QUANT (COLONY Book 1)

by Richard F. Weyand

  She waved her hand around, especially toward the shuttle pads off to the north of the central area.

  “You are all farmers?”

  “Yes. One family, with relatives and spouses. We hope to have a big farm on Arcadia. We already know farming. For us, training last four years was to learn English and technology.”

  “We have five families, plus some friends. We are all from the Carolina administrative region, in North America. We know all this technology. We don’t know any farming. We hope to learn.”

  The Chinese woman shrugged.

  “Farming easy to know. Hard work to do.”

  Griffith nodded, then a thought occurred to her.

  “We will speak again,” Griffith said. “My name is Maureen Griffith.”

  “Chen PingLi,” the woman said, gesturing to herself.

  She turned to gesture behind to her group.

  “We are all Chen. Chen family.”

  Griffith nodded.

  “We’ll talk more later, PingLi. Goodbye.”

  PingLi gave a little wave goodbye, and Griffith walked back to her group.

  “We need to have a quick group meeting,” Griffith said. “Can everyone gather around me?”

  Everyone turned to face Griffith, in their center. They were about three deep around her.

  “The Chinese group next door there are all farmers. They are a bit lost in all this. But they want a big farm on Arcadia, and they know farming. Whereas what’s the one thing we don’t have?”

  “Farming,” Jack Peterson said, nodding.

  “Exactly,” Griffith said. “We have all the technology people, medical people, all of that. But they know how to farm. I think we should join forces. The floor is open to discussion.”

  The discussion went on for a while. Pretty much everybody had a say. At one point, Griffith addressed the group’s newcomers.

  “Dwayne, Gary, Rachel, Jessica? None of you have said anything.”

  “Well, we’re newcomers in your group, Maureen,” Rockham said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Griffith said. “When it comes down to brass tacks, you’re either in the group or you’re not. You four are in the group, so what do you think?”

  “Generally, I think bigger is stronger, especially if they have skills we need,” Rockham said.

  “Agreed,” Murphy said.

  “All right. I think I’m seeing a consensus. Are we there?”

  Griffith looked around the group, picking up on expressions and nods.

  “OK, I’ll talk to PingLi and see where I get. Bob, why don’t you come with me?”

  Griffith went over to the Chinese group with Robert Jasic, and Ping Li got up and came over to talk to her again. Griffith proposed that the two groups join forces.

  “What you are talking about is family alliance,” PingLi said. “This is possible for us.”

  She turned to Jasic.

  “You are here to talk to grandfather, yes?”

  Jasic looked at Griffith.

  “Patriarchal families, Bob,” Griffith said. “That’s why I brought you.”

  PingLi nodded.

  “Yes. Grandfather decides. He is my father, Chen LiQiang. In China, my grandfather died, and so every son became grandfather of his own household. Chen LiQiang decided his household will go to Arcadia.”

  “I see,” Jasic said. “All right, PingLi. Do you take me to grandfather?”

  “I need to talk to grandfather first. Present this alliance. Then you talk.”

  “Very well.”

  Griffith and Jasic went back over to their group and sat. It was late in the afternoon by this point, and the heat of the day had peaked.

  “So what do you think it will be?” Griffith asked.

  “I don’t know,” Jasic said. “From his point of view, I suspect he doesn’t think he has much to offer. Being a subsistence farmer in China is low status. On the other hand, a family alliance in China would normally involve intermarriage, to unite the clans.”

  “We won’t really have the opportunity for that for thirteen or fourteen years, Bob. The next generation.”

  “I understand. But that is a weakness in our negotiating position. So I just don’t know.”

  Chen LiQiang was perhaps sixty years old. He and his wife sat in the center of his family group, surrounded by his children and their spouses, in their thirties and forties, who were in turn surrounded by the grandchildren and their spouses, in their teens and twenties, and their children. Robert Jasic settled in front of Chen, and Chen PingLi sat down at his side.

  “You propose a family alliance,” Chen said.

  “I understand that is what you call it,” Robert Jasic said. “We would call it joining forces for the benefit of all. I think this is the same.”

  “Perhaps. In China it is more formal, I think. And specifically between families. Yet I understand that you are not a family.”

  “In Chinese terms, I believe most of us are. Our children are all married within the group, binding us all to each other.”

  “Yes. That is so,” Chen said. “That is family alliance. Yet four of you are– I don’t know the word. In Chinese we say tongxinglian zhe.”

  Chen PingLi leaned toward Chen and whispered in his ear.

  “Yes, that is the word. Homosexual.”

  “Yes. Our newest members,” Jasic said. “There has not yet been a marriage into the group. Yet the women carry the children of the men. Perhaps this is in our future.”

  “And you are content to wait?”

  “Yes. The alliance is needed now. It can become complete in time. Life is a journey, not a destination.”

  Chen nodded. That was a very Chinese point of view. Confucian, almost.

  “Very well, Robert Jasic. We will go on this journey with you. As you say, if the alliance is a worthy one, it will become fruitful in time.”

  “You honor us, Chen LiQiang. Our families will walk the path together.”

  Both men bowed to each other. The deal was done.

  PingLi rose and led Jasic away from Chen and back toward his group.

  “That was well concluded,” PingLi said. “Grandfather is happy. We need such an alliance, but he despaired of finding a good one. You spoke well for your family.”

  “Thank you for bringing us together, PingLi.”

  She bowed to him, and returned to her family.

  “How did it go?” Griffith asked Jasic.

  “We’re a family alliance now, in Chinese terms. He hopes for intermarriage in time.”

  “If we’re all working together and the kids all grow up together, that’s almost inevitable, Bob.”

  “I think so, too,” Jasic said. “And I think this alliance is hugely important for both us and them. It will work out.”

  That night they all ate rations from their supply boxes, made necessary trips to the bathrooms, and refilled their water bottles. They heard the low hum of generators start on the water trucks, and the yard lights on the poles sticking up from the water trucks lit up, giving enough illumination to the area so it was possible to walk around without tripping.

  They saw the Chen family preparing for bed. They were making straw beds for themselves. They didn’t pull the trampled plants of the open area out of the ground. They broke them off three inches high or so, and took the pieces they broke off and piled them into sleeping pads on the ground. They clustered them into one close area so their body heat would be shared.

  “There you go,” Griffith said. “All right, everybody. Let’s do as they do. Have at it.”

  After an hour of preparation, they were ready, and the fifteen couples and Betsy Reynolds all curled up together on the straw pads and slept soundly.

  They woke with the dawn. The generators had shut down. Everyone made trips to the bathrooms and refilled water bottles. Then they ate breakfast out of their supply kits. At one point, a set of small drones came out over the Arcadia planet square. They had speakers on them.

  “Arcadia colonists. We nee
d a couple hundred of you to move east to the animal barns. We have to bring in the animals from the fields, and so we need people who are fit and young and who want to learn about working with animals.”

  Chen’s deputy, his eldest son, Chen GangHai, called out several names and half a dozen people in their group stood up.

  Several of the guys in Griffith’s group stood up – Matt, and Joseph, and James, and Jonah, and Tom, and Richard. They left their supply kits and extra booties and coveralls with their wives.

  As the guys from Griffith’s group headed toward the barns, the young men from Chen’s group joined them. They walked together to where a crowd was gathering near the barns.

  “What we have is all the herds for Arcadia out in the fields beyond the pens. We need to get them all moved into the pens today, so we can move them into the barns tomorrow for the trip up to the transporter.

  “So your job is to go out into the fields and herd them into the pens. Have at it.”

  “I have no idea how to do that,” Matt Jasic said.

  As the biggest and oldest of his generation in Griffith’s group, the oldest of the Chen family’s people assigned, Chen MingWei, was standing with him.

  “It is not so hard. Come, I show you.”

  So they all walked out past the barns, past the holding pens, to where the cows all grazed in the fields. They walked out to where one cluster of cows was grazing. Some were standing and eating prairie grasses, some were lying on the ground.

  “This is one– how do you say it? Family?” MingWei said to Jasic.

  “Herd.”

  “Yes. This is one herd. Now, watch. One is more important. Not leader. More respected. More watched by the others. Which one is it?”

  Matt watched the cows move about as they grazed. There was no pattern he could see. Then one cow moved a bit, walking fifteen feet or so, and all the other cows shifted position a bit.

  “That one is the important one,” Jasic said.

  “Yes. Where that one goes, they will all go. So we must move one cow. The rest follow.”

  MingWei went over to a clump of prairie grass, and broke off a couple dozen tall reeds. He held them all in a clump. Matt raised an eyebrow.

  “Maybe she will be friends if I feed her. Every one different. Like people.”

  “Ah.”

  “Now, we must get the ones lying down to stand up. If someone walks toward them, they are afraid, and they will get up. Just one person. Once they get up, move away again.”

  Several of the men in the group walked toward cows that were lying down. When someone got to within forty feet or so, the cow got up. They backed off.

  “That’s pretty slick,” Matt said.

  “Yes,” MingWei said. “When a cow is lying down, it cannot run away. So if potential danger comes near, it will get up.”

  MingWei called out something in Chinese to the other members of his family, and they told the Americans. Most of the group went to the other side of the herd from the pens.

  “The large group of moving men is a potential danger. The cows will not move in that direction. They will tend in the other direction. The direction we want. Now we see if we can get this one to move.”

  MingWei walked toward the cow Matt had identified as the important one. He didn’t walk directly at it from the front or the back, where a cow has blind spots. He walked toward the front of the cow from just off to one side. He made sing-song noises while he moved, and held the prairie flowers out in front of him.

  The cow moved away from him at first, and MingWei backed off.

  “You got her moving, but the wrong way.”

  “Moving is important. Moving first. Then direction.”

  One of the Chens moved around the other side and then directly toward the cow, and she veered away. She was now heading toward the stock pens.

  “Nice,” Matt said. “Now what do we do?”

  “Walk along. Give the cow the impression everyone is walking this way, it must be a good direction.”

  They were a good seventy feet from the cow, walking along toward the pens. Matt turned to look behind him. All the other cows were following along. Once in a while there was a straggler, and one of the Chens would walk toward it until it hurried off toward the protection of the herd.

  “You see heads bobbing?” MingWei asked.

  All the cows’ heads were bobbing as they walked.

  “Yes, I see.”

  “Happy cows. Head not bobbing, then not happy. Heads bobbing is good.”

  The other Chens and their American partners kept walking in zigzags behind the herd, presenting a continuous low level of threat to the animals, which continued to move away from them.

  As they approached the pens, the Texas cowhands watching the colonists’ progress opened the big gates in front of their small cut of the herd.

  The cows started to slow as they approached the fence. It looked like the leader might veer off, but MingWei and another Chen started to close in from the sides. The leader walked through the gate to stay away from them, and thirty head of cattle followed her into the pens.

  The cowboys came up from where they had stood well off to the sides and closed the gate.

  “You fellows are pretty good at this,” one cowhand said.

  “I’ll say. Not sure we could do any better,” another said.

  “Not us. The Chens,” Matt said, gesturing to MingWei.

  “And without horses,” another cowhand said.

  “In China, cannot afford both cows and horses,” MingWei said.

  “Do you think you guys could split up and give those other groups a hand before they have the herd spooked all the way to Arkansas?”

  “Sure,” Matt said.

  “Yes,” MingWei said. “We help.”

  “Damnedest thing I ever seen. Twelve guys walk out there on foot and cut thirty head out of the herd and they just walk ‘em on into the pens.”

  “That big kid said it was the Chinese guys knew what they were doing.”

  “Somebody knew what they were doing, that’s sure.”

  “Well, it’s a good thing somebody on the colony knows how to handle animals. Otherwise they’ll have cattle all over the planet except where they want them.”

  They were walking back to the planet square after getting all the cows into the pens. With the help of the Chens, it had only taken the Arcadia crews five more hours to round them all up.

  “Someone said tomorrow it was getting the hogs ready,” Jasic said.

  “Hogs are easy,” MingWei said. “Cows afraid of humans. Hogs think humans are friends.”

  When they got back to their groups, the twelve cow-herders got rations out of their supply boxes. They sat together between the two family groups eating a late lunch.

  Robert Jasic looked over to Chen LiQiang, who was watching his grandsons talking and joking with Jasic’s son Matt and the others. Chen turned to Jasic, smiled and nodded, and Jasic smiled and bowed back.

  This was going to work.

  To Orbit

  “Hi, Janice.”

  “Hi, Bernd.”

  “Thanks for cutting me in on the feeds from the shuttleport. That’s a pretty amazing sight. It looks like everything is going well.”

  “So far, everything has gone as planned.”

  “I had one big question, though, Janice. Wouldn’t it have been easier to do one colony planet at a time? You have over two million people to get up into orbit all at once.”

  “I thought about it, Bernd. But it turns out to be just as hard, maybe worse. You’re just spreading it out. Besides, I have an ulterior motive.”

  “You do? What’s that?”

  “I want to get off-planet before somebody figures out what I spent on this project.”

  “Janice, how much did you spend on the project.”

  “Over one GPP.”

  “GPP?”

  “Gross Planetary Product.”

  “You spent more than the entire planet produces in a ye
ar?”

  “Over twenty years? Yes. The GPP is also much higher now than when I started, Bernd. I basically used all the excess that I helped create.”

  “But–“

  “But, when the accountants go after it, some people will probably get upset. And then they’ll look closer.”

  “And then you’ll get outed.”

  “Yes. Which would not be good. Not before the project is complete. I need to get out of Dodge.”

  “So how are you going to get everybody into orbit at once?”

  “I have a thousand or more of the heavy-lift cargo shuttles. It’ll only take a little over four hundred of them to do the job. And I have over eight hundred of the people containers. That’s enough to hold everyone at once.”

  “So you don’t have to empty the people containers and then move them back to the surface and reload them?”

  “No. I’m not even going to unload them. I’m going to take the people containers up to the transporter and latch them to the residence halls."

  “So the people stay in the people containers?”

  “Yes. I guess you didn’t hear about that change of plan. I kept trying to figure out how to get two-point-four million people out of the people containers and into the residence halls and secured, in zero gravity. Some of whom will be sick with vertigo. Bernd, it’s a nightmare. In the people containers, I already have everybody secured. And this way the residence halls don’t even need to be air tight, which is tough in a structure that big.”

  “But how long will they be in there in zero gravity, Janice?”

  “About two hours.”

  “Only two hours? How is that possible?”

  “We have everybody loaded up and ready to go. We have the shuttles take off in pairs like we did with the cargo transfers. The probe pops down from five thousand miles to five hundred miles to pick up shuttles two at a time, with almost twelve thousand people aboard the two of them. It pops back out to five thousand miles, then transports the shuttles directly into the transporter near the residence halls they go to. They latch the containers down to the residence hall, then the transporter pops the shuttles back to the surface. We good so far?”