Chapter Twelve
Girls, Girls, Girls . . .
Michael laughed at all the young women. Girls.
Looking pretty damned cold, even though Gogi had obviously stopped and shopped.
“Gustav? Can I crash on your couch? Good. Ladies? My cabin has one big bed, a couch and a recliner. How about four of you take it over until we build more?”
The other guys swapped looks and three other cabins became suddenly available.
One of the older . . . well, less young women .
. . rounded up three who were very much underage, and Michael led them down the shoveled path.
He distributed extra blankets, gathered up a lot of his clothes, just happened to leave behind some heavy flannel shirts that would be grossly large but warm . . .
Gustav showed up with sandwiches and Feodosiy with pillows and a couple of blankets, then the girls were left on their own to react and recover from however long they had been stuck in the Board’s hellish white plastic cells.
They found Gogi with a crowd, using the RV as a windbreak.
“. . . sixteen of them might have been a bit excessive . . . but I just put in really low bids . . . I mean, who would have thought all those one-thousand ruble bids would be accepted?”
They all grinned, and eyed the new boy.
“And Paul Henrik Kalbach followed me all the way home . . . I bought a car for appearances, and tried to give it to him.” Gogi shrugged.
The guys laughed at him.
Gogi and Paul stayed in the RV, and in the morning, as the snow slacked off got to work. Michael was already out moving snow, and showed the kid how to use physical shields as a snowplow.
The kid had obviously hidden his Power for years. Managed to practice in secret, without killing himself.
“And after the attack, the Council declared a grace period for chipping. Didn’t matter to my uncle. ‘Must get him off the line! Might as well chip him before it gets even more expensive,’ he said. So I ran away.”
Gogi sighed. “Sounds like most of my relatives. Fortunately my great grandfather on my mother’s side disagreed. He’s my guardian. I’m illegitimate, but he trained me and Presented me.”
Michael looked around the snowy frozen landscape. Everyone was out now, the young women getting introductions all around. Boggling at all the lopsided men.
The girls in his cabin . . . Zoja was 18, Elke and Eha were twelve-year-old twins, and Barbara was thirteen.
Gustav laughed. “Gogi, we were sort of hoping for wife prospects. Not kids who need to be adopted.”
That got laughs.
Sevastian shook his head. “You know guys? We’ve missed one bet. A lodge with a big fireplace in a combination parlor-dining room. Fancy kitchen.”
Josef looked around, pointed. “Right there, with big windows looking at the mountains.
“Hotel rooms?” Yefem shrugged. “Might not get many customers, but it’d give us a place for your sporadic buying sprees.”
Bj?rn nodded. “Last time I talked to Sam, he wanted to move the clinic. Actually, he said something about a company wanting to buy it. We could build him a new one up here.”
“Yikes. I’ll talk to him. But right now, how about breakfast?”
Out of the wind, but the snack shack only had patio seating.
The decision to have a lodge with an inside restaurant, with a few rooms was unanimous. And it definitely had to have a big fireplace.
Progress on the eight new cabins—the ladies were happy to share—was slow in the winter. But so was traffic and business.
The women were all servant’s bastards, and used to work. They dived straight in to help, both with the shops and the new cabins.
There were enough thaws to get wells and septic in and the cabin kits (just add labor) were up in two months, and furnished in another, as the spring thaw hit the mountains and the high plateau.
The waterfall was awesome . . . the viewing grotto well splashed, but technically above flood level.
And no one came looking for them. Rumors were rife, all about the Inquisition in revolt, and Executioners kidnapping low number lords, returning either Death Certificates or Powerless, Plagued lords.
“I’m not sure I believe any of them.” Gogi shrugged. “But if something is going on that keeps them busy and not bothering me . . . I’m all for it.”
They built a new, larger clinic, bought a top-of-the-line Automated Surgical Clinic and Sam moved in, much relieved.
“Honestly, it really is practically a self-contained town, down there. Well, food and so forth, but even big cities import food. Boreal Medical is building a really nice medical building, several doctors, specialists, a dentist, the works. A two-man team in the clinic, working with the other Docs for scans and such. I’m actually glad to be out of there. ”
Laughter. “We missed you, too, Sam!”
“And we need more cabins! We’ve still got a bad gender imbalance!”
Seventeen to twenty-six . . . All right, not that there needs to be an exact match . . . And Elke and Eha are twelve! Early acquisition.
And they all need Mentalist lessons!
They built extra cabins, and Gogi crossed over to get Paul adopted by Wes Kalbach, to get him off the Kalbach main line, and a Presentation.
And while he was there . . . checked the Board and picked up four women with bad grow-ins.
All in their late twenties and early thirties, so suddenly the guys were sprucing up their wardrobes, and getting haircuts . . .
It turned into a very profitable summer, with lots of Solzhenitsyns opting to vacation close to home.
The lodge was ready to go in the fall . . . and Gustav really wanted to go home.
Gogi winced. “Well . . . maybe with some preparations . . . we can manage to not get arrested for . . . stuff . . .”
Fake fingers sticking out of a cast, Gustave’s baby hand inside the hollow cast could make the realistic-looking fingers move a little . . .
White button up shirt and tie. A sling for the “broken arm.” Pinstripe vest and pants . . .
And a good story. Actually stupid, but they had to fit it to the (probably) known bank withdrawals.
“And the net pitaniya pellet really happened, so . . .”
Michael refrained from telling them they were insane. They took the sports car, and he followed them in the RV.
“In case you need to be rescued. And I will be monitoring the locations of your phones, so please don’t lose them.”
Gogi grinned, and gave him directions to a park two and half miles from Vogel House. “If all else fails, we can walk there.”