“With the kitchens stocked and the first round of bedding and clothes distributed, we have trucks free today,” Miguel Vazquez said.
Kendall thought about it, then replied to his logistics chief.
“Start delivering their cubic to the people who are in their houses already.”
Vazquez nodded. They hadn’t thought they would start those deliveries until Monday, but they were running ahead on truck availability. The weather had been good, and the plans had assumed at least one day when weather would make the unpaved ground impassable.
“And the weekend?”
The original plan had been to work six days the first week, but they were ahead. The colonists had been busting hump all week, and they had identified only a few shirkers.
“Let’s go ahead and give everybody we can both days off. They didn’t get a weather day this week.”
“Yes, sir. Sounds good.”
Stacy and Tracy were washing breakfast dishes in the kitchen this morning. Everybody had gotten the news this morning that most people would get both days off for the weekend.
Of course, people still had to eat, so the kitchens would be up and running, but if it was a day off for everyone else, that meant they got paid time-and-a-half, a fifty percent bump in pay, for both Saturday and Sunday.
It also meant the field workers wouldn’t all come for dinner in one big rush in the evening. Between that and delaying the routine day-to-day support stuff like stocking food deliveries, the kitchens would run half-staffed all weekend.
Then they got a message that had them cheering.
Stacy and Tracy went out to the bus, and gave their destination as ‘Uptown Market.’ Bob Jasic had marked their fifteen-foot setback on the east edge of their half-block compound on the colony map. The voice-recognition computer marked the destination on the driver’s dashboard map and off they went.
Buses would eventually run regular routes, mostly in self-drive, but for now, with no paved streets and colonists and trucks running around everywhere, the buses all had human drivers, and rides were on request.
They rode back out to the compound from which they had walked to breakfast this morning. They could see two trucks with containers aboard heading toward the compound from the warehouse. One of the containers they recognized from Carolina. It had been parked on their neighborhood street for almost a month.
“Yay!” Stacy said.
“There it is,” Tracy said.
When the bus stopped and they got up to get off, the driver had a question.
“You headed back right away?”
“Yeah, we’ll need to get back to work.”
The driver nodded.
“I can wait.”
“Thanks!”
The trucks pulled up, and the containers were indeed for the Chen group and Maureen’s group. With those groups now consolidated in the computers as the Chen-Jasic group, both containers came out together.
“Just drop them on either side of the gate,” Stacy said.
“We’ll show you where,” Tracy said.
The twins ran on into the compound and gestured the first truck forward. They pointed to the left side of the entrance of the compound, about fifty feet in front of the houses there. The truck driver swung the truck to the right as he pulled in and backed into position.
He raised the front of the container and then let it slide backwards as he released cable. When the tail end of the container hit the ground, he pulled forward while releasing more cable. The front of the container came down on the ground. He climbed out of the cab then, to detach the cable.
“Perfect,” Stacy said.
“Thanks,” Tracy said.
“No problem. See you around.”
He climbed back into the cab, pulled forward then backed to get a line on the entrance and pulled out of the compound.
The twins waved the second truck in.
“Just like that,” Stacy said.
“But on the other side,” Tracy said.
The truck driver nodded, and made the same maneuvers as the first, but mirror image. This was the Carolina container, and the twins were jumping up and down in their grey coveralls and work boots, clapping, as he placed it.
When he got out to disengage the winch cable, he turned to the twins.
“What’s in this container that’s so damn exciting anyway?”
“Clothes!” Stacy and Tracy said in unison.
The truck driver laughed.
“OK. That makes sense.”
That evening after dinner, everyone took the bus back to the compound. They were looking forward to opening the containers and getting access to the things they had brought along. Rachel Conroy, Jessica Murphy, Gary Rockham, and Dwayne Hennessey looked on with interest. Their own cubic was part of a bigger container, and had not been sorted out and delivered yet.
When the Carolina container was opened, the American women could hardly contain themselves. They grabbed the lavalavas they had made in Carolina and ran to their houses to change out of the hated coveralls. I mean, for work they were OK, but for after hours and weekends? Enough was enough.
Bob Jasic was more interested in what the Chens had brought along. They opened their container and it was full up with all manner of things they began bringing out. Since there was no empty house – there were twenty-eight couples and two singles, with the four children sleeping in their parents’ houses on mattresses on the floor – they brought things out and set them out on the ground.
There were a lot of hand tools for farming. Rakes, shovels, scythes, hoes. It went on and on. There was a wheelbarrow and a double-bellows pump, which surprised Jasic. He raised an eyebrow to Chen as they watched.
“Water not always where one wants or needs, Robert. Dirt same.”
There were containers of seeds, carefully packed. Boxes and boxes of them, all labeled in Chinese. There were also many containers of cuttings, also carefully packed and labeled in Chinese. There
