Josette slides into her seat at the government building the first day of the new semester.

"Doc's not going to make the meeting, he's doing something with Doc, Charles, and Dr. Cross at the dorm."

"Are you at the ranch?"

"No, we're just hearing strange sounds coming from various places when the doors are open. The cats are giving us disgusted looks because somebody. . ." Josette gives David a look. "Keeps cackling like a mad scientist."

"Yeah, you." he snorts. Principal Madison and President Bartlett chuckle at the mock-argument.

"Noooo, I'm the one cussing like a sailor because you just set the damn bunny on me. You're the one cackling as you walk away."

"Bunny?"

"A variation on the prince and princess fairy tale but she's a kick-ass martial artist, he's a dreamer who wants to be an artist, her 'lady-in-waiting' is a healer and the bad guy is a scientist who's creating a new society away from the people who complain 'that's not how it's done'. It's one of those stories that won't sell. . .mostly for the sex. Let's just say the 'hero' ends up the filling in a girl loving sandwich. And the 'bad guy' wins."

"Yep, people would be up in arms over one or the other." Principal Madison says.

"Okay, back to business. Josette, orders?" President Bartlett asks.

"Coming along well."

"Supplies for the returning students, employees, cooking school teachers, and reality show people?"

"I'm bringing out another double batch of supplies midterms that will be going to the cooking school for them." Nods of satisfaction from the two older men. "Anything left over will be brought to the school for next year's students and employees. That should be enough for next year's students and employees, though we'll have to do an inventory after everybody comes back." Principal Madison nods and makes a note of that on his PADD.

"Colony?"

"According to the reports in their second winter, they'll be bringing out supplies another couple of years yet. This year or next people are going to be coming out to their homesteads and finding a spot for their homes and starting to put them up."

"Are there any single people going out?"

"Yeah, and the houses are designed that one person can move the logs into position with a pulley system. I'd hate to try to live out there by myself though. Especially over the winter. Bad enough during the summer when they'd be busy on the farm, going to be hell over the winter."

"Even in Little House when they moved to town for the winter they had to go out to the farm to take care of the animals."

"Put the logs up, chink the inside?"

Josette nods. "They're all marked with the doors and window, plus hole for the stovepipe or fireplace already cut. Put in the door and windows, some might put in the panels in the inside to further insulate the house, find water and dig the well, put up the outhouse and barn and get in enough supplies for their first year if they didn't arrive in time to plant their garden."

"They're going to have to bring in wagons of supplies."

"Yep. At least fifteen for the house, outhouse, and barn supplies, two or more for furniture, and three to eight for supplies for the winter."

"And some of that they'd need to have something up for the supplies." David says, looking at the list.

"The food at least."

"They'll need at least a year to get in animal feed."

"A hay crop for winter."

"We were lucky in that Josette was able to harvest hay for us before we came up and we had a year to get in more before winter. And let the animals graze. . .and we had supplies of animal food on hand and the feeders."

"They'll figure it out, I'm sure a farm by town will be going up first to iron out the details." Nods from the others. "Okay, anything else?"

"Students?"

"Ebbing again."

"Not a bad thing."

"Not at all. Especially with two years of new employees getting used to the school."

"Okay, new textbooks?"

"Nope, Granda says it's been quiet. Nothing new talked about, no new editions of existing books."

"Going on for a masters?"

"Probably, I'll be talking to Granda and people at Harvard when we go out either Christmas or finals."

"Degrees?"

"The boys are two years in, Susan and I are defending or uploading our dissertations this summer, CJ's going to be finished with his this fall."

"And I'm sure they're more than ready to have theirs finished." President Bartlett's lips twitch.

"Ohhhh yes."

"Shows?"

"Me Granda, the boys Mom's. I go first and I'm debuting two books again this year. That will leave four old books next year when the last of the new books are finished."

"What next?"

"Either the fiction or reprinting the older books, I was seeing how many I have after Thanksgiving."

Stopping at the bakery Josette returns to the dorm after David, taking off her outside clothes and putting them up before heading inside.

"Boys?" She asks Susan who's in the living room.

"On the island checking the crops. The twins went out to the ranch to check on the livestock."

"Dissertation?"

"Uploading mine this summer. David's got an appointment while we're out for your show for his."

"And the boys got three more years before they can defend theirs."

"Then another year for the damn thing to finally be over." Josette says, sniggering along with Susan.

"Yu-huh." Alexander snorts as he comes into the living room, dropping onto the couch and petting the cat next to him. "And if anybody talks me into another one, I'm going . . .going to . . .do something very, very bad." More sniggers from the two girls.

"Classes this semester?"

"A semester on Jungle adventures--comics, a semester on comic book characters DC took over, and the four classes for the Italians during WWII. I'm concentrating on the finishing the two degrees from Harvard since none of the degrees here except the Italians is anywhere near completion."

"And this way you can pick up classes from other schools."

"Yep, they're all sending me letters and other enticements to sign up for degrees." Josette settles in a chair and checks the inventory of what she's got in stasis.

"Need to make anything?"

"No, I'm good until at least our first testing week, probably a couple weeks after that."

"Green tomatoes?"

"I've got a room of them on the ship."

At Wayne Manor Bruce is looking outside the window at the lightly falling snow outside.

"You only need the cape fluttering in the breeze behind you." A voice snorts behind him. Bruce grabs Jason in a headlock and rubs his knuckles on his head. "Boys." Thomas says as he walks around them to his desk. Bruce drubs Jason's head a couple more minutes then settles at his desk.

"Shouldn't you be in class?"

"Heading that way in a few minutes. I was just remembering. . .how much things have changed. I'm going to be hitting the big 50 pretty soon but . . ." He looks down at his body that still looks to be in his late teens.

"Our bodies have changed since we arrived on Haven and we've adapted to the longer years." Thomas says, not saying what has really happened to Jason and the others. He's at Clark's Fortress as often as Clark is, both of them planning a lab to go on the twelfth planet.

After lunch Josette flies to Brigadoon, checking on the plants she'd harvested, the tomatoes, and picking some fresh lemons and limes. Dropping off some to the others she heads back to the dorm, putting some beans on to soak overnight before joining with her other selves that had been taking classes or working on other stuff at the dorm all day.

"University in space?" David asks as they walk to the dining hall.

"Second book is being released while we're out after Thanksgiving."

"Movie?"

"The ticket sales for the university in space was good, so was the DVD. The second movie is due to be released around the same time the gym in space movie, they wanted to make sure the special effects were up to snuff. We all remember movies that bombed thanks to bad special effects."

"Rather than movies that bombed because they were bad remakes of good shows or were umpity ump ump ump sequels?" Susan snorts.

"Exactly." Josette says as they shake the snow off their coats and jackets, kicking their feet together to get rid of that snow before walking into the back room.

"Josette, are you going to check the probes on Earth?"

"Yeah, I'm going out in a couple weeks, they're reaching the end of their storage capacity."

"Josette, what are you working on?" Alan asks after dinner.

"Taking the information from the covered wagons in the colony dimension and seeing how they'd hold up to bad weather."

"They had to have had oiled the canvas to keep everything from being ruined by rain but still. . ."

"Wouldn't stand up to our rains."

"Yeah, and they could tighten the canvas at the front and back but. . ."

"Covered wagons like you saw in the gypsy movies and circuses?"

"Might be able to be lived in over the winter, but they couldn't hold the supplies the other wagons could."

"No, but if I remember the movies they had supply wagons too. And mess hall tents so they didn't cook in their wagons."

"And the circus performers didn't live in them over the winter. They took their circuses to warmer climates after the last show."

"They'll have to be making multiple trips anyway, they can take off the canvas to use as a tent to live in while they're bringing in supplies."

Josette heads to the other dimension the next day after breakfast for the mail. Everybody's on the phones or working on the computer so Josette just brings out the mail, making a second pile of what needs extra postage and opening the closet for the mail.

"Need anything before midterms?" Jane asks, getting off the phone.

"Shouldn't, Joyce will tell me if we're running low on anything."

"No Josette, we're good on supplies until midterms." Joyce says when Josette delivers the mail. "Is the school there busy?"

"Yes, some fool woman tried suing to have the school shut down because the land should be turned into a resort. They need another spa, the land and buildings are too good for kids." Principal Madison rolls his eyes as he leans out of his office. "Yeah, the judge handed her her ass and now the school's getting a lot of publicity."

"People are stupid." Joyce says.

"Amen. But some of them come by it honestly." Josette mutters as she straightens up. "You're to come with me for the mail in three days, dressed to impress. We're talking a hush-hush, top secret super-duper student meeting."

"Fifth day?"

"Yeah, it'd be an hour after breakfast. Expect to be at the meeting a good three hours. And yes, I've got to attend the meeting too." Joyce sniggers as Principal Madison smirks.

"Our last batch of top secret students are settling in well."

"Yep."

Josette brings out their mail, the others sorting it out before lunch. Junk mail goes in the recycling bin on the table.

"I gotta shred paper after lunch."

"Books?"

"Yeah, I'll take the two I'm debuting out when I take out furniture and stuff for the show. The printers should be done with number seven and eight around midterms."

"Orders?"

"I'll start moving stuff next month, they should be running low on room then."

"When are the people coming out for Wayne, Dayton, and Drake?"

"Fifth month, that way the weather's nice, the crops are in, and we got a few weeks to concentrate on what they're going to be working on."

"Offworld harvests?"

"Yeah, we'll be starting those.

"Second harvest year?"

"Next year."

"Second Christmas?"

"Next year too, so it will be asshole to elbow. But the second Christmas will be when we go out after Thanksgiving."

"So it's not a special trip. You're going to be offworld often enough as it is."

"Josette, what are you working on?" Doc finds her in Headquarters after dinner with engineering and history texts on the table around her.

"The frigging bunny is driving me insane with how much materials they'd need to bring out for a home in the colony dimension. Even with those two wagon wagons you see on tv. . ." Doc nods. "It would still be a lot of trips. Even a loaded wagon and flyer would need multiple trips."

"They'd have to only be one or two days travel away from town at the beginning. Any longer and it would take too long to get in supplies."

"I'd say less than a week by travel by fast horse to have enough land. Two weeks by wagon, an empty wagon would travel faster than a full one."

"I'd almost say they'd have to go out for a couple summers first to scope out the land and figure out where they'd want to put the house and barn."

"Yeah, living rough in a wagon and cooking on the ground wouldn't be that big of a hardship in good weather."

"We had it easy, we either had our houses brought up with us or in the case of the settlers it was waiting on them when they came up."

"And those houses that were built on Haven were close enough they could live in temporary housing while they were taking out supplies. "

"And you lived on the ship when you brought out the plastic for the houses and outbuildings here and on the other planets."

"They'll figure it out."

"Yes, and the lessons they learn on the colony will be used when they go into space and have to build."

A couple days later Josette joins Principal Madison at the meeting. They spend a couple days on Earth since they brought Ulonda with them, checking on the progress of the colony dimension and the moonbase before returning back to Haven.

"Long meeting?" Professor Druid asks.

"Multiple meetings, and a whiner at most of them." Josette says, rolling her eyes. "Living proof that some people don't grow out of the I'm 'spe-shul, who are you to tell me no' mindset."

"And most of them end up in politics." Professor Ziegler snorts down the table. President Bartlett nods since he's got a mouthful of food.

"That good?"

"After we got done with the meetings about special students and other important stuff we had to deal with the rest." Josette rolls her eyes as she fills her trays in the back room.

"But you've got to change your classes, having your students not take them like the other schools gives them an advantage, we don't want that do we?"

"Yeah, this is why they're one of the best prep schools in the world?" Professor Druid rolls her eyes.

"But our school can't compete. You don't use the same books we do and you offer more classes, it's not right." Professor Eppes says in a mock-whining tone.

"Exactly. the government official who'd ordered the meeting was getting some dirty looks from his boss. The reasons he gave for the meeting didn't have a damn thing to do with what they were really talking about. So he's going to get a 'talking' to when they get back."

"But if I'd told you what the meeting was really about, you wouldn't have let me schedule it." Amanda mock-whines this time.

"Exactly."

"Any other complaints?"

"They don't like the idea that Dad's school offers boarding and day options. . ."

"They can't compete?" President Bartlett smirks.

"Noooooo. They don't like the idea that both our schools go year-round even though year-round schools are growing in popularity with the studies saying students tend to lose what they've learned over the long summer. But families can't go on vacation if you go year-round."

"They're seeing the wave of the future and they're not on the cusp. Instead of trying to make sure they're not left behind they're trying to force it to be the way they want." Josette says in the back room. Amanda and the other sosh teachers nod. "We had to adapt rapidly to all the shit that happened on Earth before we came out. . ."

"And there's always been somebody complaining about how new-fangled this or that is causing problems and how things were different in the old day. It didn't matter what, the car taking over from the horse and buggy, cell phones taking over from the ones on the wall, e-mail taking away from when people actually wrote letters that might take months to get to the other person, computers and televisions taking away family time. . ."

"Anything we need to worry about beyond the important stuff?"

"No, Josette met with Madison and Jessica about her books while we were out there. We checked on the colony dimension and moonbase while we were there."

"What size land parcels are they buying?"

"40 acres with the option to buy more in the future. They've got to get settled in first and show they can settle the land before they can think of buying more land."

"They'll probably need it for future children." One of the teachers from Balaclava that had been eating at the school so she could go over the garden and field plans with Professor Druid says. In the back room Josette nods. "In the beginning, there's not going to be a lot of jobs. We were lucky in that we were able to bring out factories and had jobs from the beginning."

"Something they'll have to be thinking about when they make future colony plans. Do they have something like a land office?"

"Yeah, with maps showing who has brought where."

"Do we have a land office?"

"Government building. They've got a map of the local areas, the commercial growing areas, and the outlying farms."

"How are things coming along on the 9th planet? They said something about planting new crops?"

"Yeah, they've been looking at growing more crops. They're looking at land for grapes."

"Plenty of varieties we don't currently grow."

A couple weeks later.

Thomas shivers in Quetzatlan as he looks through the window at the scenery around them. "It's hard to believe that man ever lived on the planet."

"How cold is it?"

"A balmy 20 degrees below zero."

"Balmy?"

"Compared to normal arctic temperature, oh yeah." Josette checks on the temperate areas.

"We had air sweeping machines on Krypton."

"Yes, I've been thinking of them if the . . .stuff in the atmosphere doesn't clear up but we also have all the pollution to think of. . .not to mention the ice age."

"Even without the debris in the atmosphere it took centuries for the last ice age on earth to end."

"And it is clearing up." Quetzatlan says. "The clear areas are getting larger and. . .yes, the density of debris in the worse areas is lessening." She puts up the graphs.

"Yes." Josette says. "Okay, now what?"

"It's still going to be centuries for it to clear completely. . .but it's a start." Josette sighs. "And we still need to deal with the pollution and hole in the ozone problems."

"Even Krypton had those from what I found when I went back. And massive radiation from the weapons."

"Which is why they needed the air sweeping machines."

Clark nods. "You might talk to the 9th planet about them if their Justice League doesn't have them."

Josette nods. "We're draining the radiation but there's still all that shit in the atmosphere. And even getting rid of that won't fix all the problems from global warming."

Thomas nods. "The California droughts because the snow pack there and in Alaska were a tenth of what they should be. . ."

"While some places like Boston got slammed during the 'warmest' winter on record. Which since I lived near Boston and we repeatedly got below freezing storms. . .." Josette says, nodding. "Jet stream was moving the weather away from where it normally went and was needed and hit places that weren't prepared for it. Which they really should have been since they knew the winters were getting worse."

"Oh, you're just talking. . .nobody really believes that stuff." Clark says, rolling his eyes.

"Exactly. Until it was too late. California just got the most attention but there was a lot of places that had a rain deficit. Just like there was morons who didn't want to believe the talk about the upcoming ice age, we were just saying that to make them stop using oil and gas."

Thomas sighs. "People refused to believe the truth about the mass sterilization on Earth too, you can give people the facts but you can't make them see the truth until they want to."

Josette comes out the second testing week with Aztec and starts moving supplies to the ship after dropping off the recycling. Dropping off socks at the school she sighs at the look on Calvin's face. He snickers slightly and waves her into his office.

Josette shoves David's shoulder lightly as she sits her tray down at the table. "Remember the twits from the department that handled school lunches on Earth? Granda had to deal with them while I was out there. They haven't changed a damn bit." Everybody cackles. Ma, Thomas, and Alex had joined them for the meal and they look at them.

"You spend too much money offering fresh fruit and vegetables, you should be using more canned." Alan says pompously. He pokes a fresh grape tomato with his fork on his salad and pops it into his mouth with a smirk.

"Didn't the government want schools to offer more fresh fruit and veggies at meals?" Thomas asks dryly.

"They were morons and the agency had the problem of the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. They didn't like the idea of students being able to serve themselves multiple times."

"They'd have had hysterics at how much food Josette puts away." Alex says. Josette sniggers and nods. "You'd think the food budget was coming out of their own pockets, they were nearly counting every bite we took. They wanted to limit students to one tray and limited seconds. . .with the cooks serving the students to control portions." Thomas rolls his eyes while Principal Madison is doing the same in the front room. The older teachers are telling the story to the younger ones. "They had to be shown medical studies that prove mutants new to their gifts burn through calories and can lose weight without knowing it."

"And of course we had those students like Josette with hyperactive metabolisms."

"They hated the idea of offering three meals and two snacks, they wanted to cut out the snacks entirely and only offer one meal."

"You're a boarding school." Alex says dryly. Thomas is shaking his head while Ma is sighing about fools who can't see what's in front of their faces.

"Yeah. Then they wanted us to shut down the other dining halls which were only one floor back then, you don't 'need' all those. . . just use one building. They had to be shown we had over 5000 students, there's no way the two rooms would be able to handle everybody, that's why we built the other dining halls. They walked off pouting because they couldn't force us to do what they wanted and we continued on the way we were, adding some things that made sense while ignoring the stupid stuff."

"Stuff that made sense?"

"Offering juice with the pulp because it's better for you. Josette drinks it when she's out of the other, she complains about having to pick the pulp out of her teeth all morning." Josette sighs. "They'd be horrified to find out we offer real ethnic food nights and there's restaurants on the school ground."

Josette snorts. "They were horrified that we had school gardens before they became popular so students knew where their food came from. Besides a shelf in a grocery store."

"Anything new at Calvin's?"

"They're planning to refurb a drive-in theater that just went up for sale. Of course the local town is complaining but since they don't have a movie theater. . ."

"Sour grapes."

"We didn't want to put one up but we didn't mean for you to do it." Professor Eppes says snidely from the front room. The others nod.

"There's also the fact that they brought land surrounding it with plans of putting up a mall like we did." The others snigger.

"How are you coming on your Harvard classes?"

"Good, I'll be nine classes into each by finals. Get in classes this summer, and finish the two degrees this fall along with the Italians degree."

"How long were you over there?"

"I was just leaving as we were arriving. I spoke to a few representatives from various schools, including my advisor at Harvard. Listened to that stupid bitch who was suing to have the colony dimension and moonbase stopped since it was against her religion complain because nobody was taking her side. Don't they know she's the ultimate authority and they should bow down and kiss her ass for breathing? The judge told her to grow the hell up, being too stupid to live wasn't a crime but she was taking it to extremes and he'd make an exception in her case if she kept pissing him off." Sniggers from various people. "Living proof they need prisons for people who are too fucking stupid to live. That way they can preach to each other and leave the rest of us alone."

"Anything else?"

"Usual, did a little looking around. I'm hitting Vegas when we go out for Christmas since they'll be having special stuff going on."

"You get the books from the printers?"

"Yeah, yesterday when I brought out more paper."

"Good," Josette says, finding Dad Sanders in the dorm when they return from lunch. She pulls up a file she sends to his PADD. "Look that over, would you?"

"What is it?"

"Small oven of clay or metal that can be put in, over, or next to a wood or dung fire in a fireplace for baking. Smaller would mean less heat needed."

"Dutch ovens that they could put in the coals and cover like they did in the cowboy movies?" Susan asks, walking past them to her room.

"I've been experimenting with them too. Something like baking in the firepits when we're cooking out would be perfect since it would be surrounded by heat but there's the problem of not being able to check on it."

"There were countries on Earth that heated with peat or animal dung. .." Dad says.

"Yes, but they really don't do a lot of baking like you found in the other countries." Everybody nods.

"Get everything delivered?"

"Yeah, I dropped off at the sorting planet first."

"Josette, did you see the message from Edinborough?" Doc asks, coming to the door of Headquarters.

"Yeah, I was reading the messages while I was delivering everything." The others look at them. "They want to start a degree on clockmaking. Similar to the musical instruments classes, first a history of them then actually working on the various types." The others nod. "That's something that's going to be handmade for a few years."

Josette's eyes glaze over a second.

"Bad storm?" David asks, reaching for his PADD as Alexander and Alan look towards the ranch and Susan looks towards the basement.

"Just bitter ass cold and snowy."

"Knew that, that's why they told everybody to order extra wood."

Josette and the others head to the islands the next day after breakfast, harvesting for a few hours before they take the full bags back to the dorm. As Josette had said, it had started turning colder after dinner the previous night.

"Anything on the space colony plans?" David asks after breakfast, joining President Bartlett, Principal Madison, Doc, and Josette in the administration building for an impromptu meeting. "They ever decide building ships in space versus on the planet?"

"They're doing both, starting on a ship that will lift off the planet in the desert once they have lists of supplies needed, both for the ship and feeding and housing the workers on site unless they house them in various nearby towns and cities. And they've got plans to start building a large satellite to house workers building ships in space and those crews who are coming up with supplies."

"They'd almost have to house them on site. . ." President Bartlett says slowly. "Security will have to be tight to keep both the looky-lous away and to keep somebody from trying to sabotage it."

"How are they handling building the ship itself?"

"Farming out the pieces to various corporations and assembling them on site once they make sure everything is to specifications. Very strict quality assurances with government oversight and hefty fines for cutting corners. They're looking at years of steady work on the parts before they can start assembling everything, but that will give them time to get everything ready to put it together."

"They won't be able to keep it quiet."

"No, but they'll be able to set up containment areas. If they could put the ship together in one of the other dimensions it would take care of the security needs but. . ."

"Yeah, that's not possible."

"It's all years in the future, they're still waiting to see how the colony dimension settles once more people start moving out and find habitable planets."

"Which you're going to be doing when it gets closer to completion?"

"Yeah, because once they have the ship and a planet, they'll still need the colonists."

"That'll be the big sticking point, not too many people are going to want to pick up and move to another planet."

"They might be surprised, we were when we opened Haven to colonists. . .of course 99% of them were rejected."

"Yeah, they'd really need to make sure they'd be able to handle life on another planet just like they did the colony dimension."

"And have firm laws and rules of conduct."

"Thomas's dimension?"

"About seven years our time and we'll be nearing the time we left. Hopefully we won't be harvesting for a while. They're under three billion. . .which would *eem like a good population."

"But not when nobody's younger than their . . .what forties?"

"Somewhere around there." Josette sighs and rubs the back of her head.

"Doc's world?"

"Taking it one day at a time."

"Just like everybody else."

Josette nods.

"I had a request for spices from the cooks?"

"Yeah, we've got a batch growing in the building, everybody's growing different ones on the various planets so they've got both a large variety and a good supply of them." Nods from the others. "I'm growing a good variety on the ship along with the green tomatoes."

"The islands?"

"We went out yesterday, it will be a few days before we pick again." Josette looks at the time on her PADD and sniggers. "Granda was telling me various governments were bitching again about us not having a 'proper' government. . ."

"Bertha better than yous." President Bartlett rumbles. "Yeah, now they're whining because we don't have state dinners."

"Those were an excuse for people to lord it over their friends and neighbors. . .'oh look, I've been invited to the White House'." President Bartlett says in a sing-song voice.

"'I'm having dinner with the President and you're not'." Josette says in the same tone of voice. "Same thing with 'my child went to Oxford while yours was in high school."

"Anything else?"

"No, the world government told them to grow up and stop their bitching. Our government has been working for decades without their 'help' and it will keep on going just fine."

"Anything else before we go out for Christmas?" The others shake their heads and the meeting breaks up. Josette goes up to her workroom after they get back to the dorm, looking through her bags and boxes to select a project to work on.

A couple weeks later David opens the tesseract on Earth, everybody trailing off the ship. Josette joins the others at the mansion a couple hours later.

"Josette, are you planning on making pepper jack cheese? You've been mumbling about needing to."

"Yeah, I've got the pickled jalapenos on the ship."

Josette splits off a couple duplicates that start working on that over the next few days, making logs and wheels of cheese that's put up on the ship to age. She joins Principal Madison, Doc, and Calvin in a government office one day.

"Get tapped to find habitable worlds?"

"Yeah, and we talked about what we might be able to make for the ships." The others chuckle and sigh.

"City?"

"They're planning on ships first, then a city. They were poo-pooing it at first until they saw footage of the one on the moon in 9th planet. 'Oh my god, you really can have a city in space'." Josette says in an airhead voice. The others snigger.

"Before they do anything they'll have to have a steady source of energy, preferably non-polluting and wireless."

"Yeah, the energy companies are pouting since the government is cracking down on all the fees they're charging the customers. Any more the fees are more than the damn power."

"Well if the government hadn't passed them in the first place. . ." Alexander snorts.

"Yeah, can't have it both ways."

A few weeks later they settle back on Haven, David opening the tesseract as the students and employees start carrying their bags off. Josette starts delivering stuff to the dorm before flying back to the school.

"Get the cheese made?"

"Yeah, it's aging on the shelves with three other varieties." Josette leans back against the couch, looking out the window at the snow falling outside. "Islands?"

"Tomorrow." The others nod.

"Am I mean in wanting the morons who don't eat animal by products being stuck in the colony dimension and having to eat that way or starve?" Susan asks. A fool woman had been picketing the school because they didn't serve only vegan meals until the police had arrested her. She'd already tried suing and gotten the case laughed out of court by the judge.

"Nope, not when they shove their opinion down your throat." Josette smirks.

"What other peppers do you have pickled?"

"A good variety beside the jalapenos. I like them in sandwiches. Speaking of which, I gotta make bread this weekend." The others nod. Looking at the time they call for the kids and head to lunch.

"What is that?" David asks at the strange sandwich Josette's eating in her room.

"Muffuletta, it's an Italian sandwich. Layers of olive salad, meat, cheese, pickled peppers, basically whatever you want to add in round loaves with most of the bread scooped from it, then pressed down. They're on the food replicator." Josette says after swallowing. "I don't make them because you make the olive salad the day before, make the sandwich the day after that, then let it sit at least overnight with something heavy on it to flatten it. They got their own version on cook's country but it's not the same."

David shakes his head as Josette finishes the list of bread she needs to make that weekend. "Workroom?"

"Should be getting a little crowded by the time we're going out for finals. I'll take them out then then whatever extra we have before my show, then again when we take the students, employees, cooking school teachers, and reality show people back home after Thanksgiving."

"Are you going to be having stuff to take back?"

"Probably, everybody's going to be opening windows as the weather gets nice, looking around their rooms, and realizing oh shit I gotta do something with this . . .stuff." David sniggers. "Depending on how much it is I might wait since they'll start picking up later in the year." David nods as he walks off, dialing up a sandwich of his own on the replicator. Slicing off a section, he moans at the taste, the others taking portions. "Muffuletta, there's about ten different kinds in the replicator."

"Vat meat?" Anna asks after dinner.

"Yeah, we've got to see what we've still got in stasis and make more. Especially the lunch meats."

"I'll check the supply after dinner. We've got plenty of the real meat." The shipment had come in while they were off for Christmas.

"What's the latest on the colony?"

"They're getting ready to go out to look at their land and find good spots to put up the house, barn, and outhouse in a few months."

"Any timeline on colonizing space?"

"Not for twenty years, our time. It's going to take a few years to set up a location to build the ship, start getting in supplies and set up housing for the workers. . ." Nods from the others.

"And it will take at least that long to build the ship?" David say dryly.

"Yeah, but it would be steady work."

"Have to investigate the workers to make sure they wouldn't be sabotaging the work."

"Same with the companies building the parts."

"They're looking at strict quality control." Josette says.

"They'd have to for a spaceship."

"They need better quality control everywhere thanks to all the damn recalls." Susan mutters. The others nod.

The next morning the tesseract opens before lunch and everybody troops into the basement kitchen with bags of stuff from the gardens. Looking at the time they head to lunch before starting to can, dry, or otherwise store everything. That takes a couple of days and Josette looks at her supply of sliced meats for sandwiches before bringing out the large commercial slicer.

"Guys, I'm going to be slicing deli meat first day, anybody wants anything let me know. I'm running out."

"Yeah, we're getting low too. We'll start a list."

Josette and the others head up to the bakery after breakfast eighth day, making large batches of bread dough that are laid out to rise while they go to lunch. Principal Madison looks at them. "Making bread." David says. He nods. "Garbage."

"Yeah, planned on doing it tomorrow." Josette says absently. "And moving the recycling to the ship."

"Thank you Josette."

"How are you on your classes?"

"Good, I don't need to head to Archimedes for our third testing week since I have everything but the finals done." Nods from the others. After lunch they check the bread and start the batches of special loaves, laying them out to rise. The first batch is ready to pop in the ovens and Josette starts them going as the others start another batch of dough for more specialty bread. Another large batch of basic bread would be next and keep them supplied for a couple months.

The next morning Josette starts putting the now cool loaves of bread in stasis and grabs the disintegrating gun and crystals from the replicator. Getting all the garbage takes an hour and she heads to the dorm before lunch to empty them.

"Done?" Alan asks, looking over from the couch as she comes in.

"Just over half, the crystals are full." Josette puts them in the slots and grabs them after lunch, getting the rest of the garbage and putting the recycling in subspace, moving it to the ship.

"Thank you Josette, for getting the garbage and moving the recycling." Principal Madison says at dinner.

The next morning Josette checks the list and starts bringing out the big chunks of turkey, ham, and other meat, checking to see who wants what and filling containers. The rest goes in the basement kitchen stasis unit.

"Get it taken care of?"

"Yeah, we still got plenty in the general stasis unit and the rest of the lunchmeat after your special requests is in the basement. No use having a partial one going." Nods from the others. "The vat is making more stuff."

"Mail?"

"I'm heading out tomorrow."

It's snowing hard when Josette heads off, dropping off the carts of mail at the office and bringing out their mail at the dorm.

"Josette, cherries?"

"They're ripening on the ship, I should be picking in a couple weeks."

Josette contacts Wayne Manor after lunch.

"Miss Josette?"

"I'm going to be picking the cherries on the ship in a couple weeks, do you want any?"

"Our own trees are producing right now."

"Ahhh, and it's like bringing coals to Newcastle. Gotcha." Josette chuckles.

"Indeed."

Alfred looks over as Alex comes in with more cherries he starts cleaning, pitting, and slicing for chutneys and other sauces. The drying tables are full of cherries as are the stasis units and they've taken more out to Ma Kent. . .both of them. "This is the last of them." He chuckles at the sigh of relief Alfred can't quite hide.

After lunch Josette checks on her plant, watering it with the last of the fish water in the can and going to fill it again. Susan and the boys head to Archimedes for their third testing week as Josette and David make plans for the first garden and crops.

The cherries start coming in and Josette is busy for several days picking them and either making wine, drying, dumping them in stasis or making stuff with the others. That's stuck in stasis too as windows start being opened to air out rooms. Josette spreads manure on the fields and garden, checking to see the others doing the same. A few days later it's tilled under and the first crops planted.

Josette slides into her usual seat at the testing center.

"How is everything on Haven?"

"We're opening windows and airing everything out, it wasn't a hard winter but it felt like it dragged on forever since it was cold and snowy." The others nod, knowing that feeling. More than one person is climbing the walls by the time spring arrives.

"Recycling?" David asks from the door of her room when she returns from Archimedes.

"I'll put the school's on the ship right before we leave, I'm getting the other planets tomorrow." He nods in satisfaction.

"Bringing back recycling?"

"Yeah, it should be picking back up now that the supplies for the colony dimension is slowing down, then slowing down again once they start working on the ship." David nods. "Oh, the glassblowers called."

"Yeah, I was going to see if they needed the glass broken up. They have to have been running low."

The next evening Josette slides into her usual spot in the dining hall. "Recycling picked up on the other planets, last of the orders on the ships to be delivered, the glass broken up for the glassblowers, and I moved all the special orders we had finished. I just need to pick up the school's recycling before we leave." On the front screen Principal Madison nods in satisfaction.

The end of the week finds David opening the tesseract to allow the returning students and employees off the ship. The others trail off as Josette starts delivering stuff, joining them at the mansion a couple hours later to find food on the table.

"Get everything delivered or picked up?"

"Yes, including the stuff we'd ordered before and the school's supplies. Ten bucks says not only do we find the recycling drop-off centers just as full as when we were here before, I take a good chunk of it back with me."

"Sucker bet. Paper ends?"

"Yep, I'm taking them back with me."

"Colony?"

"From the last databurst before we came out, they're going to start going out to check their land in a few weeks. They're getting in supplies since it will be a good two or three weeks out there walking their land, finding a good spot for the house, the barn, corrals and grazing areas, and making sure the well and outhouse aren't near each other." Nods from the others. "Talking to Madison?"

"Yeah, I gotta go out one day while we're here. Go over all the details before the 2nd book is released and the movies come out."

The next couple of weeks pass quickly and Josette picks up the last of the shipments that have arrived while they were there before they lift off and head back to Haven. The students start heading to the auditorium with their bags as Josette splits off duplicates to start delivering everything.

"Seventh planet?"

"I'll deliver them tomorrow." Josette stretches and yawns, opening the stasis unit and bringing out stuff for a sandwich. Bacon and something else is put on the grill. David looks at her. "Tempe. Soy bacon, it was available back on earth. I made it flavored with spices or smoked just like the bacon." He nods and hands her the mustard after she cuts two slices of bread off a loaf. He leans against the counter as she makes a sandwich and eats it with an orange.

"Any idea what Doc and the others did?"

"They'll tell us when they're ready. Like you said, I had to have gotten it somewhere." David sniggers. "Offworld harvests?"

"Couple of weeks yet. Going to be asshole to elbow for a while."

"You don't have to do four years of classes in one you know." David says in a good impression of Doc's chiding tone. Josette blows him a mental raspberry since her mouth is full. "Get them done and out of my hair. Be worse for the people working in the big building, they'll have them coming bing, bang, boom." David nods as Josette wipes her face and hands.

"What kind of land are they looking at for the ship?"

"It will have to be pretty big, that much empty land I can think of right offhand is the Sahara desert, it's both empty and in the middle of nowhere. Or one of the African deserts." The others nod. "The only problem with that is housing and water."

"Like on MASH, they'd have to truck everything in and you'd be going through a lot of water in a desert climate."

"And tents would be the best bet for housing unles. . ." Josette's voice trails off and she grabs her PADD, sending off a message to Calvin. The others look at her. "The temporary housing units."

"Would be their best bet for housing. Better than tents. During the night anyway when the temperature drops."

"And they don't have to worry about winter. They'd have to have some tents. . ."

"Mess hall, a px or some type of store with supplies, a library or something else to pass the time when they're offwork."

"Mail deliveries."

"Not our problem, thank you goddess." Josette sighs as she looks at the clock. "The kids still at Wayne?"

"Yeah, they said they'd be there most of the day." David says, looking at the time. "Are they signed up for the offworld harvests?"

"Yeah, this way they have money to put towards their permanent homes before they move out."

David snorts. "They still have five years."

"Yes but they're like the rest of us, plan ahead." Alexander suddenly starts sniggering. "Wha?" Josette asks, sighing. She knows that look.

"Area 51, they really would be working on UFOs."

"Don't you mean IFOs?" Susan chuckles. David laughs as Josette sends that along to Calvin. The databurst won't be going out for a few hours and she can imagine his sigh when he gets that message.

It's mirrored on Principal Madison's face when Josette tells him what they'd been talking about at lunch, while Professor Druid is cackling.

"Oh god, that's perfect." President Bartlett is chuckling and Professor Ziegler is laughing nearly as hard as Professor Druid.

After lunch everybody starts going over the list of what they'd brought back, seeing if there's anything that needs to be brought out right away.

"Did we take the compost up?"

"Yeah, they're in the piles on the islands and I tilled the plants under." Alan says absently. The others nod in satisfaction. "Cacao?"

"Should be harvesting them this year. Along with the coffee and other stuff."

"Do you have orange trees started?"

"Yeah, I got everything started on the ships. I've been planning on going to the first planet and planting some more stuff, including cherries."

"Watering system?"

"We designed it for a thousand times the usage we have right now, I just need to run the new lines." They look over as the kids start trooping in. Looking at the time they whistle.

"Wash up for dinner." Nods and they head various directions.

"Have you talked to anybody about your plans for housing?"

"Yes, we've talked to the bank. We know how much it is to furnish a standard apartment and looked at the list of specialty furniture you or Hank's crew makes."

"Buying land and building would be even more money." David says. They nod almost as one. "That's our plan for the future once we're all working. Maybe buying the land first, getting in a few crops, and putting that money aside for houses."

"Because sometimes you just have to get away from everybody." Susan says. Everybody nods. "Now, what kind of degrees are you going for?"

"That's something we're going to be talking about this summer when reps from Dayton, Drake, and Wayne come out, along with the others from Stark, Eureka, and the 9th planet."

"Add Stark and possibly Dr. Richards from Granda's dimension to that number." The others look at Josette. "It's still in the planning stages but they're talking a second colony dimension for scientific endeavors and whatnot, the Avengers and Fantastic Four are number one on the list to move thanks to the stupidity of the NYC government, or kicking everybody off Manhattan and declaring it their own property. And expanding that to the rest of the state if they keep pissing them off."

"That's going to cause an uproar."

"Yep." Josette sighs. "I can see the fallout now, people suing to make them to stay, people suing to make them leave, the businesses in the Fantastic four and Avengers buildings having to find other places if they take the buildings. The economy will take a hit."

"People wailing about the smart people taking off and leaving humanity to die in their own waste as buildings crumble around their ears." David snorts.

"There's a cure for that."

"2x4 upside the head, repeated as necessary?" Alexander smirks.

"Tempting, it's called getting a degree or learning a skill so you can take care of your own needs."

"Never going to happen. The celebutantes would complain that it was work."

"They'd hate getting their hands dirty in the garden."

"Oh god, imagine the howls having to use an outhouse."

In the front room Principal Madison is sighing. "Is this why you and Dad were talking?"

"Yes, I went to meet with the Avengers and Dr. Richards to tell them about what they'd need to do to move their buildings to another dimension. Including getting in supplies, harvesting ores, and seeing what kind of power they'd need."

"They almost have to be on some sort of alternate power already." David says. The others nod.

The next couple of weeks pass quickly and Josette takes off for the first offworld harvest. An hour later Haven time David opens the tesseract and Josette starts moving out the food, the workers grabbing it as the pickers trail off the ship.

Josette is waved to the front table at lunch. "Are you only taking the four classes for the degree online?"

"That's what I'd planned on, since I'm trying to get in as many of the Harvard classes I can this summer. I might have to just get in a semester for each degree and get in the rest this fall when I'm not offplanet so much."

"Good." Principal Madison says. "The boxes are piling up at the office."

"Yeah, I'd planned on picking them up after lunch since I got a call from the cooking school too." President Bartlett nods in satisfaction since Principal Madison is answering a question from a student.

"When is your show?"

"Three weeks. I'm taking a batch of belongings out then. We'll be out at least a couple weeks with David defending his dissertation, visiting suppliers besides Ellis, hitting Vegas, and doing some shopping."

Josette heads up to the growing area after lunch, shaking her head at the long corridor that's part of it now as well as the tree crops planted. Walking into the aquaponics section she starts picking the ripe tomatoes, moving plants to various tanks and putting the no longer producing, gone to seed ones ones out to dry before they go in the compost bin.

"We need to take care of the seeds." She says, coming down.

"Yeah, I was looking at the plants a couple weeks ago." Alan says as her other selves that had been off all day come into the dorm and they merge with her.

A couple days finds them in the growing area, laying out plants and removing seeds from the plants, separating the chaff that came with them and bagging them. The plants go in the compost bin and they update the list of seeds they have, checking the others lists to see if they have anything they need or they have something they need.

"What the hell is that?" David asks, looking over Josette's shoulder at her PADD.

"A walk in refrigerator like Vincent has at the cafe."

"We don't need one that big."

Josette snorts. "Doc and the others added two, one in the basement, the other in my first floor room. We got matching freezers in case we ever start freezing stuff. And yes, Doc has them at Headquarters too."

"We don't have the factory and we don't grow big enough crops."

"They're shut off until they're needed, we need them just turn on the controls by the door."

"Enlarging the stasis chambers."

"Did that, they're walk-ins now too." The others snigger despite themselves. "No more having to take everything out to get to something in the back."

"Room for root vegetables?"

"Enlarged too, now each veggie has it's own area if not room."

"Hmmmm, there's tons of different root crops we don't currently grow."

"Yeah, that was their thought. Doc's planning on adding a couple more crops over the next few years."

"Something we should think about?"

"It's an idea, I can grow on the satellite to see if it's something we'd eat before we plant a large crop." Nods from the others as they start making a list of what they can grow.

Susan squeaks as a house elf appears in the living room.

"Missy Takahawa, Missy Wright sends you a letter."

"Thank you." The elf hands over the thick envelope and disappears.

"Missy Wright?"

"Becka from the road trip." Josette says absently, reading the letter. "Okay, seems it's been several years for her too. Seems her grandparents are involved in the government one way or the other and. . okay. . ." Josette looks up at the others. "Have spaceships that are somewhat similar to TARDISES, so does her 'Uncle Ray'." The others blink at her. "The government contracted with them to find worlds for them to colonize. Their Mars either never had a cataclysm like ours did or was terraformed, the family has decided that they're taking it over. She wanted information on the larger replicators and how we moved and copied everything."

"How is their world?"

"Okay, but having problems with their power grid since it's old and wasn't intended to be in use for so long." Everybody nods, including Doc and Pat who'd come out of Headquarters when they got the alert that 'something' had arrived at the kids dorm. "They've got a power plant down that supplies DC and parts of the surrounding states. They're trying to claim it's not them, it has to be the substations. But nobody believes over a hundred substations went out at the same time. Becka's town is recovering from their own power outage when some fool punk drove through the substation so their town had been without power for over a year. The town council was dragging their feet about building a new one, mostly because it was the son of one of them that destroyed the old one."

"And they're being mean to his stupidness?" Abby drawls.

"Yep, they don't need a new substation, there's this mythical switch somebody flipped to make his baby boy look bad. They could have the power on in an hour. . .they just don't want to. Damn fool kept his little puke from being punished, the asshole had taken out a fire hydrant by the designer Becka worked at summers while she was in school, the water destroyed a lot of stuff. . .Including the generator. To punish the designer for daring to try to make his baby boy take responsibility for his own actions, the little bastard and his buttbuddies passed a law under the table outlawing generators being installed, even if you were replacing one you already had."

"Oh jeez, and then the power outage." Alexander facepalms.

"Yep, fast forward several years to the power outage and the government came in with low interest loans for solar panels and generators so at least some houses could have limited power and one of the major contractors in the town 'innocently' announced that they couldn't install the new generators thanks to that law."

"And that put a cat among the pigeons?" David snorts.

"'But I didn't mean for it to apply to everybody, just this horrible person.'" Alan drawls.

"Yep. Because Padraig had dared sue to get his damages paid because the insurance companies were pointing fingers at each other and the damages were still piling up. But he got his revenge. The same asshole wouldn't let him expand his business so he brought land outside the city limits and put up new buildings, each with a generator and solar panels." The others snigger. "The city howled about losing their tax base since Becka had brought a lot of old warehouses in a tax sale and had renovated them and two businesses from the city had moved into empty buildings since they had more room. They turned on him and he was blubbering about how nobody buys fabric, nobody buys pottery, Padraig just makes clothes. . .why should he need more room?" Nods from the others as Pat snorts. "They had his records investigated and it turns out he'd been taking bribes, if you were one of his butt buddies you got a building permit. If not. . .too bad, so sad, piss off. Of course they wouldn't remove him from the council or charge him. . ."

"Because he knows their dirt." Michael snorts.

"Yep. Well the government came in and arrested him for his nonsense and the law was thrown out, now the city council has to get approval from the judges before they can pass laws."

"Awwwww, poooo' babies." Susan coos.

"Yeah, anyway the little punk is finally being held responsible for his actions and the government was bringing in supplies to town. But it was a bad winter and without lights, heat, or water people basically lived in one room."

"How was Becka?"

"She says her mansion wasn't bothered, she'd added an alternate power similar to ours and Josette's bus when the natural gas provider went out of business. Because they didn't want to pay to replace fifty year old pipes that were in danger of failing and had already got their hands slapped when they passed that cost along to their customers." Sighs and nods from everybody. "Between that and her solar panels it was life as usual. . and her light bills went from nearly five hundred a month to less than fifty when she installed the alternate energy." The others nod again. "Anyway, the council sued twice to keep the old substation from being torn down. . .not that there was much left after the kid was done." Josette finds a packet of photos and looks through them before passing them around. Doc makes his trilling sound at the wreckage of the substation. "Ours getting struck by lightning all the fucking time was bad enough."

"Why didn't they bypass it?" Pat asks.

"That's in here, Becka says the substation was the major one that handled the area, there weren't any nearby though they're talking about a second one to handle the corporation where she works. . .sounds like it's similar to Wayne and Dayton. . . and handle a private school that had build a campus near the town. When the old one was built they'd never planned on that much demand. Anyway, the father tried laying down in front of the bulldozers, still bleating about how they could have the power back on in an hour, they just need to flip the mythical switch they'd pulled to make his baby boy looks bad. He was drug off by his ear by a government official."

"I'd have ran him over." Pat snorts.

"Becka says her grandmother said the same thing. . .and that if they could have the electricity back on so easily, they would have already. The power had went out in late March, this was October and they were looking at a bad winter." Nods from the others.

"They started building the new substation the following year, it's now three times larger than the old one. They were testing the power after Labor Day and they found a lot of appliances and other machinery had seized up without maintenance for so long, including furnaces."

"Oh grief." Alexander says. "It's not something you think about until it goes up." Michael and Doc nod. "And while furnace repairmen have spare parts, they don't have it on the massive scale that was needed to fix everybody's furnaces. . .or have a couple dozen new furnaces they can bring out."

"Not to mention the furnaces that large buildings need would need to be special ordered."

"Yeah. Becka says people who'd spent the previous winter in a single room that could be kept somewhat warm with a kerosene heater and had moved back into the rest of the apartment or house come spring moved back into the single room. Furnaces were worked on as the parts came in but they had to be careful about frozen pipes."

"With the power out for so long the previous year, they'd have been empty. With the power back on, they'd be using them."

Over the next couple of weeks when Josette's not busy with the offworld harvests she and the others are busy getting together a box of hard drives filled with information for them. A note is put on the top and it goes off with the house elf.

"Good morning Josette, are these your new books?" One of Ellis's employees asks.

"And the older books. My show is in a couple days."

"That will give us time to set everything up." Ellis says as he comes out of his office.

Meanwhile Josette is also dropping off the stuff for the show, books, and special orders with Marcus.

"Dissertation?" Calvin asks when he arrives at the mansion later that night.

"Tomorrow."

The first crops come in and everybody's busy canning, drying, or storing everything. Josette drops off the wheat at the mill to be ground along with corn before dropping into her seat.

"Get the classes you wanted in?" David asks when the last of the offworld and yearly harvests have been picked. They look at the shelves in the stasis unit in satisfaction before walking out.

"Nearly, I'm a semester into each of the Harvard degrees and hope to get in three more before the end of the semester. If not, Meh."

"Four classes for the Italians degree this fall to finish the degree?"

"Yeah, and I'll probably pick up a semester in the jungle adventures--movies degree, that will put me a year in each of them."

"Any other degrees?"

"I'm a year into a four degree set on characters DC took over."

"Get everything done you wanted?" Alexander asks in the dining hall after they've finished getting the third crops planted.

"I got two classes in for one degree and one from the other, I'll finish them this fall along with the Italians degree and the semester for the jungle movies."

"And next year Susan and I will be done with these damn doctorates."

"And Dr. Blake will start nagging you about another degree to keep you out of trouble." Abby snorts. The others snigger.

"The others come over from Thomas's world?"

"Yeah, they're getting settled in temporary housing now and eating dinner at the communal kitchen. After touring the town tomorrow, they'll get down to brass tacks."

"Mr. Stark and Professor Richards from Granda's?"

"Yes, they're out here too."

Susan has a funny look on her face. "Wha?" the others ask. She'd been quiet all day.

"Remember when we were taking Aaron home after he finished university and we were teasing each other about being old since we'd graduated high school eleven years ago."

"God, 28 seems so young." David says.

"Speak for yourself, I was 30." Alan snorts. "And Josette hadn't turned 27 yet."

"We only had the oldest nine children. Josette hadn't started playing hopscotch across dimensions. We'd never heard of Atlantis and the other ships."

"The rockets hadn't been set off, though we'd had a couple bad winters. We were making plans for leaving Earth, but still were hoping we wouldn't have to."

The others nod. "Earth wasn't much, but it was home."

David suddenly starts sniggering. "Wha?" The others know that look.

"Can you imagine what high school would have been like if Josette had been a goddess back then? Let alone anything else she picked up playing dimensional hopscotch." Josette smirks evilly as Principal Madison moans in the front room. Professor Druid pats him on the shoulder in a there, there gesture as she desperately tries not to cackle. President Bartlett looks at them. "David just said can you imagine the school if Josette had her other gifts when she was in high school?"

"The school would not have survived, she'd have beaten Kennedy's ass like a rug." Professor Ziegler says dryly. Professor Fletcher nods. "She had no tolerance for spoiled brats who thought Daddy's money made them better than everybody else even back then."

"I did beat Kennedy's ass like a rug, thank you very much." Josette says with a grin from the back room. Then she sniggers. "Remember how we were old when we'd delivered the triplets, Janelle, and Jessica?"

"What a difference over a hundred years makes. If you'd have told me back then . . ."

"You'd have been in Doc's special room."

"Wayne Industries?" Lucius Fox looks at Thomas and Bruce. He's representing both Wayne and Drake while another man is representing both Daytons at the meetings. More people are wandering the streets of Town and talking to others.

"From this dimension's Earth. There. . .Bruce was left an orphan that night. A lot of our work is similar but a lot of it is different. There's also Stark International . . .yes, as in the comic books on the fourth planet. Their Tony Stark lives on the fourth planet, we have another visiting with his friends as well as Reed Richards, their dimension has ways to access other dimensions, they've used a number of them as low, medium, and high security centers, with the time difference they can serve out their entire sentence within a day with businesses bidding for their services to pay their fines. The high-security dimension time runs normally for the prisoners. .. those are the type that would spend years on death row. They have a dimension where people can go to work, and they recently opened another dimension to colonization as a first step to colonizing other planets. They're planning a second colony dimension for research."

"So there's two other corporations?"

"Four all total, there's Global Dynamics on the eighth planet and another on the 9th planet. They also have more corporations there, but like ours they don't have people living out there permanently."

Lucius gives his 'boss' a look. "As in the tv show Eureka?"

Thomas chuckles. "Yes, the one from this dimension is on the eighth planet, while a second from another dimension is on the 9th. In addition there's a number of independent researchers on the planets, including another version of me." Lucius looks at him. "It's proof of how one event can change in different dimensions. He lost Bruce and Martha that night, Bruce lost his parents, while we lost Martha."

"And where is . . ." Lucius's question is answered by another Bruce coming into the room, dragging what looks like a young girl behind him. At least until you see the white streaks in her hair and realize, like Thomas she's older than she looks.

"And why am I here?" Josette asks, straightening her clothes and settling in a chair.

"You're still technically the heir to Wayne Industries. And you worked with Dad and Clark just as much as I do."

"How many dimensions. . .?"

"People from five dimensions live out here permanently on the seven permanently settled worlds. Another dimension has a compound here where they revolve people in and out, some people are out more permanently. There's people from three more dimensions that will be arriving in a couple of days, they come out twice a year for the Harvest Festival that will be happening in a few days and a Lights Festival at the end of our year that grew out of Christmas."

The door opens again and Thomas comes in. They settle around the table and start to talk.

"Josette, did you debut more of your books?" Clark's Thomas asks when they break for lunch and walk to the communal kitchen.

"Yes, I have two older ones yet to go, plus the new books. Those will be finished the end of next year."

"Are the new teachers and employees here yet?"

"Yep, last of them is at 'orientation' and meeting with their roomies before they head home after Thanksgiving. Then next year the process starts all over again."

"All over again?"

"Employees and teachers have five year contracts here at the school, they arrive before the Harvest Festival so they can be settled in and learn their jobs. New students will start arriving after the Harvest Festival. The school employees who are finishing their contracts at the end of the third semester are packing their belongings and I'm taking them back to Granda's school so they usually only have a couple bags when they walk on the ship with the graduating students. Every ten years, we have the cooking school teachers returning home as well. This year is nuts in that we have graduating students, returning school employees, people who came out a couple years ago to take footage for 'reality' shows, and the cooking school teachers all heading home. I've been taking tons of belongings back to the school."

"Cooking school?"

"God, has it been over 20 years already?" Bruce says.

"26." Josette says absently. "With staggering the incoming teachers so they arrive two years before the others leave, this is the third group going home. The school's been open nearly 30 years. Granda opened a cooking school that offers classes in various styles of cooking to anybody, you don't have to be a professional. The classes are always well attended."

"Just your planet?"

"No, everybody's welcome. The teachers try to schedule classes for the other planets during their winters when they're not in the fields." Lucius nods in satisfaction.

The next few days are busy for the visitors, touring various buildings and talking to everybody. Lucius shakes his head as he walks through a building that he's only seen on tv.

A young looking man runs past them, a child under one arm like a football and she's squealing with laughter as he holds her over the fountain to get a drink.

"Alex, your sister isn't a football." A male voice chuckles from a door.

"Josette, you busy?" Alex Wayne asks as he comes into the dorm.

"Nah, I was just about to go into the library." She pats her throat.

"That's what I was going to say. We need to start going through everything. Including the others."

"How soon are you going to have to harvest Earth again?"

"Not for a decade I hope. About seven years and we'll be in the same time again."

"Do you have any idea how many more there are?"

"Nope. Your Dad might but then again, some of the ones we brought out were a surprise to him too." Alex nods as Josette holds out the key and a door appears in the middle of the room. They walk through it and it disappears behind them.

"So how are you coming on your dual degrees from Harvard?" Alex asks inside the library.

"Good, I'll be finished with them by our midterms. I'm finishing a degree on Italians during World War II. You heard all about the Japanese and the internment camps but you didn't really hear anything about the Italians." Alex nods. "I'm getting in a semester on Jungle Adventures--movies and if there's enough time I figure on getting on a semester on comic book characters DC took over."

"So are shows as mindnumbingly boring as charity dinners or parties?"

"Yep, because you're the star attraction and can't duck away to be in a corner. If it's not our show, we're usually checking out the other exhibits."

"Yeah, Dad's usually front and center during the charity dinners. I'm not as well known so I can duck out of sight. How are book tours?"

"Fun. Madison and Jessica know to add specialty bookstores to my schedule and expos and other things."

"Comicon?"

"Yep, I've visited a few, since I tend to write sci-fi fantasy I can get my inner geek on." Alex snickers.

"Writer conferences?"

"Those too."

"You have a book coming out?"

"When I go out after Thanksgiving. Probably have a book tour next year."

"Movies?"

"When I'm over to bring the students out. Two movie premieres, happy happy joy joy." Alex chuckles.

They come out several hours later for them, only a few minutes having passed out in the living room.

Lucius, the other visitors, and the new employees look at the tables that line the main street of Town and the people calmly walking up and down the streets.

"Do they do this every year?" Dr. Richards from Granda's dimension asks.

"Yep, almost from the beginning. They grow commercially on the fifth, seventh, and eighth planets now but before that Haven was the agricultural planet. They have this celebration after the yearly crops and second harvest are in."

"This isn't just people from Haven."

"Nope, people from the other planets come out. With the time differences some of them stay in the temporary housing dorm so they don't miss something. The others will come out to walk the tables, usually once a day since there's something new all three days."

"Three days?"

"They have a Lights Festival that grew out of Christmas that is two days at the end of the year, ringing out one year and welcoming in the new."

Josette looks at the plant in her room and picks one of the fabric rolls since the blossom color had turned. It starts growing in her arms until it reaches the size of a roll of fabric and she puts it in her workshop before she joins the others at dinner.

"Show?" President Bartlett asks in the front room.

"We're leaving tomorrow."

"How was defending your dissertation?" Mary asks David the next day.

"Tedious. I got stuck with the one guy on the board Josette always complains about, the one who makes trouble for everybody. All the defenses were delayed because he nitpicked everything trying to cause problems. They finally kicked him off the board after there were enough complaints and threats of lawsuits."

Professor Xavier sighs.

"There's always somebody."

"So anyway I just need to finish the last semester to officially have the degree."

"Susan, your dissertation?"

"I just had to upload it since the school didn't come out. I won't hear officially until I get the last class finished but I'm not expecting any problems. Like David, I just gotta finish the last semester next year."

"You boys?"

"We're two years into our doctorates this fall and will talk to our advisor next year. Year after that we'll be defending our dissertations."

"And how are you coming with your dual degree from Harvard?"

"Good, I'm nearly done with one of them and plan on having them both done by midterms. I'll have the Italians during WWII degree done by then too."

"Are you picking up any more classes?"

"I just finished my second class in a degree on jungle adventures-movies, another four classes puts me a year into it. If there's enough time I want to pick up a semester on characters DC took over. I'm a year into that degree but it's a four degree set. If not. . ." Josette shrugs.

"What's the latest on the clockmaking degree from Edinborough?" David asks.

"It's supposed to start running year after next, the degree on the basics first, then the handwork degree."

"Books?"

"I'll have six more to print at the end of the year, then the printers will shut down until we need to print more books."

"They've been going nonstop for years."

"Yep. The machines can use a good cleaning."

Not quite six weeks later for them they return to Haven, moving boxes of stuff to various rooms to take care of later.

One day Josette takes two ships out, heading to the mansion. Madison and Jessica arrive a few days later. The movie premieres go off well and after a little shopping Josette returns to Haven.

Josette takes her usual seat for the last students are at the school meal in the pizza parlor, President Bartlett, Professor Parker, and Amanda.

"Are we full up?"

"Until the graduating students leave in a few months."

"Get your classes from Harvard done?" Dr. McNider asks when she slides into her seat at the testing center midterms.

"Yep, finished them last week. The books are going up when I take up the books for the Italians during World War II degree before the Lights Festival."

"Have you signed up for degrees from the other schools?"

"The second I finished those degrees." Josette sighs, brings a notebook and pencil out of subspace and starts working on more quilt projects until the buzzer for lunch sounds, merely splitting off a duplicate and creates a dozen notebooks and more pencils to keep working.

Vincent chuckles as he puts a plate in front of her.

"I'd wondered when I'd be hit with more quilt designs."

"Good thing you have all those offworld harvests to pay for everything." Susan chuckles. "And you're going to have to start working on books again."

"Not for a while thankfully." Josette sighs. "Let the printers be shut down for a while unless the others have books."

"Your fiction?"

"We've been talking about it, we're thinking the same number of books we had for the 100th anniversary for the fiction, printing a three book set at first."

"That way we can gauge the demand."

"Yep. We don't need the same size order as my quilting books since we're only selling them here."

Josette settles on a couch back at the dorm, sorting through her mail and chucking the junk into the recycling bin on the coffee table.

"What's the latest on the colony plans?"

"They're putting together the first section of a planned satellite for making ships and starting construction in the desert in five years. The satellite will be zero-gravity while they'll have artificial gravity on the city ship, that's going to be put on either Mars or the moon as a second semi-permanent base." The others nod as they look over the papers Josette hands over, Doc and Renny coming out to read them as well.

Josette hands the thick envelope to President Bartlett at dinner. "Information on the planned satellite and ship."

"We'll look it over after dinner Josette, thank you."

"I hope they have good air cleansers, if they have animals on the ships they'd have to deal with manure."

"They'd have to have some sort of unit to compress it into bricks to use in a growing section."

"And water and air scrubbers."

"Especially for colony trips."

"What's the latest on the colony dimension?"

"They've gone out and found the locations for their homes, taking out building supplies and starting their homes. They'll have enough supplies for a few months then head either to town for the winter or back to Earth then come out again in the spring. They figure two or three years before they move out to their land permanently and start growing crops."

The next day Josette and Aztec head to the other dimension, dropping off the recycling before she arrives at the school. "Graduating students," She brings out one pile of boxes, "Graduating students who need to have their stuff sent to embassies," A second pile. "Employees," A third pile. "Cooking school teachers." Another pile. "And finally the reality show people." The file with number of boxes and who it's going to is sent to the computer. The cooking school and reality show people were supposed to have originally been delivered to another place but they'd had to be delivered to the school because of an emergency.

"Thank you Josette." Jane says. "Socks?" A pile of containers is brought out and they start counting them and putting them in the boxes in the office. Calvin comes to the door of his office as Maria starts making calls. A truck will be coming to pick up the belongings of the cooking school teachers and the reality show people in a couple days.

"Josette, are the orders slowing down as Doc's world recovers?"

"A little, but we're still supplying them with a lot because so many factories have closed and were torn down. Add in those factories lost in the flooding or to the volcanic activity . . ." Josette shrugs. "People aren't complaining though, after this they've realized they don't need so much stuff. Food, clothing, shelter . ..yes. Flat screen tvs, new cars every year, the latest Apple shit . . .No. Now we don't see the need for candles decreasing until they fix the power grid. And that will be decades." Nods from the others.

"It takes something like that to realize what you really need."

"There's still a lot of stuff in warehouses, because until all the shit started happening, Earth was a consumer planet and multiple factories were making as much stuff as they could."

"If an EMP took out everything tomorrow, there'd be enough stuff for a hundred years. Though people would complain about wearing last year's fashions." Jane snorts.

Josette sends the file to Joyce at the office when she is done delivering containers to the school, she'll deliver to the other places later.

"Josette, have you heard anything about new textbooks?" Professor Eppes asks at dinner.

"No, but I expect them to start coming out of the woodwork in a few years with the first satellite going up and the ship being built, not to mention the colony dimension amping up and a second one opening for scientific stuff." Amanda nods. "The sociologists must be having field days."

"And the lawyers rubbing their hands together as they take the cases of people who want something or other stopped because they don't like it." Professor Ziegler snorts.

David looks at her when she comes in the back room. "Professor Eppes asking me if I'd heard anything about new textbooks."

"Hear back from your other schools yet?"

"Not yet, it's only been a week. I'll probably start classes first of the year." The others nod.

The crops start coming in and everybody's busy bringing everything in. One day Josette, Susan, Michael, and Alexander head off to Archimedes for their finals.

"How are the crops coming?"

"We should have everything in by the end of the week. I'll have the recycling picked up then too."

"What's the latest on the others building on the 9th planet?"

"They're planning on bringing up their homes in a couple weeks, it's going to be early spring there so they can plant. They're not planning on coming up permanently, but it's been nearly 40 years their world and . . ."

"They're letting younger people take over."

"Yep, this way they can come back and forth like Doc and Buckaroo on the 10th planet."

A couple weeks later the parking lot of the school is full of cars as a tesseract opens and students begin walking out, those graduating either heading to cars or to the auditorium for their graduation ceremony as Josette delivers containers with their orders various places. The recycling is next and she joins the others at the mansion a few hours later.

"Get everything delivered?"

"Yep, and our supplies brought out to the ship."

"Thomas and Doc?"

"Doc and I are on a ship delivering his orders and picking up supplies. We went a couple weeks ago to Thomas's dimension, things are slowing down as the population starts falling again."

They return to Haven a few weeks later, Josette delivering the supplies while the others head to the dorm and the students have their bags examined in the auditorium before they go to their rooms. The next day they head off to the other dimension.

"How is everything on Haven?" Professor Xavier asks as the kids come in from dropping off boxes of books and special orders with Dexter and his employees.

"Quiet. The students are settling in after their finals and heading back to Earth to visit family and friends and get in supplies. We got everything from Calvin's dimension delivered and the others from Grandpa Charles' dimension are due to start moving buildings out to the 9th planet next week."

"What's the latest on the ship?"

"They're planning on starting building a city ship in the desert in five years, that's going either on the moon or Mars as the next step in space exploration. They're going to be putting up a satellite to build more ships, but that will be years in the future."

"And the colony dimension?"

"People are going out to look over their land, find the spot for their buildings, and start construction. There's plans for a second scientific dimension."

"Did they put up the building for the radio?"

"Yes, depending on how much electricity the solar panels can produce they might bring out a server."

"Do you see anybody adding solar panels?"

"After a few years probably because I can't see people giving electricity up entirely since they haven't had the power problems on their Earth. But solar panels are expensive and they'd have to save the money for them and figure out what they'd be able to run on them. Because it took a good grid of solar panels to take a home completely off the grid."

"And battery towers to run everything at night, during the winter when the sun doesn't charge them as quickly, and during storms."

"With two white suns we can produce as much energy as most of us need." David says. The others nod.

Several weeks later for them they return to Haven, bringing out boxes of stuff that go in various rooms.

"Josette, how are we on sheets, towels, and covers?" Susan asks, coming into the large storage room and finding Josette coming out of the container she was heading for.

"We'll have to order in a few years." Susan brings out stuff and Josette delivers it to her room for her after they shut up the container. She brings out her own from subspace in her room and makes a mental note to check the information she saved from the supernova and see if there was a plant that produced towels and bedding.

She leans between President and Mrs. Bartlett since Principal Madison is talking with a student. "How is the school on sheets and towels? I know we had tons but it's been a few years."

"I'll have maintenance check the supplies in case we need to order more." President Bartlett says. Principal Madison catches her eye and nods while talking to the student. "It will take at least a year to get in the size order we need so we should talk to Calvin about it while we've still got a surplus."

"And start going through the sheets and towels to weed out the ones that are getting worn out." Professor Druid says. "Thank you Josette, we hadn't thought of that yet. I take it yours is getting thin?"

"Yes, we're going to have to put in an order in a few years."

"Okay, we need to check the sheets and towels in the guest area upstairs." Abby says when Josette comes into the room.

"Already did, when I had to replace a good chunk of my sheets and towels." Michael says. "When are we ordering?"

"In a few years, we've still got a good supply yet. And we need to start combining containers next year." The others nod.

Josette heads off to the satellite on the first planet a couple days later, spending a year outside time growing their winter crops. She returns to the dorm an hour later, the others starting to fill drying tables that go in a room. Containers are filled with more food that go in the basement and the kitchens are full of pots and canning jars.

The next week sees the new houses and buildings out on the 9th planet and snow falling and sticking on Haven. Snow blowers that had been put away that spring are brought out, looked over, and gotten ready for when they'd be needed as shovels replace rakes on the hooks. Winter boots are brought out of closets in the dorm and other winter clothes are hung up in the front of the dorm.

The next morning Josette arrives at the Albatross Nest in Albatross, finding the others coming in with containers of food. After they eat their fills they start exchanging the cookies.

"Josette, is there anything on the colony dimension?"

"Yeah, people are going out to their land to start putting up houses. It's going to be a couple years before they can stay out there full-time, they've got to put up houses, barns, dig a well and for an outhouse." Sighs and nods. "Chink the inside walls of the cabins to keep the wind from blowing through. Some might put up the panels to help block the wind with the idea of adding solar panels in the future. Once they figure out how many they'd need and how much you can run on them." Nods from the others. "You saw the guests this summer?" Nods from the others. "They're talking opening a second dimension for scientific research. In five years they're going to start building the first section of a space satellite for building ships in space as well as one of the cities, that's going up on the moon or mars as a second step in space exploration."

"Can you see people starting to quilt in the other dimension?"

"After the first winter of nothing more than a cookstove for heat? Betcha ass. Even as small as those houses are, they'll want the extra warmth as they sleep."

"The old ways are usually the best."

The kits are passed out and Josette puts everything in subspace before rolling up her sleeves and filling the sink with hot soapy water, washing everything. It's all handed back to the others or put away on the shelves in the kitchen before the leftovers are pushed on Josette. Flying back to the dorm she puts everything away before joining the others walking to the dining hall.

The others start arriving for the Lights Festival, going out to the 9th planet for a couple days to check on how the new buildings are settling in. They'd already added the solar panels and alternate power sources on Earth so they don't need any work once they've arrived. Of course, this doesn't mean they won't be adding onto the buildings now that they have the room.

A couple days into the new year Agatha opens the door of the Albatross Nest to find Josette at the table cutting fabric. All the tables are covered with piles of fabrics and the remnants bin is full with more on the floor.

"I was wondering when you'd break down and start getting in supplies." She looks at the piles. "I got jumped by the damn muse a couple months ago."

"Another notebook?"

"Five notebooks and part of a sixth."

"Damn. I'm your first stop?"

"Figured you wanted to talk about the book party. I put a thousand copies of each book in the back room, that should be enough for the party plus leave you with extras." Agatha nods and starts grabbing the remnants, measuring them and calling off numbers to Josette since she has the label maker. Josette finally finishes and brings out new bolts of fabric from the back room, then scans the card she'd been putting everything on, paying the total that appears on the register. The receipt is ten pages and she heads to Sue's store next.

"Awww." she laughs when Josette comes into the building and starts grabbing bolts of fabric, looking at a list. "I'm your second stop?" She'd seen her walking from Agatha's.

"Talking about the book party." Sue nods. "How are we on old clothes for patchwork quilts?"

"Going to need more."

"I'll bring some out in a few days then." Between Josette, Sue, and a couple other women they get all the fabric measured, cut, put in the bags, and the remnants put in the container. Josette brings out the new bolts of fabric and scans the card they'd been using, paying the total and stopping at the bakery before heading back to the dorm. David nods as he sees bags filling the shelves in Josette's workroom. "I'd wondered where you were."

"Took in the books for the party too. I gotta take in old clothes to Sue's later this week." In her first floor room she updates her money program before joining the others walking to the dining hall for lunch.

A few days later everybody gathers at Sue's as Josette brings out containers of clothes, they start sorting everything and taking out seams and buttons, filling containers that she sends upstairs. Pizzas and sandwiches are ordered for their lunch break and Josette slides into her seat at dinner.

"Get all the containers filled for the patchwork quilts?"

"Yep, so we're good there for a few more years. Most people have enough quilts on hand even with as damn cold as it's been been." The school is good on fabric, she brought out more over the break when it came up with the other school supplies when they'd gone out after Thanksgiving.

The next morning she slides into her usual spot in the government building. Warming the room for the others with her heat vision she smiles as the others sigh. "Is it colder than normal?"

"No, it just feels like it because we've got snow every day on top of it, wet heavy shit that chills you right to the bone. We knew it was going to be a cold one, that's why we had everybody order extra wood."

"Okay, new business. Supplies for the graduating students and returning employees this year."

"We had the leftovers from the two double shipments of supplies but Joyce is doing an inventory this week."

"Celebration this year?"

"Carly's age group are turning a hundred, it's hard to believe that it's been that long since the first babies were born on Haven."

"And Earth tried to take over since we were having children." David says.

"Okay, how are the others settling on the 9th planet?"

"Good, they've got a link setup for information. They can go back and forth for supplies."

"The colony dimension?"

"From what I hear, they've got their homes started and moved back to town or Earth for the winter. They're hoping to install a server in the radio building next year for books, music, and other stuff."

"A school?"

"They'll be getting in books but I can't see a school going up for a few decades. The town's still small and the farms are too far away for students to come to town. There's also the problem of most teachers tend to specialize, I can't see many people being able to teach in a one room schoolhouse with students different ages. Even on the 9th planet they brought out classes from here, Eureka, or Earth for their children."

The others nod. "Now. . .a teacher like the Amish . . ."

"Yes, they're used to teaching a number of children different ages in all their classes. They'd have to do like you are, teaching your children at home until they have enough students to need to build a school."

"By then there wouldn't be any lack of people who could teach them. Now, changing the subject. Shows?"

"The boys Granda, Me Mom. I go first this year too. We're debuting two more books. That leaves the new books."

"Still due to be done this year?"

"Yeah, and the printers shut down so they can clean and check the machinery. My book party is in a couple weeks."

"Susan and David are due to finish their doctorates this year."

"And the boys are talking with their advisors this year and defending their dissertations next year. Alan and the twins will be halfway through their bachelors."

"You?"

"Starting a degree from Princeton. I'm finishing another musical instruments degree this year, I'm only two or three semesters into the other degrees." The others nod.

"Anything else?" Professor Druid asks at one of the teacher meeting a couple days later.

"Something Josette was talking about when I we asked how the colony dimension was coming along. How many of us could handle teaching students different ages in a one-room schoolhouse?" the teachers look at each other.

"None of us could." Jessica says, Charlie and Toby nodding vigorously. "For all the kids do it when they have more than one set of kids in the classrooms at the dorm. And for all that, while there's two different groups. . ."

"They're all the same age." Peter Parker says. "I can't see many people being able to take over a one-room schoolhouse. It's just not how we teach anymore." The others nod. "Not that it won't be years before they'd need a schoolhouse."

"That's what Josette was saying, the farms are too far away for kids to walk so they'd be taught at home anyway. It wouldn't be until the town had grown enough to need a school that you wouldn't see more than Mom and Dad teaching the kids after dinner or more likely during the winter when the crops are in and they're not working in the fields all day."

The next day Josette arrives at the Albatross Nest, helping put out the party food while nodding at the tables of books with boxes underneath. They open the door and the link to Albatross and people start streaming in.

Josette looks up from doing an inventory in her workroom a few days later, shaking her head. She'll have to go to the threads complex.

She ducks into Headquarters. "I gotta hit the threads complex, how are you on supplies?"

Pat sighs. "I'd better do inventory myself. It's not something you think of until you need a spool and there's none on the shelf or in the other room."

"I'm heading into town to talk to the others."

Josette ducks into Sue's store. "Pat and I are heading to the threads complex tomorrow, anybody need anything?"

"No, we got in orders last year, us, the Albatross Nests, Assyrian, and Edinborough."

The next morning after breakfast they hop in a flyer with a wagon attached. Doc looks over as they come back hours later.

"We stopped at Ellis's buildings while we were shopping." Josette nods and waves a hand, bringing out Pat's purchases in a couple rooms.

"Are you going out to Ellis's?"

"Before my show for the books and making a special trip to do some shopping."

"I'm coming along."

In her room Josette picks another roll of fabric, putting it her workroom after it grows to full size and plants a couple seedlings that will eventually grow into plants that produce food and drink before she heads to bed.

"Where were you yesterday?" David asks at breakfast.

"Had to go to the thread complex with Pat, we were both running out of stuff. Then we visited Ellis's place here on Haven. We're going to go make a special trip out to visit Ellis and a few other places."

"You visit the suppliers and manufacturers here, don't you?"

"At least once a year. Like light bulbs thread is something you don't think of until you need it."

After breakfast Josette heads to the Albatross Nest. "Yo everybody, we're making a special trip out to Ellis's and probably a few other places. Anybody who wants to come along is welcome, so pass it along." PADDs come out and messages sent out."

"Josette, do you have superstores copied?"

"Several dozen, why?"

"Calvin was talking to the town council about bringing one for Albatross."

"Hmmm, something to think about."

"The government talked about it before we came up, building one and supplying it with stuff from Earth since we didn't have a store but nothing ever came of it."

"Not many companies would build one and not see any profits from it."

"And we'd need a fund to pay wages."

"And for supplies."

"Something to think about." Josette says as she heads back to the school. At lunch she leans between Frances and Elaine.

"One day we're going to make a special trip out to Ellis's and maybe a few other places."

"Let us know when you've decided Josette."

Josette checks on the seedling to make sure it's settling in well after lunch, then heading to her workroom to start opening containers and start filling shelves.

"Get everything taken care of?" Pat asks a couple days later.

"Finally." Josette rolls her eyes. "Until you reach for something and it's not there, you don't realize how low on something you are."

"Happens when you make a half-dozen quilts a year and don't get in supplies on a regular basis."

Josette nods. "The school gets in regular batches of thread as part of their supplies."

"Offworld harvests?"

"In about another month."

"Did you plant on the first planet?"

"Yeah, I should be green picking the peppers before the offworld harvests start."

"Ancho peppers?"

"I'm drying them while I'm out there."

Josette takes a deep breath of warm air on the first planet, the cold winter is even beginning to get to her. Turning to the raised beds she starts thinning out the plants.

She comes into the Cafe Diem on the 9th planet, Vincent coming out from behind the counter. "Oh good Josette, I was hoping you were picking green on the first planet."

"Tomatoes and green picked peppers."

"Are you drying anything this year?"

"Yes, Ancho peppers. Next year we should be opening the smokehouse for the chipilotes, fish, cheeses, butters, and herbs."

Josette slides into her seat at the government building a couple days later.

"Get the green picked stuff sold?"

"Yep, what's left is in stasis."

"Did you grow on the satellite?"

"Last year before the others came out to the 9th planet."

"Visit to Ellis's?"

"Next week."

Ellis's second in command smiles when the tesseract opens and women start trooping through. "Anything special you need to look at Josette?" She asks, walking up to her as employees walk off with the others.

"Yeah, I need to order more machines, I want to keep them on hand in case ours go up. After that anything goes."

A week later for them they troop back off on Haven, Josette delivering their purchases to their homes or businesses.

"Thank you Josette." Agatha and Sue hug her before they head off.

"What was Granda talking to you about?"

"Earth had wanted to build a superstore in Albatross before they moved since they didn't have one but it fell through because no company wanted to build a store, furnish it. . ."

"And not see any profits." David nods. "And Granda is talking to Albatross about it."

"Yeah, but the problem is coming up with a fund to pay wages and buy supplies."

"Decide how long they want to keep it open, add solar panels or skylights."

"Where to put it and which alternate power to piggyback it off of."

Back at the dorm Josette starts bringing out her purchases.

"Is this everything?"

"No, some stuff is on order and I'll pick it up when I go out for the show. Mostly the big machines I'm getting as backups for the ones I have."

"Book tour?"

"Jessica and Madison already talked to me about one." David laughs at her hangdog look. She walks to the dining hall with the others, everybody disappearing between one breath and the next. Josette reappears, sighs, and flies off to Atlantis. They reappear an hour later, walking into the dining hall.

"Offworld harvests?"

"Next one is tomorrow."

The next morning David opens the tesseract for everybody gathering outside the big building, scanning PADDS as they walk through. An hour later David opens the tesseract again and they trail off, their PADDS being scanned again as they walk off the ship. Josette starts bringing out boxes of food that head to the big building.

"Alex, Tara, Thomas, want to come out with me to the first planet?" they look at Josette where she's leaning against the door frame after lunch. "Drying tables?" Alex asks, remembering what the others had said.

"Yeah." Thomas and Tara look at her. "The only downside harvesting this early. . .well beyond storing everything until it's needed for the planets is it's going to be at least three more harvests before anything set outside on the tables dries instead of freezes. So I take it out to the first planet to dry and the raised beds and garden are about ready to harvest. I already green picked a lot but there's all the rest and I need to set up the drying tables there for the ancho peppers."

"Ancho peppers?"

"Dried poblanos. We do the chipilotes here because they need smoked, the poblanos and mirasols just need to be dried."

"Just as easy to dry them where you're growing them." Alex says. Josette nods. "Not everything comes in at the same time on the same plant, so I have several days worth of peppers on the drying tables at one time. Fill a bag with clothes, we'll be gone a while."

Tara sighs as she walks on the ground of the first planet.

"Yeah, we enjoy our time here." Josette brings out the drying tables and they set them in the sun.

"How long are the days here?"

"Twelve hours, the eternal tropics climate offsets the limited sunlight." At the house she brings out the drying tables as Thomas and Tara inspect the raised beds and watering system.

"I designed it with growth in mind, I can add more lines as I add more crops." The others nod as they start clipping peppers that go on the tables. More go in the containers and several weeks later for them they return to Haven.

"Get everything dried?"

"And the raised beds picked on the first planet. I'll start selling it tomorrow."

"How many more harvests before we can dry on Haven?"

"At least three, this has been a long, cold winter." Nods from everybody in earshot.

"Next offworld harvest?"

"End of the week, we've been averaging about two a week."

The next day Josette waves a hand in the Cafe Diem on the 8th planet, bushels and bags appearing. She and Vincent haggle and he dishes up a meal for her after they put everything away. She slides into a seat at the dining hall later that night.

"Sell a good chunk?"

"Yep, and everything else is in stasis."

"Mushrooms?"

"I'll go out in a couple weeks."

The weather finally begins to cooperate and they can set the tables outside. A week after her finals on Archimedes the last offworld harvest occurs and Josette slumps in her seat at the dining hall for lunch.

"Is that the last of them?"

"Yep, and our crops are all planted."

"Do we want to know how many classes you got in?"

"Twelve on teacher, four on the school computer, and four from Princeton. Two more classes and you're done."

"Yes, thank you gods." Susan sighs. David nods. "How are you two coming?"

"Talking to our advisors this summer and defending them next year with finishing the last classes after that. We can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel." Alexander says theatrically. Josette sniggers as Anna puts a tray down in front of her.

"Everything came in at once."

"Yep, the crops, the offworld harvests, the students getting in supplies after their finals. . ."

"Did we need more supplies for the graduating students and employees?"

"No, we're good. We've got a little more than we normally would." Principal Madison nods on the screen in the front room. "Your show?"

"Three weeks. My book tour is a week after that. Nine weeks. I'll take two ships out."

"How is the drive-in coming along?"

"Good, they had a grand re-opening while I was there and the mayor, governor, and a few state representatives were there to talk about how they were glad this marvelous old gem of a drive-in had been saved. The town was seeing red about all the good publicity."

"And not a dime of tax revenue coming their way." President Bartlett snorts from the front room. Josette nods.

"The mall?"

"On progress to start construction next year, they've got the drawings and a good half of the spaces already spoken for. Something else the town is whining about. The locals are happy, this means they don't have to go so far for major shopping."

"Aww."

Josette flies to Brigadoon the next day.

"Okay, we've planted the smaller stuff. . ."

"You're thinking a building?"

"Yes. It would have to be planted in early spring so that it was well established by winter. It took about three years for the buildings to be large enough for people to live and work in them. We'd have to dome it until it was large enough for heat, water, and sewage."

"Our storms."

"Yes, we'll have to run simulations. We might have to dome it until it's big enough."

"Or put it on the first planet?"

"Grow two, one on Haven. One on the first planet."

"Grow the heat pellets too."

"And toilet paper and soap plants."

"It won't be for a while." Josette nods.

"We should let the others know."

Professor Druid looks at the large planter that Josette brings out into her personal growing area.

"Okay, three four years ago I was brought out to harvest a solar system that was going to be destroyed. They had plants that did everything, grew food, drink, furniture, buildings, fabric, toilet paper, soap, shampoo. . ." Josette looks over her shoulder at Principal Madison. "Sex toys."

"We don't need that, thank you very much." Professor Druid says firmly as her husband laughs. "Now, I've had a plant that grew fabric in my room for a couple years now, seeing if they could grow in normal soil." Professor Druid nods. "How do you water them?"

"Grey water, rain water, or in my case fish water. Whatever I filled the watering cans with that time."

"These aren't normal plants."

"No, the solar system was colonized and the plants bio-engineered by the settlers. The knowledge was lost over time with only the priests who were the scientists, teachers, and historians knowing the truth. The others thought they were gifts from their gods. I've got thousands of years of records Brigadoon is going through."

"I can see why you'd have gone to save them." Principal Madison says. "Now this will give you food similar to hamburgers, I planted another one and a plant for soft drinks in my room earlier this year. I already had a plant that grows fabric, they might look small but they grow once they've been picked. Once the blossoms turn color they can be picked and if you don't get to it in a few days they won't go bad." Principal Madison nods. "The plants will grow dormant if they haven't been picked for a while but once they're being harvested again they come right back to life."

"How long can you harvest them?"

"Forever, they don't stop producing."

Principal Madison whistles despite himself. "Each building. . . and yes, the buildings are plants themselves, had several food and drink plants plus specialty plants depending on what it was used for. Each room had a small cubicle with a shower, toilet, and sink. The building took the waste for energy and future growth so they had special soaps, shampoos, and toilet paper."

"Like the shower, sink, and toilet combinations you saw in campers."

"Exactly. They had larger rooms for communal bathing in each building but they also had those."

"If they don't go to seed. . ."

"See these white spots on the stem?" Professor Druid and Principal Madison nod. "They're seed pods, they'll grow bigger and when they turn color you can pick them. You can dry them in the pod and either store them like that or remove the pod and put the seeds in a container." Josette shows them a picture of a dozen shelves that seem to go on forever filled with glass containers half-full of seeds.

"Yarn, sewing machines, thread, knitting machines, needles. Pizza, calzones, chocolate, cocoa. . ." Principal Madison reads the labels and shakes his head. "Again, I see why you were called out to save everything. Do you have any of these growing?"

"Yeah, I have plants in various stages on Brigadoon. I won't need yarn or fabric for a while, they had communal buildings where knitters and seamstresses put the fabric and yarn they didn't like and got stuff they did like. I emptied those as I was harvesting everything."

"We should put something like that up when we have more plants going." Josette nods. "Okay, now I'm off to start seedlings for Thomas, Thomas, Clark, and Doc." Principal Madison nods. Similar talks are told to the others.

"These would be vital for spaceflight." Clark says.

Josette nods. "I haven't gone through all the records but there are hints that they had plants that became spaceships."

Josette tells the others later that night when she returns home and they shake their heads but nod.

"How long does it . . ." They look at the plants Josette had put in a room.

"About a year before it's big enough to start producing. They didn't have all that big selection of foods the plants made but . . ."

"They were gifts from their gods so they made do." Nods from the others. "We wouldn't want to live on them permanently."

"No, more as a snack or something to eat in a hurry."

"So what are these?"

"Bread, something similar to a sub sandwich, soft drinks, and something similar to coffee. The drink containers can be composted so there's no waste." Nods from the others.

"Pizza plant?"

Josette sighs. "I've been really wanting an excuse to grow that plant, just to see what they have in the way of flavor. I've never tried vegan chocolate though we drink soy milk and eat soy cheese most of the time." Nods from the others. Susan looks at her. "Yes, they had a chocolate plant. Seems the men were very scared of that time of the month." The four girls cackle.

A couple weeks later Josette and the others head to Mom Clarinda's dimension, dropping off special orders and the new books. They visit a couple museums and other places before heading off to the rooms, finding Black Jack talking with somebody.

"Hello kids, get everything dropped off?"

"Yeah, Dexter wasn't there but he left a message he'd get hold of us in a couple days. Once we've talked with him and Josette's had her show, we'll know what we need to order in the way of supplies."

"Josette, your fiction?"

"I'll talk to M'Lynn tomorrow."

"Fuck.You!" Josette says the next morning, glaring at some nitwit who thinks he can tell her what to do.

"Ms. Takahawa." He bleats.

"Read my fucking contract moron, I and only I get to choose who I deal with. Not you. Not some moron in corporate."

"But your contract?" He bleats.

"Was for the old books, not any new ones. And were only for those printings, the books revert to me. You don't have a fucking leg to stand on. I control my books, I control movie rights, audio rights, and everything else."

"But don't you want us to make a movie from your book?"

"Not this hack job, I know why there's no name attached--nobody wants to be associated with this piece of shit. I don't think they even read my book." She turns around and walks out.

"Why you little . . ." Josette turns and cococks the bastard that had thrown himself at her. She walks over the little prick and out of the office to applause from everybody in earshot.

"Oh get up you damn fool." A man snaps as he walks into the room. "And somebody tell me why you assholes had to alienate our best author with this shit?" He waves a copy of the script. "I agree, whoever wrote this garbage never even read the book. They're just looking to make a name for themselves." The man on the floor whines. "Ahhhh you. My office now. We're going to have a little talk."

M'Lynn chuckles as she talks to a barely moving Josette a couple days later. Dexter is talking to the boys and they're making a list of what they have to buy in the way of supplies. Reaching out one arm she snags the PADD and adds a few items. "I'd probably triple the order."

"Buy double now and if we run low order them again when we come back?" The others nod.

"As I was saying, the bigwig had read that script and agreed, it was a piece of shit written by somebody who had never read the books. The moron who tried attacking you went off whining, it had been his project and he felt everybody should bow, scrape, and kiss his ass for existing.

"Instead of thinking, hey this is her work, I'd better do my best work on this. That's why so many movies made from books are absolute crap." Everybody in earshot nods.

They return to Haven several weeks later for them, bringing out boxes of supplies and other stuff before checking on the crops and heading to the dining hall.

"How many books do you have left?" Frances asks, waving Josette to the front room.

"The ones that we just printed."

Elaine shakes her head. "I remember when you were looking at a couple dozen years to get them all debuted over there."

"Yep. Putting out two at a time really knocked them down."

"Any more coming out?"

"Not for a while. I got hit with over five notebooks of quilts earlier this year." The two women whistle. "Yeah, let me work on them for a while before I start working on more books."

"How many you sign?"

"Not quite 8900 of the two new ones, plus any people brought out. I was signing for hours after the show."

Josette waters the new plants in the dorm the next morning before breakfast.

"What are the plans for the day?" Susan asks as the others come out of their rooms.

"Check the crops, see if the cistern needs filling, getting the mail, and checking the mushrooms on the first planet."

"I can handle the crops." Alan says.

"And we'll check the cistern." The twins say.

"Which leaves the mail and mushrooms for me." Josette says.

She leans between President Bartlett and Professor Ziegler at lunch since Principal Madison is talking with a student.

"Granda is having me visit a textbook expo in a couple months, the city ship location has been finalized and they're setting up housing and other stuff. They're due to start construction in not quite four years. The first section of the satellite is due to go up around the same time and the second dimension for scientific stuff is a go, they're due to head out the end of next year. . .our time."

President Bartlett nods. Principal Madison nods too as he finishes talking with the student.

"How long do they think it will take to build the city?" Mrs. Bartlett asks.

"At least ten years steady work. They figure on ten years shifts for the city. And the moonbase is expanding again. The city will be bringing up supplies for themselves and the moonbase once it's in operation." The teachers around them nod.

Josette heads to the other planets the next morning, bringing out the mushrooms at the cafes and haggling cheerfully with Vincent at the cafes. Selling to the communal kitchen and restaurants takes the rest of the day and she puts what's left in stasis after dinner.

The first crops start coming in and everybody's busy canning,drying, or otherwise preserving the harvest. The mill is busy for a few weeks taking care of the grain and corn and Josette is up on the roof one day inspecting it and the solar panels.

"How is it?"

"Good." she floats down to the ground. "Alternate power?"

"Growing slow but steady."

"Septic unit?"

"Emptied and cleaned."

"Your order from Ellis's?"

"He sent an e-mail, I'll pick it up while I'm there for the book tour."

"Has the school sent out their orders?"

"Yep."

"Book tour?"

"I leave tomorrow."

Josette walks through the dorm and drops onto a couch, getting a couple cats on her back. Waving a hand she brings stuff out of subspace. Looking towards the back of the couch a second, she waves a hand and boxes appear in the administration building. Joyce just chuckles as Principal Madison comes to the door of his office.

"Stop at the mansion?"

"Yep, ate, slept, did my laundry, dumped all the empty pens in the replicator. Went to the textbook expo with Granda, visited Vegas and got some gambling in, picked up Ellis's order, looked over the area where they're going to be building the city ship and toured the moonbase." She looks over at David. "Pictures. Red dot hard drive." He holds one up and Josette nods. "Pictures of the colony dimension too." She falls asleep, David moving her head so she doesn't suffocate herself in the pillow.

Okay now what