Josette double checks her numbers at the mansion, sighing and swearing. She sends a picture of the ticket to Calvin, Dr. Cross, and Doc. . .getting all three arriving as soon as they get the message.

"Really?"

"Yep, when I saw the numbers in the databurst I knew I was the winner, the time matched, the store matched, and the numbers match."

"At least this is a state where you don't have to announce you won when you claim the money." Doc says as he calls a few numbers and soon a lawyer and estate planner are at the mansion.

"Sooo," Calvin asks later that night when Josette's silently cussing her luck over a pint of Ben and Jerry's. "Are you going to give money to Harvard?"

"Fuck and no, they'd be falling over themselves if they found out I'd just won the lottery."

"Show?"

"'Bout three months for the other dimension, I'd been bringing the books out to the ship when I got the databurst. I'd just taken out a batch of the special orders to the ship too."

"Did you hear that fool woman who was buying so much stuff tried suing?"

"Us? Why?"

"You'd forced her to buy so much. She wanted all the money she'd spent back but still wanted to keep everything. The judge tossed her out of court and told her to get a second job to pay extra on her credit cards to pay them down sooner or spend some time in the work dimension to pay everything off at once. Or don't buy stuff you can't afford."

"Dumb bitch."

Several weeks later for her Josette returns to Haven.

"Well?" David asks dryly.

"Yep, thankfully I didn't have to announce who I was when I accepted the first check. Christ does the government want its share. Oh that fool woman tried to sue, claiming we forced her to buy all that shit." Alexander rolls on the floor again. "Yeah, Marcus showed the video footage of her saying 'I want this, and this, and this and filling out order on top of order on top of order. . .not once but twice. Since she'd gone back a second time the judge was already calling her on her bullshit claim. Of course she wanted all her money back but to be able to keep everything she'd brought."

"Oh of course," Alan drawls. "Moron."

"Yep, the judge told her to get a second job to pay extra on her credit cards to pay them off sooner or go to the work dimension and pay them off. Or don't buy stuff you can't afford."

"Fool woman would just spend them up again." David snorts.

"Yep." Josette says. "So anyway I spent some time in my Ben and Jerry's cups whining about my life. . .' the others snigger. "Talked to Madison and the others about the new books, looked at plans for animated films for the gyms in space books. Approved the illustrations for my new books."

"Dissertation?"

"Being looked at at GD before I formally upload it this semester. CJ's nearly finished with his and he's doing the same thing this year before he defends his at Cambridge next summer." Josette looks at David. "Going to talk to my advisor when we're out."

"I'm talking to my advisor about the doctorate too."

"How many more degrees are you finishing?"

"Seven over the next two years, I got the second degree for the Green Hornet this semester and I'll have my doctorate at the end of the year. That leaves the cooking degree, two degrees from the sosh school, and two more from Montague. But then I started three degrees over the last couple semesters." The others nod and head to lunch.

"Don't even think it." She tells David, who's smirking at the front table.

"Do I wanna know?" Principal Madison asks the back room. Everybody can see Josette leveling a level three death glare at David.

"It's probably something Josette's swearing about. We'll find out sooner or later." Professor Druid says. "Now, has everybody had a chance to look at the books that deal with their areas?"

"Yes, and now we're going through the books in the other areas. We can't let Josette have all the fun." President Bartlett says dryly. Everybody in earshot chuckles.

It's beginning to warm up again when they come back from the third testing week though it's not going to be melting for a couple weeks yet. Josette opens her back door to air out her room for a few minutes until the furnace kicks on then heads upstairs to her stained glass workshop.

"Damn." David whistles, looking for her a couple hours later. "My room at the mansion." she says absently. "I'm . . .Awwww SHIT!"

"Muse jump you for another book?"

"Yes dammit. Ahhh, I'll talk to the others later." Josette shrugs and follows him downstairs.

"Should be melting by next weekend." Alexander says as they walk to the dining hall outside. It's still a little nippy but everybody wants some fresh air.

"Growing area?"

"Yeah, everything should start coming in asshole to elbow now." The others snigger but nod.

"First planet?"

"I'll go out next week and stay long enough to harvest everything. By the end of the week we should have everything finished upstairs." Josette detours to the front room, talking to the glass teacher who moans. "Passing along the bad idea?"

"We all have different tastes and easily have enough projects for a book." After filling her tray Josette sends out a message.

"I'm sure you have some people cussing you out."

Josette smirks. "Gotta share the love and nobody says they have to write books. For that matter I don't have to write a book." She mentally blows a pouting muse a raspberry. The muse gives her a 'oh you're on' look, rolling up her sleeves and cracking her knuckles.

The next morning Josette heads upstairs to the growing area, grabbing baskets and starting to pick ripening fruit and veggies.

"Fish?" David asks, grabbing a basket and heading to another plant.

"I thought later this year. We'll have to check the farms too." David nods as Josette moves the food to the kitchens where her other selves and the others are waiting.

"Josette, how are Wayne, Dayton, Dayton, and Drake coming along?" President Bartlett asks at dinner.

"Good, they did most of the outside work on Earth before they were brought out and it's nothing they won't need when they rebuild." Nods from him and Principal Madison. "They'll finish the outside work in a couple months once the snow's gone. We're going to have to check the fish farms this year."

"It's been a few years since we last harvested." Mrs. Bartlett says. Josette nods. "Your growing area?"

"David and I were harvesting earlier and we'll have just as many baskets of food tomorrow." The others nod.

"Josette, settle a bet. Why does the manufacturing satellite, flour factory, and mill put everything in 40 pound bags instead of 100 pound barrels?" Professor Eppes says.

"Two reasons, not many people can easily handle a hundred pounds, you can just toss a bag over your shoulder." Nods from everybody around them. "And the bags take up less room, you can't stack barrels on a pallet." More nods. "Yeah, the kitchens gets bulk in 100 pound barrels but they're a bitch to move, it usually takes two people to maneuver it onto a hand cart or lift it onto a wagon, then you have to have the second person balancing it to bring it somewhere else, too big a chance of damaging it if you roll the barrels." Nods from the others again.

"And you can't stack the full barrels."

This time Josette nods. "Now some stuff I put in barrels but I just move it in subspace to where I need it." The others nod.

The next couple of weeks has the last of the crops harvested and canned, dried, or otherwise stored from the growing area with new crops planted in the aquaponics unit. Josette heads off to the first planet, harvesting everything and adding compost to the raised beds after she's pulled the plants. She delivers various places, the remaining crops going in the stasis unit.

"Books?"

"Being picked up after finals when we take the students out."

"Belongings?"

"Maybe some early birds, but probably not until midterms second semester."

Josette drops into a seat a couple weeks later after their finals.

"Upload the dissertation?"

"Before I headed offplanet to pick up the recycling."

"Got the orders from the factories?"

"Yep, I'm heading off with Doc and Buckaroo tomorrow to deliver everything. They've been keeping up-to-date on what's going on out there but . . ."

"Until you see it for yourself it's just words on a screen."

"'Xactly. I'm heading out to Thomas's world with Thomas and Kara the day after that."

"Then we're off to the other dimension for a few weeks."

"Longer for me, another book tour for the new series. Dropping off new books with Madison,the trilogy on the founding of the university and why it's in space."

"What's the latest on the colony?"

"They've got everything made up for the town, they're going out in a few weeks to start putting everything together, including a grist mill." Nods from the others. "Water wheel?"

"Yeah, with backup solar panels. Unlike ours, the town is going up around the mill."

"Like a lot of settlements back in the pioneer days."

"Yep."

"What are they building beyond that, the general store, and a place for supplies?"

"Eventually candle and soapmaking buildings, but that's going to be far in the future. A bank, doctor. . ."

"Everything that will be needed in the beginning, wait on the other stuff."

"School?"

"Like the candle and soapmaking places later as people start settling in the community, right now it's going to be too far to walk for the farm kids."

"And for a few years, they're going to be busy on the farm with the crops."

Josette nods. "That's why the big boys only attended school in the winter, they'll have to buy books and teach them at night and during the winters."

"Tavern, where farmers can get food when they come in to sell their crops."

Josette nods. "Whether they have rooms on the second floor or they sleep in their wagons."

"Something we didn't have to worry about with the flyers getting people back home within an hour, even fully loaded."

"Though the temporary dorm serves the same function once people moved out." Nods from the others.

"Josette, recycling?" President Bartlett asks at dinner.

"I picked up the other planets earlier today, the paper is at the mill, the glass is at the glassblowers or the glass factory, while the metal is on the sorting planet, and everything else was being put in crystals for later use." He nods in satisfaction. "I've been moving the school's to the ship every week or so as it piles up, I'll grab the last little bit before we head off later this week. Doc's is on the ship, I'm delivering their orders with Doc and Buckaroo tomorrow, I'm going out to Thomas's world with Thomas and Kara the day after that. Beyond the empty containers, they really don't have much recycling, they handle it themselves."

President Bartlett and Principal Madison nod in satisfaction.

"The colony dimension?"

"They have everything made for the 'community' and plan to start building."

"Outhouses even there?"

"Yes, unless they spent the money for a composting toilet."

Professor Fletcher shivers. "I know there was some places on Earth that still had the old outhouses, they had real rooms over it but god that would be bitter ass cold to run in the winter."

"Something they didn't mention in Little House." Josette sniggers.

"You mean people actually had to shit back then?" Professor Eppes asks, his lips twitching.

Josette laughs and heads to the back room. The next day Doc and Buckaroo join her walking through the tesseract to Aztec and they lift off.

Buckaroo shakes his head as he looks down from Headquarters, a good half of the city doesn't have electricity and they had heard only part of the city has electricity at any given time. Only those buildings that need uninterrupted power like banks, hospitals, fire stations, and police stations are guaranteed to have electricity, everybody else it's cross your fingers before you flip the light switch and those smaller buildings that have elevators have shut them down to conserve power.

They return to Haven six weeks later, having visited the Banzai Institutes in America and China. Delivering shipping containers of new supplies to the factories Josette, Buckaroo, and Doc talk about how Earth is getting along over a meal at the communal kitchen before they head to the 10th planet and check on their first plantings.

"Bad?" Pat asks when they return.

"We were there six weeks, at any given time there was only part of the city that had power, including the Empire State Building. The tinting on the windows kept people from realizing we weren't affected if anybody looked up that far. Most people in the city ate at kitchens like Town's since they had no idea if they could make dinner at home. Otherwise it was make food ahead of time for several days or eat cold food."

"Those buildings less than ten floors had shut down their elevators to save power, even the larger buildings shut down the elevators for part of the day. Only those places that needed electricity such as banks, hospitals, fire departments, and police stations were guaranteed power."

Beau whistles. "Going to be bad come winter if they're still rationing power." Nods from the others. "Any news on the power stations?"

"They're still trying to find the money in budgets to build new ones but communities aren't passing millages for them."

"And the state or federal governments won't build them out of the kindness of their hearts." Pam snorts. The others nod. "Does Haven have a plan for a power plant if they ever need it?"

"Yes, though like Earth they'd have to pass a millage or something to fund it and find a way to power it since the ones they have in 'limbo' would need too much work before they could be used. And they'd need a company to handle it, boxes to record how much power a home uses, and billing statements. They don't see that need for a while."

"Not when solar power handles everything so well." Anton rumbles. "I would see them adding wind power myself."

"Charging batteries?" Shoshanna asks. Anton nods. "I'd suggest water myself, put a mill with a water wheel on a good sized stream and having them charge batteries if the distance wasn't so much."

Doc and Buckaroo nod. "But if they ever see the need to add another settlement that would be an ideal place to start."

The next day Josette, Thomas, and Kara fly to the other dimension, picking up stuff and talking to the Justice League. They return a month later and Josette delivers the containers to Wayne Manor.

The trip to the other dimension is louder with more people on the ship. They trek off through the tesseract David opens as Josette delivers the orders and drops off the recycling and torn apart shipping containers, picking up the supplies before heading to the mansion and putting up the stained glass window in front of one of her windows, the colors playing on the floor the next morning as she strips and remakes her bed, Madison on the phone held between her ear and shoulder.

"Yeah, I understand completely. Babysitting a new author while they're freaking comes first. I'll pick up the tickets at the office and you already know I got everything handled. . .Really? Damn, am I good or am I good? Wha? Yes, I've always been a cocky little brat, ask anybody who's known me for a while. Read the new books once you've got them calmed down and I'll talk contracts when I get back or you can pop in after the signing one day." She ends the call and sends everything to the laundry room.

"They're planning a movie from the university in space trilogy too." Josette says after she's started her laundry.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I was talking with Madison, she's holding the hand of a new author who's freaking out right now. I gotta stop at the office supply store and pick up the pens she ordered for me then the office for the tickets and hotel reservations."

Madison's secretary holds up a finger as she talks on the phone, pulling out a large manila envelope with Josette's name on it. She pops it with the pens in subspace and heads back to the mansion after girding her loins and wandering through a mall, filled with squealing teenagers.

Several weeks later she drags herself into the mansion, in addition to the signing tour and talking to a loudly cursing Madison after she'd read the new books she'd visited various places and talked to her financial manager about the lottery winnings. Doing her laundry she drops the empty pens in the replicator and heads off to Aberdeen, flying back Haven and arriving a few minutes after the others. Josette merges with her other self after everything has been delivered and falls facefirst into the couch.

"How was it?" Alexander asks.

"Long. Madison cussed like a sailor when she read the new books, talked to the people who are doing the movie, signed more contracts, talked to my financial manager. . ." She pulls a pillow under her head and takes a nap.

After lunch Josette starts bringing out the hard drives and pictures. As well as the pictures from the shows there's pictures of the preparations for the community in the other dimension, those are uploaded to the server so the others can see them.

"Damn, that looks empty but I know they'd say the same thing about Haven before we arrived." Professor Fletcher shudders at a meeting of the teachers after dinner.

"I know, they were bringing out sections for the mill when I came out, they'll have to set up the millstones and water wheel first, then set up the building around it." Nods from the others. "Once that's done they'll start putting up permanent housing, the general store, and the building for the supplies."

"Are they staying out there this winter?"

"They're planning it, they'll be bringing out more supplies over the weeks since they won't have time to grow crops this year."

"How many people?"

"About fifteen, with more coming out in the second group to put up more buildings including the tavern. Right now they'll be taking turns cooking meals over a fire."

The others shake their heads. "Yeah, that's going to get old fast."

"It's going to take a while before people are comfortable cooking."

"Yep, but something they're going to have to get used to."

Josette looks over at Professor Fletcher. "Do the signing tours get any less. . ."

"Annoying, insane, mind-numbingly boring . . .all seemingly at the same time? No."

"That's what I was afraid of."

"That's why we have so much free time during them so we can relax and do some sightseeing."

"Okay, who does book signing tours?"

"Young authors first starting out, or those who have 'made it' as it were. Josette started out in the first category, but moved quickly to the second with the books in other languages, audio books, and movie plan."

"Movies. They want to do one for the second trilogy of the university in space."

"Didn't you just take those out?"

"Yes, and Madison swore at me when she read them. When she passed that news along it was. . .we want it even if the second book in the first trilogy was just released."

"Audio?"

"Yeah, I signed the contracts while I was there." Josette says before she heads to the back room.

"Cookbooks?"

"Seven and eight should be finished in about six weeks, then they'll start the others. They won't be done by the Harvest Festival but we'll bring part of the batch out to sell at the festival, then shut down for a couple weeks so the machines can be cleaned and inspected, then they'll start my other books. That will be three years working two shifts, then they'll inspect the machinery again and start on the fiction."

"Can you see the need for a bookstore of our own eventually?"

"Maybe far in the future when we have more authors, but not right now."

President Bartlett nods in the front room. "The store can handle everything for the time being."

"Why is most audio just one person reading?" Frances asks in the front room.

"Because it's cheaper than hiring more people to handle all the characters?" Professor Eppes snorts. President Bartlett nods. "And if you're not familiar with the book or reading along, you can become confused by so many different voices."

"For that same reason it was cheaper to abridge books. You've seen books that take up five or six CDS." Everybody nods. "Imagine back when it was cassettes." Nods again.

In the back room Josette is busy on her PADD, looking through factories. David, Clark, and Doc look at her when she's done. "Seeing what we have to make audio books."

"We'd need a factory for the cases."

"They probably could make the cases for DVDS too." Nods from the others. "Could they also install the metal ring binder?"

"Probably, if not look for a factory that can do both."

"Notebooks, three ring binders. . ." Josette nods as the list of what can be made there grows.

Back at the dorm Josette starts sorting through the pictures, telling everybody of where she'd gone and what she'd seen on the tour. It had been a mixture of planes and trains, she'd spent some time in Hawaii.

"Hit the beaches?"

"Too crowded though I got in some shopping once I got past the non-tourist areas." Nods from the others. "Nicer to lay on the sand in the first planet or the island. Take the boats out." More nods.

Dad comes through the switching chamber and walks into Headquarters to go over the plans for the library at Clark's Empire State Building.

"Anybody see how the addition to the Kent Farm is coming along?"

"Clark and Kara went right to work once the ground was bare."

"They've been planning it for a while so they were able to get the materials made up ahead of time. Making sure everything would still run under the new demands took the longest time to figure out." Nods from the others.

"Josette, how many classes are you getting in this summer?" Principal Madison asks at the first government meeting of the new semester.

"Only eighteen, though I'm finishing another degree from Montague, the second degree on Tarzan."

"Doctorate from the other dimension?'

"Pretty good, I'll be done this time next year. I'll probably be defending my dissertation later this year at this rate."

Snorts from Principal Madison and David. "You'll probably be finished with the degree by later this year at this rate."

"Probably." Josette sighs.

"Cookbooks?"

"They figure on being done with the seventh and eighth by the end of the month, they won't have the last two done by the Harvest Festival but I'll bring part of them out to sell then the rest will go with the others." Nods from the three older men. "They plan on shutting down for at least two weeks after that to clean and inspect the machinery, then start on the other books."

"Then the fiction?"

"Yeah, I gotta talk to Madison about the new books midterms. Or when we go out for the boys show."

"The others?"

"Sales are good according to the last databurst. She's working on another book tour for Professor Fletcher."

"And you?" Doc chuckles.

"And me." Josette sighs. "The second book sales are good, the news about the movie is positive, and they're dropping hints about the second trilogy."

"And your other books?"

"Still selling well. I usually sign a good half-dozen books per person at each signing."

"Figured out which factory you'd bring out for the audio books?"

"Still looking everything over."

"In addition to the factory making the disks you'd need one for the cases."

"And either making the sleeves on the replicator or a third one." Josette says, nodding. "There's a company that just stacks the disks in a container, I'm afraid they'd get scratched too easy that way."

"Greenhouse for the moon base?"

"It's supposed to be going up when we go out for the show. We're going to be taping it for Granda and everybody here."

"How far are they. . .?"

"I think they're about five years into the moonbase?"

"The colony?"

"Latest databurst had them finished with the mill and starting the tavern, a second batch of supplies was brought out and the second batch of workers should be going out by the time we head for the show, definitely there by midterms." The others nod in satisfaction at what David says.

"Cooking teachers and reality show people?"

"Coming out between midterms and the Harvest Festival." The others had put up another apartment building for them.

Josette walks outside at the ranch, breathing in the fresh air and looking over at the crops and garden. Going out to the cistern she shakes her head and splits off a duplicate, they both start pumping.

"Cistern." David says at dinner.

"Filled it this afternoon." He nods in satisfaction.

"So you've got everything ready for the show?"

"Except the few last minute special orders to go out."

The rest of the month flies by and they head off to the other dimension, dropping off the special order and books with Dexter before heading to a movie. The others are at the rooms when they arrive back after eating.

"How is it coming in Calvin's dimension?"

"They're sending up the module with the greenhouse when we're out there for midterms, we're going to be taping it for them and us. They're putting up the first settlement for the colony, the mill went up first and then the tavern. Which meant they weren't cooking over a fire on the ground anymore."

"It's not hard but it's not something I'd be wanting to do after a long day putting up buildings. Then sleeping on straw in a wagon."

"Better than sleeping on the ground." Black Jack says. The others nod. "Hopefully the canvas is waterproof though I would not want to be living in one over the winter."

"If they didn't have their house up, they'd have to pull the wagon into the barn over the winter. While it'd be warmer, the tradeoff might not make it seem any better."

Nods.

A few nights later Josette sighs as the last person goes away with their signed books.

"I'll get back to you . . ."

"In a couple days, you'll need your sleep."

"So do you?"

"Myeah." Josette makes a noise. "Not the first night I've gone without sleep, not gonna be the last."

Back at the rooms Josette takes off her shoes and slides into a tub of steaming hot water after putting up her clothes.

A couple days later Dexter brings out the figures and Josette nods. They talk about the book sales, the sales at the show, and the special orders before he heads off again.

A few more weeks later they head back to Haven, Josette and Alan delivering boxes of supplies to various rooms.

The crops are beginning to come in when Josette heads off midterms, delivering belongings and picking up supplies. The module landing on the moon is taped as they arrive and Josette sends the raw footage a couple places before counting socks with Jane. Professor Fletcher looks around the school in satisfaction before they head off.

Josette leans around the door of Madison's office, getting waved inside as Madison picks up the phone. "She's he-ere." She says in a sing-song voice and Jessica arrives.

"Jessica James, agent meet Jessica Fletcher, author."

"Come talk with me while they go over stuff then you can come back." Josette heads out of the office, stopping at the coffee station to pour herself a cup before they go down the hall to Jessica's office where they talk about sales and other stuff. Jessica is sipping tea and reading magazines when Josette comes out of Madison's office and they do a little shopping.

A few days later they arrive back on Haven, Josette delivering containers of supplies to the school and factories before they arrive at the school.

"Sales good?" Principal Madison asks at lunch.

"Yes, and Madison plans to talk to Lois, Lana, Peter, and Clark at the Harvest Festival. Josette's other agent is coming out as well." President Bartlett sniggers despite himself. "Josette and I both have book signing tours."

"The same tour?"

"No, while we're visiting some of the same places it's on different dates. Mine is shorter while Josette is visiting comic book stores and a couple conventions."

"Comic con." Josette crows in the back room. "Mine's three months this time since I'm heading overseas too, Professor Fletcher's is five weeks."

"When is your tours?"

"Just before the Harvest Festival, I'll take two ships out, Professor Fletcher and I will come back on one when I take out the recycling and orders, I'll come back on the other when I'm done."

"Show?"

"After my show there, a couple of weeks here."

"Did you tape the greenhouse module being launched?"

"Yes, Quetzatlan edited the footage with what the tv stations took as far as they could so it's all one tape. I sent that to Granda before we left as well as the raw footage." Josette gets on the PADD and the footage is sent to the server.

"Josette, the cooking teachers and others?"

"Coming out with their supplies for over a week after our third testing week. The others are heading back with the returning teachers in two years." Josette sighs. "Granda's going to have to send up triple supplies that year."

"You'll be taking stuff back every month."

"Yeah, thankfully the cooking teachers have their own dropoff area so we don't overwhelm the office."

After lunch Josette stretches and yawns as she goes over the information on the show then checks the yearly crops that will be going from green to go overnight. And then there's the offworld harvests.

"Oh you'd be bored stiff and you know it." David snorts, hearing her complain about not knowing whether she was coming or going some days.

Josette's busy the next few weeks as multiple crops start coming in and she's off bringing in the new cooking teachers, reality show people, and their supplies. Clark and Kara fly multiple wagons to the farms, food building, Wayne Manor, and the compound as the crops start coming in. Rooms are full of food when Josette heads off with the others to the other dimension.

"How is it?"

"Crops coming in asshole to elbow with the first crop, offworld harvests, and yearly crops coming in bing, bang, boom on top of each other. But we've all got rooms full of food for the winter."

"First planet?"

"Yearly crops are in, I pressed just over 2/3 of the olive oil harvest. And made a ton of cherry stuff with that harvest as well. The second crops will be coming in when we return, then we can relax until the third crops are in."

"Classes?" Dr. Cross asks, his lips twitching. "Ahhh," Josette waves a hand, making everybody laugh.

"Well. . .some of us find our classes difficult." David says. "Not everybody can finish three degrees in one year."

"Some of us find our classes assnumbingly boring." Alexander snorts.

"Not mindnumbingly boring?" Calvin chuckles.

"My mind was already numb when we got talked into another art history degree."

"Picked up the pens?"

"Yeah, eight cases for the signing tour, three for the show."

"Thesis?"

"Talked to my advisor when I was here midterms, I'm on track to present it when we bring the students out. Now. . .in two years will we have to triple the supplies?" Calvin facepalms. "The first batch of returning employees, the students, the returning cooking school teachers, and the reality show people."

"Yep."

"Two years of double batches?" Susan asks.

"We could do that too, delivering part of them to the cooking school."

The next day and Josette gets ready for the boys show, dressing up but not enough to take attention from the boys and checking that everything's ready while the boys are getting ready for their interview. Marcus has everything well in hand and she starts looking through the other rooms at the gallery.

Everybody drops everything and heads to their beds after the show, taking care of everything the next morning.

"Josette?" Marcus asks when he finds Josette pouring the used pens in the replicator.

"We can use the replicator to refill them. I do the same thing with the pens from my signing tours." He nods and they talk about the show and book sales. Visiting a few places they head back to Haven, sighing as they breathe fresh air and head to the dorm.

"Books?" Principal Madison asks at dinner.

"Tons of them."

"How are they . . .?"

"Colony? Tavern and Mill are finished, they're working on their homes and the buildings for the store and supplies now. Well and the outhouses are dug, they'll put up a livery and perhaps even a blacksmith shop once they get somebody who knows what they're doing and get get in a steady supply of metal."

"Are you experimenting with cast iron?"

"Yeah, along with the blacksmith."

"If something goes wrong, just start over again."

"Yeah, we're getting pretty good at creating the molds."

"Multiple molds?"

"That's what we're working on next."

The second crops are starting to come in and everybody's busy for the couple weeks up to the Harvest Festival, Professor Fletcher checking her bags to make sure she has everything before she and Josette walk through the tesseract David opens to Ulonda while another Josette flies to Aberdeen.

Josette and Professor Fletcher listen to the last minute briefing for the tour and head to the train station, Professor Fletcher smiling as Josette picks her up five weeks later.

"Need to do a few things, laundry, sleep, a hot bath, and a good meal before we leave?"

"A good night's sleep sounds wonderful." Jessica gets in the passenger seat and they drive to the mansion.

"So where is your other self right now?"

"According to the itinerary, comic con."

"I hope I didn't keep you here without anything to do."

"No, I visited several factories with Calvin to get an idea what we might need eventually. Visited Ellis and a few other suppliers. Spent some time with Doc, Charles, and Dr. Cross. Spent a couple days at amusement parks."

Seven weeks after they've left Josette drags herself into the mansion, dropping onto the bed for a nap that lasts for nearly twelve hours. Sorting out her clothes she washes everything and puts it away, dumping the pens in the replicator and dialing up several meals before flying to Aberdeen and lifting off. Back on Haven she starts delivering everything to the dorm and joins with the Josettes that had been on Haven all day and had been off with Professor Fletcher.

"Pictures?"

"Tons, I'll dig the hard drives out after lunch." She dials up a couple meals from the replicator and pops a dish in the oven.

"I told you to eat before you left." Susan says in her mommy voice as the others snigger.

"I did, dialed up a good half-dozen full meals. Also slept nearly twelve hours, took care of the pens, did my laundry. . ."

"Damn, this is why Josette says comic con was the top for conventions." David shakes his head, looking at the pictures and video.

"Asshole to elbow with people in costumes, panels about new comics, shows, and movies. . .most with the people actually in charge of the project. Tons of booths. . ." Josette shakes her head. "I split off a half-dozen duplicates and we were up for hours. There was literally something going on all the time."

"Get any sleep?"

"Twelve hours after the con was over, with everybody else doing the same thing. It was an implosion of silence at the hotel after all the noise previously. Of course, that might have been everybody who worked at the hotel taking a deep breath for the first time since the con started." The others chuckle.

Josette talks about everything she'd seen for the next couple of days in between taking out the orders and going to the other dimension with Thomas and Clark until the others begin coming out for the festival. Jessica stares up at the two suns in the sky, everybody chuckling quietly remembering doing the same thing themselves.

"No, that's just a tv show." She says seeing a familiar object in a hallway.

"Popular argument in the fanfiction world is that some people can see into other dimensions, what is our fiction is their reality. If it's the one most people see, it's canon. There's actually three of them here, one is the 5th doctor, one the 9th, and one the 10th, all from different dimensions." Jessica stares behind her and she can hear Peter and Egon bickering as they walk past. Josette listens in and snickers, it's nothing serious. . Peter threatening to eat a certain food and fart for days. Egon saying that is not conducive to getting sex since he'd be sleeping outside if he did.

"The Ghostbusters?"

"Yeah, they live on the 8th planet."

"Is. . .are those dorms?" She asks on the tour of the school.

"Yeah, 75 floors, either forty or sixty double occupancy rooms, storerooms for linens and supplies, and a floor monitor apartment on each. And yes, in a few weeks they'll all be full when the new students come out after the festival until the seniors graduate this fall."

Jessica and Madison sit down with Josette and the others talk over their books, sales, and whatnot over the next couple of days.

"Everybody settling in well?" Principal Madison asks one of the instructors at the cooking school.

"Yes, the new teachers are all exploring the fields, greenhouses, and growing area. We took them on a tour to the fish farms and they were planning stuff when we left. The reality show people are already filming." That's obvious as you have people wandering the streets filming the tables.

"Cookbooks?" One of the new cooking instructors looks at the books flying off a table. He's already got a bag for them on his arm.

"Yeah, this is the second set that we've printed. The first ones are available at the store, these will be available at the store after the festival."

"This is . . .different."

"Meant to introduce stuff we don't normally grow. Every few years we'll introduce new foods, this way the common housewife knows what they are and what she can make with them. This is the second book like this we've released."

"Okay, I think I'm in love."

"I hope you meant the store." Agatha says dryly, looking over her shoulder where she's cutting fabric for a quilt.

"Oh yes, definitely the store." The woman wanders the aisles. "Do you sell time on the machines?" She can see people working on them through the entrance.

"Yes, and time at the work tables since not many people have the room to work. I take it you're a quilter?"

"Yes, and I was hoping I'd find some others to talk to while I was here. Work, well . . ."

"Work is okay but sometimes you need to play."

"Oh yes."

"Kits?" She'd found the information for them for that month.

"Knitting, sewing, and quilts."

"You have a yarn store?"

"Three down that way."

"Damn, do you have a job opening here?"

"Not the first person who's worked a few hours here and there in trade for supplies and time on the machines." Sue says. "I'm Sue Dixon, I own the store, Agatha owns the Albatross Nest, both here and in Albatross, which is the other settlement on Haven."

"Oh good. . .Josette," Sue yells towards the door.

"Yeah?" Josette sticks her head inside.

"We need more old clothes for patchwork quilts."

"I'll bring them out tomorrow when I bring out the next batch of students."

"Oh my god. . .these are Jakahawa books." She stares at the books and pulls some out. "These haven't been released yet."

"There. .." Agatha says dryly. "Josette released the books here years ago. And if you're a fan, there's going to be eighteen more coming out over the next three years."

"But Josette's fiction hasn't been released here yet so it balances out."

"You have printers here?"

"Yep, they've printed both sets of Josette's books, both sets of the cookbooks. . ."

"Agatha's book." Somebody sniggers.

"And the books for the show about the hundredth anniversary of Haven."

"Hundredth anniversary?"

Agatha snorts and makes a hand waggling gesture. "Somewhere around there."

"Books?"

"Twenty-four of them that were available for sale after the show, along with a cd/DVD box set. Not all the books are about the show, some were books from the other settlements about moving from Earth and the history of their towns."

"Where do you get your metal?" One of the people who'd been watching them work asks as the blacksmith works at something. Josette's in the other room pouring for another batch of cast iron. They both have cameras filming their every move.

"Josette or somebody else brings in the raw ore when they mine asteroids. It's smelted on the sorting planet and turned into ingots that we use. In addition we recycle everything we can, so do the other planets."

"Do you have a factory to make cans?"

"No, we haven't seen the need. All our food goes up in canning jars for the winter. The manufacturing satellite handles the limited production of canned goods. Canning jars you can reuse as long as they're not broken, if they do we just remake them at the glass factory on the sorting planet."

"And you can make multiple recipes at the same time if you have the space." Josette calls. "A canning factory you'd have to clean the machines after each one."

"The sorting planet?"

"The nickname for the seventh planet since that was where the recycling was taken to be sorted before being sold to Earth and the ores were worked on before they went to the manufacturing satellite. Now it has many of our factories."

"Are all your factories zero emission and clean energy?"

"Yes, we've learned from Earth's mistake and have no plans to destroy our new planet. Many industrialists on Earth saw the new planets as a chance to destroy another world instead of having to clean up their own messes and were stunned we wouldn't change our charters from agricultural to industrial no matter how many times they sued." Josette says through the open door, the second camera with her watching her pour the molten metal into the sand molds lined up five rows deep.

"What are you making?"

"Cast iron cookware, we've been experimenting with it for a while."

"And if something goes wrong?"

"Break the molds, melt the metal again, turn the sand into new molds and try again." Josette shrugs. "Nothing is wasted." She finishes the last mold and nods in satisfaction, pushing the vat up until it clicks in place. Pulling off her safety glasses she starts peeling off and putting up the other safety gear.

Josette slides into her usual seat at the testing center.

"Congratulations on finishing your doctorate. Now I hear some rumors about a psychotic bunny and a masters project?" Dr. Stark looks at her.

"Little fucker wanted me to do the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse." Dr. Cross chuckles as Dr. McNider laughs. "You'd not only give me the really look, you'd tear up the bachelors."

"Probably." Dr. Stark smirks. "The printers?"

"Last books are in storage and they're cleaning and inspecting the machinery, planning on starting printing my new books by midterms."

Ma finds a set of cast iron cookware on the kitchen counters when she gets up one morning, plucking a note off one.

"Martha?" Jonathon asks, coming up behind her as she's looking everything over.

"From Josette, one of the first sets they made."

Josette stretches and sighs as she walks out of the switching chamber. The boys and Susan walk to their rooms.

"How is it coming along on the 9th planet?" Anna asks in the living room.

"Good, they're bringing out buildings from Earth and starting to work on them. The university degrees from our dimension and theirs is getting a good bit of interest."

"Never too old to learn something new." Doc says, coming out of Headquarters. "Josette, does Charles just have a healing gift or . . ."

"God of healing, like me he tumbled into it by accident." Doc chuckles. "How is Clark coming along on the library?"

"Clearing the floors, tearing out non-essential walls and making plans for enlarging it into three floors eventually. The work's going slow but they're planning for the future."

"It's nothing that needs to be completed right away."

"And it's not the last of the work that's going to happen to the building."

"No, we're all renovating floors of the buildings as we see a need. Now, did you find out the factories you'd need for the audiobooks?"

"Yes, I went on a tour with Granda when we were out for the book signing tours. Madison also took me on a trip out to a recording studio where I could see the masters for the audio books being made."

The next day Josette starts going through everything she has make up, making a list of what she's going to be making and what she's running low on in the pantry. Plus what she'll have to stock up on over for the winter. Going into the supplies area, she moves bags and barrels to her pantry and brings out barrels of olives and a couple cases of olive oil from the ranch.

She's not the only one getting in supplies early for winter, on the other continent the others are doing the same. . .as well as putting in the last few details on the nurseries.

Josette chuckles as she leans against the wall by the communications center. "Give Momma my love, once she stops threatening to gut you."

"Boy?" David asks, walking past. She holds up two fingers and he chuckles. They'd already suspected Clarinda was carrying a boy.

Ma and Pa are stunned as they hold their daughters in their arms, Clark sends out the news and the family rallies around them, a second cradle being put in the nursery and more diapers and other supplies brought out. They smile and hug everybody in thanks after they put the babies down.

Pa goes to start dinner, finding something warming in the oven and chest freezers full of frozen food.

"We're lucky to have family and friends."

"We're blessed."

"Okay, this is probably a damn dumb question but .. ." Alex asks at the Compound.

"Why doesn't Earth use the gestation chambers for children?" Josette asks. "I can think of a couple reasons, the main one is there isn't enough of them to give everybody all the children they want. Which is why Earth was so overcrowded in the first place. People would be up in arms, trying to demand they be given the chance to have children while keeping others from doing the same."

Thomas nods. "And the second reason?"

"Really doesn't make sense with the children being theirs, just grown outside the body. For people like Ma and Pa who took in a baby from the stars, for everybody who's adopted a child who needed a home, there's two or three who go through years of medicine and spend thousands of dollars because . . ."

"They want their own baby." Tara says quietly." Josette nods.

"And the information that they'd had ways for a couple to have a child but. . ." Jason says.

"People would be up in arms. Either demanding to know why they hadn't been used before or bleating about unnatural children." Bruce says dryly. "One of the reasons clones weren't widely known about on Earth."

The other babies start arriving over the next month and Josette leans against the wall in the office, waiting for Jane and Maria to get off the phones when they go out after the finals.

"Eight babies. Momma had twin boys, Ma and Pa Kent had twin girls, the rest all single babies. Five girls, three boys."

"Awwww," Jane says as she sends the file with the pictures. They count the socks and Josette heads off to the mansion.

"You know you have a reputation as an eccentric millionaire?" Madison chuckles as Josette slouches into a seat a couple days after they'd arrived.

"Better eccentric as in behaving rather than one of those fools like you see on the entertainment tv shows."

"But you don't look for publicity." Madison says, her lips twitching.

"To quote Dr. Hazlitt, Ayuh."

They talk for a couple hours about the movie for the first book, the sales for the books, the possibility of coming out for the movie premiere, who was doing the voices. . . the third book being released in a couple months, the sales on the other books, and the possibility of another movie for the second book once they see the ticket sales for the first one.

"Sooooooo, new book tour?"

"No, thank you gods and goddesses." Josette sighs. "Probably not until the second trilogy is due to come out. Possibility for a second movie, they're waiting to see the ticket sales." Nods from the others. "I've been labeled eccentric because I don't go making a moron of myself in front of the camera." Josette waves a hand at the large-screen tv where the latest starlet is doing something stupid.

"But that's wrongidy wrongidy wrong wrong wrong." Abby says with a smirk. "There's no such thing as bad publicity."

Josette says something rude. "Okay, Vegas?"

"Couple days. Suppliers?"

"Ellis tomorrow, the others after we get back."

"Warehouse stores?"

"We're hitting a couple but most of what we'd be getting is already in the shipping containers."

"Thesis?"

"Yup, I'm presenting that while we're here."

"Get your classes finished?"

"Four classes yet to go."

"Thomas's world?"

"We're out there right now, things are still stable so we're not harvesting yet, thank you gods and goddesses."

"Still over four billion?"

"Under now, they're not getting the massive deaths they had from old age with the baby boomers gone."

The others nod.

A few weeks later David opens the tesseract for the returning students and employees, Josette splitting off several duplicates to start delivering everything before they head off to Mom Clarinda's dimension.

"Awww." Clarinda coos, looking at the baby pictures. "Did you finish your Ph.D?"

"Nope, I got four classes yet to take first semester. But I defended my dissertation while we were in Calvin's world."

"How is the colony coming?"

"Good, they're settling in for their winter. Not having heat at the turn of a dial is going to take some getting used to but they're getting there. The plans went from fireplaces to cook stoves for the majority of the heating and cooking since most of the heat goes up the chimney instead of out into the room." Nods from the others.

"Furnaces?"

"I can eventually seeing them hooked to vents but. . ."

"They still need the cook stoves to cook on."

"How are the books selling?"

"Good. . .Awwww shit."

"Yes, you've got an appointment with an agent here." David sniggers and Josette idly throws a pillow at his head. "Oh like you weren't expecting it. Is Dexter translating the quilting books too?" Josette moans louder at Mary's smug look.

Several weeks later Josette and the others come back from the other dimension, Josette joining with her other selves that had been on Haven and off with Thomas and Kara.

Josette settles in her usual spot at the Albatross Nest, a plate on her knee and a bottle of Haven Dew beside her.

"Josette, your books?"

"Started printing the first and second ones last month." Agatha says absently. "I figure on having the book signing party for the first six next year between Thanksgiving and this, that way we don't have something else to carry home."

Josette helps clean everything up, the dishes, pots, and pans being sorted out as the leftovers are pushed on her. Flipping everything to subspace Josette flies back to the school, brushing off the solar panels before she comes inside.

"Has anybody checked the alternate energy?" She asks when she finds David, Dad, one of her other selves, Clark, and Doc in the living room.

"Yeah, still growing. Slowly but steadily." Josette flips stuff to various rooms as she heads upstairs. She finds three of her other selves, Abby, Susan, and Alexander upstairs planting.

"Josette, this is probably a dumb question but do the colony houses have shutters?"

"Yeah, not the decorative ones you see on the sides of windows that are screwed in place or like ours that are metal that can go down over the windows at a second's notice, but the old plantation ones that you could close during the hottest part of the day and still have ventilation. Moving the louvers can make them solid to give them protection against wind, rain, and snow."

"I know some windows were . . ."

"Just stretched canvas or hide over an opening. Yeah."

"Okay, the swinging tavern doors you saw in the movies."

"Ventilation, there were inner doors they could shut when the tavern was closed."

"Possibly ever having flush toilets?"

"Piping run to a pit, with one of those overhead tanks you fill with water?" Susan asks.

Josette nods. "I can see it happening in the future, especially to keep from having to run to the outhouse in the middle of winter. All the houses were designed to be added onto in the future as they're needed, just like the temporary housing here." Nods from the others.

"The problem is making sure the outhouse doesn't contaminate the well water." Nods from the others. "People are used to it being enclosed, they won't think of that."

"Out of sight, out of mind until people started getting sick."

"Anybody check the controls to start sending part of the grey water up here for the plants?"

"Yeah, I flipped the switch before we came up." Abby says. "People were stunned on Earth to find out how much water plants need."

"People aren't farmers. . ..Ohhhh, they might have home gardens but. . ."

"Yean, there's a difference." Josette disappears then reappears a few seconds later, shaking her head and heading off, returning an hour later.

"How are the reality show people settling in?"

"Good, they were looking through all the original programming we've done and plan on starting to film the 'blocks' of cooking classes next year."

"Musical instruments?"

"Yeah, they're really wanting to film us making that stuff start to finish so everybody who's enrolled in this program will spend a few extra hours at Edinborough working on something for them."

Josette looks through the containers of books for the degrees she's got in progress in her first floor closet, even with finishing two to three degrees a year lately she's still got too many containers of books down here. David sniggers from across the room, knowing that look.

"How many degrees do you have going?"

"Eight with the musical instruments and Assyrian cooking degree. Four I'll be finishing next year with the cooking degree." She looks at the closet again, sighs, and shuts the door. Sighs again, opens the door to remove the cat that had wandered in, and shuts it again. David sniggers.

"One day I will open this closet and there won't be a single container in there. . ."

"And you'll die of the shock." Alexander says from the doorway. "Doc and Buckaroo from the 10th planet are here, they wanna talk to you." Josette looks at him, they'd been talking about a few things on the trip out and back so she knows what they had planned for the rest of the growing seasons on the 10th planet.

"We've got children growing in the gestation chambers."

"Awww, congratulations you two, you're going to be wonderful parents. You're both wanting some type of larger laundry setup then. . . .and special detergent for the babies clothes."

"Diapers."

"Yeah, you'll need a good supply in before the babies arrive." They settle down in the living room to talk over everything.

"The formula factory has been running all year to get in a good supply, with you two we'll have it running an extra year. Because you're not going to be the only ones having more children next year."

"Really?" Doc chuckles.

"Nu-uh, still wanting to see this mythical empty nest, but Doc's giving Pat and Bethany looks. . ." David cackles as he walks past. "And so is President Bartlett and Principal Madison." David runs to the bathroom. Since it's Alan's room he comes to the door to look at them. "Doc's giving Pat and Bethany baby looks, so is President Bartlett and Principal Madison."

"Yeah, that explains the mad dash for the toilet before he pissed himself laughing. Formula plant?"

"Another year with the new babies to give everybody a good supply until they're eating solid food."

"Now, this is what we were looking at here when we wanted to added additional laundry facilities to the dorm. Clark and Thomas have the same thing at their Headquarters." They talk over everything and Josette makes up a list of what they'll need before they head back to the 10th planet.

David and Josette go out a few days later, nodding at the suggestions of where to add the extra areas and start bringing everything out.

"How long will the work take?"

"A couple of months, it's a good bit of work but nothing that can't be broken down into smaller bites that only take an hour or two." Doc and an engineer look over the list and nod.

The others start arriving for the Lights Festival, finding Josette outside hooking up the last of the lights.

CJ is sighing when he leans around the door, interrupting the reunions. "Add Dad and Dad to the list of people who are talking babies in the gestation chambers." David slides down the wall cackling at the look on his face. "Oh like you weren't expecting it with Doc giving Pat and Bethany looks and Doc announcing he and Buckaroo had babies in their chambers with their wives genetic material."

"Talk to your advisors?"

"Yeah, I'm on the schedule to defend my dissertation next summer and finish the degree the year after that."

Madison and Jessica pull their authors into the first floor lounges to talk about their sales and Josette gets the information on another book tour. A file is passed to Josette and she watches a screener copy of the movie on the ship as she's working with some of the stuff she brought out from the planets she harvested before a supernova.

"Josette, what are you working on?" Mom asks, finding a pair of Josettes working over a table.

"Making fudge, pouring it out onto tables, putting it into logs with the paddles then cutting the logs into slices." They put the paddles up once they've formed the log and smoothed the top into a rounded arch.

"Been doing this long?"

"For a couple days now, there's tons of recipes out there. Sticking it in stasis means you've got fudge for the whole year."

"Now, are we growing sunflowers again?" David asks a couple days later after the second day of the Lights Festival.

"Yeah, I'd planned on one of the fields going to them at least one of the seasons, the cooks want some of them." David nods and marks that on the PADD in front of him.

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

"How many classes are you planning on this semester?" President Bartlett asks.

"Nineteen, I might pick up another semester somewhere depending on how soon I get the doctorate from the other dimension finished."

"Edinborough and the musical instruments?"

"Yeah, they're taping everything as the 'these are the people working here' intro. I've got one of my other selves there, Agatha's, the cooking school, and Assyrian for the cooking degree."

President Bartlett chuckles as he imagines the 'how the hell can she be everywhere looks having Josette on so much footage. Josette gives him an innocent look, David snorts and pulls the lopsided halo upright.

"What's Hank, Alexander, and the other woodworkers working on?"

"You know how people used old chests of drawers as vanities but they needed a lot of work?" David nods. "They're working on plans for new ones that look like they're old but are meant to be vanities." The others nod. "So room for the faucets, sink, trap, and still room for storage." Josette nods. "Bathroom furniture goes in cycles."

"Bulky furniture, then sleek chrome, then back." Doc says. The others nod.

"How are the others coming with bringing out buildings on the 9th planet for Charles and the others?"

"Good."

"First planet?"

"I'm going out to plant in a couple days."

"Josette?" She looks over at the door of the pasta room to find Ma looking around her in disbelief. Josette chuckles as she continues to lift the strands of pasta off the lines and bringing it to a table.

"We all love soups with pasta but like different kinds so we make mega batches like this every few years."

"So you can make what you want whenever you want until you need to make more pasta?"

Josette nods. "We have another room for dumplings since like the pasta we all love them but like different kinds."

"Other pasta?"

"We make megabatches of it the same way. Yeah, the pasta factory makes some but. . ."

"Making your own is more satisfying." Ma says. Josette nods as she grabs the last of the first batch and lays it on the table, Ma helping her break them into lengths and putting them in containers.

"How often do you make meals up ahead of time?"

"Beyond when we're harvesting, usually several times during the year. That way we're tired or hungry we can bring something out and put it in the ovens. We have about eight to ten different meals we'll all eat, meat and veggie lasagnas, meat pies, casseroles, plus whatever individual meals we make." Ma nods in satisfaction as Josette checks the other lines and heads for the door.

"You don't do it all the same day."

"No, each pasta dries at a different rate and we made them over the span of two weeks." They walk down to find Clark looking at the baby in his arms with a goofy look on his face.

"Lois and Lana busy?"

"Yes, Lois is teaching and Lana's busy with the book. I told her I'd sit with Jessica for a couple hours. It's been . . .90 minutes?"

"She'll be coming out soon then, they set timers so they can get up and stretch, walk around, and do something else for a while." A door down the hall to the pair's workroom opens. "Ahhh, I was just telling them you'd be out soon."

"Yeah, neither of us can stand to sit at the computer for hours."

"Neither can we, I'm always taking breaks between classes. Standing up to stretch, walk around, use the bathroom, or take care of the socks."

"Socks?"

"For years I supplied the school with socks from the sock machines upstairs in my studio. Well one of the rooms anyway, the other room is for the socks for Eureka. We've doubled the sock machines and yarn over the years."

"Socks?"

"Woolease tube socks for the students, so they could just be tossed in the laundry. Not as warm as pure wool but they don't need to be washed out by hand." Ma nods. "We lived in ours over the winter, even before the rockets kicked up all that shit in the atmosphere and our winters got so bad."

"The machines in town and the school?"

"The government came in and offered me a contract to supply socks to orphanages, kids entering foster care, adult foster care homes, and prison commissaries. Like our socks, the demand increased over the years, especially as Earth started getting so bad. When we lost Earth the jobs turned to supplying the other planets. Then we got the orders from Calvin and Doc's worlds and the buildings started operating again."

Josette snorts at lunch as she looks over the databurst as Lois and Lana talk to Ma and Clark.

"Wanna know?" David asks.

"Harvard claims they didn't realize they hadn't overturned their decision not to accept me as a student. They thought I was taking classes all this time until they went looking at my grades and realized I wasn't a student." Sighs, laughter, and snorts from the others. "Note from Granda about the letter, he says scuttlebutt is they're losing students to other schools, the best and brightest that would have applied to Harvard only to be turned away because they didn't have the famous name are going elsewhere now. And the 'right' students aren't applying because people are looking closer now and they can't grease the wheels or if they do get in, people will say it's only because of their names."

"Isn't that the truth?" Alan snorts.

"Yeah, but people will still judge them." Josette says in a mock-whining voice. "Oh, note from Dad, Tesla students were among the 'not good enough since they're taking our money, not giving us theirs' pool. The school went whining to the DoD when they lost that prestigious spot to another school and when they were told why it was . . .well if we'd known they were DoD sponsored. . .you should have told us."

"You were told?" Alexander snorts.

"Yeah, so they're cleaning house in the administration and getting rid of the old boy network to help the school rebuild their reputation."

"Not the first school that's had egg on their face and is recovering."

"Books?"

"Coming along good, they'll be finished with the first two third testing week."

"Tour?"

"Third testing week. I'll be attending expos, conferences, and a movie premiere while I'm there."

"So are you going to give them a chance?"

"Probably, there's a few degrees there I'm interested in. And yes, I'm changing the subject. How are you coming on your dissertations?"

"Good, I figure on having mine done this summer and having somebody else look it over before I send it to my advisor and get an appointment to defend it next year." David looks at Susan.

"Same thing except I just have to upload it to the server next summer." Susan yawns. "Storm?"

"Yeah, a light one that will just dump a couple feet of snow on us before it blows through later this week."

"Ma, is there anything in town we need before we head back?" Clark asks. Ma shakes her head. After lunch he flies back to the farm, Ma in his arms.

It's snowing harder by the time they go to bed and Josette pulls on an extra layer the next morning before they walk to the dining hall for breakfast, shaking off their coats and hanging them up after knocking the snow off their boots.

"Josette, Wayne, Dayton, Dayton, and Drake?"

"All the interior and exterior work is done, now everybody's going over what they've been working on in the other dimension and making plans."

"Colony?"

"They're settled in for the winter. This will be the true test of the colony."

"No, being alone on your own land and having to depend only on yourself if you get sick or injured, having to grow and can your own food, get in supplies for the winter, and take care of livestock will be true test of the colony."

"Childbirth."

"Yes, having to deliver without help unless they have somebody trained as a midwife who can travel out there. And they'd have to have a place to put her up."

"And she'd need a way to travel. A wagon with her equipment like the traveling peddlers used to have?"

"Plus they'd need a way to contact her."

After breakfast Josette flies out to Brigadoon, looking in on the plants that she'd salvaged from the supernova, looking over all the information the priests and historians had been keeping before she flies back to the dorm.

"Thank you for passing that file along Josette, you don't often see a supernova." Ted says a couple days later when he comes out from the 9th planet.

"No you don't." Josette says. "This was a first for the ships too."

Josette dances in her room when she finishes the last class for her doctorate.

"Get your doctorate finished?" Alan asks when she slides into her seat at lunch. There's only one reason for that bubbly mood.

"Yesssss." Josette dances in her seat a second. "I can understand why that degree is considered one of the hardest."

"At that stage of your academic career you should have your A game on?" David says with a smirk.

"Exactly. I think getting a straight doctorate would be easier."

"Have you signed up for a degree from Harvard?" President Bartlett asks in the front room, smiling at the loud moan from the back. Principal Madison is sniggering and both men get swatted by their wives.

"Congratulations on finishing your Ph.D." Dr. Stark says when she slides into her seat at the testing center.

"Finally." Josette sighs. "I feel like I've been taking the classes forever. Of course. . .I can say the same for the other degrees."

"The only difference being that you've been taking the classes right along while you were rotating the other degrees." Dr. Cross chuckles.

"Exactly."

"Harvard?" Dr. McNider asks. Josette swears silently. "Yes, and thanks to them trying to rebuild the school's image I got in right away."

Alexander hands over the test PADD, stretching and yawning before he walks to the bathroom then joins the others at the pushed together tables.

"Why did I agree to go for another art history degree. . .from Oxford of all places?"

"All the moms in the family told you it would be good for the shows?"

"Oh yeah." Alexander yawns again. Then frowns. "Damn it, this means I'll be up all night."

"I planned on being up working on something in the workroom, if you're not working on something for your show come join me."

"Who has the shows this year?"

"Me Granda's, the boys Mom's. Theirs is first this year."

"Josette, the tables and chairs in the dining halls? It's been a few years since they were inspected."

"The others did it nights while they were out for the Harvest Festival." Alexander nods in satisfaction.

After lunch Josette checks the databurst from the other dimension, shaking her head at some news stories and sighing over others.

"How is the 9th planet coming?"

"They'll have the new buildings done in a couple months, just in time for winter. They can't see the others staying out permanently but they'll be out for a couple months at a time."

"They might spend some time out during the winter. . ."

"Yeah, but they wouldn't be ready for a full winter. At least not right away."

Alan snorts as he walks past. "Some days I don't think we're ready for a full winter."

"Amen."

Josette heads to the other dimension the next morning after breakfast to get the mail and deliver socks for the incoming classes of new students. The door to Calvin's office is shut.

"High priority student?" Josette asks, bringing out the first container of socks for them to count.

"A little twisting the knife. The government tried shoving their weight around to make us take a substandard student because his daddy is big in a foreign government and we refused. They tried taking us before one of the courts and got their asses handed to them so they went off pouting. They tried saying the student was doing well in a 'better' school but it was proven they had failed out of the other school for poor grades, bad attendance, and problems with authority. Now they need us to take a student we've already accepted. They tried blustering in and got their asses handed to them right off, then they tried a 'you do this and we'll do that' give and take and didn't have any luck there either, now they figured they fucked up and are reduced to begging."

"And Granda's not giving an inch."

"Not at all."

"Not the first time something has come back to bite the government in the ass."

"And it won't be the last." Josette grabs the mail and heads off again, dropping it off in the office on Haven and sorting out theirs. Back at the dorm they sort out the mail. The junk mail is tossed in the direction of the recycling bin Josette had put on the coffee table and balling up paper for the cats to bat around.

"How is it over there?"

"They're getting ready for the new students arriving in a few weeks. The government tried shoving their weight around trying to get a student enrolled since their papa was big in another government but Granda refused, they sued and lost. They 'claimed' the student was at a better school. . ."

"Ooooh la la. . ." David drawls. "They end up flunking out of that one?"

"Yep, problems with authority, bad attendance, and problems with their grades. Now they're scrambling trying to get a different student in the school."

"And of course they're the government so they never learn."

"Nope."

"Calvin already take the student in?"

"Yep, now he's just yanking their chains. They tried blustering in, got no satisfaction, tried wheedling with a 'you do this and I'll do this for ya', again with no satisfaction, and now they're begging."

"Serves them right."

Josette yawns after lunch, giving up and taking a nap. Nobody's surprised when it's snowing when they come out for dinner, judging by the bedhead the others are sporting everybody had the same change of plans.

The next morning Josette starts shredding the paper that had been piling up in the recycling bin, filling the containers and adding water before she goes to the growing area, filling a container with compost, manure, and dirt before planting a seed. Watering the container she takes it to her room and puts it in a corner before taking care of the socks. Filling a container she puts it against the wall for whichever of the schools needs socks first and brings out an empty one. The socks for Eureka are taken care of next and she makes a mental note they'll have to take care of the partial skeins that weekend.

"We gotta take care of the skeins, they're beginning to pile up again." Josette says at lunch.

David nods. "I was going to ask how they were, it's been a while since we did it and we've got more yarn and machines now." Nods from the others. Josette brings out the overflowing containers of skeins a couple days later and everybody grabs skeins, splicing them and winding them into hanks over the next couple of days.

Midterms Josette heads out to Calvin's and starts picking up the supplies, including a double order of supplies for the returning teachers and students.

"Double supplies?" Joyce asks.

"Next year we've got the first batch of employees heading, the graduating students, the cooking school teachers, and the reality show people."

"Yep, they'll be needed then."

"Double supplies this year and next, a single batch with what we have left over should handle the second year of employees."

"Josette, did you take socks out?"

"Last month since the new school year started last week for them." Principal Madison nods in satisfaction and goes back into his office. "How are we on socks until I bring out containers for the new students?"

"We've still got a full container and part of a second." Josette nods in satisfaction. "I'll keep putting them away until I get the request for them or I've looked in the boxes at Calvin's and see they're running low."

"Tour?"

"Another month, I go out in a couple weeks to talk to Madison and Jessica about it. Since they're talking to all of us, I'll take one of the ships."

Doc is waiting in the living room when Josette walks through the pocket doors. "Josette, was there something in the supplies for us?"

"Yeah, I've got my other selves delivering the containers but the list Calvin sent me says about sixty containers between the dorm and Headquarters with more coming later." Josette pulls up the file on the PADD. "It doesn't say what they are, just that they're on the ship."

"I know what they are." Doc says.

"Colony?"

"They're cut off right now with their winter, which is one of tests of a colony." Nods from the others. "They'll have to be able to rely on themselves."

"How are you coming on Harvard?"

"I'm two classes each into the two degrees I'm taking." Doc shakes his head as the others laugh. "I'm also finished with the four classes I'm taking on the school computer and all the tests except for the finals."

"Get your radio programs degree finished?"

"I'm four classes into it, I'll have it done before I go out with the others to talk to Madison and Jessica."

"Books?"

"Picked them up and put them upstairs in their rooms. We've already agreed to have a signing party after Thanksgiving for the six printed this year."

Doc nods in satisfaction and walks back into Headquarters as David comes upstairs from the basement and their monthly check of the mechanicals.

"Everything okay?"

"Yep, good to go for another month." David says as he settles on the couch.

"How are you on your classes?"

"Starting the second one in a couple days, I'm taking this week off."

Upstairs Josette checks the plant, adding water and turning it so it gets light on both sides before heading up to the growing area. Checking on the plants she nods in satisfaction before heading to her workroom.

Turning on her playlist of music Josette picks up a knitting kit and casts on once she's read the instructions and grabbed everything she needs, settling into her easychair and putting up her feet.

"Have you seen the latest databurst yet?" David sniggers at lunch.

"No, what did whatever fool it was do this time?"

"Oh, it's a combination of things. A commercial was quickly yanked because it showed a bunch of super rich people acting like fools because they couldn't understand why anybody would want to save money, they're super rich. They're whining because it made them look stupid."

"Own stupidity makes them look stupid." Susan snorts.

"And they're smarting already since some stupid twit tried getting scholarships banned everywhere, if you can't afford to go to school you're poor and shouldn't be allowed to attend school. She can go to any school she wants, her daddy says she's special."

"More like too fucking stupid to live and no school will touch her with a ten foot pole now." President Bartlett rumbles from the front room.

After lunch Josette heads to the government building for a meeting. The others are running a little late and Josette leans against Doc, closing her eyes for a few minutes. Doc's chest rumbles under her ear as his arm loops around her as he chuckles.

"We can cancel the meeting." President Bartlett says with a chuckle. Principal Madison looks as him as he shuts the door then smiles as he sees Josette leaning against Doc.

"'m up, all the fucking snow making me sleepy." Josette grumbles, refusing to open her eyes.

"Amen." David says, bringing a bottle of Haven Dew from the replicator. Josette opens one eye, opens the bottle, and takes a drink after sitting up. Covering her mouth with an arm she belches. "Damn, I hate it when it goes up my nose."

"Josette, books?"

"Picked the first two up and took them to my rooms, we've already got the signing party planned for between Thanksgiving and the party handing out the new kits." President Bartlett nods in satisfaction while Principal Madison just looks at her. "I'm off to talk to Madison and Jessica in a couple weeks about the others. My book tour is our third testing week. I'll be hitting a couple conventions and expos while I'm there and attending at least one premiere for the movie. From what articles Madison has been passing along, the buzz is good. They're just waiting to see what the ticket sales are before starting the second movie."

"Midnight showings?"

"Hell and no."

"Midnight book sales."

"Same thing I said before."

"Idiots wanting to be your bff's so they can get in the spotlight."

"See my last answer." Josette snorts. "I know some people can't take a shit without a camera present but I'm not one of them. Besides, nobody's friends with an author. They don't invite you to the 'good' parties after all. Only the right people go to those."

After the meeting Josette, David, and Doc head back to the dorm, looking up to find Alexander and Michael brushing off the solar panels.

"Are we getting more snow this year?" David asks as they shake off the snow inside.

"No, it just seems like it since we're getting snow nearly every day, even if it's just a dusting." Josette says, pulling her hair back into a ponytail after it had come out taking off her cloak.

A couple of weeks later Josette and the others come out to talk to Madison and Jessica for a couple days.

"Are you coming out before the tour?"

"Week after next our time we're bringing out the students and employees for Christmas break."

David opens the tesseract for the students and employees for Christmas vacation. Jessica and Madison come out to look over Josette's clothes for the tour and the movie premiere, nodding as Josette selects a couple outfits.

"Good clothes but nothing that will make you outshine anybody else there. You shouldn't be mobbed as you walk the red carpet like the celebrities who did the voices."

Josette chuckles as she can hear a muffled scream of 'oh shit, that was the author' as she walks through the doors.

"Did they bring out all the stupid reporters or is there something in the water out there?" Somebody else mutters. "They're idiots, the newspapers, magazines, and tv stations didn't want to send out real reporters and now it's biting them in the ass because they're fucking everything up." The director says as they're led into the theater and take their seats.

Josette's not the only one who slips out the back after the movie. The whining from various people about how they were 'unprofessional' to slip out the back is countered by the train wreck that was the red carpet and they walk off pouting about how it's not fair they were made to look like idiots. The heads of the newspapers, magazines, and tv stations are ducking comments on their decisions as the real reporters look at their bosses and 'fellow reporters' in disgust.

"How was it?" Doc asks when Josette returns an hour after she left. She rolls her eyes and Alan chuckles. "That good huh?"

"The big brass sent absolute idiots to the movie premiere, they were getting names wrong, getting roles wrong, didn't recognize me until I was inside the building. . .I'm not the only one who ducked out the back so not to have to deal with the moronic vultures. They whined, the red carpet was shown, and they went off sulking because everybody knew they were idiots and the people who sent them are getting serious flack. I went through tons of pens, especially after the movie was released. The second movie is a go and pre-orders for the first book in the second trilogy will be happening when we come back finals."

"Visit a lot of places?"

"Yeah, and I was other places while I was on the tour so I have a shitload of pictures on the hard drives."

"Expos?"

"And conventions. I got tons of stuff on the ship." Josette smirks. "Did a little university touring while I was there, visited Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton. . ." Alan and Doc chuckle. "So I got tons of stuff from the schools to go through."

"Dad know?" Principal Madison asks.

"Who do you think went with me?" He laughs. Yeah, that was something he'd do.

"Hear anything about the colony?"

"They're talking about bringing in a building with solar panels to run a radio so they can keep in touch with the town at least."

"That makes sense. Books and other forms of literature."

"Books definitely, I'm not sure about the others unless they have a solar panel they can use to run a computer, television, or cd player. If they want anything more they'll have to have more solar panels."

The others nod, they've seen the stories on the news showing how many solar panels it would take to handle a good sized home totally off the grid.

Josette is busy bringing everything out over the next few days as the weather begins getting better. Windows are open longer as the snow begins to melt and Josette finalizes the plans for the crops before she spreads manure over the fields and garden. She looks over at the other farms and sees they're either doing the same or already have done it.

Josette sighs as she walks over to the pushed together tables at the testing center after her finals.

"Finally get everything taken care of from the tour?"

"Yes."

"Are you going to be crossing your own timeline?"

"No, we'll have left by the time I arrive. With the movie premiere this was a long ass tour." Josette stretches backwards and side to side before sitting down.

"Taro root?" David asks, looking over Josette's shoulder at the list on her PADD after dinner.

"Been a while since we grown it and the cooking school and communal kitchen wants some. They'll plant this summer."

"No use growing multiple crops." The others nod.

Josette picks up the recycling on various planets, putting the 10th planet with their orders to take out later that week and dropping off the rest various places. Josette picks up the last of the recycling at the school before they go out, the students and employees walking through the tesseract David opens as she starts delivering everything.

Josette's busy the next few days taking care of the recycling at various drop-off sites and taking the train to the other cities for a little shopping and just wandering the streets.

Back on Haven Josette starts delivering the containers various places as David opens the tesseract for the returning students, employees, and the others. Back at the dorm she joins with the others that had been on Haven or the other dimensions and heads upstairs to her room to check on the plant, finding the first buds starting to appear.

That weekend she's busy making up batches of dough for tortillas doughnuts, bagels, bread, and rolls in the kitchen and bakery upstairs while another of her other selves is looking over the recipes for crackers and looking over the bread factory's setup.

"Crackers?" David asks, looking over her shoulder.

"The factory makes the flavors most people buy, if you want a different flavor you make your own. I should be able to make them in the bakery along with all the other stuff I'm making, it's just a matter of making the dough, rolling out the holes, adding the spices, and shoving it in the oven."

"But you need a big oven to make decent sized batches."

"Which I have in the bakery. Big factories would run them through on rollers, I'll probably be taking stuff in and out of the ovens."

"You also won't be making the large batches they do." David says. "When the bread factory makes crackers, they're making huge batches for a couple weeks for each type they make."

In Headquarters Doc nods in satisfaction as the shipping containers start arriving in the room they use for supplies. He, Clark, and Godly Clark had been working on something and the supplies he's getting in is the next step.

In the dorm the others count off the seconds as Josette disappears.

"Another Earth lost?" Alan asks when she returns and starts sending out messages.

"Yeah." The others start arriving and Josette splits off duplicates for the ships and satellite, Clark and a couple of the others getting on his before they're taken into tow by the ships and they arrive at the other Earth.

"What happened?"

"Some fucking mad scientist in the government trying to create the perfect soldier. . .one touch and an instant kill. It wasn't instant and they thought it was a dud. . .until people started dying and they realized it was spreading. They were frantically trying to find a cure but there was no way of knowing if somebody was infected before they died."

Josette starts sending off probes as they talk about the order they'll be harvesting everything. Five hundred years later Earth is empty and they return to Haven. She's standing on the pier looking out over the water when Doc comes up behind her.

"It doesn't get easier."

"Nope, for every world that's found their humanity and is at peace, there's a dozen still fighting in the mud. . .but with deadlier and deadlier weapons." Shaking her head and sighing again she checks to make sure everybody's back at the school and walks through the tesseract.

A few hours later she's elbow deep in bread dough, dumping it out onto the counter to knead and cut into individual loaves she covers with cloth and leaves to raise as she wipes her arms, pulls on a shirt, and joins the others walking to the dining hall for dinner.

"Get the last of the bread made up?"

"Yeah, I've got it raising and I'll bake it before bed. Tomorrow I'm making tortillas."

"Cactus paddles?"

"I detoured on the way back to pick some and let everybody have some fresh air after being on the ships so long. I sent some out to Vincent with Dr. Stark and Dr. Stark."

"Metals?"

"We're good on everything yet, one of the others went out last year to harvest since the extra buildings were going up on the 9th planet."

Josette puts the last of the fresh baked bread in stasis before heading to bed, waking early the next morning to dark skies that's threatening rain. Dressing in warmer clothes she throws her laundry down the chute and remakes her bed.

"It never rains in California." Anna chuckles when she comes downstairs from taking care of the socks.

"Yeah, and god didn't make little green apples. Who's handling the laundry?"

"We are. I need a break from the last minute preps for the show before I go nuts. Shaddap Josette." Michael says at her sniggering. "What are you doing besides the tortillas?"

"Somebody's coming out to film the aquaponics setup at the fish farm."

"Are they screening the footage they take here?"

"Yes, and sorting it into rough areas. Then it will be sent out in the databurst so there's a second copy in case. . ." Nods from the others. "Those in the know will be screening it again before they start turning it into shows."

Josette takes the people out to the fish farm, getting them looking around for a couple minutes before they turn the cameras on and start filming. Josette is working and answering questions as they look at the plants.

"How many stages do you have?"

"Three, the seedlings under grow lights, then moving them to the pools, then finally the end stage when they're done producing and we remove them. We've always got something growing in here.

"Do you use all the water?"

"No, a good portion of the fish water goes onto the fields."

They head back to the cooking school, Josette joining the others at the dining hall for brunch. After lunch she checks on the plant in her room while putting her laundry away and heads to the kitchen to start working on the tortillas. Setting up an assembly line she has the dough being made, the tortillas being pressed out, grilled, and put in stasis.

Josette's leaning against the counter, working on her PADD while the dishwasher runs after dinner when David comes into the room.

"Watcha doing?"

"Working on ideas for underground housing. Sheriff Carter's bunker and Billy's subway tunnel were insulated by the ground around them during the winter. Add in geothermal heat and water. . ."

David shakes his head. "Yeah, I wouldn't be able to live like that either, there's something to be said for fresh air and sunshine. . .even during the winter. I've been working on it on and off for a while to get the damn bunny to leave me alone."

"Yeah, I've had stuff like that, I put it in the 'you've got to be fucking kidding' file."

Josette nods. "Yep, just like the bunny wanting me to do the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse as a mechanical engineering degree."

"Get everything done?"

"Yep, a good dozen batches of tortillas, that will last me until probably the Harvest Festival."

Josette's waved to the front room the next morning.

"Josette, the boys show?"

"Next week. We're going out third day after lunch to Mom's dimension." President Bartlett nods.

After breakfast Josette heads off to pick up the mail at Calvin's.

"Belongings?"

"Light right now, I'll have a batch midterms as the floor monitors talk to the graduating students and they start packing up more stuff." Maria nods.

Back at the dorm Josette starts sorting out the mail, the recycling bin set on the table getting full as junk mail is tossed into it.

"How many classes did you get in from Harvard?" Susan asks looking over at Josette.

"Eight, five for one degree and three for the other."

The next week Josette puts the last of the special orders and books on Aztec and they head off to Mom's dimension, dropping off everything with Dexter before dropping off the bags in the rooms and heading off.

In a room in the rooms James looks at the PADD as the alarms blip. "Josette and the others." he says, putting it back up.

"Whose show?" One of the government employees at the meeting asks.

"The boys."

"How are they coming along on their degree?"

"Nearly two years into their doctorates. Josette finished hers last year and hasn't started a degree that she'll go on for yet." Clarinda says. "She's busy weeding down some of the degrees she's had going for the last few years."

"The others?"

"David and Susan are defending their dissertations next year. The others aren't quite a year into their new bachelors."

Josette meets with her agent the next day, talking book sales and a signing tour. She visits a couple chain bookstores in the mall and independent stores in the city. They head back to Haven a couple months later, Josette sighing as she comes back from the signing tour.

"Josette?" Principal Madison asks as Josette slumps into her seat in the back room and the others snicker at her.

"Signing tour." David mouths in the back room and Principal Madison chuckles and nods.

"At least it wasn't the paper ends this trip."

"Your second books?"

"Supposed to be done around midterms. I'll pick them up before the show.

"How many classes are you looking at taking this summer?"

"Around thirteen, I'll probably pick up another semester but I'm also going to be trying to finish the first year for Harvard."

The first crops start coming in and Josette is busy, either harvesting or bringing in the offworld harvests. There's a break of a couple weeks before the yearly crops start coming in and wagons of food start heading to the other continent to be put away. Susan nods in satisfaction at the full containers in the basements of the dorm and ranch. Josette and the others head out for her show midterms, picking up the supplies and dropping off the recycling and belongings for the graduating students, then doing a little shopping and taking care of recycling at drop off centers in various cities when they're not visiting museums and trying to bankrupt Vegas.

Josette's several feet in the air checking the lightning rods in Town and on the other continent. It's been a few years since they were inspected and the sky is turning dark with an approaching storm.

"Everything okay?" Doc asks as she comes in for a landing at Headquarters.

"Yep, any lightning hits will travel down the rods and be stored in the batteries." Josette shakes her head in a 'get the fuck out of my head' manner.

"It's alive, it's alive?" Bethany asks in a bad mad scientist voice.

"Yeah." She shakes her head again as a roll of thunder is heard from outside until the soundproofing goes back up.

"How do they handle the power grids in . . ."

"Planets like Momma's Earth? Large units that produce power and the boxes we have that get the power without the wires. I've heard rumors of being able to shut down power to entire continents but as bad as power outages were back on Earth it's got to be ten times worse there because they're not used to not having power. And it handles everything."

"And somebody would use it to punish somebody else." Bethany says as the shutters begin going down on the windows.

"Yep. Because even as technologically advanced as they are, there's still assholes out to hurt people. That's why Eureka and the Legion moved to their own planets. And Doc has places on both worlds."

Josette ducks through the door to the dorm, heading to her room to finish a class from Harvard.

"How are you coming along from Harvard?" David asks at dinner.

"Nine classes into one degree, ten in the other."

The next couple of weeks pass and the second round of crops start coming in, everybody spending their days, canning, drying, or otherwise storing the food.

"Is this it until the third crops now?"

"Except for what I'm gonna plant on the first planet. Speaking of. .."

"We're planting on the islands, Doc's already asked us to give the growing area a rest for the next couple years. Something to do with the supplies that you've been dropping off here and there."

"Then next year I'll grow on the satellite." The others nod. "9th planet?"

"New buildings are completed and with tesseract links to the major buildings, including the movie theater and Eureka. I took in the offworld harvests and they're settling in for their winter."

"10th planet?"

"Taking in their harvest later this year."

"Babies?" Pat and Bethany had had a girl and boy respectively a couple months ago.

"Principal Madison and Professor Druid, Clark and Thomas, and President and Mrs. Bartlett all have babies in the chambers along with Doc and Buckaroo." The others chuckle.

The second crops start being harvested after the rain and Josette nods in satisfaction at the nearly full shelves as she comes back from delivering the taro root and sunflowers various places.

"You took in socks?" David looks in the sock room.

"Yeah, a couple days ago so they're ready for the new students."

"Dual Christmases?"

"Maybe next year but more likely year after that. And dual harvests the year after *that*." David nods as he starts flattening the empty boxes as Josette fills the yarn containers.

The others start coming out for the Harvest Festival after Josette's come back from dropping off the orders and picking up supplies from both Calvin and Doc's worlds, dropping off the belongings of the graduating students when they went out to pick up supplies and spend some time with family and friends.

"What's the latest on the colony?"

"They're starting on the next round of building after their first winter and planting crops."

"Corn, wheat, rice. . ."

"Potatoes."

Nods from the others as the list of foods that can either be made into flour or stored for the winter without much work continues.

After the Harvest Festival Josette starts bringing in the new students. That's finished the week before their first testing week and she settles in her usual spot at the pizza parlor, plates of pizza and salad put in front of her.

"Is that all the students?" Professor Ziegler asks.

"Yes, we're full until the graduating students leave after Thanksgiving. Granda says to expect the student population to start sliding down again. He didn't think anybody would mind."

Amanda and Frances nod as they settle in the other two seats.

"Josette, your books?"

"Fifth and sixth quilting books will be finished by third testing week. My other books? Selling well, the second movie should be done by the end of next year. First book in the second university trilogy is selling well and they're writing the screenplay for the movies."

"Movies?" Amanda asks with a pair of twinkling eyes that would have put Dumbledore to shame.

"Third book in the original trilogy, first book in the founding of the university trilogy. I'm expecting movie options for the other two as soon as they're released." Josette sighs as the others bite their lips. "Go ahead and laugh, the others already did."

"Next thing will be college classes about your books."

"Happy Happy Joy Joy." Amanda chuckles. "First planet?"

"I planted a couple weeks ago."

The next week Josette slides into her usual spot at the testing center.

"Get the first years for your Harvard classes done?"

"Yes and partway into the third semester, I hope to have the second year for each done by the end of the year and both degrees finished next year."

"Did Harvard apologize for not accepting Tesla students?"

"Yeah, once they got rid of the 'money, money, money' bunch that had been in charge they started turning their attention to where it should have been all along, the students. A good number of deserving students who should have been accepted except for the fact they didn't have the 'right name' to get the school attention and donations got letters apologizing for the school's stupidity and wishing them well in their future academics."

"And the students they did accept flunked out?"

"Yep, they didn't take their classes serious, got drunk and stupid. . .too busy partying to worry about their grades because of course the school won't do anything to them. . . Mommy and Daddy will make everything better." Josette shakes her head and sighs. "Anyway Harvard's on the 'if you keep your nose clean we might let you back in the program in a few years' list. I can't say all the students flunked out but for about three years they lost a quarter to a third of their incoming student class." Dr. Stark shakes his head.

Josette returns to the dorm with the others, heading outside and pulling on a light spacesuit from the Legion's world before flying into space towards the sun. Soaking up the energy for a few hours she flies back to Haven, putting the suit away and joining the others.

"How are you on your classes?"

"Finished the degree on the Spider, cooking degree will be at the end of the year. I'm not quite three semesters into Harvard, I want to be nearly two years in by finals."

"Show Harvard how a real student takes classes?" Alan says, one eyebrow raised.

"A little." Josette says, filling her bowl with salad fixings again. "But I'm also busy with other stuff."

"If you really wanted to show up Harvard you wouldn't even be taking classes there, you'd have gone to another school." President Bartlett says from the front room.

Josette nods. "The shit the old administration pulled gave them a black eye, now they're showing why they're an ivy league school. Once they're accepting students for their grades again, they'll come back out on top."

The next day Josette goes out to the ninth planet with Victoria and the others, heading to her home there and firing up the grill to roast vegetables for a salad. It's slightly nippy, the nippy that says they'll have snow in a few days but Josette is humming as she grills vegetables and marinated veggie chicken breasts and goes inside to eat. The kids come back from Eureka a couple hours later after she's cleaned everything.

"Your intern housing good to go?"

"Yep, and we've got a list of what we'll need when we move out into our own after our interns are over. The brats still talking about working at Wayne, Dayton, Dayton, and Drake?"

"Yeah, everybody's still talking about what they've been working on and the kids are saving money for their own homes."

"Not that hard with volunteering for extra harvests." Victoria thinks of her own bank account balance.

Back home Harvey and the others check over their plans for the future before they settle back into their classes.

"Everything settled?" David asks at dinner.

"Yes, the intern housing is ready for us and we're looking at permanent housing once we're settled."

Josette straightens up from counting the socks with Jane Midterms when she brings out the last of the student belongings.

"This it?"

"Yep, if they have anything else they'll have to huff it onto the ship themselves." Josette says. "The floor monitors are good at checking the rooms of graduating students and making sure they're packing up stuff. Next year they'll be doing the same thing themselves."

"Are you staying long?" Calvin asks from the doorway.

"At least a couple days to talk to Madison and Jessica, the others are out with me. How's the colony?"

"Coming along, they've got the store and supplies buildings up and are working on a building with a communications system to stay in touch over the winter. They figure on settlers starting to come out in a couple years."

"Getting all the supplies in place for the colony will take that long." Josette says, remembering the stacks of shipping containers. They don't have the option of bringing out the containers and filling the building there so it will take several hundred wagon loads to bring everything out.

"And they'll have to start thinking of a way to start making all this stuff themselves once the supplies they're bringing in run out." Nods from the others.

"That's going to be in the next batch of supplies if they can start growing cotton as well as wool animals."

"Looms, cards to clean and comb the wool and cotton."

"Something they'll have to do in space."

"How are you coming on Harvard?"

"I'll be two years in when we bring out the graduating students."

A few days later Josette and the others return to Haven, David opening the tesseract to the school.

"Tour?" David asks his lips twitching. Josette gives him a sour look and walks off swearing. "Yes, third testing week, all of us. I'm on the longer one again so I'll take two ships out."

"Do some shopping and other stuff while you're other there." Alan says, looking up from the book he's reading. "The printers called, your books are ready."

"I'll pick them up after lunch."

Josette puts the books in the room for them and heads to the factories, moving stuff to the ships so they have room.

"Get everything taken care of?" President Bartlett asks at dinner.

"Orders are on the ships, the books are in the dorm."

"How long do you see the orders for the colony lasting?" Professor Druid asks.

"At least ten years our time. It will be that long before they're firmly settled in and can think of making some of this stuff themselves. Granda and I were talking about that while I was out. We were lucky in that we were able to start growing cotton, raising animals for wool, making candles and soap. . . they're all starting from scratch but when they do it will be money coming in."

"Did they set up the communications building?"

"They were putting it up when I was out there. The supplies building is set up but bringing in supplies by wagon it will take a while to bring everything in."

"They don't have you to bring in the shipping containers. And even if they could. . .what would they do with them when they were empty?"

"Exactly, right now as a shipping container is empty they move it somewhere else so it goes back in circulation."

"Did you finally get finished with all the bad containers?"

"Nope, that's a lifetime job." Josette sighs. President Bartlett nods. "Ship travel and seaports rusting them, just like road salt and cars" Nods from the others around them.

Josette walks into the back room. "Get everything taken care of?"

"Yeah, the orders here are on the ships, I brought out more supplies while I was there. I'll move the others tomorrow when I go to the sorting planet to deliver their supplies. The books are in the dorm." The others nod.

Josette heads to the sorting planet the next morning after breakfast, delivering the shipping containers to the factories, putting the orders on the ship, and bringing out supplies for them before heading back to Haven.

"Everything delivered?" President Bartlett asks, waving her to the front table.

"Yes, and I moved the orders for Doc's Earth to Ulonda when I got back. I'll get the last finals week when I go around to pick up the recycling."

"Somebody's got to check the cistern this weekend." David says when she walks into the back room.

"Yeah, everything's going to need more water now."

"First planet?"

"I'm off to take care of the green picked stuff and ripe olives tomorrow."

That weekend Ma walks outside to where she can hear the pump moving, finding a couple of Josette's pumping water into the cistern.

"Josette?" She asks patiently.

"We were filling ours this morning and checked to see if yours needed it too. David and Alan are at the other farm, Anna and Abby are. . ." one of the Josette sniggers. "Getting the 'really' look you're giving us from Mom." Josette tilts her head the other way. "Alexander and Michael are at the Drake Farm, while Susan is going over the list of what we have to do before winter as she waters the garden. Lois and Lana's and Maria and Elena's didn't need filling. CJ and Clark got their cisterns and Headquarters yesterday."

"Wayne Manor?"

"Both of them are already full, Thomas sent the boys out to do it yesterday instead of teasing and tormenting each other."

"Go do something else with all that energy." Ma chuckles. "How are the boys coming on their degrees?" Thomas had finally put his foot down and Alex, Jason, Tim, and Oz had started another degree.

"Good, they're not hands-on like the quilting degree was so the classes are getting finished quicker. Oz is talking about going on for a masters. Thomas is giving the others 'yes, you are too' looks. Tara and Dawn are enrolled in that same program I and the boys were at Oxford, they're taking classes for their masters while they're taking bachelor classes."

Ma smiles as she goes into the farmhouse after the girls finish filling the cistern and put the pump handles up, going back to starting lunch preparations.

"I need to check the cistern after lunch." Pa says when he comes in from the barn.

"Josette already filled it, she said they were filling theirs and checked to see if we needed it, they're all full." Pa shakes his head and smiles. "Family and friends."

"Are always there before you even know you need the help." Ma says as she raises her voice slightly. "Clark, Kara, lunch." They arrive a few seconds later, kissing Ma on the cheeks and tickling the babies being set in their highchairs.

"We'll fill the cistern after lunch Pa. It's getting low." Kara says.

Ma chuckles. "Josette already filled it, she said they were filling theirs and checked to see if any of the others needed it."

After dinner Josette starts sorting through her clothes, sheets, and towels to see what is going to have to be replaced over the next couple of years. Meanwhile David's downstairs bringing out his winter boots to inspect, shaking his head.

"They're dead Jim." Abby says over his shoulder.

"Yep." He tosses them in the replicator and dials up a new pair he puts in his closet until they're needed.

Josette comes down and dials up new shoes and boots, flipping them up to her room.

"Soooo, gardens?"

"I've got the list started, with the extra we grew this year since Doc asked us to let the growing area go for a couple of years we're good." Susan says. The others nod, easy enough to grow a couple extra rows of what they normally would grow upstairs. If they need anything, they can grow it on one of the ships.

Josette is grilling corn on her grillpan the next afternoon when Abby comes into her room. "Salsa?"

"Yeah, I'm in the mood for something salty right now." She waves a hand at the bag of chips on the counter. "I've been thinking of adding a setup for making potato chips. But. . ."

"We'd need to grow more potatoes."

"Exactly, easy enough to make a batch and either bake or fry them and add your preferred spices. Plus we got tons in storage and the replicators."

"Fries."

"Easy enough to run a few potatoes through the chopping box and they're better for you baked anyway."

"Sweet potatoes."

"Yep, even better yet."

Josette heads back to the other dimension for the book tour, a second Josette coming out on another ship to take the others back since theirs is shorter. She's busy here, there, and everywhere while the others are gone, picking up everybody at the train station when they come back from their tours.

After a good meal, a night's sleep, and laundry they head back to Haven. A few weeks after that Josette drops onto a couch, waving her arm to bring everything out of subspace that she needs to take care of before she goes home. Starting the laundry, she dials up a number of meals to go with the pizzas she ordered before she'd come home, eating and putting her laundry away before getting a good night's sleep.

"Josette, are we going to be there when you're coming back?" Susan asks a few days after they've returned.

"I'll be heading a few places after the tour itself is over so we don't meet." The others nod in satisfaction.

The crops start coming in a couple weeks later and everybody is busy bringing in the food, canning, drying, or otherwise storing everything and tilling the plants in once everything's been harvested. Picking up the last of the orders and recycling on the other planets she returns to Haven.

"Get your Harvard classes in?"

"Yeah, I'm two years into each degree. Calvin just chuckled when the school called and asked if he knew what I was doing. He said he'd hoped Harvard would challenge me, it didn't look like it was." The others chuckle.

"Are you picking up glass again?"

"Yeah, they've got a glut even with the new windows for the colony buildings and canning jars. Putting them in crystals gets them out of the way. . ." Nods from the others.

"But we'd have to break up the glass and melt it before it can be reused."

"Fuck, that's their jobs, isn't it? All the recyclers have to do is just shove it in a container and send it down the line."

Josette delivers the last orders for the year as the students, school employees, and everybody else walks off the ship through the tesseract David opens. She joins them at the mansion a couple hours later.

"Get everything taken care of?"

"Yeah, and I overheard a nice little dressing down to some glass foundry people, telling them to do their damn job. If the glass has to be broken and melted, get off their asses and break it and melt it."

"Awwwwww, they've got to do their jobs." David coos. "Yep, the government is cutting off shipments of sand in making new glass, they've got to reuse what they have for at least two years."

"But that's work." Susan says in a sing-song voice.

Josette snorts. "Yeah, and I'm sure we'll see a shortage of manufacturing citing lack of glass until somebody shows them the tons of glass that just needs to be broken and melted to be turned into new stuff and they're forced to get off their asses. Just like when Earth had to recycle and turn to alternate energy."

"But it's hard and will take time, why can't we do it the way we used to?" Alan says in a whiny voice.

"Yep. But if they want to colonize other planets they're going to have to reuse stuff."

Arriving back on Haven four weeks later they let the students and employees off through the tesseract before heading off to Mom's dimension.

"Doc's world orders?"

"Taking them out on another ship and I'm off with Thomas and Clark Kent to their dimension. We're harvesting again."

Josette drops off more books and special orders with Dexter. He drools over the 'refurbished' furniture that's meant to be vanities.

"I know people who will love these." He says. His assistants chuckle, used to their bosses theatrics. Josette and the others head various places after dropping off their bags in the rooms.

"Drop off books and special orders?" Dad asks when Josette comes up behind him in an office.

"Yes, and showed Dexter some stuff we'd been working on. You know how people use old dressers as vanities?" The man with Dad nods. "We're making stuff that looks old but is meant to be used as a vanity and still use the drawers as storage."

"Plans?" Josette passes them to his PADD, then turns her head sideways at the picture next to them. "Yes, the writing is supposed to be upside down, it's a joke by the artist."

"I've seen crazier so-called 'art'." Josette shakes her head. "I'm off to talk to M'Lynn about the books." Josette sighs and makes a note on her PADD. "Gotta check the stocks of the old books and see if we need to start reprinting them again."

"New books?"

"The first six are printed and they're working on the next two."

"Books?" The man next to him asks when Josette's headed off again.

"Josette is a textiles artist, she has eleven quilting books self-published here and is also a published author. The book you brought for your daughter, the gym in space book?" The other man nods. "Is the first of four and that was the author. There's an upcoming trilogy about a university in space. . .two actually, the second one deals with the founding of the school and how it came to be in space." He brings up the page on his PADD and shows the other man the picture of the author, he can see it was obviously the young woman who'd just left. "She's got more quilting books that haven't debuted here yet, six that have been released where she lives and another eighteen that they're in the process of printing."

Several weeks later they head back to Haven, Josette joining with her other selves that had been in the other dimensions.

"How long?

"Not quite ten years, their time. Long enough to see the population drop under three billion."

"When you think of how few years going from two billion during the thirties and forties to . . ."

"Yep, the population exploded after WWII. It's going take longer for the population to fall back to manageable levels."

"Continents?"

"Africa's gone, they're letting it recover. Hopefully in a few decades. . ." Josette shrugs. "South America is gone too, Europe is mostly gone, there's scattered pockets here and there. North America has a lot of empty spaces but no countries gone yet."

"Doc's world?"

"Getting used to having limited power even during the winters. The government is hemming and hawing but people are putting their feet down and they're having to build new power plants and seriously work on the grid before it collapses entirely."

"Slapping a bandaid and praying it holds isn't cutting it anymore."

"No it's not."

Doc finds two Josettes up in the book rooms a couple hours later, one counting boxes of books while the other writes down the totals. He looks at them.

"Checking to see if we need to start another printing run of the older books. Getting there on some of the older ones. But they're all in the replicator so if I need to I can make a couple boxes."

A couple days later Josette checks the last of the supplies and takes everybody out to the first planet for an 'hour', everybody sighing as they walk through the tesseract and start heading to the huts or house to change their clothes and sit in the sun.

The next week Josette brings out the boxes of books at the Albatross Nest, Agatha, Sue, Josette, and Marilyn opening the boxes and filling tables with the books with others going under the tables as more are filled with various foods.

The party starts and Josette wipes her hands after the food is taken care of and she starts signing the books.

"Josette, how many books left to debut in the other dimensions?"

"Six, not counting these new ones. I'm taking out two more next year."

"Is there still any interest in the old books?"

"Yes, I take out books every time I go out for a show or to visit the others. Especially with them being translated into other languages now."

"And the 'raree' factor."

"Yep." Josette drawls as she picks up a couple more pens and continues signing books. She chuckles when she sees the woman who'd come out last year with all the books to sign. In fact. . .she's got another set of books in a bag.

"My mom and I are big fans, she'll be over the moon when I send these out to her. I asked and they said it was okay."

"Who do I make them out to?" Josette grins.

Josette and the others go out with Harvey and the others to the 9th planet, seeing them get settled in and eating dinner at the cafe before hugging the four and heading back to the dorm.

"You lot been taking cooking classes?"

"Yeah, no intern housing also means cooking our own meals unless one of the cafeterias opens."

"They'll almost have to depending on how many people start working there over the next few years."

Josette nods. "Thomas and the others are talking about bringing some of their people out for a few weeks to talk to people before. . ."

"Better to talk to the people who are going to be doing the research face to face instead of just getting the information and dropping you in the deep end of the pool."

"Exactly."

The next day everybody heads off to the islands to plant the gardens.

Josette checks on the plant in her bedroom, watering the plant and reminding herself she needs to fill the watering can in the growing area before she joins the others heading to the dining hall for lunch. Behind her the tiny rolls of fabric seem to shimmer in the sun coming through the window. Even as soon as it is Josette can see they're different colors. After dinner she fills her watering can from the fish water tank, checking on the fish and plants before heading back to her room.

The other start coming out for the Lights Festival, Doc, Charles, and Dr. Cross nodding in satisfaction as they look over the supplies that have been brought in over the year. Josette's busy putting her books up in the library.

"How many more degrees do you have started?"

"Five, one I'm finishing next year, that's the degree I'm taking four classes online and I'll have the musical instruments degree the year after that, the others I'm only two or three semesters into the degrees."

Josette's leaning against wall by the communications panel when Doc comes out of Headquarters with Doc, Charles, and Dr. Cross.

"Babies?" She nods. "Clark and Thomas?"

"Boy, Doc had a girl and Buckaroo had a boy on the 10th planet. President Bartlett had another boy, so did Principal Madison.”