. She'd thought Josette and the others had been exaggerating until she spent the day there and there's been four different explosions. Josette had snorted it was a light day and Dr. Stark had just sighed but nodded.

 

Josette comes back from thawing buildings in town and the school, landing outside the dorm and walking inside. Alan comes up the stairs from the basement. "Ahhh, thought you were up when the batteries started charging again."

 

"The boys?"

 

"Got hit upside the head by the muse and are in their studio, I'm sure we'll have to drag them out of there for meals."

 

"Yep."

 

A closet door is propped open with a recycling bin and things start floating out. Abby makes a face at the door that would otherwise have shut in her face and heads to her room to start putting things away. She knows good and well the others are sniggering behind her but dammit, she's tired of the door shutting right in her face.

 

"Are we expecting more shipments for the bookstore?"

 

"Yeah, I gotta pick one up next week in Granda's dimension when I go out. I should be getting the notice in the next databurst that it's there."

 

"Will the colony book be out?"

 

"Yeah, and Madison and the others say the pre-orders are already sending it up the bestseller list. . .much to the dismay of the fools who were out there. They're wailing about slander and libel but one hello. . .fiction. And two, everybody already knows the damn shit happened. . .the damn video proof is all over the damn web. If the morons try to sue, they'll be paying me damages. Because I'd destroy the goddamn morons in court. No lawyer is taking their side, not even the damn ambulance chasers who advertise on tv all the time."

 

Susan nods as she walks past and pushes open the door to get a few breaths of fresh air. "The governments are cracking down on frivolous lawsuits. . .not even one of the court shows would accept the lawsuit. . .and they'll take any suit." Nods from the other two.

 

Josette pulls back a fist and the woman who'd been in her face complaining turns pure white.

 

"Lady, I have no goddamn intention of kissing your useless ass. You're a whiny bitch and either tell me what the hell your fucking maladjustment is or go the hell away. NOW!"

 

"But you brought your stuff at a warehouse store." she wails.

 

"And where the hell should I have got it. . .pulled it out of my ass? Moron."

 

"But you could have gone to the mall." she wails.

 

"I didn't want to go to the goddamn mall you stupid little bitch." Security drags her off.

 

"Goddamn moron, she's trying to drum up business for a local mall that's in danger of closing since more than half the stores went out. If the owners put a little money into the damn building they might have more businesses coming in." A woman who's trying to put a large box in the back of her van says. Josette helps her put it in the van.

 

"Thanks."

 

She drives past the mall, shaking her head as she sees a for sale sign up front. Pulling into the parking lot she looks at the outside improvements that can be made before walking inside, making notes and shaking her head.

 

Josette drops the notebook on Jane's desk. "The mall on eighth street."

 

"Is it up for sale yet? Calvin's been looking into buying it."

 

"Yes, there's the number. I took notes of improvements too."

 

"Oh yes, this is along the same lines of what Calvin was thinking." Jane says as she looks over the notes and Maria calls their financial guy to make an offer on it. "How'd you find out about it?"

 

"Some fool was wailing outside the warehouse store three blocks away because I was shopping there and not the mall."

 

Jane sighs. "I know who you're talking about, Her family built the mall years ago but bigger and better malls popped up in the area. She means well. . .but she's going at it the wrong way."

 

Josette learns the school brought the mall in the next databurst when she's back on Haven. Principal Madison looks at her but nods at her reasonings. "Most of this work could be handwaved after the mall closed for the night."

 

"The painting and cleaning definitely."

 

"Advertisements announcing it was under new management, a new grand reopening after the mall was shut down for a week?"

 

"Special events at the mall. . .grand prizes being a gift certificate worth. . .x amount of money."

 

"Oooh, a race at one of the chain stores. . .fill a cart with everything you can get in five minutes? Make it a contest with a five dollar entry fee? The publicity would be good."

 

"In a few years when kids are older and there's larger families, have a contest where they can win back to school shopping sprees."

 

Professor Druid is writing everything down and sends it along to Calvin in the next databurst. Maria looks through everything and nods, printing it out and handing it to Jane as she walks in. "Suggestions from the others about the new mall."

 

Jane reads through them and nods. "We can easily do all this."

 

"Add in events for social services as they're needed in the future." Maria says. Jane nods.

 

Josette moves everything various buildings over the next week and takes empty containers to the ship. The orders for the new items start coming in from Archimedes and the 9th planet, the other planets nodding as they learn the items will be offered to everybody the following year when the rest of the machines are in. The new jobs had been up for a whole ninety minutes before being filled and Josette had made a list where others could put their names in for the jobs when the rest of the machines were in.

 

"Josette, did the order increase?" President Bartlett asks as he finds her in the school building.

 

"Yes, and yes. . .I'm expecting more machines to be sent along in this next shipment." Josette stretches and stands up. "I don't know if we'll need them but I expect them to be sending more out." President Bartlett nods. "Can we handle the expanded orders?"

 

"Yep, even with setting some aside for us and the other planets."

 

"I notice you have two more boxes of socks in the front of the dorm."

 

"Yep, we emptied the boxes three times a week a few years ago, and ended up tossing all the socks on the line in the wash multiple times because they fucking stunk. And yes, I know pure wool would have stunk worse but you'd have tossed them in a pail of water to soak so . . ." Josette shrugs. "Lord knows they won't go to waste."

 

It finally starts to get warmer and windows open all over to get some fresh air in various homes. It's still cold enough that the furnaces come on so windows shut but they're beginning to stay open longer. Josette comes back with the next shipment, showing pictures of the improvements going up at the mall. "There's already three businesses making plans to come into the empty stores." Principal Madison nods in satisfaction. "Now the moron is wailing about the 'wrong' type of people coming to the mall but everybody's ignoring her."

 

"Some people are just born miserable."

 

"Yep. . .oh that little fool tried suing to force us to put up his grand masterpiece. . .no court would take it and every person who looked at his magnificent plans called them absolute shit. . .just like we did." Professor Druid's lips twitch, she's desperately trying not to burst out laughing. Especially at Josette's next words. "Little fool lowered himself to go to the work dimension and start putting money away for his future. And he had to get a job." Sniggering from everybody around them.

 

"Am I nuts. . ."

 

"No, the mall plans on extending upwards and outwards, the roof needs to be replaced over the next couple of years so they're planning on adding a few more floors. They've got a commercial growing area planned, a place to leave the kids while you're shopping area, an 'adult' playground, and a few other things. The top floor addition will be just the adult stuff. . .nightclub, fancy restaurant. . .a mini-golf course. . .stuff like that. In the new construction the first floor is going to be a multiple screen theater . . .one that brings you food right to your seats."

 

"How's the drive-in theater doing?"

 

"Good, there's been a resurgence of them over the years. Add in special events. . ."

 

"And people who poo-poohed the idea whine like babies?" Professor Parker snorts. "Figures."

 

Josette looks at the pairs of winter socks that had been soaking in the tub with some of the soap from the book, draining the tub and filling it with cold water to rinse since everything came clean. Pat had come looking for her and picks one up. "Is this the winterweight yarn?"

 

"Yes, the soap recipe is similar to what would be used by the buildings and I wanted to see how it would work on regular wool. It works for the socks anyway since I just let them soak."

 

"Haven't tried it yet on a sweater or anything else?"

 

"Not yet. The socks were beginning to stack up." Josette yawns. "Did you see the newest insanity in the databurst?"

 

"No, what are the idiots up to now?"

 

"Some moron is up in arms about us having 36 hours in the day, how can we change the hours in a day like that. Then went wailing that it wasn't fair when the NASA experts called her a fucking fool and told her every planet has different day and year lengths."

 

"How can they do that to her?" Anna warbles in a 'oh god the horror' tone from the doorway.

 

"Oh yes. . .always going to be somebody opening their mouth when their brain farts instead of actually damn thinking before they say anything." Josette looks over at Anna. "You got a call from Atlantis. . .you won't believe it. And that was her exact words."

 

"Okay, I don't fucking believe it." Josette says as the ship comes up on. . .a garbage dump in the middle of space. But it's not garbage. . .she can see it's stuff. "Okay, we'll have to call the other ships. Are any of the others nearly empty?"

 

"No, but we can move stuff around if it's needed." Atlantis sighs.

 

Five hundred years later for them they land on the water on Haven, Josette being nudged from the command chair where she'd gladly fall asleep to her bed.

 

Josette holds up a hand when she walks into the dorm. "I'm an energy duplicate. . .I'm asleep on Atlantis. We found a . . .wellllll I guess we could call it a garbage dump in the middle of space. It was like a million billion trillion freighters dumped their loads in that exact spot. Every day. And it was growing. It took all of us five hundred years to clear everything out and we finally found a . . .welllll, I guess you can call it a machine like on Grandpa Charles Earth. We put it on standby since there was a switch with three settings. I sent off a message to the 9th planet once we got in range and they. . ." The switching station activates, Grandpa Charles and a man come rushing into the room.

 

"Where is the machine?"

 

"On one of the ships. We moved the switch to the middle position since it was extremely low on power. From all the stuff surrounding it, it's been putting stuff out for centuries."

 

"Probably." Josette grabs Doc's PADD and pulls up a picture of the machine. "Since it seems to absorb energy we put it on one of the piers to see if it would help. Atlantis says it's charging."

 

"Yes, you did everything exactly right. It's one of the machines like ours but. . ."

 

"It's brand new and yours is extremely old?"

 

He nods. "It will be decades before it's stable enough to start supplying again."

 

"We don't need it to supply anything for a while, we've got tons of stuff on the ships. We got the call to deal with the stuff since it's finally got big enough to start being a danger to ships." The man with him moans as he sees the area of items from space.

 

"The switch got moved somehow and without any input. . ."

 

"It started just making stuff and kept going since nobody was there to tell it to stop." Doc sighs.

 

He nods. "If the power levels had got any lower it would have burned itself out. Now, there's some things you will need to know. . .the machine will grow over the years, you'll probably want to put in a building where it can get power if possible. And . ..it's sentient. . .not at this time but as it gets bigger." The man looks at Josette. . .who just snorts.

 

"I've got fourteen sentient spaceships. . .fifteen with Clark's, thirteen sentient time machines, another machine is going to fit in just fine." He sighs in relief. "The machine can stay on Atlantis unless it's going to grow too damn big."

 

The man gives measurements for their machine and Josette nods. "Yeah, we'll have plenty of room for it on Atlantis." He looks at her and she brings up a video of the thirteen ships and then the others.

 

"Sir." The man says when he returns to his own dimension. "Dr. McNider's granddaughter. . .'

 

"Yes?"

 

"She found a lost machine."

 

"Are you certain?"

 

"Yes, she'd been called out to deal with a . . .debris field that had gotten so big it was inhibiting travel." He brings up a picture of the field. "Dealing with it she found one of the machines severely low on power. Thinking quickly she put the switch to the middle position. . .the machine is now recharging. I told them it would be decades before it could be used but they reassured us it would not be needed."

 

"No, seeing this field it would not be needed. Not even the ships filled with the smallest boxes could hold all this."