20. Jesse
JESSE
“This is unbelievable,” I said. “At this rate, the house will be finished before the end of tomorrow.”
“Mostly yes,” Yithym, a construction specialist who was helping oversee the building work. “The floors and walls will be in, and the roof on, but the flooring, lighting, heating and cooling system, the staircases, elevator, cabinetry, and hygiene fixtures will all need to be put into place.
“How long will that take?” Johree asked.
“Another two days, as we’re waiting for some fixtures to be fabricated and there’s only one replicator in New Haven large enough to produce several of the items, and we also have things to make for the courthouse.”
He turned his attention to me. “What do you want us to do about the windows? The stained glass ones, I mean. They aren’t here, and you’ve indicated you wanted handmade ones that you’ve ordered from Earth, but we can’t simply leave the frames empty.
We can either print a similar effect onto clear glass to give an impression of the finished effect, or put in plain ones for now. ”
I bit my lip, feeling torn. “Will it take longer or cost more to do the effects?”
“At first, yes, but since they’ll be recycled afterwards back into their original base matters, they actually will ultimately cost nothing at all. As for the time, you’re talking about a few more breaths difference in time.”
“Then the stained glass effect, please. Bob has the description of what we ordered, and they said they’d have some renderings to show us for approval before they start making them, so you can work from either of those.”
It would be six weeks from approval to finish, then another four days for them to arrive, and another day to have them fitted if nothing else pressing was in the schedule.
“We ordered two large ones for the courthouse too,” Johree said. “Humans have a depiction of an ancient goddess who balanced the scales of justice, so she will be in one of the windows.”
“I’d heard you’d done that, but not what they’d depict. That’s fascinating. What will be in the other window?”
“A Human and a Dragonii shepherding kilt-ha with a hop-a-long at their feet,” he replied.
Yithym looked pleased as he nodded his approval. “That sounds very fitting. These will be the two large windows on either side of the front doors?”
“They will.”
I listened to them talk, my eyes unable to come away from the sight of the large construction bots and the smaller droids busily printing out and assembling our house from literal atoms they extracted from the base matter stored in the drums attached to the large bots and the portable construction replicators on site that made beams and pipes.
“Why can’t these replicators make the stuff we have to wait for?” I asked.
“Those are only programmed for construction materials,” the foreman explained. “Beams, pipes, conduit, stair stringers, that sort of thing. The rest has to come from the general purpose one the colony owns, which right now is busy printing out panels for a set of chicken condominiums.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He hadn’t said what I just thought I’d heard him say.
“Bob issued a set of animal welfare guidelines he said Prince Johree was going to look over before signing into law.” He shifted from foot to foot. “Did I misunderstand?”
Johree blinked. “No. When I approved the human livestock to be imported, I asked Bob to consult with Xeranos and to draft those. After hearing about the factory farming practices, I wanted to ensure that animals in New Haven were always treated with only kindness and respect, as all living things should be.”
I melted hearing those words.
Just another bit of proof that the test was indeed accurate.
I pressed the comm button on my tablet. “Bob, can you send over those animal welfare guidelines, please?”
“I sent them to the prince this morning, but sure.”
“I haven’t checked my tablet yet,” Johree admitted sheepishly. “The whole communing with Bob thing earlier had me a bit off kilter.”
That was perfectly understandable. I was certainly still trying to wrap my head around that whole thing.
The universe is a vast and strange place. Even stranger than I ever could have imagined on my own, that’s for sure.
“There you are. While I have both of your attention, I’d like to suggest following a tradition Xeranos informed me of, one that I believe will boost community spirit.”
“And what is that?” Johree asked.
“Humans often have a morning wake up routine that includes a local personality stating the hour, sharing important local news, commenting on things to get people talking with each other, and playing music.”
“You mean a morning radio show?” I asked, chuckling.
“Yes, that. I thought if we set an official start of the day time, and an official set of business hours for non farm businesses, it will not only bring order but a sense of community."
Johree looked at me. I shrugged. “It is a thing. Our local station back home did a seven a.m. show which we listened to while starting chores since we usually got up at five, but most folks in town were only just getting up then to get ready to get their kids off to school and get to work.”
“I believe most traditional hours of work are from nine to five,” Bob stated.
“For offices and banks, yes. Shops and stuff, no. People need to be able to go to those after work.”
“Nine until seven, then,” Johere said, “as our days are twenty-six of your hours long, roughly. “School is to start at eight-thirty. When the school is built, the teacher can set play time, lunch, and letting out time, taking into account the nine to seven work day.”
“School usually lets out around three or three-thirty. Kids either go to clubs or after school childcare if someone can’t pick them up. And eight-thirty to a little after seven is far too long for kids and teachers to be working.”
He sighed. “I hadn’t considered this. I will speak with my fathers and seek their counsel.”
I nodded, knowing he would try his best to make sure only the best things were put into place for the colonists.
“What do you think?” Bob asked, and I realized then that he’d already sent me the requested document. “Sorry, I got sidetracked. I’ll take a look now.” I tapped on the icon and began to read it. The more I read, the bigger my grin got. “Um, you said Xeranos helped you with this?”
“He did. We drafted it together after he conducted very thorough research on the topic.”
I was pretty certain either Xeranos had been led astray by popular culture, or he was pranking Bob.
I was going to go with the latter, as he was known to be thorough and accurate, but playful.
For a hot second, I considered pointing out a few things to Bob and Johree, but then, my own inner imp got the better of me.
I was going to let Johree sign these into law, knowing that any human who came across them would immediately get the secret joke and play along with it for the sheer hell of it.
“This looks really great!”
Johree leaned over and began to read. “Most of these animals have not been requested for import.”
“I thought it best to get ahead of things to smooth the way.”
“I will look at adding them to permissions before signing.”
I nodded.
“So, chicken condominiums."
“Yes!” Bob replied enthusiastically. “Each bird will have its own entrance, keyed to its DNA, with a private nesting box. The middle floor holds a large communal dust bath while the upper floor is a rainwater collection point where they can drink the water as it flows through the filtration system. There’s also a greenhouse that serves as a community garden growing fresh greens for them, and there are several roosting perches around their condominium complex grounds.
There should be at least two per bird so they have a variety of choices. ”
“Uh huh. I gotta admit, I think this is my favorite part and Buster is going to be especially pleased. ‘All domestic dogs shall be presumed to be Good Boys or Good Girls unless overwhelming evidence proves otherwise.’ Though I’m a bit on the fence about the ‘every obeyed command earns a treat’ thing. They’ll get fat that way.”
“Treats do not have to be food,” Bob replied reprovingly. “They can be toys, head pats, smooches, belly rubs, or taken to go play in pools or water or to roll in mud.”
I laughed. “Okay. Fair.”
“What is this Sunday dinner?” Johree asked.
“What? Where?” Then I saw it. “Dogs are to get a home cooked Sunday dinner? We don’t have the same weekdays as on earth, do we?”
“We have thirteen months that are five weeks long, which each having six days. Each day is simply First Day, Second Day, and so on, until the count starts over. As for the months, no one has named those yet either.”
“So you’re just using the human names? There are seven days in our weeks.”
“No one likes Mondays, so I simply eliminated it from the proposed calendar.”
“Sounds as good as any other system, and it will make New Haven feel more familiar to our human settlers. I am approving this.”
“And the months? There’s an extra month there!"
“I have calculated an approximation of the seasons so I could adjust the start and stop of each month accordingly, allowing for the extra month, which I have placed at the beginning of the year, with day One being Founder’s Day.
With that in mind, I have proposed calling it Phanestion.
Phanes was an ancient god who hatched from a cosmic egg, and thus the universe came into being. ”
“Uh huh, that makes as much sense as my people’s naming them after old gods hardly anyone worships anymore and haven’t for over a thousand years, I guess.”
“Which is why I picked new names for the rest of the months too, so New Haven would have something unique. Our calendar will be as original as it is similar.”
A soft ping let me know a new document had popped up. I closed the current one and opened this one. Johree and I read the suggestions silently. Bob had gone all out, making a little chart with heading graphics and everything.
“Um, wow. You’ve certainly put a lot of thought into this,” I said carefully, trying to decide how I felt about it.
Memorizing this and learning to spell them all is gonna be a son of a bitch.
“Xeranos helped.”
Of course he did.
“These are all named after human gods. Shouldn’t we have some Dragonii stuff?” I asked.
“Greek ones, yes,” Bob confirmed.
“By treaty, the dating and time keeping conventions are to be human. The Dragonii colonists on the participating worlds were all in agreement,” Johree informed me.
“Oh, well, in that case, this is pretty cool, and I really like it, even if it’s going to be fun to learn to spell and all that.
The Cronus thing has a whole Father Time vibe, and we can do Father Time and Baby New Year themed costumes at an end of the year festival.
One marking the change from the old year to the new. ”
I loved me a good party, and festivals and fairs were always fun, so this had that going for it in my books.
“A two day festival,” Johree said, nodding, a smile lighting his face up. “One for Father Time turning the hands of a celestial clock, the next celebrating the birth of the new year and the celebration of the colony’s founding.”
“I’ve added those to the calendar of events,” Bob said. “So, I take it this is approved?”
“Send it to me, and I will add my signature and thumbprint once we return to our quarters.”
“The Renewed Hope is in orbit requesting permission to land.”
“We’ll be there momentarily.” Johree turned his attention back to the construction foreman who was busy reprogramming a small bot so it would make something different than it had been, or the same in a different size, or whatever.
I wasn’t sure, and now was not the time to ask. “The freighter is here.”
Yithym straightened, turning to give a low bow. “Please comm me if there’s anything you need to have me change.”
“Will do,” I replied breezily. Then, taking Johree’s hand and gently tugging him away, I said, “Let’s go meet the new folks and give them a big ole New Haven welcome.”