Settling In

“Remind me never to accept dinner with your mother again,” Jack said as he plopped down into a Command Post chair, a box lunch in his lap. Ofelia knew exactly how he felt. She was currently eating her fifth box lunch in a row. After a week on the ground, she would have thought things would have settled down a bit more.
Jack read off his PDA. “’I want more of a yard. Can you move that entire row of cabins back five feet?’ Can you believe it? I think I’ll spend the rest of my live cursing the man who thought up Easily Moveable Cabins.”
Ofelia didn’t have the heart to tell him that three more requests had arrived since last he checked in. Larissa came in to the office, lunch also in hand.
“Mrs. Edwards wants to complain about the dirt. She says it’s being tracked everywhere and the vacuum bot isn’t cleaning fast enough.
“I’ve already explained about the dirt. The planet is made up of the stuff. It’s obviously going to get everywhere.” Jack put his feet up on the desk. Sprinkles of dirt rained down from his shoes to illustrate his point. “And I refuse to bring out the paving machines until everyone is happy where they are. Paving is a heck of a lot more permanent than the quarters.” Jack took a bite of his peanut butter sandwich. The ship’s food processors were actually pretty good at manufacturing peanut butter – much better than ham or roast beef, making it the sandwich of choice.
“She also complained at how far her husband has to walk to get a late night snack unless she fixes it for him herself,” Larissa said.
“The settlement is less than a square mile…tell her hubbie to suck it up.” Jack said. “Besides, shouldn’t a man with a medical degree know how to work a food processor by himself?”
“Mrs. Edwards complains to anyone who’s nearby. Just follow my method. As soon as she’s sighted, duck behind a large object,” Ofelia said.
“I’ve noticed she’s not the only one you’ve been ducking lately,” Jack said quietly.
Ofelia blushed and drank more tea. Jack and Larissa stared at her expectantly.
“Well, I’m afraid that now we’re on the ground, Tyler will think I’m ready to settle down.”
“Yeah,” Jack said flatly. “Him too.”
“Him too?” Ofelia tried to look innocent.
“Tyler’s not the one you’re checking for every time you stick your head out the door of our cabin,” Larissa said as she sat on the corner of the desk, not occupied by Jack’s shoes.
“Not to mention the look on your face every time you pass The Bar.” Jack added.
“And the kiss,” Larissa giggled. Jack’s feet hit the floor with a thud.
“What kiss?” Jack demanded. “Larissa, have you been holding out on me?”
“I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know she didn’t tell you.”
“So you told her and not me?” Jack stood, staring at Ofelia accusingly.
“She didn’t have to tell,” Larissa said. “I saw… like right before landing.”
Ofelia shook her head. “It was nothing. Just good luck.”
“Man, I wish I had a guy to kiss me good luck like that.”
“Like what?” Jack was still glaring at Ofelia suspiciously. When Larissa provided no more details, he repeated his question. “Like what?”
“It was just a good luck kiss, I tell you.”
“Would you have kissed me like that?” Jack asked.
“No.” Her answer was too quick. She knew what Jack was imagining and he was probably right.
“So are you going to see him again?”
Larissa answered for her. “Obviously not if she’s avoiding him. So why are you avoiding him?”
“It’s… complicated.”
“How is that? He, man. You, woman. He’s even got his own place, though if you told me to scram for a night or two, I’m sure I could find some place other to hang out.”
Ofelia put her head down on her desk to hide her embarrassment. How could she explain that even though he kissed her, he didn’t want her? Larissa was the type of girl who wouldn’t have let “no” get in her way. She would have camped out on his doorstep and damn the consequences.
It was almost a blessing to see Mrs. Edwards walk though the door. Larissa quickly excused herself and Jack suddenly remembered a request he had promise to fulfill.
“The colony design simply won’t do. You need to tell your mother to change things.”
Ofelia tried not to let her annoyance show. “The best Earth scientists designed the layout and we’ve been perfecting it for twenty years.” Ofelia didn’t mention that they’d entirely scrapped the original plan when it was decided to shift the landing site twenty five miles to the west. “Remember that it’s impossible to make everyone happy.”
The colony was set up in a basic rectangle shape. The Rec Dec grass had been replanted in the center as a sort of village green. Housing blocks were placed in rows down the long sides. The school and sickbay blocks sat on one short side while the cafeterias, workshops, offices and The Bar were located on the opposite side. The arboretum, greenhouses, animal pens, and the dairy sat on the outside of the colony where there was plenty of room to spread out.
The colony sat on the edge of a lake, not far from a river delta. The plant life was lush and the force fields kept out most of the wildlife. They would eventually come down, after the xenobiologists had identified most of the native animals and their threat level. So far, the biggest uproar had been caused by a cockroach type thing the size of a large turtle. The bunnies even seemed to have made themselves at home, digging holes under the center green.
“And you should give Valentive Sweet another job.”
Ofelia snapped her attention back on to Mrs. Edwards who had been rambling on.
“What?”
“Val Sweet. She was communications officer. Now that we’re not communicating with Earth, she needs a new job. She can’t be allowed to lay about.”
Ofelia suspected that some of Mrs. Edwards’ animosity was caused by The Landing Day revelation that Val had been in love with her husband.
“I’m sure when things settle down, she’ll look into a new vocation.” Which was highly unlikely, considering Val had done very little in her first vocation, but Mrs. Edwards didn’t know that.
“It should be done as soon as possible.”
“I’ll let her know you’re concern.”
“Oh, I’m not concerned.” Mrs. Edwards looked worried. She obviously didn’t want Val to know she was interfering.
“In a week or so, if nothing’s been done, I’ll tell her what you decided.”
“Not me. I didn’t decide anything.” Mrs. Edwards started backing towards the door.
“You are too modest.”
“I’m off. Things to do.” She practically ran out the door. Ofelia was pretty sure she wouldn’t hear anything more on the subject.
#
A month later things had settled down a bit. The colony began to settle into a routine and Ofelia’s life became manageable again. Val avoided doing any work whatsoever, Mrs. Edwards stuck her nose in everyone’s business and Doc Martin’s advice tended towards multiplication.
Ofelia had been fairly successful at avoiding Tyler and Rex, though she knew both were getting suspicious. Tyler was fine, as long as they stayed in a group. He’d been trying to get her alone, but she managed to wrangle away. Rex, when his saw her, gave her a quizzical look, a once over and a slight smile, like he had some kind of secret he wasn’t sharing. Rex made no attempt to get her alone. Ofelia wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
She decided to check in on Jack today. He’d been secreted away with his new toy. Somewhere in the deep bowels of the ship, he’d found a surprise. One of the machines on board had been the private property of his parents. Not needed on the ship, the A713.7 had slept for its 20 year journey. Now Jack was trying to give it a sense of humor.
“What do you call two rabbits in a frying pan? Good and Dead. Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha.” The A713.7 was a state of the art prototype android Jack had affectionately named Fred.
“What is white and red and goes one hundred kilometers an hour? A rabbit in a centrifuge. Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha.”
“I think I need to work on the laugh,” Jack said.
“No, I think you need to work on the material.”
“Oh come on! Rabbits in a centrifuge! That’s hilarious!”
“Hilarious,” Fred said. “Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha.”
“Exactly.”
“Does Fred know anything buy rabbit jokes?”
“Three rabbits walked into a bar. You think one of them would have ducked. Ah ha ha. Ah ha ha.”
“Have patience. We’re building up his repertoire. According to the owner’s file, the annoying faze lasts for about a month, before he’s patterned to his owner’s tastes. You have a fast learning curve, don’t you Fred.”
“Hello, my name is Fred. How are you. I am fine. Would you like a cold refreshing beverage?”
“Now that’s annoying,” Ofelia said as she looked at the overly cheerful metallic face of the robot. It was made with a superfine mesh that was supposed to provide it with a full human range of emotion. Instead it looked more like a comedy mask.
“So what do you plan to do with your very own android?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been having him do some light reading.”
“Whan that Abril with the shoures soote the drought of March is perced to the roote-”
“Fred. Stop.”
“You call Chaucer light reading?”
“Well, I told him to start at the beginning. I think he’s hit about 1776, or thereabouts.”
“When in the course of human events it becomes necessary-”
“Fred. Stop.”
“At least he knows how to stop.”
“Give me time, and you won’t be able to tell he’s not human.” Jack gave his android a once over. “Though I think we’re going to have to give Fred a uniform.”
“He’ll be the one person who won’t complain.” Jack gave Fred back his PDA and the android began reading it at a rapid speed.
“Can’t you just hook him up to the mainframe and download everything at once?”
“His brain wasn’t built to interface with the mainframe. It has an artificial intelligence while the mainframe is just a storage unit. In order to learn, he has to do it the hard way… through experience.”
“You know, old Earth literature is full of androids that got too smart for their own good, and rebelled against their masters,” Ofelia said as she watched Fred reading.
“You’re really positive today.”
“I just don’t know if it’s healthy for you to spend all this time on Fred.” Jack used to spend all his time on the engines, but as they were no more, and the colony no longer needed the machines that built it, Jack had a lot of free time. She just didn’t want him to spend it all in one place.